The Lightning Thief

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s Tuesday. Deal.

The hubby and I saw The Lightning Thief last Friday. Now I know what Debra Dixon was talking about, that you’ll never be able to watch a movie again without picking it apart. Gah. I was GMCing all the characters AND trying to determine where the hero was on the hero’s journey at any particular moment. (Well, that movie was classic hero’s journey, so…that wasn’t really hard.) It was an enjoyable movie…I liked it. I have to say that now, because I’m fixing to tear it apart. I also need to say that I have not read the Percy Jackson books yet, although I probably will now. So this is just my thoughts on the movie alone.

First of all, my general reaction is that I no longer really like this kind of story.

There are essentially two kinds of hero. There are “safe” heros, the Percy Jacksons. Kids like these heroes, because they are generally nobodies who discover that they are somebodies, and despite their initial reluctance and bumbling around, they end up saving the world and everyone goes home safe. (And as this story is geared tower a middle school audience, I’m not saying this is a bad thing.) These heroes walk through hell, and come out the other side changed, but mostly unscathed, and with the quest item in hand. They get themselves into perilous situations left and right, but in the end, they win the battle without losing anyone or anything really important to them. The friend in danger always gets rescued, and anyone left behind somehow makes it out alive. Good and evil are clean cut, for the most part, and when the hero is given a choice, it is clear which choice he should make.

Then there are heroes like Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are the ones who have to scratch and claw their way to what they want, who must struggle for every inch of ground they gain in both their inner and outer battles. They win, but at a very high cost. They get themselves into perilous situations, and get out, but each one takes away a little piece of something that they can’t get back. They walk into hell with five comrades, and stagger out with their last living comrade on their shoulders, his life bleeding away…and then they discover that they left the item that can save the world back in the tunnel. So now they have to choose between saving their last friend’s life, or saving the world…and then they have to live with the knowledge that they could have saved that friend’s life. The hero must pick between a bad situation and a worse one…and he doesn’t always know which is which.

I would have left Percy’s mother with Hades, or killed her off in the end. But that’s because I like the latter kind of hero better, as a writer. I like victory to carry a price tag, the higher the better. Percy Jackson didn’t really emerge from his conflict a changed person…a little more mature, and aware of his parentage, perhaps, but still pretty much the same guy. Also, I find that it bothers me when a hero is able to instantaneously master powers and skills that take everyone else years to learn. Especially when it’s clear that the hero isn’t a prodigy or a genius. Prodigy I can deal with: Aang was a prodigy. But even when he was faced with mastering all four elements in a matter of months (when it normally takes years), he had trouble. Earthbending gave him trouble. Firebending was a disaster the first time he tried it. And he never really did master the Avatar state!

Percy Jackson learned how to use a sword competently in a matter of hours, it would seem (and yeah, I know they compress time for movies, but still)…and after partaking of some of Daddy’s superpowers, he was able to whoop the butt of a girl who’d been training her entire life. And only because Poseidon is a bigger and badder god than Athena…nothing to do with the hero’s own merit or whatnot. If I’d been writing the story, Percy would have lost that battle, and learned a lesson from it.

What else. I was really liking the way the story modernized many of the Greek myths, showing how things like Medusa and the Lotus Eaters had evolved over the centuries. Even the underworld had a modern “feel” to it, and both Hades and Persephone would not have looked out of place on the streets of NYC. But then, when they finally got to Mount Olympus and the gods’ court, the ancient Greek dress and the armour and the decor just killed it for me. I wanted to see that in a modern context as well…being transported back to ancient Greece was jarring. It made the whole scene feel irrelevant, and almost cheesy. The hubby made a good suggestion, though: that perhaps the Greek gods have wrapped themselves in the trappings of their “golden age”, when men still worshiped them and they were a force in the world…and that they are unwilling or unable to let that age go. I’ll buy that; it’s a good theory. I wish the story had made that clear, however.

Ah: one major myth fail in the movie. The heroes travel to the underworld and meet Persephone, Hades’ wife, who is clearly unhappy with her lot. That’s fine. The problem is, this story is supposed to take place in midsummer. The movie is one big countdown to the summer solstice. If you know the story of Persephone, you know that because she partook of the food of the underworld, she has to stay there for half the year; the other half she spends with her mother, Demeter, and the world prospers. While Persephone is in the underworld with Hades, Demeter grieves, and that’s why we have winter. Thus, Persephone would not have even been in the underworld during the summer! The story could have just as easily taken place over the winter solstice, if they had to have a solstice…so I just don’t get how that detail slipped by everyone.

One last major thing: they screwed up the major antagonist’s GMC, and thereby spoiled any chance of three-dimensionality in his character. First of all, I knew who the lightning thief was almost from the moment we met him onscreen…which was satisfying at the time, but totally ruined the “big reveal” moment towards the end. And then, lightning bolt in hand, they had him give this totally cliche villain speech…and that’s where the mistake was. (Forgive me if I don’t get the quotes exactly right…I’ve only seen the movie once, and several days ago now.)

“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Why else?” the thief says. “For power. The gods have ruled long enough; I think it’s time for the second generation to take over.”

No, no, no. G=/=M. Power is not a motivation. It is a goal. Something (motivation) has to drive a person to seek power (goal). Not to mention that the whole I-want-power thing really did not jibe with the rest of Luke’s character. Luke’s inner struggle is that his father, Hermes, abandoned him, as all the gods must abandon their mortal children, and that just never sits well with him. He’s the sympathetic voice for all the lost demi-god kids in this world. “We’ve all got Daddy complexes, don’t we?” he asks at an earlier point in the movie. This is how that scene should have gone:

“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Because I want to watch the gods destroy themselves in this war they’re going to start,” the thief says. “Why should we care? They abandoned us; they never needed us. So I say, we don’t need them!”

Now Percy Jackson has something in common with the villain: both have been abandoned by their fathers. Luke might even press the point and try to sway Percy to his side: “Why are you helping them? They don’t care about anything but themselves.” Percy’s choice about whether to return the bolt to Zeus is suddenly a whole lot less obvious, and the conflict is a whole lot more interesting. And Luke becomes a much deeper, more human character.

But…that’s not how they did it. Oh well. Maybe the book does a better job. But overall, an enjoyable movie.

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Tags: GMC, movies and television, reviews