This December one of the most well known and well loved pre-teen and YA series was adapted into a Disney+ TV show. Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” finally got the adaptation fans have been begging for. While there have already been movie adaptations of the first two books, the plot strayed heavily from that in the books which had many fans upset, since it didn’t truly reflect the books.
With the Disney+ show, Rick Riordan was given a lot of say over production and scripting. This helps that the show stays on track with the books. Though changes and cuts are inevitable in an adaptation, having the author of the show help make the calls ensures that nothing important, to the plot or fans, has to go. The TV show consisted of 8 total episodes, one airing every Tuesday.
Walker Scobell was casted as Percy Jackson. He was most known for his job in “The Adam Project” alongside Ryan Reynolds. After seeing this casting I was very happy because I thought the character he played in that movie had similar characteristics to Percy, so I was confident he’d do well. Leah Sava Jeffries was casted as Annabeth Chase and Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood. I hadn’t heard of these actors before so I had no prior opinion on them. Leah Sava Jeffries, an African American actress, created a lot of controversy over the fact that her appearance was not like Annabeth’s description whatsoever, since she is a caucasian blonde. I don’t think any of the castings were really book accurate, yet Jeffries got the most hate online. Personally, I’d much rather have a talented actress who portrays the character’s personality well rather than someone who looks just like the book description.
As an avid Percy Jackson fan, I was excited for these episodes to come out since the show was announced back in 2020. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and thought they did a fantastic job on the plot, foreshadowing, character development and relationships. There were definitely some changes on the plot along the way but I didn’t mind most of them, and it helped to keep me on my toes since I knew how it was supposed to go before watching. The only change I didn’t like was how the characters knew a lot of the challenges or traps they were facing beforehand. I think this was most likely to help the pace of the show go faster since you can’t squeeze in all the details of a book into any type of film adaptation. However it took some of the suspense and learning out of watching.
But I would definitely recommend watching the show, especially if you have read the books. It’s witty, fun, suspenseful, has good themes and emotions. Even though no adaptation is as good as the books, it did a pretty great job imitating as much as they could, and even adding some extra spins and takes.
