Changing Mediums

Author’s  Note: I am writing this piece to meet my text analysis goal. I wrote on how the book “The Lightning Thief” changed when it changed into a film.

Have you ever seen a movie that originated from a book? Maybe you have just seen the movie, or just read the book, but when the book changes the medium into a movie or a film, some things change and are not the same as you interpreted while reading the book. The director might change the scenery that was described in a book, and it could change the whole meaning of the story. I read the book "The Lightning Thief" and saw the movie as well, and there were some major things that changed when changing the medium. Whenever you change a medium, something is bound to get changed. 

Changing a medium causes changes in the book or film. The Lightning Thief is a prime example. One thing that really stood out to me was in the book, Ares was a huge part. He had tried to kill Percy, Annabeth, and Grover by sending them into an abandoned amusement park where they would get trapped and embarrassed in front of the godlands, who were trying to humiliate Ares, and he set the kids up. They almost died here, and I thought that was a key part in the story. If someone important to the story almost dies, I don't know why you would cut it out. Ares was also in a fight with Percy, and again, he almost killed him, but Percy came out victorious and saved the gods from fighting each other. In the movie, they never put Ares in. He was non-existent. He was never shown once. I don't know if they forgot about him, but I believe he should have been in the movie at least once. 

Not putting Ares in the movie was a swing and a miss, but that was not the only thing they didn't put in or missed on. Medusa death was another thing I questioned their thought process on. If they wanted to make it like the book, they could've. When Percy killed Medusa and sliced her head right off,  in the book they took the head, wrapped it up, and shipped it back to Olympus so the gods could see his nice work. In the movie, he took the head with them, and it actually helped them in many cases along the way. I didn’t make sense to me how you could change it that much, and that might be why they couldn’t put Ares in the story. That’s a prediction though, there could have been a lot of other reasons they didn’t put it in. After all, it would be hard as a director to fit everything from the book in.

Medusa played a huge part in the book but not in the movie, and that can go for the Lotus Casino, vice versa though. In the movie, I liked the fact that they had been given a cookie at the door, and that cookie made them lose track of time. In the book, I was confused on what made them lose track. They just played games all day and did nothing else. I don’t get how they can keep that out of the book, but I liked the addition they put in a movie. I just thought it made it more interesting, and in the movie, as you’re watching, you almost get lost in time.

When you change mediums, there is going to be change within the new medium. Some transition better than others, but some are easier than others. In this story they left out or changed major parts in the story, but in the movie they added some nice touches to make it better. I was shocked by the differences in the book and the movie. There’s nothing wrong with changes, but some are just unnecessary, and things you can resolve and make it closer. This book and movie was good, but it could have been better.