Percy Jackson

Dora's a little over the top in terms of the lampshade hangings, but Muppets 2011 is actually held up as one of the best of the Muppet movies. At the very least, he is a solid, competent director with some good stuff under his belt.

I'm seeing some stuff on twitter where, as expected, some people are being totally oblivious (some people are mad it's not a continuation of the movies which...why would it be? Even if the movies were any good, that'd be an incredibly strange approach) and some people are apparently mad that Logan Lerman is definitely not going to be the lead? Like...he was already kinda too old for the character in the movies, it's been twelve years since the first one.

Nostalgia really messes with people's brains and expectations.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 26th 2022 at 2:42:47 PM

Lerman has a significant Twitter Estrogen Brigade, and most of the reactions I've seen re: him are joking versions of and "which male character can he do a Remake Cameo with."

(Most common answer is Poseidon...which, no, I don't want to see him give dad advice to a child actor 18 years younger than him )

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 26th 2022 at 2:23:12 PM

People really expected this to be a follow up to the movies. Why would it be it's been twelve years and those weren't well received by fans or critics. They were okay-ish movies but not something that would warrant a revival years later. Man, this is some weird nostalgia.

Uh I can see some of the old cast back in new roles.

I mean I could see some of them coming back as different characters. Logan Lerman playing someone could work. Alexandra Daddario would be nice. I would love to see Stanley Tucci back personally he was my favorite part of the second movie.

Edited by Bullman on Jan 26th 2022 at 3:02:56 AM

There were people who liked those movies as a kid?

There always are, no matter how bad the property. If they rebooted, I don't know, the Garbage Pail kids movie there would be people crawling out of the woodwork to cry about how much that was a part of their childhood somehow.

I never knew anyone who liked them. I hated them. I saw the first one in theaters when I was in middle school and I spent the whole time ranting about how it missed the point of the book.

I remember I let a friend spoil the second movie for me in middle school. I’m glad she did, because wow.

Despite being different from the books I liked the first movie for the most part (The only things I didn't like at the time was the aging up of the characters, Annabeth not being blonde, and the ending. Otherwise I enjoyed it.). Never did see the second one though. Mind you it's been nearly 12 years since I saw the movie in theaters so I dunno if I'd still feel the same way now.

I know a number of people that were fans of the movies, but they were also unfamiliar with the books.

One of the more common things I've heard about the first one is that it's a really bad adaptation...but it's average as a movie on its own if you aren't familiar with the source material. Probably helped that the slate of action adventure movies aimed at younger audiences wasn't exactly...amazing at the time.

Eh. I generally don't like isolating a film adaptation of a book from the source material, but, admittedly, it can't always be helped. Not like everyone has the time to read the book first. But even as a movie, it's just kind of...meh. Bland. Flavorless. Nothing interesting to it.

Yeah, this was right in the middle of the "everyone trying to find the next Harry Potter" spate of YA fantasy adaptations (to the point that they actually hired Chris Columbus).

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 29th 2022 at 11:31:39 AM

Which is a shame with the series that tossed into the meat grinder in the attempt. My issues aside, I genuinely probably won’t get proper films (or even a show) for the Saga of Darren Shan.

I probably would never have heard about the books if not for the movie, so there I guess that's one good thing that came out of it.

Funny story. I had never heard of the books when I saw a teaser for the movie, Percy in the elevator that leads to Olympus I believe, so I did not pay much mind to it. However, the next day I went to school and my teacher had a copy of the first book, the Lightning Thief, on their desk and I got curious because of the teaser, so I asked if I could borrow it and they said yes. So, I read the whole thing and got hooked. I then bought myself a copy of every book (or at least as many as were out at the time I don't remember if the last one was out or not). So, I binged the whole series in a whole week and got both my parents and cousins hooked as well. So, while I don't think the movies are good adaptations, they still got me into the series, and I can't bring myself to hate them because of that reason.

Edited by Bullman on Jan 31st 2022 at 8:14:02 AM

I think that's fair.

I read the books first. Then I saw the movie of The Lightning Thief (back when I lived in Colorado) at a time when my dad was recovering from breaking his leg in a skiing accident. I very much disliked it because it deviated way too much from the book.

There's a few movies from that general time period that are kind of like that. Spiderwick Chronicles (which sorta tried to adapt the entire book series but had to cut out a ton) and City of Ember (which swapped around a bunch of elements and tried to ramp up the climax to be more exciting and ended up just getting absurd) are all kind of in the range of "this isn't a good adaptation at all but as a standalone thing it's okay."

...and Disney+ has a Spiderwick Chronicles adaptation coming too. How long until they get their hands on City of Ember?

I did see someone try and argue last year that the Artemis Fowl movie is in this category too and...no, it really, really isn't.

I will say though, the period of everyone trying to find the next Harry Potter was generally easier to sit through than the time everyone was trying to find a new Hunger Games. The Harry Potter replacement craze was at least varied.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 1st 2022 at 8:17:18 AM

In what way? I'm pretty sure Artemis Fowl is rather hated for its nonsensical deviations like all these other movies we've been discussing.

Edited by lbssb on Feb 1st 2022 at 5:18:54 AM

Because its a terrible film on it's own.

The changes they made lead to some very...strange decisions. Like the fact that the film treats Artemis as a straight good guy even though they adapted the only two books where he's an actual villain.

I call it producers and such being chicken shits over having a villain protagonist.

Yeah. Percy Jackson, City of Ember and the Spiderwick Chronicles aren't good adaptations, but you can find people who legitimately like them and think they're pretty good. (My mom loves the City of Ember movie, for example, even though she admits the book is better).

The Artemis Fowl movie is basically hated in every circle and no one defends it because, even if you don't know the books, it's a deeply unpleasant movie that spends 90% of its time expositing about random stuff that rarely has anything to do with anything.

I'd also throw The Golden Compass/His Dark Materials in there as a mid-to-late-2000s-fantasy-film that got done better by a later TV adaptation. (If there's one good thing to come out of the rise of Prestige TV (tm) and the streaming wars...)

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 1st 2022 at 1:31:15 PM