Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I knew this was gonna be mid. The comics are the best adaptation I've seen so far and they've convinced me that motion picture adaptations of Rick's stories need to be animated. They blew through ~120 million to make a boring show with boring fights when they could've spent a fraction of that to deliver a show as entertaining as Avatar The Last Airbender, Young Justice, Invincible, etc.

I'm baffled by the people who imagined things in live-action when reading the books, some of the scenes sounded so goofy and outlandish that I couldn't imagine anything but a comic book come to life. I understand Rick felt pressure to match series like Harry Potter and Hunger Games and I think Walker Scobell has the kind of charisma to compete with the main actors from those franchises, but PJO was obviously never going to be like those books. They should've taken a risk and paved their own path.

Heavily expository dialog, slow pacing, odd framing of scenes--why so many shots from behind when characters are speaking?--and clumsy fight choreography are just some of the factors that prevented me from enjoying the first two episodes of a show I was eagerly anticipating. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I prefer the admittedly flawed film. Even the SFX in the film seemed better, and to check my memory, I rewatched the film after struggling to stay awake during the Disney+ series, and yes, those effects from 2010 survive the comparison. The early encounter with the minotaur, for example, feels more kinetic and dangerous in the film, while the TV version fails to convince that the adolescent Percy could in any way survive the encounter.

The personalities for characters Percy and Annabeth are so far off it hurts. I thought the big deal on this was that these actors were supposed to embody the characters so well, that looks didn't matter! Three episodes in and I'm not impressed. They made some weird changes to the story to shoehorn this snarky and combative new Percy in.

Percy starts off as whiney and clueless. No one is explaining things to him until he sounds like an idiot, and has stuck his foot in his mouth. He's rude, and not at all funny or caring about other people. Annabeth isn't supposed to be his best friend yet - but she is so hostile.

Whoever wrote the screenplays for these episodes needs to reread the source material.

The Aunty Em's storyline changes was a complete wasted disaster. I hope Disney would do better.

I was 11 when I first read Percy Jackson and the lighting thief. I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and my mother gave me this book because some neighbor said it was good for kids like myself. To this day, one of the most influential books I've read.

I've been waiting for this series for a long time, and man it was worth the wait. 2 episodes in and you can already see the attention to detail they put into this show. The casting choices are so far great, the dialogue is excellent, and the kids they chose for Grover, Annabeth, and Percy have so far nailed their characters. It's obvious they are setting this up to do the entire series (which would be phenomenal) and the pacing is so far pretty good.

If I had a Time Machine, I'd take this show back to 11 year old me to just see the excitement on my face as my favorite character gets an amazing series like this. I'm excited to see where they take the show, and how they introduce new characters through the series like Thalia and Nico. I can only hope that this gets even a quarter of the hype as Harry Potter, but I'm just glad Percy Jackson's finally getting the screen adaptation he deserves.

I have not read the books, My daughters and wife have read them and were anxious for this series.

I really liked the actors and thought they did a decent job. The effects and look of the series were well done.

My problem was the series felt very rushed. After seeing the entire series I feel it could have been 2-5 episodes longer to supply more detail, build the world out, raise the stakes and allow us to get to know what's at stake.

I know books are always better...but remember I have not read the books and I could tell it was rushed.

My wife and daughter overall enjoyed the series, but were let down at how thin it seemed.

I plan to read the series now to see what I missed!