Author Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series bears major similarities to that of J.K. Rowling, but “Jackson” screenwriter Craig Titley faces a challenge that those adapting Harry Potter series never faced. This screenwriter must strike the right balance between entertainment value, faithfulness to Greek mythology and faithfulness to a book.
According to Titley, his job was made fairly easy by Riordan’s incorporation of mythology into his update of the tradition.
“(Riordan) did a great job at incorporating the side stories of various gods into the greater story of his book,” Titley said.
The first installment in the “Percy Jackson” series, entitled “The Lightning Thief,” centers around the relation of its namesake demigod protagonist with his father, Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. Poseidon at the time is charged by Zeus with stealing his master bolt of lightning. The sea god believes the bolt was really stolen by Hades, and the rest of the book and film chronicles Percy’s quest to get the bolt back.
With even these basic components of the plot, Riordan signals a departure from the original body of Greek mythology. Two UCLA experts in Greek mythology who have not seen the film but have read the book weighed in on the accuracy of its plot points, sometimes offering opposite views.
“It has always been written that Zeus used lightning bolts, definitely in the plural sense,” said Rob Groves, a graduate student in classics.
However, Katherine King, a professor of classics and comparative literature, suggests that the idea of a single lightning bolt by which Zeus maintains his authority is not so far out of line with Greek philosophy.
“Plato would certainly have spoken of a single lightning bolt,” King said.
Whether Riordan’s creative liberties mesh well with ancient Greek culture, another big challenge was giving the audience some comic relief. Titley said he took full advantage of the grumpiness given by Riordan to Hades, the god of the underworld. When the story’s protagonist, played by Logan Lerman (“Gamer,” “The Butterfly Effect”), travels to the underworld to get the master bolt back, he deals with Hades, who is played by Steve Coogan (“Night at the Museum”), an actor who comes from a long line of comedies.
Both Groves and King said that of all the Greek Gods, Hermes, and not Hades, is the wit of Greek mythology.
“Hermes is very clever, and a trickster,” King said.
Titley, however, said he sees Coogan’s role as another extension of the mythological tradition.
“Hades is forced to watch over the underworld, which is not a very fun place to be. He’s fairly bitter about this, and Steve did a great job at bringing this out on screen,” Titley said.
Bringing the awesome powers of the gods, demigods and monsters of Greek mythology to the screen would also seem to be a top priority for director Chris Columbus, given the precedent of the massive amount of original literature.
Titley said he feels satisfied with the way that these powers were brought about by the film’s special effects team, but he noted that the manifestation of them on screen was so intense that a 12-year-old Percy facing off against them would seem a trifle unbelievable. The film therefore presents 18-year-old Lerman as Percy.
“It would just look a bit odd if there wasn’t someone a bit older than Percy in the book, so we casted for someone older,” Titley said.
Thus, Titley has had to negotiate both the departures of Riordan’s book from the distinct mythic world of the original Greek literature and Columbus’s desire to make Percy a more believable character on screen.
Even if he can’t square past and present in the world of Greek mythology, Titley won’t likely offend its most ardent students and scholars.
All of the classic stories that Riordan drew on to create his own legend are supposed to ultimately strike a nerve on a basic, very mortal emotional level, according to King.
Success for Titley will really be achieved simply if Columbus’s fantasy world doesn’t get in the way of the compellingly human story found in Riordan’s writing.
“The gods have always been known to have very human, and definitely sometimes irrational, responses to their own lives. The stories of demigods, such as Hercules, are also specifically meant to illustrate that no matter how powerful you are, death, sorrow and other fundamental aspects of life eventually catch up to you,” King said.