Question: What is your opinion on Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of books? What is your opinion on the new Runelight series of books that deal with the Norse gods?
This will probably disappoint you, but we haven't read either. We do most of our pleasure reading in the nonfiction section, and added to the fact that John's running classes and I'm maintaining a review site elsewhere, and we don't have a lot of extra reading time lying around. We did see the Percy Jackson movie in one of our Bad Myth Movies Marathons (along with Legion and the new Clash of the Titans), and while it had some cute moments, we weren't very impressed. It suffered from a lot of the problems that modern mythological movies have, most notably projecting modern values and theology onto ancient religions that didn't include either (but it still came in above Clash of the Titans!). We have even less background in the Runelight department, though I've heard some vague good things about it.
But we couldn't really judge either since we haven't read them, and both have premises that are definitely in line with Scion's, so more power to you if you're a fan! Inspiration comes from all kinds of places, and I know some of our players do really enjoy the Percy Jackson books as well as Rick Riordan's other mythology-based series.
Fanboy rant incoming, but that movie is not the thing to judge the books by. It changed the story in ridiculous ways like making Hades a villain rockstar wannabe (whereas in the books he is a regal, if somewhat terrifying King who's sick of everyone assuming he's the bad guy), and Persephone is fine with being his queen in the books, just as she is in myth. That whole scene with her blasting Hades never happened (she doesn't even appear in the first book). I could go on.
ReplyDeleteSPOILER ALERT: Ares stole the Bolt, and even he was under the influence of the Titans. END SPOILERS.
Sure, Rick Riordan has modernized the setting a bit, but he is an amazingly knowledgeable writer who manages to stay very faithful to the source myth material while still churning out books that children can read.
Whew, that came out longer than I wanted it to. Sorry about that, but I really like the series (and its successor, The Heroes of Olympus), and the way they butchered everything in the movie made me wanna cry. Hope you guys have the time to read them someday.
That's all good to know - thanks! :)
DeleteSamudra, completely agree and the reason I hate book movies except perhaps the LOTR movies. another blistering innacuracy is that they pretty much portrayed Hades in the movies a something straight out of Dante's inferno with no mention of Elysium or event he fields of Asphodel. Also the Hades of the movie wanted to have the world destroyed while the Hades of the books beside being a king was also played as something of a harried boss griping about how poor he is due to the demands of his employees and meeting the needs of a constantly growing dead population with no desire whatsoever to add to any faster. One of my favorite scenes in the first book by the way.
DeleteIf they did make an accurate myth movie, nobody would like it, save us perhaps.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the problem lies in the story as much as in the media. In a 2h movie, tring to make an accurate myth movie including something new about it and profitable is in itself an Olympian challenge. Movie brands don't care as much about accuracy as they do about making a ''good'' movie.
I actually enjoyed Clash and Wrath of the Titans. Of course it wasn't accurate, but it kinda had that heroic saga narrative. I could guess what was going to happen, but I still felt thrilled to see it happen. It's not a good movie, but it does serve it's intended purpose.
I'm a historian, and while I do like to see the mistakes they make in ''historical'' movies, I also enjoy watching them, how they portrayed X personnality and so on. Maybe it's because of interest, but the medieval ones are by far the worst of this breed.
Then again, maybe I'm easy to please ^^
My major irritation with the new Clash movies was the fact that they were basically just monotheism in togas. Zeus and Hades were the only gods to get any facetime or roles in the film, and they were distilled down to very stereotypical roles of Zeus = God, Hades = Devil. Of the other gods, only two got lines - Apollo and Poseidon, who got one each - and nobody else even got introduced. It wasn't the lack of mythic accuracy, it was the fact that the film was using the Greek pantheon but for some reason actually just using Christianity again. The two flavors don't go together very well.
DeleteAnd also, the whole theme of "humanity has to fight back and defeat the gods!!!!" was crazily dissonant with Greek theology - in the very stories they were using, yet, such as the punishment of Cassiopeia, which is illustrating how humanity should respect the gods and avoid hubris, not launch an all-hubris all-day campaign. It baffled me.
If it weren't for that, I'd probably have been willing to shrug and say, "Eh, whatever, perfect buzz-cut Perseus can ride around among weird CGI furies all day, I'll get some popcorn."
I wrote an actual movie review of Clash (I do reviews on my Suspicious Sources blog, but not very often) and it comes down to they tried to stuff 3 hours of movie into 90 minutes and it didn't work. No one had any characterization, the plot didn't make sense. The only redeeming values of the movie was that it was gorgeous and the casting was excellent.
DeleteThat's how I felt about the recent Immortals, actually! Really gorgeous to look at, moments of sheer epicness, plot so bad it hurt.
DeletePersonally and I don't even know why I am saying this, Clash was a mess and Wrath was less so in my opinion. But the thing is, man has since the Roman Empire has fallen, tried to go back to the Roman roots of society and conquest, so in turn they go kind of Greek. I mean, its easy to tell that Christianity has roots in Roman and Greek society, the name of Christ being Alpha and Omega in art.
ReplyDeleteI'm not Christian. I'm a polytheistic person or how some people coin me as Pagan. The Christian culture to me is similar to a locust swarm, of where they do wish to combine cultures to make everyone part of their religion. Its how we got the Church of England and many sub religions in the Abrahamic religion. Its people trying to mesh cultures together and its not done well. We can see it in modern 'adaptions' of old stories, that there always has to be one that is 'God' and the other must be the 'Devil' when it was not meant to be that way. They had personalities, they were not all bad and not all good(In most religions. Very few were not this way.)
Done bashing that religion and sorry if I offend anyone on here. I am not trying to, just saying my opinion. Anyways, I agree on the notion that some stories or myths would be boring. But I have to point back to Lord of the Rings trilogy, the series that was a stepping stone into some myths for me. It is a long series, in which a lot of it is traveling. But for some reason it keeps us hooked. It doesn't have a blatant Christian aura around it. It is good versus evil, with many mixed inbetween and a story about perseverance. It reminds me of some of the old myths, just dusted up a little. So, I have to say if people do want to use old myths, it can be touched up in a couple places, but I do think people would react positively to it. In my opinion.
This causes a sensation of utter bafflement and confusion in me. I'm not even sure what you're saying.
DeleteWhich part exactly? Cause I'm kind of on pain medication and I can explain some of the ideas I had since I'm more in between doses and more coherent.
DeleteIf its all of it, the main idea was that Mankind has always tried to go back to a heighth of power and to most its the Roman Empire. Which is why we had many Holy Roman Empires and people trying to recreate Rome. I was trying to tie it into the fact that even now of days people try to do that.
The last part about old myths and movies is still a lil hazy. Think in the end the point was even if a story or book seems long, it can still captivate an audience.
If its not any of that, ask me and I'll try to answer more clear headed. I hate gum infections.
You REALLY need to get off your meds before you post again, if that's the case. Opiates and theology do not mix.
DeleteYeah, they really do not.. Include antibiotics with it and... well you see the results. Luckily at the end of the prescription. Kind of shaking my head of how bad I made myself look like and may end up deleting it soon. Mostly for the fact its not my best moment.
DeleteI think that Kyle was commenting on Anne's comment about the projection of modern values onto ancient myths. At least that is what I got from it. If not then I am gonna agree with Anne anyway. Unfortunately those movies are not meant to entertain folks such as myself and others who love the ancient stories as they were. They were made to entertain the modern masses and only use said stories of bygone eras, in my opinion, because they cannot think of anything else. Sadly one does not need a degree to be a movie producer, one only needs money.
DeleteWhat Kyle is talking about is how in it's pursuit to make Christianity the "one true way" the Christians had taken rites, rituals and beliefs from every non monotheisitic culture they met in order to more easily assimilate them. As a result many adaptations of polytheistic stories, especially Greco/Roman are reworked in the dicotomy of absolute good or absolute evil. The worst aspect is turning Hades into a place of complete evil and punishment. Look at the divine comedy and how much of Hades Dante stole to imagine hell, and more recently a history channel special called the gates of hell where two hours were spent trying to prove whether the christian hell exists or not using places and stories from other cultures such as the mayans, egyptians, and even the Norse. Kyle I understand what you are saying and completely agree. When you come right down to it, There is really nothing in Christianity that is original. dig deep enough and you will always find something that is ripped off, except maybe Jesus, if he really existed.
ReplyDeleteThanks man.. I really do appreciate people making sense of what I said. lol
DeleteAnd I am not sure if we can classify Jesus as being original, because he is often attributed to being a sacrificial lamb. Its why in art, before Christianity became legal and popular, he was seen as a shepherd, not a king. He was portrayed a King after Constantine of the Byzantine Empire said he had a vision, of where his armies would be unbeatable if they were lead by the cross and so he turned his empire to include Christianity and then to make it dominant.
I talk about that difference, because if you look at him as more of the sacrifice, I think we can find some gods who sacrificed themselves for the betterment of others and maybe some of those came back to life. Or something like that. And please, no one try to compare Baldur with Jesus. Baldur is a god from long ago, but when the Christians went to their lands, they proclaimed they had the same religion, just that they called Baldur Jesus and they would allow them to call him Baldur.
Ugh, now to try and get some sleep. Thanks everyone.
It's Constantine of the Roman empire ^^ and he didn't draw a cross on their shields ; )
DeleteBaldr is from long ago? As far as records go, I don't think there are proof that he would be older then Jesus. And yes, the christians tried to assimilate other religions because theirs didn't allow the existence of others. Either try to fudge up the All-Father and Baldur with their myths or wack them till they learned the ''true god''. Most clerics had an issue about shedding blood and tried to adress the issue in a peaceful, if condescendant way.
And yes, Clash and Wrath aren't for Greeks. They are for the average american guy who wants to see and epic action flic. So yeah, they made the myth relate more to the audience. Like I said, it wasn't a good movie. But somehow I did enjoy the narrative. I'm not trying to convince you it's good^^
Herculese the Legendary Joourneys was campy but it was still closer to the source material than Clash and Wrath (until the final seasons when it started to get all Christany).
DeleteI'm nearly 30 and I've read all of the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books. They are gold. I will continue to read them so long as Rick Riordan is putting them out. They are so well done and truly enjoyable that it's impossible not to latch onto the books characters and go along for the ride.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious that Rick knows Scion. In fact we've all heard that he plays it with his kids. The books reflect the scion world so much in the display and description of powers, relics, monsters, adventures, so on.
I love Scion and what John&Anne have made it. Having the Percy Jackson books to read other adventures is great. By the way....
ANNE! PUBLISH YOUR STUFF!!!