A Tale of Two Adaptations

‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ and ‘Avatar the Last Airbender’ back in the
spotlight

By Janie Walenda

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  It was the age of falling in love with excellent children’s media, it was the age of heart-crushing horrible live-action adaptations.  2000s kids really had it all. 

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and “Avatar the Last Airbender” mirror each other throughout their history.  Both debuted in 2005, with “The Lightning Thief” novel hitting the shelves when the first season of “Avatar” debuted on Nickelodeon.  Five years later, both franchises received a live-action film, with both films universally derided by both fans and critics.  And now, nearly twenty years since these stories began, they’re getting live-action television adaptations. 

With both of these iconic stories back in the spotlight, the conversation around adaptations has naturally opened up again.  What defines a good adaptation?  Why do fans celebrate some adaptations for deviating from the source material, while reviling others?

An easy place to begin is the creator’s relationship with the adaptation. Rick Riordan, author of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” infamously disliked the movies and how they treated his books.  When the series rolled around, however, Riordan worked as an executive producer and writer on the show and has been active in promoting and supporting the show.

The creators of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Koniezko, have a similarly turbulent relationship with adaptations of their series.  Both DiMartino and Koniezko were initially signed on as showrunners and writers for the live-action series but departed the show after creative differences with Netflix, fueling fan’s doubts about the show. 

Conversations about adaptations are at their most contentious when concerning changes from the source material. Fans will dissect and argue about these changes for hours.

On the surface, one would assume the “Avatar” series was the better adaptation of the two.  In most areas, everything from actors to costumes to locations seems to be adapted on a one-to-one basis from the animated show.  It’s an incredibly faithful show visually, which immediately excites fans. 

The “Percy Jackson” show, on the other hand, differs greatly from the book description.  None of the three main characters look like how they are described, and this casting choice extends to many supporting characters as well. This created an immediate divide among fans, separating those open to a new interpretation of the characters from those who were just hoping for an accurate mainstream adaptation of the characters they grew up with. 

“Mainstream” is a keyword here.  Because if you were a nerdy theater kid between 2017-2019, odds are you were obsessed with “The Lightning Thief” musical.  The musical’s underdog journey, which eventually led to a Broadway stage, is the unseen foundation of the new show.  The musical showed that not only was a good adaptation possible, but that the fans would enthusiastically embrace it.

The musical’s real secret? It is not quite completely accurate. Some changes are obvious, such as the singing and the adult cast, but there’s also the inclusion of inside jokes from future books in the series and the absence of several key scenes that be massive problems for the musical.

Except they are not really problems.  “The Lightning Thief” musical understood the source material but created a unique interpretation of the story that mostly kept the original tone, characters and plot intact while deepening and expanding some of the themes and character arcs from the source material. 

The characters, even more than the tone and plot, are key to an adaptation that feels true to the stories we know and love.  More disappointing than any dropped plot point is a character that feels watered down or more two-dimensional than how we remember them.

“Characters, no matter the setting, no matter the plot … Characters are what we can hold on to,” senior History major Janelle Burd said. “Across any world, the one thing humans can relate to are humans.  That is the grounding element in any form of literature or media, and that’s what we hold to.”

An adaptation that understands its characters and how they relate to each other has a far better chance of succeeding at making changes. A good example of this is “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, whose filmmakers used a deep love and understanding of the books to adapt them to the big screen in a way that honored Tolkien’s work and mostly united fans. Adaptations excel when they pull out different angles from the stories we love.

“…I think that the BBC miniseries for ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is an excellent adaptation of the book, because it really does capture [it] chapter to chapter,” Burd commented. “But … the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ captures the vibes and very much that humor that comes from Jane Austen and the very romantic world that is portrayed in it.”

At the end of the day, it will be each individual’s definition of a “good adaptation” that will determine how they view retellings of their favorite stories.  As someone who imagines a word-for-word 10-part miniseries every time I read a book, I used to want adaptations to be as accurate as possible.  And I still understand that viewpoint; there is magic in watching something you have visualized a hundred times come to life in front of you.

However, as I watch more and more adaptations across film and television, and as I’ve grown older, I have become more appreciative of adaptations that make changes to the source material. The feeling of having something new to discover and appreciate, as well as the joy of seeing new fans discover my favorite stories and old fans return to them, makes me more than willing to accept new adaptations, flaws and all. 

I have plenty of problems with how the live-action “Avatar the Last Airbender” portrays Katara and how the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” establishes stakes and tension, but I also appreciate how both of these adaptations, for better or for worse, made intentional efforts to expand their worlds and characters. I can compare and contrast and complain about these changes endlessly, as many of my patient friends can tell you. 

But when the changes are made with intent, and open up new, unexplored areas of the story, I don’t just get the joy of watching my favorite stories come to life, I get to rediscover the world and characters I first fell in love with.

Janie Walenda is a junior Global Business major and an A&E editor for Cedars. She is overly passionate about animation, caffeine and weirdly enough Dracula.