After reading the book “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” and being thoroughly impressed, I was anticipating the movie to be at least near as good. I was extremely disappointed.

There are major plot differences in the movie as compared to the novel. (Spoiler alert.) In the book, Percy is trained at the Half-Blood Hill camp and given the quest to retrieve Zeus’s missing master lightning bolt from Hades, the supposed thief. The movie version has Percy sneaking from camp without having received a quest or permission to go, and he does not speak to the Oracle, which was supposed to be a large influence on Percy’s journey. He also receives no training.

Percy and his companions, Annabeth and Grover, travel across the States towards the entrance of the Underworld in both versions. However, the movie portrays their stops in certain cities as their searching for three pearls that they will need in order to get out of the Underworld once they’ve spoken to Hades. In the book, they’re handed all of the pearls at once as a gift. Their travel had nothing to do with the pearls.

The God, Ares, was not even mentioned in the movie, whereas he played a key part in the book. Ares is the true lightning thief, not Percy, in the book. In the movie, Luke, who was supposedly a friend of Percy’s, slips the bolt that he stole into the shield he give to Percy.

Luke makes another move against Percy in the movie when he shows up at the entrance to Olympus, trying to delay Percy enough that he misses the mark of the summer solstice. The book version doesn’t reveal Luke’s malice until Percy is back at the Half-Blood Hill camp and Luke traps him in the woods using a pit scorpion.

Another huge influence to the book plot was missing from the movie: the dreams that Percy was having about Kronos in the pit of Tartarus. These dreams were also received by Luke, convincing him that the reign of the gods should end, and that Percy should be killed.

The movie had many distinct differences from the book, ranging from huge plot alterations to small details, such as the fact that Percy’s pen/sword was supposed to have a cap, rather than click. If the second book, “The Sea of Monsters,” is made into its own movie, I hope that the author, Rick Riordan, will step in and make sure it’s created the way it’s supposed to be.