February 24, 2010


Christopher Columbus
[Address Line 1]
[Address Line 2]



Dear Christopher Columbus,

My name is Forrest Heck, and I attend Isaac Bear Early College High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. My school went on a field trip recently and saw your movie The Lightning Thief. I think that it was a relatively good film. Having read the books, I have only a few major complaints.

My first complaint about the movie—and probably the most obvious one—is the age of the main characters. In the movie, the characters are portrayed as late high school students, while in the book Percy is 12. Although it fits the plot of the movie, this “aging” of the lead roles kills off any possibility of sequels following the plot of the book; the most important factor in the later novels is Percy approaching the age of 16.

The removal of several key characters is another part that I disliked. Ares and his progeny were written off, and half of the book disappeared into thin air. With characters such as the oracle removed, the plot of further books is also crumpled. The fact that Luke dies in the end of the film also ruins any possible sequel following the books; he’s the main antagonist.

The last part that I didn’t like about the film is that the application of logic wreaks havoc on how the scenes play out. For instance, the whole capture the flag scene: after Percy defeats Annabeth, why does the red team allow his to take their flag? Also, since most of the blue team was watching the fight, why hadn’t the red team struck at the blue flag? During the hydra fight, why didn’t Grover pull out the medusa head at the start? I know that the scene would have ended before it began, but did the characters have to fall back on normal arms when they had a superweapon in their possession?

Other than these gripes, I enjoyed the movie and will probably attend any sequels that are released.

Respectfully,
Forrest Heck

PS: I love your name.