Is Percy Jackson and Sea of Monsters movie is more faithful to the first movie or to the corresponding book?

Question

Having been listening to the first book, and seeing how VASTLY different it is from the movie, I decided that I'm going to treat the movies as a separate entity from the books. And that got me to wondering, having not seen the movie yet, or having read the second book:

Does the story of the second movie act as more of the sequel to the events of the first movie (aka references to specific events that WEREN'T in the first book), or do they follow the first/second book when there's a discrepancy between two canons?

Answer 1

The answer is "It Depends". It had elements that were more faithful to the books compared to the second film; it had elements that were more in line with first film than second book, and it had elements where it actually went out of the way to bring the missing pieces from #1 back to book canon.

1. It is faithful to BOTH the book and the first movie by taking the major book plot elements that first movie lacked and were critical in book canon, and introducing them:

   • The first film didn't bother introducing the Prophecy, or the Oracle.

     The second film introduces both.

   • The first movie omitted Chronos as the Big Bad, and made Luke the main Big Bad despite him playing a fairly minor role in book #1. (I'll NEVER complain about LOTR adaptations again!).

     The second film finally got Chronos in as the main Big Bad with Luke merely serving him.

2. It's faithful to the first film by NOT introducing elements that are meaningful to second book but contradict the first film.

   • First film omitted Ares. Second film thus didn't have the whole "Clarisse wants to pulverize Percy because Ares does" angle - they are simply competitive against each other.

   • First film omitted the Search for Pan and Satyr quests. Second film stuck to that (and thus Grover got kidnapped in a very silly plot move, AFTER the Trio went on the quest - INSTEAD of the book plot that had him being captured by Polyphemus and Percy going on a quest mainly to save Grover.

   • Since they had the Hydra battle in the first movie, they obviously omitted the whole Monster Donuts + Hydra thing in the second film.

   • They continued the (attempted) deep romantic chemistry between Percy and Annabeth, that in the books didn't arise till at least #3 (see age mismatches below as well).

3. Film #2 shares the same general disdain for major AND minor book plot points as the first movie, as far as its approach.

   • As noted, the first film, to simplify storytelling, omitted BOTH the Ares storyline AND the Chronos as Big Bad - major plot discrepancy.

   • Second film went same conceptual direction (you can say much further), by changing the plot in a major way: Percy basically saying "screw the Prophecy, I'll make my own Prophecy", and fighting re-animated Chronos - both are definitely NOT part of second book.

   • Annabeth STILL fights with a frigging sword. It was a fairly important point in all the books that she explicitly only fights with the knife (y'know... the "cursed blade" of the prophecy, in the end - spoiler alert!)

4. Both films got the same penchant for stealing points from later books into the movie

   • First film had Hydra from book #2.

   • Second film mentioned recovering Ares' chariot (from book #4.5 - Demigod files)

   • Not to belabor the point, but the "fighting Chronos" and "Prophecy is wrong" is from books #4 and #5.

5. Both films were similar in not getting the small basic details right (which, unlike some big plot differences, can't be explained by "films require different plot for cinematography reasons" - in other words, there was no reason NOT to be faithful to the book in those small details)

   • Age mismatches. In the first movie, main characters look 16-ish instead of 13, and have major romantic chemistry lacking from earlier book.

     In the second movie, in the Talia's death scene, instead of her being 14 and Annabeth 7, all 3 of them looked about 10-11 instead. And romantic chemistry again :(

   • Despite changing 90% of the cast, including main characters, and fixing Annabeth's hair color (incorrect brunette in film #1 to blonde in film #2), they didn't bother fixing Chiron's horse part from first-film's chestnut, to book-white.

   • No school subplot. Instead, Tyson shows up at Camp, out of nowhere!

6. On the other hand, Film #2 did get a lot more of the second book's plot correct compared to the first film!

   • First film butchered the main plot completely (wrong main guy, wrong secondary main guy, wrong motivations).

     The second film was MUCH better as far as adhering to the main plot, especially as far as the plot of the whole pentology.

     (as mentioned in #3, they did make big changes in that Percy directly fought resurrected Chronos and said "The prophecy is wrong" - but in light of book #4/#5, that isn't as much of a deviation).

     The rest of the overall plot is MUCH closer to book #2 than first movie's plot was to book #1.