The Changes of Ideology in the Adaptation of Rick Riordan’s Novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Into Chris Columbus’ Film

Abstract

This research is the analysis of the adaptation work from the intrinsic events of Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2005) novel and film. This novel is one of Percy Jackson and The Olympians trilogy. In the context of this research, the title hence will be called The Lightning Thief. This research analyzes the transformations from the novel and the film adaptation to discover the ideologies. Then, these ideologies lead us to find out the motive beyond the adaptation work. This research uses qualitative research method and comparative method since the objects of the analysis are novel and film. The primary data of this research are the intrinsic elements especially plot and character and characterization taken from narrative events in Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2005), and visual images and dialogue from Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010). The secondary data of this research are the explanation text taken from some books, article, journals, thesis, and websites related to the topic. This research sets up two questions. The first question is how the transformations of The Lightning Thief adaptation (from novel to film) are. The second question is what the motive beyond the adaptation of The Lightning Thief from a novel into a film. This research uses Linda Hutchon’s theory of adaptation as a basic of theory, and Roland Barthes’ Mythologies and theory film of mise-enscene as the method to find out the ideology from both in the novel and film. To find the ideologies of the author and the adapter, the researcher analyzes the transformation from the novel into a film. To answer the research questions, the first step to do is collecting the data from the narrative event in the novel and the image data in the film. The second step is comparing the collected data. Then, the differences that are found from the transformation from the novel into film are analyzed by Barthes’ Mythology to find out the ideology behind the adaptation. The ideologies that have been found will lead us to find the motive of the adaptation work. The analysis result shows, there are some ideologies found in the novel and the film. First, The novel brings the emergence of feminism, while the film changes into the emergence of patriarchal ideology. Second, the novel is dominated by the motherhood role, while the film shows the emergence of the fatherhood role. Third, the novel’s ideology is collectivism, while the film portrays indiviualism ideology. Fourth, the novel portrays the new fantasy of story, while the film portrays competitivenes of American value. Last, the novel’s ideology portrays the cultural universal, while the film portrays freedom of American value. After the ideologies have been found, the motive will be found too. The process of adaptation is driven by three motives beyond, that are cultural capital, personal motive, and economic lures that lead to get financial benefit.