Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief Trailer #3: These Titans Will Clash, Too

UPDATE: As it turns out, this was the international version of the third trailer, but the domestic cut is now online. It shows off more action, and is in better resolution, to boot. (So what I thought was Cerberus is revealed to be a hydra, for example.) The film also looks a lot more chintzy in this version of the trailer. Too bad about that; most of the interest the international version generated in me was dispelled by the domestic. Look for the embed below, original article follows.

We've already seen a couple of trailers for the Chris Columbus adaptation of the book Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. (Here and here.) But this third one for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, as the film is called, finally starts to put it all out there. It gives up the nature of the main character, Percy Jackson, who is the son of Poseidon, shows off some of his enemies as he learns about his Olympian heritage, and finally reveals Uma Thurman, as this film's version of Medusa. Catch it all after the break.

This one hadn't really been on my radar until now. I don't know the books, I hadn't had a chance to see most of the cast in action and I'm not a fan of the Chris Columbus Harry Potter movies. But after seeing this trailer I'm ready to see the film, if only to compare and contrast how this and Clash of the Titans handle divergent approaches to Greek mythology. Looking at the kicker here, which introduces Thurman's Medusa and updates the classic mirrored shield tactic of defeating her to include the shiny reverse side of an iPod, it seems so easy to hear how this film was pitched. It's basically just that: Clash of the Titans with an iPod. And while I'm not sure I dig that, I'm curious.

I also wonder how finished these effects are. The harpy/fury we see here looks decent in design, but not quite there yet. Same for the shots of Cerberus and a couple other creatures. But I'm a sucker for just about any interpretation of Greek myth, and I don't need my effects to be photo-perfect, so long as the ideas behind them are good.

Then there's the Harry Potter angle; Brendon has pointed out the similarities between this set of novels and the Potter books, and more than a few glimpses in this trailer look as if Fox is really trying to build their own Potter-like franchise. Which is fine, as long as the films are decent. And some of that is just Chris Columbus; the vision of Olympus seen here (as in the photo header above) could have come right out of one of his Potter films. Again, that's not bad; just an observation.