Hey everyone!! Hope you're having a lovely day.

If anyone's confused by the title and hasn't checked Rick Riordan's Instagram or Twitter, I'll give you a brief summary of what I'm talking about.

Basically, about a month ago maybe, Rick Riordan announced that he would be collaborating with Disney plus to create a live-action Percy Jackson series. Uncle Rick promised that he would be overseeing every element of the show, so we don't get a repeat of...well, That. 

Now with that out of the way, here are my reasons why I think the tv show should be 2D animated instead :)

1. Budget

Let's get the boring math out of the way first. I did some research and found that a hit animated show costs about 2 million per episode (crazy right?). Now, you may be thinking, "Silver, there's no way CGI can cost more than that, especially when not everything in the live-action is going to be CGI. We are using real people you know!" 

And yes, I am well aware. However, CGI is expensive. I looked it up and found that CGI effects amounted to about 33.7 million per movie in 2018. That's insane. And movies are only around 2 hours long...

Okay, math time. Since each season of the show is going to be one book, we'll give them six to eight half-hour episodes. Six to eight eps times five seasons equals about 60-80 million for the entire 2D animated show. Now, that's a lot more than 33.7 million in CGI. Except...

Movies are usually around 2 hours. Six to eight episodes times five seasons equals 15-20 hours. That equals 7.5-10 movies, and that times 33.7 million equals about 252.75-337 million in CGI for the entire live-action show. 

Of course, this is an estimate, since the amount of CGI will differ based on the season and episode. But this is just the animation, not even counting actors and set pieces and everything else. 

2. Practicality

No building sets. No flying to crazy places to film. No paying to film on private property. Nobody has to clear a street so you can have people running down it. No stunt doubles. It's just...cheaper. 

3. Acting

With live-action, you have to first cast good actors who look like the characters they're portraying. After you get over that hurdle, you realize that these are real people, so like real people, they age. If you look at Daniel Radcliffe between the first and second harry potter movies, he already looks much older. And yes, that could work because the Percy Jackson series always takes place every summer--except that it actually doesn't. Both the second and third books take place in the same year, with the third taking place the winter after the Sea of Monsters. That means that there's only half a year between books two and three and between three and four. Yet, both of those seasons will take who knows how long to make (possibly up a year, since Shadowhunters took about that to release the first episode of each of their seasons). 

Animation can solve almost all of those problems. 

First, your actors don't have to look anything like the characters they're portraying, as long as their voice kinda fits. Think John DiMaggio, who despite being human, plays Jake the Dog in Adventure Time. You can focus entirely on talent instead of appearances as well. 

Second, though voice actors do age, you can be a lot more flexible with the casting. Heck, Sokka's voice actor was an adult in Avatar, and Sokka's only sixteen. Steven Yuen is an adult playing an eighteen-year-old Keith in Voltron Legendary Defender. Voice actors can change their voice a lot, and casting someone thirteen for twelve-year-old Percy wouldn't be that bad. And even better, Percy does get years older throughout the series, so having his voice change due to puberty or whatever isn't that big of a deal. 

Not to mention having famous actors will be slightly less jarring if we can't see their face. 

4. Humor

Animation's entire job is to be dramatic and overexaggerate things. My favorite thing about animation, especially 2D, is the expressions. Anyone who's seen Avatar the Last Airbender knows that half of Sokka's comedy comes from his outrageous movements and expressions. And yes, Avatar is a little more focused on humor than PJO is, especially towards the end of the book series when Percy has to fight a literal war, but Percy's sarcasm, Grover's timid nature and him eating the furniture (which would not look good in live-action, but it's still a running joke in the series), Annabeth's "you're all complete idiots why am I here" attitudes...and that's just the main three! 

Imagine Rachel and Annabeth just sending each other exaggerated passive-aggressive looks behind Percy's back for the entirety of BOTL. 

AND WE CAN HAVE AN AWESOME ANIMATED INTRO AND IT COULD CHANGE EVERY SEASON TO INCORPORATE THE NEW CHARACTERS INTRODUCED GUYS I'M DONE 

5. Age Range

CGI monsters look too real. Meaning the more gruesome and ugly ones can be pretty scary. However, if they're all 2D animated, there's an understanding with even the youngest viewers that these things aren't real, and therefore, are less scary. CGI a bunch of greek monsters, and you may have to kick up the age rating, excluding younger viewers whose parents may not want them to watch PG13 stuff. A small reason, but one none the less.

6. Emotion

This is the one I really wanted to talk about. 

Fun fact: One of the main reasons Daisy Ridley was cast as Rey in Star Wars was because she could cry on cue. Pretty cool right? Well guess what--

EVERY CHARACTER IN AN ANIMATED SHOW CAN CRY ON CUE!!!!

Everyone remembers the scene of Silena dying. Her face is scarred, Clarisse is cradling Silena in her arms, everyone's gathered around. She reveals the scythe charm, says she's sorry, and dies in Clarisse's arms. 

Everyone is devastated. Percy's torn: how can he hate someone who gave her life to bring them reinforcements, and yet Silena's the reason that Charlie and so many others are dead. 

The beautiful thing about having this scene animated wouldn't just be Percy or Clarisse or any of the other main characters; it would be everybody. You wouldn't have to worry about finding good extras because the artist can go in and make every single background character look however they want. There are no multiple takes for those few seconds because nobody's talking, and the artist already made everyone look exactly how they need to. 

Think of Nico finding out his sister is dead. Think of Percy's battle with Ares. There's so many things that you could take to the next level just because you aren't dealing with the limitations of real people. 

But those are just my thoughts! Let me know whether you'd rather have the show in live-action or animated and why! I'd love to hear what you guys think.

BYyyyyyyeeeeee