Sword and Sandal, Neo-Mythology, and Percy Jackson, Part 2

עברית: Biblical Sandal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

continuing from the last post

I know I can't use Wikipedia as a source in my literature review, but it had a really interesting entry on sword and sandal films, not to mention a whole lot of discussion on their Talk page, where the contributors hash out any problems with the entries.  Based on what I read there, it looks like you really can't call Percy Jackson/ Lightning Thief  a sword-and-sandal movie, mostly because it has high production values and isn't Italian.  That sounds crazy, I know, but if you read the Wikipedia entry, it'll make sense.  So, I've decided to go with Neo-mythology, which was mentioned in the entry as having been coined as a term by an Italian film director, Vittorio Cottafavi, who apparently just didn't like "sword and sandal" (I don't blame him, because it does sound kind of low rent).

All this led me to my proposal for the project.  What I'm proposing is to establish neo-mythology as a subgenre of action/adventure, based on PJI.  I need to find scholarly sources on the sword-and-sandal genre so that I can compare and contrast, and my research question is "Is Percy Jackson and the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief a sword-and-sandal film?"  I'm going to argue that while it fits a lot of the criteria for s-and-s, it's something different.

I turned it in on Thursday, and I've got my fingers crossed.

Related articles

• SPOILER: Percy Jackson didn't steal the lightning bolt...technically. (bookingawesome.wordpress.com)
• Paul W.S. Anderson's 'Pompeii': End-of-the-World Swords & Sandals Style (geeksyndicate.co.uk)
• Percy Jackson was framed and the fandom was not pleased. (bookingawesome.wordpress.com)

Sword and Sandal, Neo-Mythology, and Percy Jackson, Part 1

English: The Jules Verne Festival launch in
Los Angeles, October 2006.
L-R: Ray Harryhausen, Harrison Ford,
 Malcolm McDowell, Jane Goodall,
James Cameron, George Lucas.
Front: Jules Verne Festival founders
Jean-Christophe Jeauffre and Frédéric
Dieudonné. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been thinking so much about my project that I completely forgot to post last week, but I should be making up for that in the next few days; in fact, I have to split my entry for today into two posts (it's just too long).  It all started with a talk I had with my dad.  He asked what I was working on, and for a minute, it was like I was back in the third grade -- what he really wanted to know was if I needed help with my homework.  And, just like back in the day, he came through for me.  He reminded me of when he took my sister Rebbie and me to see Jason and the Argonauts at some really weird theater when we were kids.  It was part of some film group's -- I don't know what to call it; not a festival, but like a special program or something.  Anyway, he said that Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (from now on, I'm gonna abbreviate that to PJI) made him think of Ray Harryhausen (and I'm not going to get into who he is/was, so if you don't know, follow the link), who is apparently a favorite of his, which is why he took us to see Jason and the Argonauts. 
What I remembered about the movie was the fight with the skeletons and the scene with the harpies-- and I think the harpies are what made Dad see a connection.  In PJI, there is a scene near the beginning where a fury attacks Percy in a museum, kind of like the harpies in JATA.  So, I asked him what genre he thought JATA was, and he said that he thinks it's called "sword and sandal."  Based on that, I started doing some web searching (mainly to get terms to use for searching later in scholarly databases), and that's where I'll leave it for now.   

Related articles

• Jason and the Argonauts: The five films it inspired (telegraph.co.uk)
• Percy Jackson Series Review (negaublog.wordpress.com)
• Percy Jackson was framed and the fandom was not pleased. (bookingawesome.wordpress.com)
• More episodes of @AdAbPodcast have been uploaded (onlythesangfroid.wordpress.com)