I’ve noticed this with quite a few movies. The biggest examples are listed below:

1: The Crucible (play and movie) – Abigail Williams was 11 in real life during that time while in both the play and film, she is 17.

2: Pocahontas (1995 movie and many other adaptations) – in real life, she was only around 11 when the English settlers came to Virginia in 1607. But in the Disney animated film, she is a young woman.

3: Tuck Everlasting (2002 movie) – in the novel, Winnie foster is 10, almost 11. But in this film, she is around 15.

4: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010 movie) – in the book he is 12. But in the movie he is 16.

5: The Giver (2014 Movie) – in the book, Jonas is 11 to 12 years old. But in the film, he is probably in his mid or late teens.

Unlike these film adaptations where the main characters are teenagers, they are younger kids in the original sources. For example, in the novel, Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt, the main character, Winnie Foster, is only 10 going on 11. But in the 2002 movie, she is 15. That was done so that she and Jesse Tuck could fall in love.

But there are other reasons why filmmakers sometimes age up the characters from their original sources. According to Google AI overview, this practice is also done to streamline the narratives and avoid unethical controversies.

Now, onto the answer to the question I asked in the headline: how do I feel about this?

The answer is that I generally support it. That is, at least with Disney’s Pocahontas. There were several reasons why her age was raised in the movie unlike in real life.

In the Disney feature, she is likely a young adult. But in real life, she was just a little girl at around 11 years old when the English came to Virginia in 1607. And John Smith was 27.

I don’t know how old he is supposed to be in the Disney cartoon, but it would have definitely been too inappropriate to keep Pocahontas a young child while falling in love with a grown man. And all the other reasons I found out from Google AI why Pocahontas was made older in the Disney film makes me support the filmmakers’ decision.

Regardless of that, I do have a different reaction to making Percy Jackson older in the movie than he was in the book. That is how I think it would have been nice if they kept his age faithful to the novel, which is 12.

However, according to Google AI overview, Percy was made older to around 16 in the film so that the movie could likely appeal to a wider teenage demographic. They worried that keeping him a kid would have likely caused the film to do poorly.

So, although I generally support the idea of making protagonists older in movie adaptations than their original sources, it really depends on the reasons. There are probably other movies that have made their main characters older than their original sources that I’m not aware of.

What do you think of this practice? Feel free to let me know in the comments if you wish.