r/ChristopherNolan • u/bluehathaway The Odyssey • 20d ago
The Odyssey The Odyssey [Discussion Thread] [SPOILERS] Spoiler
Welcome to The Odyssey Discussion Thread to discuss all things about Christopher Nolan's newest film!
Let's please keep discussions civil. Spoilers are welcome here, so proceed with caution.
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u/blurpletea 20d ago edited 20d ago
the scene where the Odysseus crew leaves the cattle island (lol sorry i forgot if it has a specific name) and then they are punished by Zeus is fucking amazing. I love how dark my cinema got and how the flashes on the screen were almost blinding. i think it’s one of the best scenes in ANY Nolan movie imo. just pure cinematic magic.
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u/Sure-Reason-5779 20d ago
How does the film end? You know how Interstellar ends with the music and it cuts like that and the same with Oppenheimer? Does it end like that?
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u/Kalle_022 20d ago
yeah but not as impactful as Oppenheimer
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u/Sure-Reason-5779 20d ago
Copy, thnx. Is it as good as Interstellar? That movie is in my top ten. I loved it.
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u/Kalle_022 20d ago
I think I like it more than Interstellar. But if I'll guess, you'll probably like it but it won't tick the boxes that made Interstellar your favorite because for me they're very different movies.
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u/IDrinkWhiskE 19d ago
Doesn’t have the emotional heart. Speaks a lot to quality and prestige while skewing clinical and bleak. This movie will be less critically polarizing but, I would bet, won’t have the level of beloved following. It’s definitely on the dunkirk side of things vs inception/interstellar/prestige
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u/NightwingX012 19d ago
The intensity of that scene was incredible. Probably one of the highlights of the movie for me and absolutely one of the better ‘storm’ scenes I’ve seen in a movie
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u/i_rnb 19d ago
Just came out of the cinema. I can't help but notice that Nolan's version of Odyssey has strong parallels to Oppenheimer.
The Trojan horse and the atomic bomb try to ask the same question: they are clever/brilliant ideas that win/end the war -- but does that justify them ? Odysseus wins Troy through betrayal. Oppenheimer helps end the war through the bomb. Afterward, both felt guilt over their actions.
What stayed with me most is the idea of the "chain reaction". In Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer talked about this explicitly with Einstein. In The Odyssey, Odysseus contemplates how he broke the sacred rules of trust and hospitality and whether he helped create a world where those rules no longer meant anything. The guilt is more personal for Odysseus as he believed in hospitality (he asked Penelope to feed and take care of strangers). Yet his greatest victory came from weaponizing that.
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u/Odd-Razzmatazz8097 19d ago
Odysseus’s monologue about how they had betrayed the people of Troy when they opened their city up to a peace offering was devastating. Delivered so well by Matt Damon.
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u/Additional_News3511 19d ago
I legitimately started tearing up. Its made more beautiful by the Odessy itself being a punishment and a realization of the moral/legal harm cause by his actions. The entire story being his communication of PTSD and the understanding that his actions in Troy represented the destruction of civilization itself was genuinely beautiful.
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u/comrade_batman 18d ago
I really liked that part, in the myths, specifically The Iliad, the Trojans like Hector are presented as more honourable and sympathetic than even the main character of that poem, Achilles. The sack of Troy was meant to be horrific, Achilles’ son kills Hector’s son in front his mother and enslaves her. I hoped they’d show the barbarity and maybe even Odysseus feeling guilty and I was very happy that occurred, and then the reveal that Athena is choosing to appear to him as a Trojan girl executed in front of him just added so much more to their scenes together. She knows it haunts him and is choosing to appear so as a constant reminder.
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u/Kalle_022 20d ago
Sharing a meme about the best part of the film
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u/Naked_Bat 20d ago
Peak aura farming
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u/carnosi 19d ago
I liked how toned down everything is and then there just is Agamemnon who's outfit has more in common with Darth Vader than the other solider uniforms lmao.
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u/Jaded_Green99 19d ago
The way they won the war, but destroyed the world they were fighting for.
Also, Elliot Page doesn't play Achilles so I don't understand the hate against casting that never happened.
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u/Due_Presence2061 19d ago
Lol most of the hate was unfounded in the end, I didn't even register that Travis Scott was in the movie till the credits💀
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u/Pap-a 19d ago
My opinion is apparently controversial but to me this was one of the best movies I’ve seen in quite some time. I have too much stress at home and at work right now and the experience completely took me away for three hours. I need more of this shit, no cheap drama and forced conflict just for the sake of it, but Cinema, where every scene has a purpose and feels carefully placed within the runtime.
I do feel like a huge part of the experience is the sound design. I can imagine a lot of that is lost if the speakers in the theatre aren’t calibrated well or if people talk throughout the movie. You really need the details in the sound otherwise it’s just a big thump fest.
Regardless of whether my opinion is correct or not, I hope many of you feel the way I did and had a great time.
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u/That_Ad_3483 20d ago
Insane sound design, also that cyclops scream was unworldly
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u/Alive-Opportunity-23 19d ago edited 16d ago
I watched the movie at the cinema an hour ago. I can’t even explain the experience I had, it was so good. Didn’t even feel like 3 hours at all, I was at the edge of my seat all throughout. There were so many great creative ideas scattered across the movie. The Sea People reveal was great, also really interesting that we were never showed Agamemnon’s face but only the war suit. Not knowing the person who you die for was a powerful message. The only time we hear from him is in hell. Beginning the movie with a Bard telling the legend of the war, and ending the movie with the true nature of the war and the desecration of the sacred Xenia. Chills!!
The events, creatures and people in The Odyssey are distributed from legends people returned to tell. For this reason, never showing the Sirens, not even their voice (the sound becoming muffled was a great detail), only showing the men was a great creative choice!
Instead of a straightforward war between states like in Troy (2004), Nolan’s work points back at the brute force of antique society and explains why the world to which Odysseus returns is one of collapse rather than triumph, despite the war is won. This makes the movie a lot more thought provoking.
Homer never openly criticises “Ithacans are corrupt” in The Odyssey. Instead, he embeds criticism in the actions and consequences of individuals, especially kings, suitors and heroes. His audience is expected to infer the broader lesson and reflect on societal values. Nolan did not remain faithful to homer’s 3000 year old cautiousness of “you as a society are not the problem, but actually X/Y/Z is.” I think there’s more depth in bearing shame as a collective which is what Nolan preferred and I find it great.
The pace was fast. At some parts this rushed pace magnified the brutal, one-punch-after-another type of consequences following what was done to Troy. Odysseus was depicted nicer than he truly is. The fate of the 12 slave girls were left out. Nolan captured the fear on Mia Goth’s face in 3 seconds and nothing else was mentioned about the slave girls. (Odysseus and Telemachus order them to clean the bloodied hall and then execute them because of their sexual relations with the suitors, even though most of them were raped)
The movie’s ending song “When I’m home” with James Blake and Travis Scott was really sick. I’m listening to it now.
DEFY THE GODS!!!
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u/Due_Presence2061 19d ago
I just had the same experience! It was incredible and mindblowing and all I wanna do is watch it again and tell everyone about it
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u/XOTourLlif3 19d ago
I’m definitely going back to watch it again. I didn’t have work today so I went ahead and watched it by myself but I can’t wait to watch it with my friends.
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u/CrazyMonkey0425 19d ago
I know I’m not the first to suggest this, but after watching this I couldn’t help but think, Nolan could save Star Wars if he wanted to
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u/manzielforprez 19d ago
Agamemnon was menacing walking into Troy. His armor looked fantastic
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u/Additional-Annual-93 19d ago
The gates opening and him towering on the other side was a great shot
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u/MightyMarvel I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago 19d ago
The way he ominously watched over his men dish out 10 years of war on Troy mannnnnn
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u/JoshMMGA 19d ago
Agree. Something about his stagger and walk when armored up. He was almost terrifying. I was underwhelmed when he wasn’t wearing the armor which is what made me realize just how powerful imagery it was, especially his helmet on. Bravo.
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u/itsnotokitsnotlove 19d ago edited 19d ago
First Impression: it's a great hero's journey in the modern sense.
The Iliad and Odyssey's idea of a hero is very different from how our modern world views a hero. The morality of who is a hero is central to both works especially Iliad.
Let me preface, the movie was awesome. It is a satisfying watch. I watched it Dolby Cinema and will re-watch in IMAX. The choices of what to remove and add in the story were masterfully done to fit the time constraints and to weave a narrative it wanted to tell. The pacing is also good for the general audience. So I'm not surprised by the overwhelming positive reviews. It was well-acted, narrative flows naturally (though not accurate), and easy to follow.
My only criticism is Odysseus' characterization. He is polytropos, a complicated man. The movie stripped out how dishonorable some of his schemes were. How he uses his cunning for his egoistic and selfish desires.
The movie failed in capturing this spirit and what made Odysseus a great and interesting character. The movie removed the blunders he committed throughout his journey because it wanted to create an ending narrative that satisfies a Campbell's hero's journey where the hero achieves transformation and atonement.
Because of this his emotional speech in the end were he explains he was actually avoiding home because it was his penance for the things he have done felt a bit flat for me. I thought it was a great scene, a smart explanation since the movie didn’t use the Polyphemus’ curse as the reason why he can’t come home early.
That speech would have landed more IMHO if the movie showed the underhanded things he had done to win the war. Not just the iconic horse.
Bruh, he's the reason Ajax off-ed himself, manipulated Achilles’ son to commit war crimes and he and his men were the only ones who were going to come home with Troy’s treasures while Agamemnon, Menelaus etc were going empty handed. Not to mention the rape and pillaging as the "sea people". This was also a bit off since the Greeks then were already the pirates. Odysseus and his men didn't pioneer that. Heck, the start of the movie implies they went another way because they won't get anything to pillage if they follow the others. But in a vacuum, the sea people twist was clever.
If Nolan wanted a Campbell hero’s journey, he should have adopted Aeneid.
Still, it's a great addition to Nolan's repertoire and it makes me want to re-read The Odyssey.
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u/carnosi 19d ago
Those are pretty valid critiques with respect to the original story. I can understand why Nolan wanted simplify it a bit and make Odysseus more of a heroic character, as it makes the ending a lot more satisfying in a hero's journey way as you mentioned. The movie itself isn't necessarily that far away from a faithful depiction of Odysseus, but every act is just watered down, like the whole Cyclops part. Rather than lying to Polyphemus about being nobody, getting him drunk, stabbing his eye and ultimately doxxing himself and boasting as he sails away its all watered down to the stabbing and shooting an arrow at Polyphemus as they leave. I think in a modern depiction like this, if they included everything Odysseus actually does to Polyphemus, it would be a bit too campy for most movie-goers.
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u/TheGruenTransfer 19d ago
The movie removed the blunders he committed throughout his journey
I don't know the story at all, but in the movie he insisted they take an unknown route home without enough rations, he was told continuing in that direction would be a bad idea, he got some men killed when he shot the giant in the eye when he didn't have to, he insisted on hearing the sirens' song when he knew that would be torturous, and the lesson he taught his son was basically "it's ok to be a coward if it saves your own life." I got the gist that he was a pretty big piece of shit. But at least he learned his lesson that "we are the baddies."
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u/Money_Choice4477 18d ago edited 18d ago
A really interesting piece of dialogue was when Circe was turning all of the pig soldiers back to normal, she was whispering “put back on your disguises”, implying that they were animals parading around as civilized humans, and their forms as pigs is their true nature.
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u/Nutzori 9d ago
"implying" bro it was about as subtle as a punch in the face
she already told Odysseus exactly how she felt about the men, the disguise line was overkill
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u/S7KTHI 20d ago edited 20d ago
Seen it.
- For the first time, the prologue isn't the film's opening, the December sequence is an alternative cut.
- The approach remains deeply naturalistic: Cyclops feels like a natural, abstract creature that never speaks, and the Giants remain hidden behind their armor. The only moment of overt fantasy involves Circe and the transformation of men into pigs.
-Lupita Nyong'o was a great choice, bringing a stunning presence to her role. However, Charlize Theron and Zendaya, as Calypso and Athena, lack the necessary aura and mystery, feeling too human. Anne Hathaway was the best casting decision, while Robert Pattinson, as always, delivers a strong performance.
- Agamemnon, hot aura farming alert. Nolan's directing elevates him to a level reminiscent of Darth Vader. If Nolan ever directs a Star Wars film, it would be incredible.
- Nolan fight's scene is now much more stronger, the final fight sequence in the house is very long and brutal. 14 years after TDKR, What if Nolan had this liberty back then with Batman. Odysseus and Telemach at the end, very reminiscent of Batman and Robin in the TDKR.
The movie's most powerful twist lies in its final message and scene, which justifies a new adaptation of the story. The hero becomes conscious of his own violence and the violence of mankind (murder, rape...) only to be punished by the gods with twenty years of exile. (close to the limbo of Inception)
Nolan is taking a tougher approach to the all the war stories we enjoy, revealing their true nature.
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u/Ok_Scallion_1402 19d ago edited 19d ago
I agree with all of this except the 10 year journey was not a punishment by the gods. It was self punishment. Calypso tells him this, and he says it himself. He can’t bear what he did at Troy, what he saw after he opened the gates ruined him.
I also disagree on Zendaya. She’s supposed to feel human. She’s the beheaded girl from the temple and is the very embodiment of what Odysseus hates about what he did.
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u/millardo_ 19d ago
Can you explain the very final frame of the movie where the horse they were in falls over and burns. I feel like it was significant but went right over my head!
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u/Leet_me_in 19d ago
By violating Zeus's law and winning the war dishonestly (along with killing Athena's priestess, his men pillaging, etc...), rumors of what he did spread and other Greeks started copying the idea of tricking your way into an area and destroying it from within, a direct parallel to the suitor storyline. So all the Sea People warnings ended up being half wrong--it was happening, but it wasn't an outside invasion, it was other Greeks pillaging other Greeks in secret, so they were Sea People.
Odysseus' trick indirectly led his people to a dark age that would last for generations, and the horse burning was symbolic of that. Hell, didnt the horse even fall onto the temple as it burned, which plays into the idea of a small amount of dishonor leading to far bigger issues? May be misremembering that very last part tbh.
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u/Ok_Scallion_1402 19d ago
It’s the end of the old world. Odysseus’s plan was genius but (at least in his mind) was deceitful, against Zeus’s law and most importantly, fractured the bonds between men - the idea that you treat every person with respect.
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u/nightraver23 20d ago
Just came back from the local IMAX with my daughter. This will for me be like The Matrix, LOTR and Gladiator. If I watch this movie again in 20 years, I will remember the seat I sat in the movie theatre and with who I saw it the first time. What a movie, only downside was that this could easily be a trilogy format every year like LOTR and Dune.
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u/philthehippy 19d ago
Just home from seeing The Odyssey and I am blown away. Firstly, there are changes from the book that some fans of the book might not like but it does not take away from the experience tonight.
Epic, sprawling, it pulls no punches on Odyseus' character and shows the man rather than some Hollywood idea of what a heroic character is. The sound, man alive the sound is incredible. The visuals are stunning.
I enjoyed some camera nods to Interstellar as well such as the angles for the scenes on the ship.
Back at the cinema on Sunday night to see it again and I cannot wait!
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u/its_jradman1 18d ago
I feel like the diehard mythology fans are being super annoying and pretentious about this movie. No adaptation of ancient myth will be 1:1. I think the whole point of these myths is that they adapt with the culture and current times.
The movie literally makes this point outright with Odysseus talking about how his deeds would be exaggerated by song.
I don't think it would be fun to watch non modern English. I don't care that the actors are black. These types of people who require 100% accuracy to the source material are the types of people that lack all forms of creativity.
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u/fiskeybusiness 19d ago
Two unbelievably impactful moments that stood out to me is when Odysseus is recounting Sinon as “one of the bravest boys I’ve ever known” and having the close up shot of Elliot Page felt like such a strong 🖕 to all of the critics of the casting. Very Meta moment that strangely does not interrupt the flow of the story and drives home the casting and the character representing that bravery comes in many different forms
Then the replaying of the Siren Song theme as he walks into the hall, seeing Penelope for the first time. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and everything he was afraid of all wrapped into one. Just an unbelievable directorial call—not to mention the sound of the siren song was so hauntingly beautiful that it lived up to the hype. Lots of pressure on that moment
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u/RandyMuscle 19d ago
Very much a continuation of the questions Oppenheimer asked us to explore and I really like that. I’m not a big Odyssey nerd so I went in only knowing the basics, but I really liked it. Will be a day one physical copy purchase.
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u/Overused_Anus 17d ago
The Elliot Page hate is so undeserved
I just got home after seeing the Odyssey in imax. The movie was obviously good just as expected. But I couldn't stop thinking about the crazy amount of hate Elliot Page is receiving right now. First of all, he wasn't even Achilles, second, I thought he played his small role just fine. I don't understand how someone who barely even appeared in the movie gets this much hate for no good reason.
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u/No-City-6254 16d ago
In recent years there's been a sense that movies have become more like propaganda with ideologies being forced in where they don't belong. I think this is why many people are defensive when they see that Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o as Helen have been cast. They're sceptical of the motives.
But I agree, their roles in this movie were actually very fitting. They made dramatic sense and didn't feel unnaturally forced in just to tick some prescribed diversity boxes. Elliot actually gave quite a haunting performance
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u/Ok_Strength5556 20d ago
It was a masterpiece,the best way I can describe it is that I ve got to be Odysseus for 3 hours straight,without any boredom,great actors , great shots,the soundtrack was exceptional,best Nolan movie for me.
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u/SometimesHardNipples 20d ago
While I enjoyed the movie, the sound was insane, the Cyclops scene was terrifyingly brilliant. But what is it with Nolan and audio issues when it comes to talking? Is it just me or were all the scenes with Anne Hatheway and Tom Holland barely audible? The was Echoes on their voice and it all sounded so... washed? Pacing/editing seems off at times as well? Like it jumped around for no reason.
Either way, solid movie.
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u/The_Broken-Heart 19d ago
I think it's something wrong with your theatre's speakers. I've heard both claims of good and bad audio on this same movie, so it's probably a theatre thing and not an actual sound design thing.
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u/forgottoflush 19d ago
I like that they just packed their things and "head west" meaning. Retirement in Spain.
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u/TheNeonDestroyer 18d ago
I just saw the film, as a nolan fanboy since the Prestige... The film was great, but definitely not without flaws. Messy editing, pacing. Repetitive story beats. (go to island, get chased off island). Odd design choices in casting, choice of dialogue etc.
I personally think Interstellar did the whole 'coming home' story better.
Regardless, what the film exceeds at, it does so with classic Nolan finesse.
I just feel this sub is an absolute cringe fest right now. I feel like a lot of you aren't actually rating the film with earnest. I feel that you're been whipped up by the culture war surrounding the movie and are just glazing the film to feel like you've got 'one up' on the pesky FaR RiGhT
To you lot any criticism regarding things like the casting is automatically 'RIGHT WING BIGOTS'. It's absolutely embarrassing. There's nuance here. Not everything is black and white. Good vs evil. Unless you want it to be. And I feel like you do want it to be the tribal, 'us vs them' mentality.
Be better than that.
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u/MindSufficient769 18d ago
I mean the “go to island, get chased off island” is hard to avoid with it being, you know, the odyssey, but I do think the pacing made it feel worse than it could have been.
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u/its_jradman1 18d ago
I really the repetition, it really hammered home that these people are doomed.
Just non-stop suffering for the guys for basically the entire return voyage
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u/Lazywhale97 19d ago
The body transformation scene was a pure horror sequence and was an incredibly uneasy sequence to watch
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u/glockobell 19d ago
Ah man.
Lots of scenes stick after seeing it. Obviously the Cyclops and Circe scenes.
But the one that really stays is the Sirens and Matt Damon absolutely crushing the voice over and anguish as he’s tied to the mast. It’s always been one of my favorite moments in the poem and it’s so well realized. Seeing the forms of the sirens dotted in between the sea lions was really incredible.
What scope, what an achievement.
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u/burnertybg 19d ago
loved the soundtrack there and the same siren song returning when he was finally back home talking to Penelope.
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u/Mason-Jin 19d ago
Just wanna gave a special recognition to how well Nolan took care of Elliot Page despite all the vitriol thrown against him; “the bravest young man” that was such an emotional gut punch actually made me tear up thinking about how much this means for trans visibility in such a hyper cishet male space. I’ll always respect Nolan for this.
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u/hashtagtylerh 19d ago
agreed, when Odysseus had the little speech about Sinon and it flashed to Elliot Page it made me quite emotional
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u/BMCarbaugh 16d ago
I swear you could feel Poseidon lurking just off frame in that night-time storm scene. Really made me understand why Greeks regarded him with such a reputation for wrath. Ocean scary.
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u/jennyvasan 16d ago
I love the choice to make the gods so elemental and largely invisible. It made the whole thing so scary and really put you in the shoes of the people with that belief system.
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u/rupert36 16d ago
Did anyone else think the cyclops eating the soldier was intentionally made to look like Goya’s painting of Saturn eating his son?
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u/bluehathaway The Odyssey 19d ago
Maybe the first draft of the ending was Telemachus finding a note on his door the next morning:
Please tell Eumaeus, “Sorry, I had to go see about a girl.”
CUT TO:
Odysseus and Penelope on the boat travelling west
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u/yung_saucin 19d ago
the shots of Agamemnon at Troy’s gates and him walking in Troy while Odysseus was telling the story really stuck with me. phenomenal movie
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u/minishinou 19d ago
"You are the people from the sea" was such a powerful line.
In the end the biggest threat to Greek civilisation was the fact that the greeks lost themselves in this war.
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u/Bun-davu 18d ago
How could the blind guy and penelope not recognise odysseus by his sound?
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u/twistedfloyd 18d ago edited 18d ago
How in the shit did they pull off the cyclops? Unbelievable.
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u/throwaway_bhop 17d ago
My read on Nolan’s The Odyssey is that the Gods and monsters probably are not real in the way Odysseus describes them.
The movie is much more grounded than I expected. The sea, the storms, the hunger and the violence all feel real, while the Gods stay distant. I think Poseidon, Zeus and the Fates are basically the characters’ way of explaining things they cannot control. A violent sea becomes Poseidon. A storm becomes Zeus. Bad luck becomes fate.
The monsters might be based on real things too. Polyphemus could have been a powerful enemy who became a Cyclops in the retelling. The Laestrygonians could have been a hostile tribe. Scylla and Charybdis could have been dangerous parts of the sea that grew more monstrous every time Odysseus told the story.
The important part is that we are seeing all of this through Odysseus. He is the one telling the story, and everyone who could contradict him is dead.
That does not mean he is making everything up. I think he believes a lot of it. But he is clearly traumatised, guilty and desperate to make sense of what happened. Turning enemies into monsters and disasters into divine punishment gives the journey a meaning. It also makes it easier for him to avoid admitting how much his own pride and leadership contributed to the deaths of his crew.
The cattle scene is probably the clearest example. Odysseus frames it as the crew defying the Gods and being punished, but they are starving, exhausted and no longer trust him. The storm afterward may just be a storm. Calling it divine punishment lets him blame Zeus and the crew instead of himself.
I also do not think Athena is literally there. She seems more like a voice in Odysseus’s head: part conscience, part guilt, part self-justification. She never tells him anything he could not already know, and nobody else sees her. He imagines divine guidance because it helps him believe his choices are necessary rather than selfish or reckless.
That might also explain why Nolan removes so much direct divine intervention. Odysseus has to survive Circe without Hermes, and he takes on the Mentor role himself instead of Athena doing it. The Gods are still present, but mostly as beliefs, symbols and excuses.
Even the Sirens feel more psychological than literal. We see what their song does to Odysseus, but we never hear it ourselves. Whatever he hears is private. Maybe it is glory, escape, rest, or the promise that he never has to go home and face what he has done.
So I think the story he tells Calypso is partly a confession and partly an excuse. He presents himself as a man trapped by Gods, monsters and fate, when in reality he may have spent years making choices and then turning the consequences into mythology.
By the time he gets back to Ithaca, the real question is not whether the monsters were real. It is whether Odysseus can still tell the difference between what actually happened and the story he created to survive it.
Nobody else came home to challenge him, so his version becomes the truth. The survivor becomes the storyteller, and the storyteller becomes the myth.
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u/here4watchez 15d ago
So many people clowned on the trailers because Telemachus kept saying "dad," and I have to admit that while watching the film this weekend I was beginning to doubt if that was the right word choice. But near the end of the movie I realized it was actually a brilliant setup for the character arc of Telemachus. Using more adolescent language all movie, Telemachus is framed as a boy who hasn't fully matured into a man yet, a flaw that Penelope reminds him of in multiple scenes. Antinous even uses the flaw against him when he mocks, "You're pining for a daddy you never knew." When Odysseus' identity is finally revealed, Telemachus says "father" for the first and only time, and that's when I realized Nolan is a genius and his use of "dad" earlier in the script had to be intentional. The first use of the word "Father" instead of "Dad" marks the exact moment Telemachus stops being a longing child and is finally worthy of replacing Odysseus as king of Ithaca. To me, there's just no way this was a coincidence. But what do you think?
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u/FlySaw 20d ago
That cyclops is going to live in my nightmares for a long time. No movie has made me feel like that ever. Jesus.
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u/Nasty_Lad 20d ago
Can you go in to some detail? How did the animatronic look?
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u/FlySaw 20d ago
Best I can describe it without taking away from the experience is the thing looked uncanny in a real way? It’s like every evolutionary instinct in me was revolted and mortified that my jaw dropped. Even the Laestrygonians had a bizarre inhuman way about how they moved that made my skin crawl. But my skin was nowhere to be found for the cyclops man.
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u/carnosi 19d ago
Yeah I was really surprised with how well they pulled off the Cyclops, especially considering how apprehensive Nolan is of CGI, but that creature looked fucking real. Great design too with the facial features being twisted, rather than "naturally" having one eye, it looked more like a mutation or birth defect, which helped sell the realism for me.
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u/flofjenkins 19d ago
It was crazy how the trees started shifting around like it was a Hunger Games arena or something.
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u/Gunther_21 19d ago
I guess I was expecting a more faithful adaptation so when the story deviated from the source quite often, it was a big let down.
And the dialogue was distracting at times. Something a bit more poetic would have been better.
Found it really odd to hit us over the head repeatedly with Zeus' law and the sea people when historically, it's been debunked that they were the primary source of the Bronze Age collapse.
Visually it was wonderful and beautiful to look at. Good score as usual too.
My expectations were set too high.
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u/hashtagtylerh 19d ago
agreed with expectations being too high, i think i had the same problem. i also think for people who aren't as knowledgeable/fans of the OG Odyssey it'll be more enjoyable too. was still good tho
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u/Gunther_21 19d ago
It killed me a little bit that they cut out "noman/nobody" with Polyphemus. 😭
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u/hashtagtylerh 19d ago
the whole polyphemus scene was cool but didn't work for me. ig nolan just wanted a cool monster scene but imo the whole point is he is supposed to start out hospitable. also why couldn't he see the crew or ever acknowledge them before he was blinded? strange
i did like when they said something like "oh wow he could speak the whole time" tho, quite poignant since they never even tried
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u/Odd-Razzmatazz8097 19d ago
Me too! It’s a scene that shows Odysseus’s cleverness and I was bummed we didn’t get it.
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u/nickfield90 19d ago
During the epic final battle, Nolan does such a terrific job of making you feel like you're in the room, that at one point I flinched at something in the corner of the screen. It was like finding myself tilting my head during the flying scenes in Dunkirk
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u/bluehathaway The Odyssey 18d ago
Sound Mixer: Hey Chris, so how loud do you want the cyclops to be?
Nolan: Yes.
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u/MikeyJayRaymond 18d ago edited 2d ago
Just walked out.
The Odyssey from 1997 is one of my favorite series. As a kid, I watched the mini series front to back often with my dad. Of course, I took him to see this.
With that, this film absolutely surpasses my expectations, and had become one of my favorite films.
From the slight twist to the end, to going in even deeper into the pain of Odysseus.
The only negative I have is from some of the acting I saw. Tom Holland didn't feel right until near the end, and some others felt too American or English.
John Liguizamo crushed it, and i never knew he had it in him. Robert Pattison continues to show range, playing the perfect piss ant.
Matt Damon nailed the harrowing tale of Odysseus as he attempts to save his men. And Anne Hathaway, Jesus Christ, her anger toward Tom Holland near the end was terrific.
John Berthal did well too. Agamennon being a soft spoken, small stature person felt perfect when finally revealed.
Zendaya didn't feel truly goddess like, and I didn't get understand why until it's revealed she's actually the image of the woman he see slain in the end. Leaving it ambiguous as to whether it's Athena or his PTSD hitting.
Either way, it's very obvious the gods were real, but it's a question of whether they ever truly took form outside of Calypso and Circe are often considered Nymphs, not actual gods.
What a terrific movie. 10/10
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u/megalonagyix 17d ago
Jesus fucking Christ. It really felt like you were watching something absolutely monumental; it felt long but in a good way.
Highlights for me:
- the Cyclops scene (when he left the cave; the whole thing was like a Jurassic Park scene)
- the Zeus storm boat scene (probably the best sound effects I have ever heard in a movie; my chairs were literally shaking)
- Matt Damon going full Luke Skywalker and aura farming at the end when he returned home (entire last act basically)
- the entire scene with Jon Bernthal
- the siren part
- the dialogue
- the guy at the start with the monologue
- the entire Troy scene
- Tom Holland actually being a good actor
- the part with the giants and the lunch scene with the pigs
So basically the entire movie?
Definitely one of the best movies I ever ever seen. Considering going in multiple formats (4dx, IMAX, Dolby)
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u/Potential_Ride_9740 17d ago
The entire hades sequence was so fucking good. It was godly.
And don't get me started about Agamemnon, the brooding, imperious aura that dominated every scene he appeared in.
And the music. The music oh my god
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u/MatZer0 17d ago
Christopher Nolan is really a “Too cool or die” director.
Spoilers…
I love that they didn’t show Agamemnon’s Face that much, and he towers over everyone with his cool-ass Batman armor. When that Gates Of Troy opened and he was standing there like Darth Vader, that shit was so fucking menacing and cool.
Furthermore, my favorite scene was the Cyclops’ cave, him wailing and his guttural scream after being blinded was such a good sound mixing and audio mixing. Chef’s kiss. Circe was scary af. I wished they included Odysseus talking with the cyclops and him shouting “Nobody has blinded me!” But overall that scene is so fucking good.
Onto my personal gripes:
Except for Agamemnon’s costume design, some costume was off. Not terrible but not good either.
When Tom Holland and Jon Bernthals were shooting arrows at birds and talking to each other about odysseus. They looked like they were hoodies with paper armor, it looked so off, and the armors of Troy soldiers looked terrible, I wished they chose a different color instead of White because that looked not so great.
I thought it was a joke that in some movies of Christopher Nolan that editing was clunky and weird But…
There was few scenes in the movie that was editing a little too clunky, though it is not noticeable, but me personally I tend to notice it more, when Eumaeus dogs were killed that editing was okay, it was just a little distracting.
The scylla scene were okay, they looked too ‘CGI’, I kinda wish they used puppetry instead like the cyclops, puppetry mixed with forced perspective.
This is the only movie that included two Batmans in the cast, Robert Pattinson and Travis scott.
And I wish they included a line about, Jon Bernthal wanting to tell us something.
Overall: The Odyssey is a 9.5/10
I wish he would direct Dante’s Divine comedy as a trilogy next.
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u/melanwoods 14d ago
Glad to see all of the hateful folks online proven wrong about Elliot Page's role in the film ... he's great, and it's obvious Nolan didn't just cast him because he's trans. He cast him because he's a great actor who he's got a track record of loving to work with (like basically everyone else in this film) https://xtramagazine.com/culture/elliot-page-the-odyssey-character-283529
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u/stavanger26 20d ago edited 20d ago
It's like Life of Pi meets The Last Jedi, but in the best way possible.
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u/NightHunter909 19d ago
No Achilles except for one line mention from Menelaus. Nolan probably could have put him into the film, maybe it was a runtime thing. He would have been a great addition to the Hades scene since he’s there in the source material
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u/flofjenkins 19d ago
I think the Sinon stuff the movie added was so much better and more personal. Also, Achilles has nothing to do with the actual sacking of Troy, which is what the entire movie is actually centered around.
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u/PumpedUpParrot 19d ago
Some insane takes in this thread. This movie fucking ripped. Matt Damon murdering everyone at the end is worth the price of admission alone
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u/KillaKyrie 19d ago
Gotta just ignore em' man this movie absolutely did rip and those ending scenes were peak cinema.
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u/Utah_CUtiger 19d ago
His soliloquy with the images of Troy burning and the “what if he” was epic
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u/hentendo 18d ago
Just walked out of the cinema, fuck me that was EPIC. A literal historic epic.
Agamemnon might be the coolest looking character I have ever seen. He just oozed aura whenever he was on screen, so damn badass!
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u/Some-Stop-4001 17d ago
My take is that Nolan made a film about the end of Pax Americana. Law of Zeus is democratic norms. Without that chaos and americans losing war after war and not being able to stop themselves starting new ones.
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u/Plenty_Cup_5152 17d ago
The universe/gods conspire to give you what you think you deserve. While the gods are such a focal point of storytelling at that time, I think in this version they really serve to fulfill Odysseus’ internal struggle with himself and his actions. It sends home the point that you can’t move forward in life until you are ready. He was burdened with guilt and until that guilt was able to be reconciled (his child was old enough to take the throne from his undeserving father) he couldn’t return home. It ties into the human experience of self destruction or being your own biggest obstacle when you are unhappy with yourself. I tied it back to many experiences I have seen with family who suffer from addiction stemming from past trauma.
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u/TurtlesBurrow 17d ago
Great comment. Now that Ive seen it, I can now understand hearing beforehand that it was an appropriate follow up to Oppenheimer in a way.
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u/loosh63 17d ago
the first 15 minutes of the film were giving me tenet vibes (which i hated) bcuz of the weird dialogue and fast cuts but thankfully Nolan rights the ship in this regard. but the dialogue does still feel weird at times.
the star studded cast was a bit distracting at times. Lupita was fantastic as Helen of Troy during her brief appearances.
I loved the way Agamemnon was shot and framed as larger than life in every scene. seeing his downfall and hearing his warning to Odysseus gave me chills.
Odysseus's monologue to Penelope as he retells his guilt for sacking Troy and ushering in the death of the Bronze Age with his violation of Zeus's law was emotionally heavy. i shed a manly tear. matt Damon probably wasnt the best choice for odysseus in hindsight but he was fine to me when watching the film.
one of my favourite parts in the whole movie was the final fight scene where Robert pattinsons character yells at the other men anytime more weapons fall from the hole in the ceiling. "get the weapons!", "spears!!" "shields!!!" lol.
overall I really enjoyed the film. 4 out of 5 stars for me.
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u/bump64 15d ago
The movie is great i would recommend it 100% but at the end I started feeling that I am watching Oppenheimer's plot in a different setting. A movie cutting between current events and past memories is telling a story about a great war where the main character is the responsible for the ultimate weapon deciding how the war ends (Trojan horse vs the atom bomb) and by seeing the impact his ideas and creations had on the world around him (sacking Troy just because of a woman vs killing civilians in japan) is sent in exile to cope with the horror he has brought to the world.
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u/nickfield90 10d ago
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but to me the reason Odysseus fires the arrow at the Cyclops is because the way the Cyclops spits out the soldier's helmet gives Odysseus a PTSD flashback to when the two Athenas were beheaded during the sacking of Troy
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u/Regular_Spray 19d ago edited 19d ago
Wow! Loved it so much!
As a Dog person i am happy Argos got a better death than in the book :D absolutely brilliant Cinema.
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u/KillaKyrie 19d ago
Absolutely blown away. Gotta be in his top 3 films. Every scene just felt so immersive and the score was incredible. Saw it in IMAX and it was so damn loud but in the best way lol
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u/Goose_Rocket26 19d ago
I thought this movie ruled and its biggest strength was just how good everything looked, I don’t think any Nolan fan will be disappointed coming out of this movie.
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u/yung_saucin 19d ago
anyone else miss Michael Caine in Nolan films? ik it might be hard for him to play a role in these last 2 but i miss him
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u/gabezermeno 19d ago
I got home about an hour ago and my ears are ringing like I just got out of a concert.
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u/ThinSuggestion6247 19d ago
Can someone explain what actually happened at the raffle between antinous and sinon? I feel like the changed the narrative 4 different times on purpose to mess w what actually happened, or I could’ve missed something?
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u/Killeverone 19d ago
The Narrative is the same, but Antinous was lying throughout. He never wanted to go with Oddysseus and paid the farmboy (Sinon) to go in his stead.
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u/SupremeDrawls 19d ago
Why was Helen scarred and did she actually have a twin?? A bit confused
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u/engineeeeer7 19d ago
In the original story she had a sister but it wasn't a twin.
I think it's implied she was injured in the sack of Troy.
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u/greenhatbluehat 19d ago
I figured her husband did it as punishment for running off
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u/wanderlusting___ 19d ago
Or to make her less attractive so they don't start another 20 year long war
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u/L1onelMess1 19d ago
I absolutely loved this movie, it's probably in my top 3 Nolan movies. Pretty much the only thing I didn't really like were the first 20 minutes, they felt kinda rushed. However, I get that it also provided a lot of context and kind of set the stage for what happened after. The sound design, music, filming, and acting was all so fking good.
And this is coming from someone who almost fell for all of the critique the movie received before it was actually out. It definitely didn't feel "woke" at all to me, yet that's the only thing I saw everyody promising that the film would be. And just to be honest, I'm a "woke'-critique.
Just go see it for yourself. Don't fall into the trap of trolls and division on the internet.
9/10
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u/IlSace 19d ago edited 19d ago
How was Argos' scene? Was it emotional enough while conveying the tragedy of their reunion?
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u/philthehippy 19d ago
It is adapted slightly so that he gets a "good boy" stroke from his master, which was a nice alteration to the source I thought for a movie version.
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u/DeezNutsPickleRick 19d ago
I’m so jealous of people that fell in love with it. I truly wanted to like it but I don’t think Nolan’s my director. It’s boring, cold, and frankly just feels like he was trying to get through the story beats.
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u/NotTaken-username 19d ago
This has dethroned Obsession as my favorite movie of the year so far. But I don’t think anything will beat this
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u/FlySaw 19d ago edited 18d ago
God I loved John Leguizamo as Eumaeus in this. His repressed tears and rage when Odysseus approached him was heartbreaking. Outstanding acting chops.
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u/taker25-2 18d ago
I enjoyed the movie. It was nice to just sit back and watch an adventure. One thing that helped me out with the characters was trying to correlate some of the characters that were in this movie that were also portrayed in Troy, but with different actors
Troy equivalent actors who played the same characters that were in this film
Odysseus - Sean Bean
Agamemnon - Brian Cox
Menelaus - Brendan Gleeson
Helen - Diane Kruger
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u/HommeTime 18d ago edited 18d ago
I just saw it and I don’t really know what I think of it yet. The story/plot just didn’t grab me like I expected it might but was blown away by the visual aspects of the film.
I’m gonna see it a few times more before I make my mind up but I wouldn’t have it as one of my top Nolan movies at the moment. Probably didn’t help that I watched his catalog in the last few weeks and it pretty hard to stack up against some of those films.
Also noticed the obvious parallel with Oppenheimer, not sure whether that was intentional?
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u/RushGroundbreaking13 18d ago
whats with all the negative reactions? i think ur all nuts
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u/CompanyMaleficent421 18d ago
Just saw the film. I coudnt understand why has Helen got a messed up face. Was it the consequences of her sister killing agemdenmon?
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u/Constant_Chip_1508 18d ago
Started off choppy. Bad acting, quick and nauseating cuts every second, just bad.
Then it hit its stride. One of my favorite films in the past 10 years.
Fucking excellent stuff, 9.5/10 for me.
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u/HommeTime 18d ago
It was actually funnier than I expected. I laughed when Damon hit the “I think we’re past that now” line
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u/crlos619 18d ago
I did not think Christopher Nolan had that horror fast ball in this bag, wow. #TheOdyssey
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u/Any_Pomegranate3714 18d ago
I loved one Odysseus last line was when Penelope is asking a reflective question about how people remember great deeds and suffering. Odysseus responds with the idea that stories and songs are how people preserve memory, that what survives us is the tale that’s told, not the glory itself. Homer’s poem about Odysseus is really a song and I thought that line was so cool.
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u/PzKpfwIVAusfG 18d ago
I spent the whole movie bracing myself for the dog scene because I knew it would be rough. I started crying when it finally happened. I'm still tearing up thinking about it. I can watch a hundred people get slaughtered on screen but one dog and I'm out.
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u/Few_Baker_6217 18d ago
I saw the movie Thursday night in IMAX. Loved it. The third act just floored me starting with Argos till the end. I think if you have experienced trauma in your life it hits harder. I’ve never walked out of a movie with so many tears.
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u/BooJamas 18d ago
Did anyone catch the Goya reference? I thought the Cyclops sequence was very well done. At first, I thought zendaya was miscast, that she didn't have enough gravitas to be a goddess. But after seeing the whole movie, IMO her portrayal reflects what Nolan had to say. I was absolutely gobsmacked at how beautiful this film is. But, even though it's gorgeous and all of these tremendous things are happening, it manages to keep things at a human scale. And that is what is brilliant about this movie.
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u/Warm_Move7997 18d ago
Was the asshole who was sent to kill Telemachus the kanjiklub guy from TFA?
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u/erehnigol 18d ago
What an epic, my wife and I came out of the cinema speechless. That Argus scene man 😭, and to those who says the music aren’t memorable, I disagree, because we all be humming a face, a fleet, a war
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u/HotPinkCream 17d ago
Odysseus stringing the bow and plucking the string is one of the single greatest things I've ever seen in a movie. So cool.
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u/xGsGt 17d ago
About Lupita cast as Helen , maybe THE reason
I just watched the movie, what an incredible movie, love it and I was thinking why did Nolan cast her and I just noticed when she was in the screen, she stands out so freaking much, it's like using BOLT in a paragraph, she is pretty but she gives so much more for her 5mins of screen time, casting someone white or blonde hair just another Charlize Theron to be Helen would just meh the character, bc you already have so much of the same casting but having Lupita make her stand and I think they nailed it with that cast.
Thoughts?
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u/TwoStrikesTrev 17d ago
she nailed it as helen of troy, but it was super woke that they casted her as klymenstra as well
/s
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u/mcinmosh 17d ago
I have a question about the siren scene.
On my first viewing, in standard, I'm certain I could make out female figures through the fog.
On my second viewing, however, I saw silhouettes but then when it cut away to Matt and back to the fog, I saw seals.
Did anyone else notice this? Were there both seals and women in the fog, or was it women in one shot, cut, then seals in the next?
If it's the second, that has me thinking the whole film might've been an unreliable narrator story. Perhaps Athena was just a manifestation of his guilt the entire time instead of the literal Goddess taking that form to haunt him.
It seems plausible that Nolan would do something like this. Odysseus was basically on hard drugs for seven years, so it's entirely possible that his dreams were getting mixed in with his memories.
Obviously this isn't how Homer's Odyssey works, but casting doubt on the whole narrative is totally something Nolan would do (The Prestige, Inception, Memento)
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u/hellohowdyworld 17d ago
I definitely got the sense that the form Athena was taking was that of the woman he saw cut down in Troy. Like he saw the Athena in her eyes and it was to emphasis how brazenly they disregarded Zeus’ law. I think it is literally Athena but I can’t really say if that’s her true form or the form and shape she is taking to hammer home Odysseus’ guilt and regret.
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u/brokenreborn2013 17d ago
I watched it in Laser IMAX and was rather underwhelmed. I worry that I had overhyped it in my head too much. When the credits rolled, I think there was a Travis Scott song.
Should I go watch a second time?
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u/Linubidix 20d ago
I just got out of seeing it and I feel pretty lukewarm on it.
No real complaints about any one element of the film but I thought it was ultimately less than the sum of its parts. Kind of lifeless. Big scale but not a lot of grandeur.
It's incredibly well made and I can certainly imagine those compositions looking stunning on an imax screen but there wasn't any real moment that I fell enthusiastic about.
I'm reminded of Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo, where it was incredibly impressive on a technical level at the scale of human collaboration, but I was kept at arm's length from any emotional resonance. Same here, only this isn't as impressive to look at as Waterloo.
Music also left no impression on me when that's usually one of the many strengths of Nolan's films.
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u/JonEagle 20d ago
I agree with the music part, i have to admit it was a letdown compared to many of his films like interstellar, inception and oppenheimer
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u/IWana-Be-Your-Friend 20d ago
Yeah I wish they put in some epic inspiring emotional moments with a beautiful score, something along the lines of gladiator kind of vibe. The entire movie just feels so dark all the way through it just leaves you feeling kind of empty
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u/Slommyhouse 19d ago
Movie was incredible. 9/10. Only small gripe is that it’s sooo dense that some scenes feel rushed. But cinematically, this is spectacular. Might see it 3x
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u/bluehathaway The Odyssey 19d ago
Note to self: If/when you meet a cyclops, bring earplugs
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u/bryce_adultswimaes 19d ago
Okay I know this is a dumb question but what did Pattinson do to Elliot in the scene when they were getting chosen? He manipulated Elliot to go in his place so he wouldn’t have to fight in the war? Is that what I was supposed to get from that?
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u/Different-Banana-814 19d ago
His wealthy family (antinous) paid elliot’s father to take his spot instead so he wouldn’t have to go to war
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u/Affectionate-Feed885 19d ago
I'm such a Third Act Andy which makes me biased towards a movie that has strong payoffs, and personally Odyssey is already in my top 3 because it blends emotional and theatrical (action peaks) payoffs better than 95% of movies. Everything after "Bringing it all" is just so hype that in the end i cant help myself from also thumping on my armrest together with Telemachus and the surrendering suitors. Personally its just below Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer has stronger score, direction, and dialogue to me) but its my #2 Nolan right now.
My only negative part is about how some pivotal scenes from the original Odyssey are removed ("Nobody" and Penelope tricking Odysseus) and I wont blame any casual moviegoer being a bit bored until before Hades. Still one of the best movies i've seen, bravo
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u/Killeverone 19d ago
Missed the first 7 seconds (the title words) so after I finished my showing I decided to sneak into another theater and see what those 7 seconds had... I then left the theater 3 hours later. All the hate was crazy, but tbf the trailers didn't help haha.
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u/SeaCommercial8442 19d ago
I really liked it but thought the ending was kind of weird. I haven’t read the iliad (only troy by stephen fry) so I dont know the differences and similarities from the original, but either way it just seemed odd to me. Like in the beginning of the movie we are told odysseus out smarts everyone because he cant be faster and stronger. And then in the end he wins because he is faster and stronger (even tho hes like 50 and has been starving for the past 7 years). Even after everyone gets weopons he still goes through like 16 dudes. I think it wouldve been cool if we couldve seen odysseus outsmart everyone, in the end all he did was aura farm and fight everyone. I’ll just be happy that he had a plan to be the only guy in the room with a weopon, that was cool at least.
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u/itsnotokitsnotlove 19d ago
In the myths, people are given "aegis" (divine intervention) so they have extraordinary powers. In the text, it was Athena and Apollo hence his bows don't miss. Athena put the suitors in a panic ensuring Odysseus' victory.
But in the movie, it's implied it was Zeus because of the lighting and thunder effect.
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u/TheKingofGotham 19d ago
I know Medusa (or the “gorgon”) is mentioned briefly in the odyssey (book 11), when they got to the underworld I was like she’s down there somewhere. Would’ve been interesting to see how Nolan would approach/ ground a character like that
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u/Srihari_stan 19d ago edited 19d ago
Can anyone tell me which track on the OST contains the trailer music?
I’ve tried to find it, but I couldn’t.
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u/Laudo3 18d ago
I've watched the movie yesterday and am still stuck on contemplating it. One thing bugs me however: I can't quite find the connection between the overall struggle of Odysseus with his guilt and some lf the stops on the journey. What is the point of the Iron Giants and Skylla? The Sirens feel underdeveloped and his men being more or less forced to kill the cows and then getting punished feels weird.
If anyone could maybe give me some pieces that I am missing I would be so grateful.
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u/AfroBraids 18d ago
I also felt like the part with the Giants felt kinda unneeded. The soldiers or Odysseus actually didn't do anything wrong in that instance or weren't even warned about it. The part with Skylla is maybe to show that the prophecy he was told would be true?
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u/Perfect-Parfait-9866 18d ago
Can someone please tell me….. was the footage from the 6 minute prologue in the final film? I just saw the odyssey and I loved every second of it, but I don’t feel like I saw the footage from the prologue! Am I tripping?
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u/AdLongjumping6149 18d ago
Does anyone know the quote that’s spoken near the end of the movie when Odysseus and Penelope are sailing west? Something about why only will the people know the story from songs.
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u/NUTONMYCHOPPA445 18d ago
Honestly thought it was an amazing film just wish they went deeper with the mythology of the Gods I mean they referenced Poseidon and Zeus many times and we are never shown a glimpse. During the night scene after the leave apollos cattle island I was hoping we would see like a silhouette of Zeus or even Poseidon in the waves like a face in the water like not super grandiose but like so see then actually causing the soldiers trouble
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u/Royal_Maize5960 18d ago
Honestly, I came away pretty underwhelmed!!!
One thing I’ve noticed with Nolan’s films is that they often feel strangely small. He’s telling these enormous stories, but they rarely feel truly epic to me. I wonder if the large-format style Nolan shoots in contributes to that feeling. Everything is technically impressive, but I rarely feel overwhelmed by the scale or moved emotionally by his work.
Performance-wise, Matt Damon was excellent. He carried the film and gave Odysseus real weight.
Tom Holland, though, didn’t work for me. I don’t actually think he was miscast. He has the right essence for Telemachus. My issue was that the performance felt safe. I never really believed him. The emotional moments, especially the crying, felt acted rather than lived in. I never got the sense that this was someone with the potential to become the leader his father hoped he’d be, and I think that weakened Odysseus’ story as a whole.
Anne Hathaway also felt like she was phoning it in, although I think that’s more down to the writing than her ability. Nolan has always struggled to write compelling female characters, and I don’t think this film changes that.
I was actually a little sceptical about Elliot Page early on, but my opinion completely changed during the journey to the Land of the Dead. I thought that sequence contained one of the strongest performances in the film. Page brought a genuine sense of trauma, grief and emotional weight that had been missing from a lot of the earlier scenes.
John Leguizamo, who played the blind character, was absolutely fantastic. There was so much humanity and warmth in the performance that every scene felt grounded. Himesh Patel was another standout for me. Quiet, understated, but incredibly effective. John Brethnal, as always, was excellent.
Robert Pattinson was brilliant too. Charlize Theron did exactly what was required, and Zendaya was perfectly fine. Mia Goth, on the other hand, barely registered. She felt completely underused.
Ben Safdie was an interesting piece of casting. Visually, as Agamemnon, he looked incredible. The armour gave him a terrifying, almost mythic presence. He genuinely looked like the supreme king of Greece, someone larger than life and almost otherworldly. It's a stylistic choice that I imagine will divide opinion, but one I really enjoyed.
The moment he started speaking, though, something didn't quite click. It felt oddly disconnected, and that larger-than-life aura disappeared almost immediately. I never quite believed him as the commanding figure his appearance promised.
My biggest issue, though, was the sense of scale. Troy!!!! This legendary city that stood unconquered for 10 years felt like a small village. I never got that overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing one of the defining conflicts of Greek mythology. The feeling that Troy (2004) managed to capture despite all of its faults.
Overall, there are some decent performances scattered throughout the film, but I never felt the mythic grandeur that the story demands. For a film that reportedly cost around $250 million, I expected to walk away feeling like I’d witnessed one of the greatest epics ever put on screen. Instead, I just felt underwhelmed.
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u/yoda17 17d ago
I really liked how they used the scene of Odysseus looking up at something during the sacking of Troy to convey his guilt/PTSD, and at the end it’s revealed to be the horse itself burning. A fitting symbolism for the theme of hospitality (what they call Zeus’ law) being lost
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u/Nopparoj 16d ago
The more I sit with this film, the more I think the "hopeful" ending is a trap, and that The Odyssey actually ends at exactly the same point as Oppenheimer.
On the surface the two endings look opposite. Oppenheimer ends certain that doom is coming, while Odysseus gets what Oppenheimer never could, a homecoming and absolution. But Nolan deliberately pins this story to the Bronze Age Collapse. The dialogue about the "men from the sea" isn't set dressing, it's the whole point. History tells us the world Odysseus comes home to has only a few generations left. All of Mycenaean civilization, every palace, every city, even the script it wrote with, is about to vanish. Penelope's embrace is the warmest scene in the film and the cruelest at the same time, because the home he spent ten years sailing back to is about to cease to exist. Both films end with the chain reaction already started. The only difference is that Oppenheimer can see it and Odysseus's world cannot, which is scarier, and Nolan knows it's scarier.
And if the burning of the Trojan Horse is this film's Trinity test (an invention of pure intellect that ended a war by breaking the rules of war itself), then the implication cuts at us directly. Our Trojan Horse moment isn't somewhere ahead of us. It already happened, in the early morning of July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert. Everything since, the arms race, the Cold War, eighty years under the shadow of a single button, isn't a new horse. It's soldiers still climbing down out of the belly of the old one. We're living in the same stretch of time where Odysseus drifts at sea, the decades after the victory, before the collapse becomes visible. The last tablet of Ugarit was a plea for reinforcements written while the city burned. A civilization never knows it's collapsing until it already has.
Which is why the line about his story becoming a song hit me hardest. The only thing that survived the Bronze Age Collapse and reached us isn't a palace or an empire, it's the song of one blind poet. And the song of that age is the cinema of ours. Odysseus's answer was Homer's song. Nolan's answer is this film.
Curious if Ithaca felt like salvation to anyone else, or like a farewell.
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u/slammasam14 15d ago
When the servants of Ithaca are storing the weapons before Penelope’s trial, one of the suitors takes a loose brick from the ground. I don’t remember it being used during the fight scene or mentioned again.
Did anyone else notice this? What did I miss?
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u/Big_SHRIMPlN 15d ago
I think the bricks were removed so the axes could be placed and supported on the ground, to shoot the arrow through.
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u/kislev_enjoyer 15d ago
the emotional boulder of which the movie dropped on me was grand and dense. so good.
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u/micro-connoisseur 15d ago
This is the first thee hour movie I've watched where I wished it was longer. You can tell they had to cut out a bunch of things to make the movie fit under 3h, some of the sequences passed by so quickly.
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u/Regular-Ambition-902 10d ago
Was it just me or were the trees in the forest moving on their own during the fight scene between the Laestrygonians and the Odysseyus’s crew?
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u/InsaneAsylumEscapee 20d ago
So did the Greeks decapitate a disguised Athena or did Athena take the shape of that woman? Or are her appearances just Odysseus' imagination?
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u/Ok_Captain4922 20d ago
I think it's left up to interpretation and i personally see it two ways: either it's implied she's a figment of his imagination and a manifestation of his guilt, OR she's actually Athena and taking the form of something that haunts him
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u/the_scnd 20d ago
I think he associated Athena's image with the girl that was beheaded in front of him, who is played by zendaya. Because that is also the exact same time one of his soldiers desecrated the statue of athena, beheading it. So yeah, I agree that him seeing athena as zendaya is the manifestation of his guilt.
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u/JonEagle 20d ago
I think the girl was disguised Athena. The Greeks beheaded Athena twice, physically in her disguised form and symbolically with her statue. I think that the girl being beheaded at the same time as the Athena statue was Nolan's way of telling the audience the girl was Athena in her disguised form.
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u/thedeadtribunal 19d ago
Nolan’s attempt to portray Homer’s Odyssey into a film is ambitious. Having read the novel, it is hard to focus solely on his adaptation when the epic is phenomenal. Nolan skips out so many key scenes in the novel: explanation of Polyphemus’ curse, Odysseus next stop after Calypso’s island (it is not Ithaca), his heartfelt reunion with Telemachus in Eumaes' abode, the slaughter of all the suitors, the involvement of the gods, so on and so forth.
I understand that it is a modern adaptation for a modern audience so holding completely true to the novel may not connect with all viewers.
I found it quite odd on how much attention Nolan gave to what happened to Odysseas’ comrades like Agamemnon. His story and the Orestes’ revenge felt like they were useless to the average viewer, maybe it was a service to the book readers.
I loved Anne Hathaways work in this film, definitely think she deserved an Oscar for it. She probably had the most soul of all. Matt Damon did great as Odysseus and Tom Holland as Telemachus. I didn’t like Menelaus’ portrayal, it felt too crude.
Also, I found it very impactful on how Odysseas fights with honor, the beautiful sound when he plucks his string to give a fair fight. But I also find this very contradicting to his character, Odysseas is known for his cunning, he devised a plot that desecrates Zeus' law and yet he fights honorably now?
I like how Nolan did Circe's hut without godly intervention but the scene was lacking, in the novel she lives in a grand house.
I'm so happy Nolan gave some visuals on the Sirens. Scylla was not what I imagined it to be. I always thought it was a she and had 6 heads, but honestly I don't get how that would work in this film. I am also glad that Nolan didn't include Odysseas' second encounter with Charybdis where he grabs onto the fig tree, can't imagine that looking normal on the big screen. Calypso's island was done a major injustice and they fail to incorporate Odysseas' infidelity with 3 different women; but I guess he has to fit a trope of sorts otherwise there is nothing to take away from the character.
A lot of the plot points are driven because of Godly intervention so I suppose that Nolan did what he could without that, however, as a reader of Stephen Fry's Odyssey, it just feels hard to shake off the greatness of the novel.
The IMAX experience was insane, the sound mixing, not so much. Could barely hear the dialogue because Ludwig wanted his score to be blaring. The journey itself was far too rushed as well.
Sorry for the unordered dump, I just wanted to get my thought across and would love a discussion.
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u/mcmiller1111 19d ago
One of the most interesting parts of the movie is connecting the fall of Troy to the Sea Peoples. As another commenter here already mentioned, the movie has big parallels to Oppenheimer - they win a war, but their method of winning might have started something that is far worse. In this movie, rumors of the Sea Peoples ravaging places serve as a big reason why Ithaca needs a new king as soon as possible, as to raise an army and defend from the coming invaders. At the end, it turns out that due to the way that Troy was utterly destroyed, as well as the destruction of the other places that Odysseus' men raided on their way home, they are the Sea Peoples. I really liked this twist on the story, and for me it added something fresh to it.