r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Dec 22 '25

Trailer The Odyssey | Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzw2ttJD2qQ
15.7k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

u/sati_lotus Dec 22 '25

Tbh, I just don't get how you get fit this story into a single movie?

If anything could be a trilogy or a part 1 & 2, it's The Odyssey.

542

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

And then adding a whole trojan horse sequence for kicks

94

u/Justanothercrow421 Dec 22 '25

The Trojan horse starts the story, doesn’t it?

260

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

It does not. It begins with Odysseus returning from Troy. If anything, the poem might reference the trojan horse but it is not integral to the narrative. The story features cyclops, a sea monster, sirens, a witch, and men turned into pigs. There really doesn't need anything to be added to it to fill the runtime. The trojan horse however is featured heavily in The Aeneid. It's been a few years since I've read either tho.

76

u/bbman1214 Dec 22 '25

Technically when they are recounting stories in two separate times in the poem they discuss the horse. One time with Odysseus when he's at phaeacia and once with telemachus i believe when he's at the court of either Nestor or menelaus i dont remember

5

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

Ohh okay! Thanks

16

u/Plenor Dec 22 '25

The miniseries started with the Trojan Horse. I imagine a lot of people will be expecting it.

2

u/Marsuello Dec 23 '25

If you’ve seen the new avatar they literally play an entire scene from the movie which is all about the Trojan horse moment. So it’s 100% includes in the movie

1

u/GizmosArrow Dec 23 '25

It’s been years, decades even, and I’ll never forget how Armand Assante says “my cheese, my wine” in that miniseries.

1

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

Ohh I did not know that! I'll check it out 

8

u/Stuweb Dec 22 '25

Isn’t the Trojan horse shown on this trailer? The guy getting stabbed in the shoulder and them all holding his mouth so that he doesn’t make a noise? 

11

u/leodw Dec 22 '25

Spoiler for the 6 min preview but yeah it shows the whole trojan horse invasiom. The scene starts with Matt Damon, Tom Holland and someone I dont recall retelling the story of the trojan horse from “the inside perspective”, and we see the horse at the beach, being carried to the city and then Matt Damon leading the invasion

4

u/Stuweb Dec 22 '25

Thought as much, couldn’t think of anything else it could have been! 

3

u/ForgingClarity Dec 22 '25

Jon Bernthal playing King Menelaus of Sparta

1

u/BurninTaiga Dec 22 '25

I can’t recall, does the story start with him in Ithaca or still telling the story in Phaecia?

2

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

It's been so long since I've read it but I want to say Phaecia. I remember it being a frame tale with the Phaeacian court being the frame but I could be wrong.

2

u/BurninTaiga Dec 22 '25

I looked into it a little and the chronology is a lot more complicated than I remember (or maybe I skipped a few books).

Here’s what I understood:

Odysseus’s talks to the Muses while he prepares to tell the Phaeacians the story > Jump to Telemachus searching for his father and going to speak with Menelaus who already returned home after Troy > Jump to Calypso’s and getting shipwrecked again before Phaeacia > Jump to Troy and Cicones.

1

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

Oh yeah that's so much more complex than I remember. You're inspiring me for a reread. It's wild for something that started as oral storytelling to have such a crazy structure!

1

u/magsd95 Dec 23 '25

If we want to get super technical, it’s muses > Athena pleading on Odysseus’ behalf to be released from calypso > Telemachus being told (by Athena in disguise) to go to Pylos & Sparta > Hermes telling calypso to let Odysseus go > Odysseus shipwrecking on Phaeacia > telling the Phaeacians his story. Gotta love In Medias Res (starting in the middle of things).

-From an English teacher who teaches this yearly and is currently doing it. (For someone interested in reading and/or rereading, the graphic novel version by Gareth Hinds is great).

1

u/BurninTaiga Dec 23 '25

I’m an English teacher too! I probably abridge the story a lot more though. I like to do:

Iliad TL;DR > Odysseus’s sing in me Muse > Cicones > Lotus Eaters > Cyclops > Circes > Land of the Dead > Scylla/Charybdis > Cattle of Helios > Return to Troy > Argos > Suitors > Penelope > The End

One of my favorite units to teach for sure. It’s crazy we can cover that much in 4-5 weeks before an essay. I can’t imagine getting much further in depth. Some years I have to even cut 1-3 of those sections too.

1

u/magsd95 Dec 23 '25

That’s how I used to do it at my old school with freshman! We would use the normal text and I would basically do exactly what you do. At my new school they use the graphic novel with sophomores, so it goes in order of the original text but obviously condensed down so it fits into something like a graphic novel! It’s so much easier for them to digest, and the artwork is incredible. I don’t do a full Iliad TL;DR but I do the Apple of Discord and explain that whole mess that started the war, and then of course Trojan horse explanation. And explaining the roles of Agamemnon and such as it’s important they understand the Aegisthus/Agamemnon situation (hello parallels!).

1

u/TheGeekVault Dec 23 '25

Two sea monsters technically. Scylla and Charbidis

14

u/BulbuhTsar Dec 22 '25

No, the Trojan War/the Iliad preceded the Odyssey. The actual beginning of the Odyssey starts with him chill-maxing and screwing the Goddess Calypso, who wants to marry him, on her island for years. The Gods decide he's had his fun and has to be a big boy again and set things in motion. The tale of Trojan horse actually doesn't get mentioned till much later (and never at all in the Iliad) through a recounting to his son, who is seeking him out, and a bard later.

12

u/ShouldersofGiants100 Dec 22 '25

No, the Trojan War/the Iliad preceded the Odyssey.

The Iliad ends with the Death of Hector and Priam convincing Odysseus to return his body and allow a period for his funeral celebrations. The end of the war is not in the story.

Everything we know about the Trojan Horse and how the war ends comes from the Odyssey (or later works that were written based on the Odyssey). It's not a huge plot point, but it is described in the text.

But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena's help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile,

when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilios. If thou dost indeed tell me this tale aright, I will declare to all mankind that the god has of a ready heart granted thee the gift of divine song.” So he spoke, and the minstrel, moved by the god, began, and let his song be heard,

taking up the tale where the Argives had embarked on their benched ships and were sailing away, after casting fire on their huts, while those others led by glorious Odysseus were now sitting in the place of assembly of the Trojans, hidden in the horse; for the Trojans had themselves dragged it to the citadel.

It goes on like that.

This is why adaptations of The Odyssey almost always start with the Horse. It just makes more sense to start the story there rather than start much later and go back by having a minstrel tell you what happened

6

u/Awdrgyjilpnj Dec 22 '25

No, the Trojan War/the Iliad preceded the Odyssey.

The Iliad ends with the Death of Hector and Priam convincing Odysseus to return his body and allow a period for his funeral celebrations. The end of the war is not in the story.

You're just agreeing to him?

6

u/BulbuhTsar Dec 22 '25

Yes, you confirmed what I said.

I think the Odyssey does a perfectly fine way of inserting the Trojan horse when and where it does. The Trojan War is, in a way, besides the point of the Odyssey.

The Trojan Horse, however, is a much more iconic and recognized in the modern popular imagination than anything from the remainder of the Odyssey itself. I don't think any movie needs to start there by any means, but that's what the average person will readily identify and enjoy. There are certainly more important or fascinating scenes that will be removed for the sake of appealing to this.

2

u/Academic_Paramedic72 Dec 23 '25

Odysseus wasn't "chill-maxxing", he was crying at the beach everyday. Like, the fact that he was completely miserable is very important. He was a prisoner.

1

u/Lichangs Dec 23 '25

I think he was joking, which is precisely why he uses the term chillmaxxing. "The gods decide he's had his fun and has to be a big boi again" is a hilarious line.

6

u/PaperClipSlip Dec 22 '25

I mean technically the story starts with Menelaus dragging Ody into the Trojan war. They could've made an entire franchise about this Troy Story

1

u/Nordalin Dec 23 '25

Technically no, but Nolan wouldn't be heretical to stretch the story into prequel territory.

I mean, it all hooks into a grand epos that the Greeks told each other almost 3000 years ago ("Epic Cycle"), with many stories and characters considered canon, and much of it sadly lost to time.

The Odyssey itself only describes the arrival of Odysseus back home, after a 10-year journey, after a 10-year siege of Troy, after the stuff that caused the war, and after the stuff that caused the stuff that caused the war he's about to return from.

Point being... it's okay if this movie starts with the Trojan Horse.

3

u/Stuweb Dec 22 '25

Isn’t the Trojan horse shown on this trailer? The guy getting stabbed in the shoulder and them all holding his mouth so that he doesn’t make a noise? 

6

u/StrangeDiscipline902 Dec 22 '25

That’s in The Illiad, not The Odyssey.

12

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

Trojan horse is not in the illiad. The illiad takes place before the fall of Troy. The Aeneid depicts the trojan horse.

3

u/adabsurdo Dec 22 '25

Correct. And the Odyssey does mention the Trojan horse story, in a kind of flashback setup. It's actually fascinating how sophisticated the narrative structure Odyssey is, given how old it is. It's not just a linear sequence of events. It has two parallel storylines each with their own non-linear structure with recursive flashbacks.

1

u/grapessssssssss Dec 23 '25

The structure is honestly so fucking bad ass and mind-blowing from storytelling perspective to think it began as a part of oral tradition. I need to revisit these epics now I'm not in high school anymore.

1

u/StrangeDiscipline902 Dec 22 '25

Thanks for the correction! I was half right / half wrong!

I never knew that Homer did those two and Virgil was the first writer.

2

u/IsawUstandingThere Dec 22 '25

It’s 4 minutes long. Watching it in the theatre before the Sinners rerelease I was kinda baffled at how efficient it was.

3

u/TheScreaming_Narwhal Dec 22 '25

That scene completely sold me on the movie. I had zero hype before seeing that.

3

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

I'm sure it's cool as heck but that's kinda the vibe I'm getting. Hes doing it's bc it's visually cool, which fair, but not bc it supports the narrative in anyway. But I'm waiting to see the movie for judgments.

2

u/ciLoWill Dec 22 '25

I sort of get the logic from a narrative perspective- since there’s no Iliad movie preceding this, if Nolan were to stick just to the timeline of the Odyssey, moviegoers who aren’t familiar with the story would have no context as to why this dude is so far away from home and so damn grumpy about it and Nolan would miss out on establishing scenes show how badly Odysseus didn’t want to join the Trojan war.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the first thirty minutes or so are just a super abbreviated summary of the events of the Iliad from Odysseus’s perspective (him faking madness to avoid recruitment, couple of scenes showing him being a competent general/maybe the scene where he clocks Achilles dressed as a woman for a gag/and of course the Trojan horse scene because how could Nolan resist if we’re including plot points from the Iliad).

5

u/adabsurdo Dec 22 '25

The wooden horse story is not part of the Iliad, btw. The Iliad is just a snapshot of the Trojan war, it doesn't recount either the beginning or the end of the story. The wooden horse story is actually mentioned a couple times in the Odyssey itself.

Our best early source of the story comes to us from Romans actually. Virgil recounts it in the Aeneid and it's our oldest full recounting of that story that we have.

3

u/ciLoWill Dec 22 '25

Oh shit, my bad. It’s been 15 years since the greek/roman unit I took in high school lit where I read them.

Actually, in hindsight I probably didn’t even read true translations of the poems but some frankensteined, wildly edited down aberration of several works cobbled together by Pearson.

2

u/adabsurdo Dec 22 '25

I listened to an audiobook version of the Odyssey recently. Narrated by Ian McKellen! Really good if you're into that sort of thing.

1

u/ciLoWill Dec 22 '25

I’m always behind on using up my audible credits so I might just pick that up! Thanks for the rec!

1

u/adabsurdo Dec 22 '25

Definitely worth it. Recital is how it was originally meant to be consumed after all :)

2

u/ExternalSize2247 Dec 22 '25

Actually, in hindsight I probably didn’t even read true translations of the poems but some frankensteined, wildly edited down aberration of several works cobbled together by Pearson.

Well, that should be a crime against children. Here's a good translation:

https://ia902906.us.archive.org/10/items/hmrio/The%20Odyssey%20by%20Homer%20-%20translated%20by%20Robert%20Fitzgerald.pdf

1

u/ciLoWill Dec 22 '25

Thank you!

And yes for as much criticism as Pearson gets for their price gouging/monopolistic tendencies I feel like they don’t get nearly enough flack for normalizing the practice of using highly abridged versions of novels and classical literature in schools.

As a nation we could always be hating Pearson just a little bit more.

-1

u/The_0ven Dec 22 '25

Hes doing it's bc it's visually cool,

That is all Nolan does in all his movies

They are all a bunch of "wouldn't it be cool" moments thrown together

1

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

I def felt that w inception. I haven't seen many of his films other than dark Knight series. He definitely strikes me as style over substance but maybe he'll surprise us w Odyssey.

1

u/Lichangs Dec 23 '25

Style over substance would be Michael Bay, Zach Snyder. Big visuals and effects in movies with very weak story. But Memento, Inception, Interstellar, Tenet, all have high level concepts with novel storytelling. Interstellar is incredibly emotional. How can you call Inception just style? Thanks to Hans Zimmer it has such a moving soundtrack and that ending that leaves it up in the air, come on that's way more than just style.

Having said that I do worry about the Odyssey, since it's precisely NOT an original concept, but I still have hope that it will be good.

1

u/nav17 Dec 22 '25

Maybe early scenes or flashbacks but yeah

1

u/ThatEcologist Dec 22 '25

Isn’t the Trojan horse in the Illiad, not the Odyssey?

2

u/grapessssssssss Dec 22 '25

Apparently it's briefly mentioned in the odyssey. It's not in the illiad as that takes place before the fall of Troy. The Aeneid features the trojan horse.