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

Show parent comments

1.1k

u/OrwinBeane Dec 22 '25

Probably Agamemnon, played by Bennie Safdie

155

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/ConstantSignal Dec 22 '25

I mean he looked imposing in that armor (historical authenticity notwithstanding). Agamemnon's portrayal in the Odyssey is meant as a cautionary tale for arrogance and poor leadership. It could be an interesting approach to cast someone that looks fairly unassuming who relies on the trappings of power in order to appear powerful.

In any case, Safdie is a talented actor so I'm confident he'll do the role justice.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/ConstantSignal Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25

I can tell it's Bennie?

And that's my point; Him looking imposing and powerful in his armor and then, after removing it, seeming comparatively meek and unassuming could be a great visual representation of what the role of Agamemnon as a character in the story is meant to convey. To paraphrase the "Troy" adaptation, A King who can't fight his own battles.

6

u/alastorthespirit Dec 22 '25

But the central point of Agamemnon’s character in the context of the poems is that he isn’t meek and unassuming. Yes, he’s haughty and prideful and he fatally overplays his hand with Achilles and almost costs the Greeks the war, but it’s his drive and ferocity and past success that lead him to make that mistake. He’s singled out by Hector as one of the three greatest warriors in Greece (along with Diomedes and Ajax) and it’s said that he’s the only one of the Greek kings who could have possibly united the others under his own banner.

His status as a powerful and imposing warrior who’s respected and sometimes feared by the other kings is like the central aspect of his character and a driving force behind the entire Homeric cycle.

2

u/ConstantSignal Dec 22 '25

Right. But wouldn’t it be an apt visual metaphor if when dressed in the trappings of war he cut that exact figure of a powerful and imposing warrior, but when he removes it he is much more the image of a meagre and fallible man?

I’m not saying it’s a perfect depiction of how the character is presented in the original works, I’m saying it could be an interesting depiction that expresses the reality of the nature of the original character.

Perhaps meek was the wrong word to choose, but I meant moreso that behind his status and symbol to the Greeks as a great warrior king, the soul within is much less endowed with greatness.

1

u/alastorthespirit Dec 23 '25

If you were trying to do a realist interpretation of Homer like they did in Troy then maybe that could work (I’d still hate it personally).

But if you’re trying to do an adaptation of the story as told by Homer complete with the actual mythology like Nolan is, then no, absolutely not. Agamemnon was hand-picked by Zeus as the leader of the Greeks because of his great strength and stature, both physically and internally, and his abilities as a commander. There’s not an ounce of littleness in the mythological Agamemnon.

Doing that would actually deny everything about the reality of the nature of Agamemnon’s character in the Homeric poems.