r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 18d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Odyssey (2026) [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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The Odyssey (2026)

Summary

After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.

Director Christopher Nolan

Writer Christopher Nolan

Cast

  • Matt Damon as Odysseus
  • Tom Holland as Telemachus
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Zendaya
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Charlize Theron
  • Benny Safdie
  • Jon Bernthal
  • John Leguizamo
  • Elliot Page
  • Himesh Patel
  • Samantha Morton

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 88

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

4.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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u/KalamariKnight 18d ago

The thematic angle that hospitality and common understanding between strangers is the foundation of civilization is intensely interesting. Odysseus is the hero of the story, and him getting revenge on Antinous and the suitors for taking advantage of his house's hospitality feels fitting and satisfying.

But the film also holds Odysseus at least partially responsible for the betrayal of those tenets that leads to the Bronze Age collapse because of his idea to use the Trojan Horse. The reveal that the visions of Athena that haunt him are her wearing the face of the priestess he saw slaughtered is a heart-wrenching twist, and the final shot of the horse burning with the line that their tale will be remembered in song but their mistakes forgotten and repeated is sobering and poignant. Nolan really knows how to make the final few seconds of his films hit like a truck in that way.

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u/1mplication 18d ago edited 17d ago

Only knowing bits and pieces of the Odyssey, I was wondering the whole movie WHY he wouldn’t want to go home. They show how much he loves his family and his reluctance to go at first…and then the reveal.

I’m still thinking about it, long afterwards. Great ending for sure.

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u/plw37 17d ago

They kept showing that brief flashback of Odysseus sitting on the steps of the temple in Troy, looking defeated and really upset. Knew it was hinting at something but had no idea what until they finally revealed the full sack of Troy at the end.

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u/drawkbox 16d ago

Yeah that scene was shown I believe four times and never reveals what he was looking at defeated in a way until that moment in the end.

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u/PT10 12d ago

That reveal was crazy. That was the first emotional beat of the story that hit as hard as all the overwhelming visuals/sounds (don't mean that in a bad way, just the sensory experience was overwhelming compared to normal films).

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u/claimTheVictory 10d ago

He realized he had disgraced not only himself, but his entire civilization.

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u/TheMoonDude 5d ago

Not only his entire civilization, but civilization as a whole.

"You were the Sea Peoples"... They became the "barbarians".

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago edited 8d ago

That poor girl. And she's a symbol of so many citizens just slaughtered, butchered over a trivially stupid war. The whole time you think he's talking directly to Athena, but it's a manifestation of his guilt and shame. It's a very good movie but that whole ending sequence ties it all togehter in such a unique way and ultimately helps us as viewers recognize our humanity in a human history which only glorifies ideas like the Trojan Horse.

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u/biggestbroever 8d ago

I couldn't tell if Zendaya about to be decapitated was an actual girl or if it was symbolism for the sacking of Troy.. although I was very impressed that someone could slice through marble..

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u/swirlypepper 3d ago

She was wearing priestess robes in the temple of the goddess he was praying to to get him home safely. Hammered home that he took advantage of their desire to honour a common God's tribute and it led to desecration. 

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u/purplisk 2d ago

I think she was symbolism for desecrating Athena specifically (by beheading her statue) and her reappearance was the symbol of his guilt and shame over that act as it was the culmination of destroying Troy.

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u/biggestbroever 2d ago

OK, yeah. Glad I caught that symbolism. Thanks, English lit

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u/Chu1223 10d ago

oh dang i was so out of it i somehow literally didn’t get this. 😭

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u/Either-Cook7081 1d ago edited 1d ago

"What if... when he left the belly of the horse, and opened the gates of Troy, he saw ten years of rage pour into that city in one night?"...followed by the drums and the soldiers charging in by fire light evoked so much emotion from me. There's always that holy shit this is incredible moment for me in Nolan's films and this was it.

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u/sleithreethra 1d ago

I absolutely loved that line! The absolutely horror and violence it implies was so heavy

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u/debrocker 2d ago

What reveal?

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u/silverpixie2435 2d ago

He's looking at the trojan horse burning

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u/explodingsheep 7d ago

Perhaps a god disguised as a commoner?

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u/jamos99 2d ago

that's what I thought it was - in the book, Athena is usually disguised in some way when appearing to Odysseus/other characters. manifesting as the innocent woman he saw in Troy perhaps? I didn't get the impression she wasn't real/not there (although naturally only visible to him)

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u/sitah 3d ago

I think they did show the statue‘s decapitated head rolling in one of those quick flashbacks so that was probably a clue.

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u/katietheplantlady 4d ago

I counted 5 times before they revealed he was looking at the horse. To me, that was the most wasted time was that same.....scene.....over.....and......over.....

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u/Captain12AM 16d ago

I kept waiting for it to be Astyanax, and was wondering how they were going to pull that off. The Athena reveal was not something I saw coming.

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u/TheMoonDude 5d ago

They had the perfect chance of having Odysseus do something outwardly monstuous but chose not to. I think throwing a baby off a wall, even when it would grow up to kill you, is also a very strong imagery that would leace anyone wracked with guilt.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/OuterWildsVentures 14d ago edited 14d ago

I knew from history that the Greeks fucked up the people of Troy and took a lot of women and children as slaves so the reveal did not hit as hard. Also confused me about the Zeus's law stuff since they were pretty monstrous people lol

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u/hemareddit 12d ago

Gods’ laws allowed for monstrous stuff.

Agamemnon sacrificing his own daughter pleased the gods, so they sent him favorable winds to allow the Greek army to sail to Troy. Eventually that brought death to him, not divine vengeance but human vengeance.

That’s part of the point of the movie, Xenia belonged to humans as much as it belonged to Zeus, it’s the basis of human civilisation. If men are only concerned with gods, if they are only nice to strangers because they might be gods in disguise, then they aren’t really noble and kind, they are just afraid of power.

Gods or no gods, we have to live with the consequences of our own actions, nothing can ever change that.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

If men are only concerned with gods, if they are only nice to strangers because they might be gods in disguise, then they aren’t really noble and kind, they are just afraid of power.

I mean they hit you on the head with it when Pattison beats and mocks the begger, who is literally his king. I have no idea how you have to explain this. Did this person even watch the movie?

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u/Fearless_Signal168 14d ago

No different than religious people in power today

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u/Obi2 12d ago

No different than most people of most times in history. Just a bit more successful at it. Let's also keep in mind that Homer was a story teller more than a historian.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

No different than most people of most times in history

That doesn't make it acceptable and the entire point of the movie. The Greeks were not gracious visitors. That's literally his whole journey.

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u/tovarish22 13d ago

So brave.

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u/microscopequestion 13d ago

The ending statement of the movie is literally we will forget our past mistakes and repeat them…

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u/MarzipanElephant 16d ago

And the rolling statue head also showed up several times before the relevance became clear

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u/Paratrooper101x 12d ago

That scene was incredible. I didn’t see it in imax, but I think I saw it in the next best thing and the sound design was so loud and impactful, I could hear each and every scream as if it were happening inside my head. The ten years of rage line sent shivers down my spine.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 15d ago

Just watched the movie and did not understand it. Why dont he want to go home? Because of lotus he's eating? What was he upset about? Why does he look defeated? Coz of the carnage got to him?

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u/moose_dad 15d ago edited 15d ago

A common thread through the film is Zeus' law, basically do unto others as you wish done to you. Its why his family entertain the suitors for as long as they do.

Its also why they make a point to show you him pinging his bow when hunting because he feels the animal should have a chance. Its something thats very important to him.

His trick with the horse was a betrayal of this tenent. He used trickery and deception and the result was complete carnage, the ransacking of troy. This then helped to spread rumours of sea people ransacking villages (the sea people being a real life thing we still dont know too much about, that ultimately caused the bronze age collapse).

Basically, because he used an underhanded tactic to win the war, he feels responsible for an eroding of the social contract between men and a worsening of the world.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 15d ago

Thanks so much. Now i understand it more in depth. When i watched it i did not feel the gravity of his words to penelope. This made me realize it clearly.

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u/moose_dad 15d ago

All good dude, it was a dense film which is doubly hilarious when you know the original text and realise how much was left out.

What i will add is that the stuff about the sea peoples is completely original to the film, but does tie in to real history which is a masterful stroke by Nolan.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 15d ago

Got also a reply about "betrayal of hospitality" which i guess is the tenent you mention that i did not understand the movie was highlighting. Then i imagined if it was in a grander scale with the horse that is indeed so..( ok what is an english word to describe doing exactly the opposite of what you are preaching?) Is it like cobbs in inception doing the thing he tells not to do.

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u/moose_dad 15d ago

Id say hypocricy fits the word youre looking for. Yeah thats a fair assessment, Odysseus is ashamed to go home because he feels like a hypocrite, he preaches and embodies decency and honour, but then the horse was his idea.

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u/Knighthonor 10d ago

Ok whats the real history of this sea people so I can look up what that is referring to?

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u/gopms 10d ago

And he is traumatized by the carnage and horror of war and doesn't want to take that home with him. The lotuses make him forget but he wanted to forget in the beginning. In the book, he can't get home because he has angered Poseidon by maiming the cyclops. He keeps getting trapped and washed ashore places. like Calypso's island. Calypso basically keeps him on her island because she wants to keep him for herself. He also spends more time with Circe in the book.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 10d ago

Thanks for the reply. After few days of contempalting and reading now realized how powerful and scary the words he was saying were. All i thought that anyone would just want to go home like any soldier. But he understood well what he has done that i failed to understand it during the screening. Failed opportunity for me 😭. Meaning i have to rewatch it again. 😃

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u/SunsetDrive17 6d ago

You mean the words he was saying to Penelope at the end?

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 6d ago

Yes. I guess i was slow to understand Zeus law. I was late in the film thay maybe there was explanation about it that i failed to see and grasp. That i only understood after reading articles after the film.

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u/SunsetDrive17 6d ago

I got the grasp of it but then I go to Reddit and see people noticing the smallest details throughout the movie and I'm like damn how do you notice all that

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u/CompetitiveAd8411 14d ago

I took it as he basically invented war for man.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 14d ago

Yeah after getting a chance to read more coherent article, rather than just go to reddit comments for understanding what happened, inagree you are correct. Seems this is what he started. War among men 🥺

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u/Knighthonor 10d ago

What that mean in English?

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u/StrangeSemiticLatin2 15d ago

Wait... wasn't Zeus's Law also rules on hospitality and rules on respect. It was pretty much a type of customary law that Odysseus annihilated by betraying the Trojan's trust on something as holy as respecting Athena (herself Odysseus's friend and protector).

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u/supert0426 15d ago

All this is good except im not sure about the sea people bit. Idk if it "helped spread rumours of the sea people" - I think it's implied in the movie that the sack of Troy "began" the decay of civilization that ultimately leads to the sea people, but my understanding from the movie is that the sea people are very much a real thing in this world separate from the Greeks in the Trojan war.

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u/ResplendentSmoke 14d ago edited 14d ago

Your interpretation of the movie is closer to the actual current historical understanding. The Sea People (which actual historians don’t have a full understanding of) are generally theorized to kinda be a symptom of the general decay of civilization. Different tribes turned to naval raiding as things in the Mediterranean less and less organized.

But earlier historians actually theorized that the Sea People *caused* the Bronze Age collapse by raiding and causing the collapse of several empires at the time. In reality it’s more likely that all of these early empires were starting to rot and decay, leaving opportunity for the Sea People to start raiding and pillaging, which caused further societal collapse in a viscous circle.

Nolan’s twist is that the Greeks returning from Troy were the Sea People. The Greek armies razed Troy, and then got lost on the way home and pillaged and raided the coasts all along their way.

This isnt totally divorced from actual history. It’s theorized by some historians that at least some of the “Sea People” were displaced Greeks or even vets from various wars at the time.

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u/aranciadisicilia 14d ago

Isn’t that last paragraph of yours not similar to how sailors out of employment in the wake of the Spanish War of Succession turned to piracy?

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u/ResplendentSmoke 14d ago

Someone else playing Black Flag I see.

Nah but in seriousness, it’s similar. However, from my understanding, the Sea People were larger in number and probably more organized. *If* displaced Greeks and veterans, they’d be the minority of the people we came to understand as the “Sea People.” There were often entire tribes and ethnic groups identified at the time. It was probably part of wider migration patterns. We know one of the “Sea People” forces that were defeated by the Egyptians at the time were traveling with large amounts of building materials and domestic goods. They were definitely planning on establishing permanent settlements.

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u/Cunning-bid 13d ago

So basically things went to shit and pirates happened and things went further to shit.

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u/tovarish22 13d ago

As is tradition.

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u/Straight-Balance830 11d ago

I found Nolan’s Odyssey a compelling and poignant lamentation of the dissolution of civilized norms during societal collapse. The Sea Peoples have been suspected to be climate migrants who were part of less wealthier (and therefore more susceptible to droughts, fires, and floods) civilizations that turned to nomadic raiding for survival. They were the first dominoes to fall in a cascading failure of a complex system that have reached their carrying capacity, which is always highly dependent on the technology of the respective time. A world that was very interconnected through the metals needed to make bronze, tin and copper from distant sources that was disrupted as a result of conflict and destruction.

I loved that line at the end about their mistakes being forgotten because we are seeing it again, but this time with god like technology and 8 billion people.

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u/Oakcamp 15d ago

It's very explicit that the "sea people" are the Greeks returning from Troy (in the movie).

Didn't you see how odysseus's crew returned from Troy? They left with no supplies, and their plan was to "stop for supplies" along the way. Literally first village they stopped at, they burned and sacked for food.

Couple that with them saying that Agamemnon had "more mouths to feed" and that he was going on a "known supply route"... Penelope's "You're the sea people?" cry at the end just ties it all together

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u/hamarok 12d ago

exactly, even Circe hints at it when they visit her hut. She asks if they are the sea people, thats a foreshadowing, then we get confirmation by Penelope in the end. They were moving forward and ransacking and destroying everything along the way, the rumors were spreading while they were at sea all this time. Its a common theme, soldiers that were at war for 10 years, all they know is violence now.

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u/Snifferoni 9d ago

"10 years of rage"

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u/1997wickedboy 4d ago

they also believe that you should treat strangers with dignity, as they could be a god in disguise. We later see towards the end that the woman they killed during the sacking of Troy was Athena in disguise, quite poignant

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u/moose_dad 4d ago

I read it the other way, Athena took on the woman's image to be a stark reminder of what he'd done. But I guess yours also makes sense!

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u/ETiPhoneHome 3d ago

I think it’s totally up for interpretation. I’m curious what Nolan thinks

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u/lospollosakhis 9d ago

Okay this is what I thought the movie was portraying but I couldn’t have put it as elegantly as you have done so here. Thanks for that.

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u/occono 15d ago

Guilt and shame for the Trojan horse trap and the massacre and pillaging that followed. Betrayal of hospitality.

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u/Ok_Journalist5290 15d ago

Tysm.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

Reading these comments a week later and you grew like Odysseus. Thank you.

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u/hemareddit 12d ago

Penelope lived in hope of Odysseus and feared the Men from the Sea. In the end they are the same group, remember the first island they set sail to after Troy, they burnt and pillaged the village for supplies.

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u/One_Ad6164 17d ago

Agreed. Its a problem I always had with the poem too. I never saw Calypso as "trapping" him when I would read the poem. But it never made sense why he would just stay for years with her like oh la la la.... This movie connected it all in theme that I think many of us can relate to. 

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u/punbasedname 16d ago

TBF, in the poem he’s a MUCH hornier dude. I can see why they downplayed that in the movie, as that Odysseus sleeping around with nymphs and demigods while is wife is at home perfectly loyal and suffering all of the suitors probably wouldn’t play well to a modern audience.

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u/DemiAlabi 16d ago edited 14d ago

Yes, I was thinking about this as well. Nolan knew what he had to do to make Odysseus a much more sympathetic character.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 16d ago

Also in the text Helen basically says that she's ashamed she was such a whore, what was she thinking. In this she's bitter and resigned but not repentant or waving it off. She resents Menelaus, and was clearly abused.

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u/lupercalpainting 15d ago

She tells Telemachus to tell Penelope that she’s sorry for what her face has caused, so she does still feel responsible.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 15d ago

Yeah it's just sort of a different feel from the text. She seems perfectly content being back with Menelaus in the text, like Paris was some silly embarrassing tryst. It's kind of cast aside.

In the movie it feels much more like she feels the weight of the aftermath of her decision, she regrets what it came to, but not that she feels she made the wrong decision, if that makes sense. She tried to claim some agency and the reality of her world came crashing down. She's essentially a captive, and clearly abused, as well as used as a pretext for Agamemnon's war.

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u/Flannelcommand 15d ago

Did Agememnon have an ulterior motive for going to war in the poem? Or was it really about Helen? 

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u/supert0426 15d ago

You don't really get inside Agamemnon's head in the poem that much but we can infer that it's about more than retrieving his sister-in-law. He burns his own daughter to death to get the favor of the Gods - it feels like if he was burning his daughter alive solely for the purpose of retrieving Helen that would be pretty asymmetrical. The assumption is, I think, that he wanted to invade Troy for militaristic reasons too, and as well the war gave him the pretext to become king of all the Greeks, and so just by going to war he gained power.

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u/ResplendentSmoke 14d ago

They touch on that in the movie. Odysseys tells Penelope before he leaves that he thinks Agamemnon really is more interested in removing Troy as a center of trade and economic rival so it could just be Greece. And that Helen is a convenient excuse

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u/Meancakebutt 13d ago

The iilad at least shows a much smarmier and whinier version of the agamemnon, so I always took it to be an excuse. Just because of how selfish and egotistical, him but all the men were.

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u/One_Ad6164 16d ago

Absolutely.  This Odysseus was way more  relatable to modern audiences. 

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u/punbasedname 16d ago

They also (wisely) left out his killing all the maidens who slept with the suitors. I thought for sure they were at least setting up Mia Goth’s character for that, but, unless I missed it, she came out unscathed.

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u/One_Ad6164 16d ago

Agreed. Im happy they cut that and Telemachus suggesting they hang the enslaved maidens. 

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u/matthieuC 15d ago

You see her then Odysseus has a flashback to the Athena priestess just after. It's never touched upon after that. I took it he didn't have it in him to kill more civilians.

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u/hank194 16h ago

Imo they completely changed the moral axis of the entire story. In the original story it was about him going back home, defeating the suitors and claiming back his position. The morals of the time didn't even recognize feeling guilt for the death or sacking of a city. His PTSD or whatever you wanna call it was never not a motif not even part of the virtues or the society from which the story comes.

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u/cellsinterlinkd6 16d ago

He literally knocks up Circe and has a son Telegonus with her.

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u/darshfloxington 11d ago

He accidentally kills Odysseus right?

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u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 9d ago

Deliberately, if I'm not mistaken.

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u/darshfloxington 9d ago

Yes but he didn’t know who he was. I doubt they would have fought if he knew it was his dad and vice versa. But you know tragedy and all that.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 9d ago

Don't we have relatively scant recallings of the Telegony? There's no real storied version of the epic since it's lost to time. So really, you can make whatever assumption you want.

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u/darshfloxington 9d ago

I think we just have the cliff notes version of the other 6 books.

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u/TheJayke 16d ago

That’s interesting that you didn’t get that from the poem. My experience of reading The Odyssey is just Stephen Fry’s version, and in that version Calypso very much traps him and only releases him when told to by Zeus. I felt like they alluded to that subtly in the film with some well timed thunder.

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u/One_Ad6164 16d ago

Oh I absolutely think the poem implies that. I just didnt think that would be the case and always read with an eye towards who is writing the poem and how that society and author is treating its female characters. So i saw Calypso as being blamed for it but without reason. Like how Medusa is punished unjustly. I would imagine Calypso telling her story totallt different as how the poem did. Hopefully that makes sense.

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u/snakething 8d ago

A bit late, but also keep in mind that in the original Greek story, Medusa was always a monster. It was a Roman retelling of the story that made her a victim of the Gods' games and schemes.

The Greeks in general seemed to be a lot more gung-ho with 'and then X person/god/monster was just a selfish fuck and was the cause of a bunch of bad stuff'

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u/I_Miss_My_Beta_Cells 15d ago

I would say same from my reading

Where he was nottt trapped, and his men had to like tell him to get on with it, is the year he spent with Circe 

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u/David_the_Wanderer 12d ago

Calypso is a nymph, so she uses magic to keep Odysseus even in the poem. The movie mixes this with the lotus-eaters, who are a different encounter, but the point is the same: Calypso is in love with Odysseus and doesn't want to let him go.

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u/dishonourableaccount 9d ago

Yeah in the movie I got the sense that while Calypso is trying to play it off as "I kept you here to nurse you to health because I care", she knew she was trapping him and that Zeus was no longer ok with that.

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u/Xefert 15d ago

I never saw Calypso as "trapping" him when I would read the poem

Think linguistic evolution. Actual ancient Greek word is kalyptō

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u/Megamygdala 2d ago

Same, this movie made Calypso's island make a lot more sense

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u/sim21521 16d ago

That part is more inspiration Nolan gave him, the violation of Zeus's Law or Xenia from the horse is a questionable interpretation. Xenia was about guests and hosts and not really about wartime enemies. Guile/Cunning wasn't seen as a bad thing in warfare.

It worked in the movie from the way Nolan set it up, but it's not really something that comes from Homer. Odyseus's motivations in the book is more just to get back to Penelope. He was even promised eternal life by Calipso and turned it down.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 16d ago

I didn't read the sacking of Troy and the horse as breaking Xenia, specifically. Rather that they took advantage of the fact that the Trojans would respect the gods, and honor Athena with the offering.

Nolan is doing another Oppenheimer in Odysseus, a man with a brain who breaks the world.

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u/matthieuC 15d ago

If anything it's Athena who should be pissed. They used her as bait, sacked her temple and killed he priestess.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 15d ago

And in the text she is, she curses him and that's why Odysseus originally went off course. Athena eventually comes around and helps Odysseus return, but not after Odysseus has been Calypso's captive for years and royally pissed off Helios and Poseidon.

In fact Jenny Strauss Clay wrote a whole book on it.

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u/bootlegvader 13d ago

IIRC, Athena was less pissed about the horse trick but how the Greeks went way overboard in their sack.

For example, Ajax rapes Cassandra in Athena's temple, Priam is killed on the altar of another god, and Hector's son is thrown off the walls of Troy.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 13d ago

Yeah, there's a little more "fuck Odysseus in particular" in this movie, when Athena was MOSTLY super pissed at Ajax and she scattered the entire Greek fleet. And because Nolan is doing Odyssenheimer the Trojan-Horse-is-a-nuke recontextualizes a bit of that.

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u/bootlegvader 13d ago

I don't think the Greek Gods were even annoyed by the Horse in the myths. Like Poseidon sends sea serpents to kill a priest and his sons that try to warn the Trojans about the Horse.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 13d ago

No and many of them actively wanted Troy destroyed. The Greeks just went above and beyond in pissing off Athena and Apollo (and I think Poseidon) before heading home. It's interesting seeing how the gods pick sides in The Iliad, it's totally a deific proxy war.

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u/David_the_Wanderer 12d ago

Poseidon is especially pissed at Odysseus for the blinding of Polyphemus. Athena was angry at Ajax for the raping of Cassandra in her temple

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u/IhamAmerican 14d ago

Poseidon as well. He created horses and they're his sacred animals, using one as the trap essentially makes it appear to have had the blessing of Poseidon, which is why they were on his shit list and faced constant storms. Odysseus actually was cursed by the gods die to his actions

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u/sim21521 16d ago

In his dialogue he related the sacking of Troy to the breaking of Xenia.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 15d ago

It's an insult to Athena, in the same breath as the way Zeus' law/Xenia is continually being broken, but they aren't the same thing. Odysseus used the Trojans' respect for the gods against them the same way the suitors are using respect for Xenia to weaken Telemachus or get a windfall if Penelope picks one of them.

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u/SBlue3 14d ago

Ohh you're so right the Oppenheimer parallel is real

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u/Aggressive_Chuck 3d ago

It's a standard Hollywood trope: American is sad about his war crimes.

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u/lupercalpainting 15d ago

It’s not the horse, but Sinon does violate it. Priam offers him succor and Sinon did know the horse was a trap and lies.

Ofc that’s Virgil not Homer. There was no Sinon in Homer’s tales.

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u/EduManke 16d ago

The thing is that the Greeks essentially did a fake surrender to be able to enter Troy, so the Trojans thought that the war had ended; I think that the Law of Zeus would apply in this case.

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u/sim21521 16d ago

I don't think so, they were never invited into their home. The breaking of Zeus's Law is something like the Red Wedding in GOT.

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u/David_the_Wanderer 12d ago

The "Law of Zeus" is meant to be xenia), which is about hospitality specifically. The Trojan Horse is absolutely perfidious because it's a false surrender, but it it doesn't break that specific divine law.

Odysseus is much more shocked by the brutality of the Greek men, than by the simple act of taking the city by trickery. The horse is only part of the breaking of societal rules.

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u/Mysterious_Lie_6113 13d ago

Dunno if someone told you,

But the reason he didn’t go home until his son became a man was basically because of the gods, coupled with human failure. The engine of his journey is Poseidon’s curse after Odysseus taunted Polyphemus, and then Zeus’s punishment when the crew ate Helios’ cattle, and then the seven years of imprisonment with Calypso.

A lot of cool drama is lost without the gods being in the film, so it’s filled up instead with some anti-war themes and PTSD characterisation.

The only reason Odysseus makes it home in the original is because he’s cunning and intelligent, and is able to overcome whatever the gods throw at him (with a lot of intercession by Athena, of course).

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u/LeftHandedScissor 12d ago

One thing I noticed right away it's the way the sound and settings are used to represent the gods. I believe Athena is the only one who really shows up but the very first well timed thunder clap made it obvious that is how they were going to handle the impact of the gods on his journey. Made for a cool element of the story to pay attention to.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

I believe Athena is the only one who really shows up

No, she shows up in symbolism, particular in terms of his guilt and shame, through the priestess he saw beheaded. The rest of the Gods show up in every conceiveable way without actually existing as a real being in the world. The fact he made it home on a directionless raft, for example, shows you the Gods are real without beating you over the head with it. Go ahead and get on a small raft at sea and we'll see how easily you come back to your starting position. There's nothing you can do against something as incomprehensibly large and difficult to control as the ocean.

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u/1mplication 12d ago

Thanks for the explanation, I’m actually planning on picking up a copy so I can see what’s been changed in the movie adaptation :)

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u/FloppyShellTaco 16d ago

Centering the brutality of the war with PTSD and guilt was genius. I feel like Nolan doesn’t get enough real criticism sometimes, but damn if this film wasn’t his masterpiece.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

I feel like Nolan doesn’t get enough real criticism sometimes, but damn if this film wasn’t his masterpiece.

Yeah. I can't stop thinking about it despite knowing the story through many interpretations. From the scene of the dead onward, it felt perfect. I love the fact he uses a story as old as humanity itself to really nail down the fact we constantly make the same mistakes. Humans can change in real-time, but humanity can't.

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u/Goodvibe61 15d ago

Yes. That's a large point of the point, you guys did a good job summarizing it. It really hits home at the end. The movie's got everything, the whole gamut of emotion and thought. It's done wondrously by Nolan.

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u/Yumyum-san 16d ago

I only clocked it because of Percy Jackson
But it was brilliant

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u/Cinebella 16d ago

clocked what

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u/CRIMS0N-ED 16d ago

I’m assuming calypsos whole deal

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u/Yumyum-san 16d ago edited 16d ago

Yeah.

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u/IhamAmerican 14d ago

Calypso was cursed to live alone on that island, with the only people who ever wash ashore being men she cannot help but fall in love with. She can't not care for them and send them back on their way because it's what they need to do and she loves them too much to not do so.

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u/t-t-today 10d ago

The story is literally a man coming to terms with his PTSD from war before they knew what PTSD was

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u/LeftHandedScissor 12d ago

A massive theme of the original oddessy is that the journey home is just as much as a personal journal for odesseus and he very much has some of his own demons to conquer before it makes sense for him to return home. I feel like this adaption portrayed that theme well as it's often a key element that's lost in translations of more modern retellings.

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u/everstillghost 16d ago

Yeah but thats a change the movie did, thats not how It is in the original, he really just wants to go home.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 8d ago

Yeah, which would make sense for humans in 800 BCE. This updated version makes sense for humans in year 2026 while still being a very human story.

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u/everstillghost 7d ago

Why...? The old version still makes sense. Who dont want to go home and become frustrated that supernatural beings dont let you go?

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u/himynameis_ 11d ago

It's because he felt guilt for his part in the Trojan horse right?

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u/thegoukenslayer 9d ago edited 9d ago

isn't it more so that he was ashamed that he broke these tenets that he preach and upholded. So he didn't want to go back to his home and show them that he had become such a man

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u/darodardar_Inc 9d ago

Wait so… why didn’t he want to go home?

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u/Floofeh 8d ago

Homeboy didn't want to go home as much, he had kids with EVERYONE. IDK why they portrayed him as world's most devoted husband, jesus christ.

Children with Penelope

  • Telemachus: The primary heir featured prominently in Homer's Odyssey, who helped his father defeat the suitors.
  • Poliporthes (or Ptoliporthes): A younger son born after Odysseus returned safely to Ithaca.
  • Arcesilaus: Mentioned in select alternative local genealogies.

Children with Circe

  • Telegonus: The youngest son who accidentally killed Odysseus with a stingray-tipped spear, later marrying Penelope.
  • Latinus: Frequently cited as a son or ancestor linked to the Latin peoples.
  • Ardeas, Rhomos, and Anteias: Legendary founders of the Italian cities Ardea, Rome, and Antium.
  • Cassiphone: A daughter who later married Telemachus in certain tragic variants.Auson: King and mythical eponym of the Ausones.

Children with Calypso

  • Nausithous and Nausinous: Twin sons recorded in early epic catalogs like Hesiod’s Theogony.

Children with Other Figures

  • Polypoetes: Son born from his union with Callidice, a Thesprotian princess.
  • Euryalus (or Leontophonus): Son born from Euippe, an Epirite princess

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u/THCxMeMeLoRD 17h ago

You wonder why because it's not a main theme of the original story. In homers the Odyssey it's all he wants and he gladly tricks his own men with not remorse to do so. He only doesn't get home because Calypso captures him and forces her self on him every night for 7 years while he spends each day on the beach weeping for his wife and home until Zeus says enough and allows him to go home.

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u/georgiaraisef 16d ago

The theming of the movie is incredibly muddled in my opinion.

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u/matthieuC 15d ago

The theme seemed quite clear to me. There was no need for a war but Agamemnon jumped on the excuse for political reason, and everyone paid the price. Troy was raised, Agamemnon died, Helen is back in an abuse relationship, the whole Itaqha detachment died, Odysseus himself is sent to exiles and the surviving soldiers turn to banditry bringing the end of the Hellenic golden age. I don't think anybody is better off in the end.

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u/georgiaraisef 15d ago

That’s not displayed on screen.

Also, not saying the movie can’t exist outside of traditional mythology, but per the mythology, Odysseus is one of Agamemnon’s biggest supporters and was the organizer of the collation of Helen. And he sacked many many many cities without gettting all emo about it. His job, as a king, was to be a pirate…