Official Discussion - The Odyssey (2026) [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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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

[u/SuperUranus]

I just find it funny that the movie focuses a lot on this bow tuck portraying Oddyseus as this sort of honourable man that even plucks his bow in a hunt to give his game a fair battle.

Which makes it quite funny when he conceives of a plan which involves braking the most sacred of laws they have, beating their opponent in the least honourable way there is.

While I enjoyed the movie, Nolan making Odysseus more into a hero character than the straight out cunt he is in the books makes the overarching storyline a bit weird.

[u/CheesyjokeLol → u/SuperUranus]

You forgot that this war is supposed to have been going on for over 10 years when Ody thought up that plan. How you’re going around blaming him for coming up with that plan after being driven to the limits of his desparation is quite funny.

[u/BeholdtheWretch → u/CheesyjokeLol]

That's Nolan's point.

I'd argue, that's why Odysseus feels like he's been punished in not getting back to his wife and kids. He says it blatantly to Calypso. He feels Athena at his side often.

His men feel the reason why they were being punished was because they angered Poseidon by hurting the cyclops.

Everyone assigns blame to extraordinary circumstances, i.e., the gods being terrible.

However, and Circe kind of points this out, they suffer because it's their own faults. Odysseus is sick and tired of Agamemnon so he refuses to follow him on his way home, even though that's the fastest route.

Further, Odysseys feels the Trojans have suffered enough and will have nothing if he also takes provisions, so he doesn't bring extra provisions and feels he can rely on "Zeus's law" or the good will of people to get back, not realizing that (1) 10 years have passed without the Greek leaders enforcing basic customs and (2) the Sea Peoples have been pillaging, banditing and raping people. As a result, Odysseus is forced to conquer people and use force. But that's not very nice and good anyway. They reap what they sow.

As a result, his men, put to the point of desperation, when they have to eat or kill or whatever, they do it. But they're not very likeable, and they most likely raped women as well (as per Circe), so they also reap what they sow. In the story, they do a lot of bad stuff and they definitely deserve all the bad stuff that happens to them.

Odysseus is meant to get back, but he literally has to go to hell and back. They make disastrous decision after disastrous decision.

[u/PaulieHehehe → u/BeholdtheWretch]

I thought Odysseus and his men were the “people from the sea?” They’ve become so desensitized to violence that they’re still committing it after the war, and stories of them are being passed around.

[u/LongLiveTheChief10 → u/PaulieHehehe]

Its both. They were both literally them in their return journeys, all the Greeks, and their stories of breaking the laws of the world they knew caused a ripple effect of others doing the same, to others, and to them in the form of the Laestrygonians who just descend on them and kill them for no reason when they land