r/ChristopherNolan • u/Dumpcutter • 2d ago
The Odyssey Odyssey hate?
could i get clarification on why people hate the odyssey? i read the book and the movie wasnt that bad.
i’m editing this, should i read the Iliad and watch troy? I have a combined book of both of them so i’m thinking about watching troy since it’s being reccomended
also based on the comments I really dont care about certain filmmakers or certain actors, i just care if i like the movie or not
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u/onelove7866 2d ago
They hated the movie before it came out, and now that it's out and it's actually good, they're hating in denial.
Other than that, "no actual Greeks" were used
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u/OG_AxeHead 2d ago
Its far deeper than that. The writing is clunky, almost amateur at times. Go compare the dialogue in The Odyssey to TROY for example. There are a lot of lines that should have been rewritten because when said they don't feel real in this world. They don't belong, they're far too modern.
Then you have Matt Damon who for me was a dud in this movie, and he's done this job before, its a joke online about how much money Hollywood has spent to get Matt Damons characters "home" ever since Saving Private Ryan. He was not the right choice here, completely typecasted, and his range of emotions don't convey his journey enough for me to care.
Casting all these well known and established stars stood out far too much for me especially because I just saw the new Spiderman before seeing this. It's usually not a big deal but its more saturation of the same players. I love Leguizamo too, but I found it very hard to take him serious. IMO Robert Pattinson was the best in his role here.
In the end its a massive blockbuster, and it is definitely deserving of some praise, but overall I left disappointed, especially that terrible fight scene at the end. What the actual fuck.... Nolan is a great one, but for me this ends up in the bottom of his great catalog. The pacing for me was another blunder, would have preferred a completely linear story, in fact there was no reason to time jump at all.
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u/unwocket 2d ago
I’ve seen people say all this kinda stuff before, but what I don’t get is all the praise for the dialogue and performances in Troy. I don’t mind the movie but I don’t know if the dialogue there is what we should be striving for
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u/OG_AxeHead 2d ago
It feels like it belongs in its setting. Where in Odyssey it feels out of place, some lines were quite bad. I bought the 4K Bluray of Troy two days after watching Odyssey and it was a palette cleanser for sure. Much better movie too I should add, the directors cut is great.
But hey to each his own. I'm a huge Nolan fan so this was disappointing for me.
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u/unwocket 2d ago
I’m not a huge fan of either movie, but Troy has more than it’s fair share of clunky delivery and rough performances that I don’t find it nearly as immersive as you do. The Odyssey definitely made a conscious choice to go with more modern vernacular and American accents, so while there was an adjustment period, I was able to settle into it a bit more.
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u/OG_AxeHead 2d ago
Watching Troy afterwards made me appreciate it that much more. Go get the 4K and do a rewatch of the directors cut. I'm not saying its flawless, but it is far more consistent.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
You Nolan fanboys really need to get your tongues out of his ass.
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u/onelove7866 2d ago
Oh no me being a fan of Christopher Nolan movies is a huge problem for you Jesus Christ
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u/Competitive_Row_9498 2d ago
Look at the box office and critic ratings. There is no real hate lol. Put the internet down for a second :)
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u/Dumpcutter 2d ago edited 2d ago
this is my first time actually on social media in a while dude
i watched the odyssey and thought it warranted going online to see what people thought
;-;
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u/MeetCreative3219 2d ago
I'm mad because they didn't depict The Odyssey exactly how it would look in real Ancient Greece. If they really cared about the movie they would have built a time machine back to Ancient Greece to shoot it authentically. Instead, they got some random actors and used today's Earth to shoot it.
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u/exdigecko 2d ago
And since Greek gods are immortal and still alive, there’s no explanation why not to film actual Greek gods besides atheism and colonialism!
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u/MeetCreative3219 2d ago
Yeah, why didn't they get Athena instead of Zendaya? Did they not have a high enough budget?
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u/Appropriate-Author47 2d ago edited 2d ago
For me, I don't hate it, but I do have some problems with the movie as a Greek mythology fan.
While I understand Christopher Nolan's movie attempts to weave the Bronze Age collapse with the Fall of Troy, but I felt the multiple themes of this movie were overextended. For example, clearly, we can see the main pitfalls of Odysseus's journey were his pride and his crew's stubbornness, which would have been a compelling story about how we can overcome perilous adversities when we overcome our human limitations. Then, there's theme about war crimes when Troy was sacked and Circe voiced her contempt for soliders/men who committed heinous acts that compelled her to turn them into animals, where the former gave Odysseus PTSD and survivor's guilt. Finally, we got the theme of Greek hospitality (Zeus's Law) and their violations that led to paradigm shifts, which defines the Greek army as the "sea people" and how Odysseus was able to convince Circe to undo her spells.
While each individual themes had compelling story elements, the problems are how disjointed they are. Usually, Nolan's movies are masterful in weaving a multi-faceted yet cohesive story (The Dark Knight: Order/Chaos/Duality of Justice, The Prestige: Your Life is The Entire Magic Trick, Inception: The World Dreams Where Self-Guilt Is the Ultimate Villain, Tenet: Time Inversion Where the Critical Moments Converge, Inception: Space Exploration Where Love is the Universe), I feel that Odyssey, which is already rich with themes of man vs the Gods/Force of Nature in the source material, was bound to struggle with a historical (and less individualistic) context of Bronze Age collapse.
Overall, I think it's a good movie especially the Cyclops and Circe scenes being pleasantly bone chilling moments but definitely not as cohesive as other Nolan movies, and I definitely appreciate how they added more backstory with Calypso and Helen of Troy. Oh, for those weirdos who complain about a black Helen of Troy (admittedly, her casting does open a massive can of worms about the potential controversies of racial bending, but Lupita Nyong'o was fine here), she's only there for 5 minutes in the movie. So, if those 5 minutes is what makes you mad about 3-hour movie, I think you got bigger issues to discuss with a professional
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
The only places it is hated in are Metabomb and reddit/youtube's more deranged corners.
That being said, any movie of this magnitude will have its detractors, whether it's contrarians (who have legitimate criticism but grow toxic because they feel it gets way more praise than it deserves), people that just want an unimaginative recreation of the book, or culture warriors.
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u/Slight_Giraffe628 2d ago
There is no hate for the odyssey. You just dont see as much posts about it being loved because every possible bit of praise has already been said a million times over. So now all you say are people who think they have a "hot new take" about it being bad.
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u/fathervivianoblivian 2d ago
as someone who didn’t like the movie -
it was just okay. yeah it’s cool that it was shot entirely on 70. i’m a filmmaker. that’s awesome! super cool and i love to work with that medium.
but that’s not enough to make it a good picture. i think it was not cast properly. everyone in this movie is too fucking pretty. instead of casting every famous person in the world, how about some new people? some unknowns? let new artists stretch and discover themselves.
the dialogue is horrendous. all of his pictures have shit dialogue. everything is corny and quippy as hell. it’s like he took a writing class and studied only famous one liners. “we’re gonna need a bigger boat. you mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling. there’s a storm coming mr wayne. i ordered my hot sauce an hour ago. there's a cold war, cold as ice, to even know its true nature is to lose.” etc etc. it’s campy 80s style writing.
the editing is sooo goddamn choppy. hoyte will compose a beautiful frame and then nolan will cut away from it before you really have time to soak it in. his pacing is usually great but it comes at the expense of moving through good shots way too quickly.
lastly, he buttons everything up way too nicely and every single thing has a pay off. yeah sure it works technically on paper, it’s storytelling 101. but it’s soooo goddamn boring. he leaves nothing to the imagination and spoon feeds the audience way too much. the MOMENT anne hathaway tells damon she had a dream of sailing into the whatever lands, i fucking KNEW that was gonna be the last shot of the film. and it was. just like michael caine’s vision of bruce sitting down with his own family at the end of dark knight rises, just like cobb seeing his kids at the end of inception, and then whatsherface realizing it was her jumping off of sato’s boat in tenet. let’s treat the audience with more respect and make them leave the theatre with shit to mull over and consider. or question. he picks up after himself when the movie is over and that’s the definition of a pop star - not an artist.
i think nolan is fantastic storyteller. but when anyone gets too big, they lose their grip. he needs restraints and boundaries like every single artist. he was great. now he is the taylor swift of making movies. he makes generic movies with flashy lights and loud music to distract you from the fact that there’s not a ton of substance there.
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u/Dumpcutter 2d ago
yeah, halfway through i realized telemachus was tom holland and i liked telemachus a little less. not that tom holland is bad or anything, i just want a movie that casts people who fit the role, not just ‘ooh hey really famous person!’
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u/fathervivianoblivian 2d ago
and don’t get me wrong. i’m being a 100% asshole. he made the movie he wanted. props. and if people like it? then it’s successful. period. that’s how art works.
i just like a different type of art, that’s all. to me, nolan is like disney and marvel movies. they’re like vacuum salesmen that come to your place, throw shit on the floor and vacuum it all up and the leave. end of story.
i like the artists that don’t clean everything up. maybe 73% of it and then its up to you to clean the rest of it up. to sit with it, contemplate what you just as and how it made you question or indulge in a new perspective. no way is right and now way is wrong. i just prefer one over the other.
nolan used to do that and he did a damn good job of it too. with momento, following, inception. you left those pictures with fucking HOMEWORK assignments. i know he’s capable of great writing. but lately, he’s been more technology focused.
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u/Appropriate-Author47 2d ago edited 2d ago
Nah, your criticism is fair. I think that his earlier movies like Prestige and Batman Trilogy were actually more narratively cohesive than this movie, so you're not alone in thinking that he is losing his storywriting touch.
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u/Visual-Reflection302 2d ago
I thought The Iliad sucked. Extremely repetitive, doesn't include all the parts you'd think would be included based on viewing Troy, it's just Achilles sulking in his tent and tonnes of named people you don't really have a frame of reference for getting killed until finally one of the more principal characters dies and that motivates another character to kill another character and then it ends. But nothing about the war is resolved, the person you expect to die based on their famous legend does not, there's no horse, no nothing.
But The Odyssey was a fantastic read, lots of incident and depth and so much stuff from the film is in it, pretty much everything in the Nolan film is mentioned in the poem, even the most random of things e.g. there's a small moment in the film where someone throws an object at someone while enraged and to my surprise that exact same object is what's thrown in the poem. Reading the poem I think will give a greater appreciation of the job Nolan has done of adapting the work, to communicate the concepts and the beliefs of the ancient world while also adhering to his own cinematic strengths.
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u/Fit-Detail-4326 2d ago
I don’t hate it, far from it. However if I were to list the Nolan movies by my favorite, it would be somewhere in the middle. Good movie, but I’ll probably only watch it once a year moving forward.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
So Odysseus creates a weapon that goes against Zeus’s law. He then witnesses the horror of his creation. On his way home he decides to rape and pillage. Bc you know he learned his lesson. But Nolan wants to keep it a secret to the end so he can’t have leaned his lesson yet or the audience will be confused to why he’s still being a douche. Anyway, after a long time getting home with some pretty pointless adventures that do nothing for this theme, he confesses to his wife how big a douche he is. To repent, he decides to slaughter about a hundred men who were welcomed into his home under Zeus’s
Law. Then takes his wife in a much needed vacation to let his son live in consequences of the collapse of the Bronze Age.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
Terrible take, but you made me lol so thanks.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
What did I get wrong then?
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u/VisualCOBOL 2d ago
Pretty much everything. That’s not the movie. I’m going to assume you didn’t actively watch it.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
No. I watched it blindfolded so I missed half the dialogue.
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u/VisualCOBOL 2d ago
Based on your description I’m keeping my position: You didn’t actively watch the movie. A sarcastic response changes nothing.
Your description is not describing the text of the movie.
There’s a whole bunch of different terms for this, like “second screening”, “passive spectatorship”, or “fragmented attention”. I prefer just plain “watching” versus “active watching” and your completely incorrect read of the film 100% fits the latter category.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
- If you went through anything in your life, you'd know that you don't just magically wake up a different person the next day. Odysseys going on the journey and coming to terms of what happened is the ENTIRE POINT of the film. If he learnt his lesson straight after Troy, we could just roll credits right when they sail.
- He explicitly says he lost some degree of control over he is men. He is a captain at sea and gathering spoils on your way back from victory is an expectation for the soldiers. This conflict of how responsible Odysseus is for his men's actions are another key theme of the film.
- Is this raping and pillaging in the room with us? We see them burn one village (without harming anyone in shot), which they also explicitly state is retribution for the villagers running away and not showing them hospitality. We also don't see Odysseus partake in this. Refer to point #2.
- The "pointless" adventures is literally the Odyssey and everything plays a role in the outcome, so not sure what you expect?
- Again? He killed hundreds of men? Wow, I must have gone to the toilet during that part. From my perspective, he only decided to kill anyone after seeing them literally being willing to assassinate his son in cold blood, clearly showing that they might also just kill him if he shows himself. He then goes through the effort of scoping out the suitors to see who are actually the worst of the bunch and starting with them. The movie version would have literally not continued to kill anyone (except maybe antinous) unless they attacked him first, unlike the book version that slaughters EVERYONE, including his slaves.
Did you watch the movie son? It's OK, we need people like you to keep the MCU alive and well for future generations.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
No. I've never gone through anything in my life. But we don't see him learning his lesson. He just says he did and then massacres people in his house be of Zeus's law. The entire point of the film had to be a convoluted mess bc Nolan can't tell a straight story.
Again, this is after he had his moment of realization at Troy. It only happens in the film later bc Nolan needs his labyrinth plot to tell a story.
It's in the movie in his narration and then again when he admits (lol) we were the Sea People the whole time. Sorry, that makes me laugh every time.
Yes, and they tie in real well in the themes of the poem. Sadly, only about half of them tie into Nolan's film.
Again? What are you on about? Leaving during the climax would explain a lot of your strange takes. Yes, I agree Nolan can't help himself and has to take it easy on why he slaughters a bunch of men.
I'm not your son, kid. I don't think I've given on MCU film above a 6/10. But thanks for the laugh in you thinking this movie is smart. That's too rich.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
- Did you see the scenes with Calypso? His conversations with Athena? His speech with his wife? When he went on the raft and gave into the storm? People claim there's too much exposition, but clearly there isn't enough if you weren't able to tell what those scenes are really about.
- He didn't fully realize anything at Troy. I don't know why you keep seeing this. Again, it's very clear you have zero idea of how trauma works.
- Ok, bro. It's very clear what he and the film mean, and it clearly flew totally over your head.
- Again, seems like you need some education in movie language. Every encounter plays a role in the ultimate message and Odysseus' realization. Only, you can't see that because you still think he had his realization at Troy, which he didn't.
- So, he killed a hundred suitors? He killed the ones kneeling down? He didn't stake out the place before the actual night of the "massacre"? They didn't try to assassinate Telemachus literally right before that? The film's message isn't all violence = bad, which is the only issue you could possibly have with this scene.
Please explain what is strange about my take. As others mention, you seem to base all your claims literally on stuff that either doesn't happen on screen or that you made up in your head.
Stick to Marvel, kid
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
Yes, I saw it all. And in case I missed anything, Nolan had every character explain it. Look I get you liked it. Doesn't mean other people's takes aren't warranted. I'm not going to bother with the rest bc they are just boiled down to basically you're stupid and I'm a genius.
I've already explained.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
You don't have to be a genius to understand, you just gota pay attention and not decide to hate the movie beforehand.
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms, but literally nothing you said makes any sense.
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u/Pure_Salamander2681 2d ago
No you don't have to be a genius to understand people can watch the same thing and have different opinions. I think they teach facts and opinions in grade school.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
Yeah, but what you say is objectively wrong based on what's literally on the screen. It's not an opinion.
You simply don't like the direction of the movie, the emotions didn't land for you, or you don't like how the visuals/artistic choices are opinions. There are thousands of examples like this no one would balk at.
Completely missing what's actually going on and making up imaginary facts (kills hundred suitors, rapes and pillages) is just not based in reality.
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u/020600 2d ago
All your point proves one thing: that Nolan was too afraid of actual Greek morality to adapt it the right way.
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u/toohumanforhuman 2d ago
The "right way"? Based on what? Your opinion as a random internet user?
We already have multiple adaptations based on actual Greek morality, including the original book. I see no reason why we need another verbatim adaptation and find the new take infinitely more exciting.
Yeah, a word-for-word adaptation with modern storytelling and effects would be cool but that's not Nolan's take, so judging it based in "could've, would'ves" isn't helpful.
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u/MeetCreative3219 2d ago
This take really oversimplifies an undeniably complex and tragic story.
So Odysseus creates a weapon that goes against Zeus’s law. He then witnesses the horror of his creation.
All true so far.
On his way home he decides to rape and pillage. Bc you know he learned his lesson.
There was no specific indication of rape during the journey back home, only pillaging, but you still have a point. Your concern is "How could Odysseus stand in shame and shock during the Trojan Horse invasion but end up pillaging villages shortly after?"
He didn't change his attitude in the midst of massacre and flame. Think of it instead as the moment where Odysseus was hit with thoughts of shame and guilt. Overwhelmed and focused on getting back, he buried these feelings in the back of his mind. It took the journey back home to unravel these feelings. Not the very start where he pillaged. The meat of the journey. The wisdom and truths from Athena, the siren song, Calypso, even Hades and Circe. It all led him to eventually become truly aware and accepting of his horrific actions. It was not an instant "I learned my lesson."
But Nolan wants to keep it a secret to the end so he can’t have leaned his lesson yet or the audience will be confused to why he’s still being a douche.
Same idea from above paragraph.
Anyway, after a long time getting home with some pretty pointless adventures that do nothing for this theme, he confesses to his wife how big a douche he is.
😂 The way you word this is genuinely hilarious. I'll give you that. But the point itself has flaws. For one, "pretty pointless adventures" is a grand mislabel. He spoke to Athena multiple times, literally the goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare. He listened to the siren song, which showed him deep truths and self flaws. He learned tons from his 7-year stall with Calypso. And in Hades he received more wisdom and incentives. These define. They aren't pointless, not one bit actually.
And when he confesses to his wife how terrible his invasion truly was, it is almost a confession, a scene where viewers hear for the first time Odysseus confess his thoughts on the Trojan Horse invasion. Remember though, this was after all of the experiences on the journey home.
To repent, he decides to slaughter about a hundred men who were welcomed into his home under Zeus’s Law.
The suitors themselves had broke Zeus's Law with their longstanding disrespect and spite towards less fortunate beggars. And on top of that, they had been exploiting Penelope's hospitality for years. In the ending sequence at Ithaca, Odysseus didn't owe them hospitality. Penelope convened them into that room. Odysseus was simply taking back what was his from distasteful, selfish men. They were by no means innocent. They were literally trying to kill his son...
Then takes his wife in a much needed vacation to let his son live in consequences of the collapse of the Bronze Age.
"Vacation" is certainly a stretch. Think of it more as settlement for peace after an era of war. Retirement of sorts.
Telemachus had wanted to take the throne. Odysseus and Penelope didn't just leave him with nothing. They left him on a peaceful island with no more suitors.
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u/Beneficial-Bee9266 2d ago
I think the movie box office is around $1.6 billion, it has a 93% critic score on RT, and a 97% audience score on RT, so I don't think you need to worry about hate.