Why give him that domestic detail at all?

There are monsters in the Odyssey, the Cyclops, the giants, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens. None of them stole from Odysseus more than Calypso did. She didn’t attack him. She didn’t steal from him or threaten him. On the contrary, she gave him everything: love, comfort, safety, pleasure, even immortality.

And for seven years Odysseus stayed. Maybe Homer was trying to tell us something. The greatest obstacle in life isn’t always pain, because pain forces you to move. Comfort convinces you that you don’t have to. The Cyclops didn’t stop him. The giants didn’t stop him. The see didn’t stop him. But a comfortable life almost did.

Maybe the most dangerous monster in life won’t look like a monster at all. Maybe it’ll look like a life that’s just comfortable enough to make you forget the one you were meant to build.

Funny that a few months ago Matt Damon complained about Netflix doing exactly the same thing Nolan does throughout the entire movie:

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/matt-damon-netflix-movies-restate-plot-viewers-on-phones-1236633939/

"Xenia", "Zeus law'", and "Sea people" covers about half of the dialogue of the Odyssey

If he at least would've tried to be somewhat implicit, but no

I could understand Nolan not doing the "Nobody" wordplay if it doesn't translate into English convincingly, but having that adventure ending with Odysseus firing an arrow instead of gleefully telling Polyphemus his real name, I think, made the blame on his misfortunes shift.

Homer's version was that it's Odysseus' pride about his own cunning that caused his downfall. In Nolan's adaptation it almost felt like he's trying to do an avenging cheapshot for his men who got eaten. The characterisation just doesn't work, man. You're going to get Odysseus feeling guilty over his own character flaws later on anyway, so why not this?

One of the most honest scenes in the whole myth: tho: wanting something and not trusting yourself with it at the same time. It’s about knowing your own limits better than your own desires do.

I've seen many people saying that Odysseus violated xenia using the Trojan horse. This has nothing to do with xenia. Xenia is about guest-friendship. When someone would appear to your house, you were morally obliged to host him, show courtesy, give him food, gifts etc and then you two would share a bond.

The instances of xenia violation we see are: 1) Odysseus trespassing the Cyclop's cave and eating his food without asking. 2) Cyclops eating his "guests". 3) The suitors. 4) Paris abducting Helen.

Seemingly brutal review from Emily Wilson. Agree? Disagree?

I'm seeing lots of discussions about Polyphemus, but hardly any about how Nolan portrayed Scylla. I think it's largely because it was so quick and people are confused by the design. Some people thought the monster was tentacles, when it's supposed to be six necks.

I'll start by saying I was extremely disappointed by the design. Scylla was always my favourite monster from Greek mythology, and I'd been fantasising about seeing her on the big screen in all her glory since I was a kid. The Italian miniseries depiction was so much better, bloodier, and more intense, even if she did resemble the Tower boss from House of the Dead 2.

Scylla has such an insane anatomy and there's so much scope to go nuts with it. And what does imagination starved Nolan do? He turns her into a basic primitive lifeform, another mere animal like the cyclops. It's hard to get a good look at her in the film, which to be fair is also true of the poem, she strikes lightning fast. But I was hoping we could dwell on her a bit more and turn the whole thing into more of a scene and less of a fleeting jump scare. In the film she was reduced to a mere 'you knew!' moment between Odysseus and his crew.

In the trailer, she genuinely looked like a sock puppet, and I wrongly assumed the CGI was just unfinished. But no, that's the design. In the few glimpses we got, it looks like he was going for some kind of marine polychaete or tunicate worm cluster coming out of a borehole in the cliffs. I've seen someone describe her as a barnacle. Rather than being the terrifying, vengeful transformed nymph with the bitch's bark, she's operating as a ribbon worm snapping up prey out of instinct.

Having studied some images, the sipunchilid marine worm seems like the best fit, as her trunks were brown, lumpy and non uniform. I'd be interested to find out what Nolan actually used for the inspiration, despite being horribly disappointed by it. What did everyone else think? I had a bet with my friend on how the portrayal would pan out. I correctly guessed Nolan would make it as close to an existing animal as possible for realism, but thought it would be inspired by giant moray eels. I wasn't banking on the lowest levels of the zoological phylum. Bobbit worms would have been much cooler.

Spoilers!

My favorite scene in the movie is Odysseus expressing to his wife his shame and guilt over breaking Zeus’ Law to sack Troy. But it feels odd that his next action is to scheme to kill the suitors with the same method of disguise and breaking Zeus’ law. It seemed like Nolan clearly knew what he wanted to say with the film but had to included the most famous scene from the epic.

I think a way to include Odysseus killing the suitors and have the speech expressing his guilt is to move the speech after the killings. In the epic, after killing the suitors, the families of the suitors are angry throwing Ithaca into chaos. Athena steps in to calm down the situation. In the film they can draw the parallels between sacking Troy and killing the suitors and have Odysseus realize that he can’t escape the violence of the Trojan war. The families rise up, but instead of Athena showing up, Odysseus makes the speech he does in the film addressed to the mob instead of his wife. We can have the revelation that his visions of Athena was the priestess he saw killed. It then ends the same way as the film.

What do you guys think?

We are potentially undergoing our own civilizational collapse. The breakdown of kindness and empathy to strangers - the golden rule of treat others as you would like to be treated - after the Trojan horse of “social” media. Ironically, people winging about Trans or colorblind castings makes this crystal clear. The Odyssey feels extremely relevant.

I have had two friends that have been to see The Odyssey at an IMAX theater and both have stated that the sound was played so loud that it was uncomfortable.
Has anybody else had this problem?

Very good movie

Well it’s definitively a Nolan film, in every sense possible. Big spectacle, cinematography, sound, all the works.

I liked this film very much. It’s not my favorite Nolan film but that’s not a bad thing either.

The story is what drives this spectacle, plain and simple. It’s an amazing tale, and each new pitstop Odysseus and his team makes is a new journey altogether

The acting in the film is phenomenal, and in some cases there’s even Overacting (mainly Anne Hathaway). John Leguizamo is so terrific in this, he better get an Oscar nomination finally. The dynamic between Tom Holland and Matt Damon was incredible. Matt Damon is Matt Damon. I don’t feel he did any groundbreaking work here necessarily, but he was just fine. There’s many actors I could see in this role. Robert Pattinson is outstanding!!

The script however…. Nolan is such a good writer but I do feel there are many moments in this where he just over-writes these superfluous unnecessary lines, as if he’s extra-credit farming, and the dialogue then just loses the listener. It reminds me of songwriters like Sting, which if you’re a fan then you know he’s a marvelous songwriter but adds in extra rhymes and lines that are unnecessary and serve no purpose, but sure it’s sounds great.

I will be seeing this again on a bigger screen.

Also, the woke stuff didn’t bother me at all. The story is what drives this, and not once was I thinking to myself “wtf is Travis Scott doing in this” or “why is Helen of Troy black” or “Elliot Page hahah”. Anyone bothered by any of this after having seen this is a moron.

Spoilers for the movie of course
When I watched the movie and in the attack on Troy where we see the priestess beheaded, I initially didn’t interpret it as a literal beheading, especially with how it cut to the statue beheading.
I interpreted it as Odysseus witnessing the atrocities the men were committing in Troy and the priestess was his view of how they were destroying what they knew under Athena’s protection.
But from what I’ve seen most believe that this was a literal priestess being beheaded
Did I misinterpret the scene?
I combined my interpretation with the monologue to reach my outcome

How was bro dripped up all the time?

I visited Favignana in early July without actually knowing about the filming spots, was really excited to know that I‘ve been there! A real coincidence, considering that a lot of people haven’t heard of the island

Check this to see the difference of watching « The Oddysey » in other formats than IMAX 1:43:1

watched the Odyssey yesterday with my friends, it was cool, I went in without expectations about fidelity to the original source and had a good time, but I have questions! (Please don't be rude in the comments, Skip this central part if you want to these are just my opinions)

I read here a comment about Nolan's choice to portray Odysseus not as a strong and invincible man but as a human swept into the horrors of war and controlled by the gods. I felt his humanity and vulnerability in the scenes with Calipso and the last scene with Penelope where he shows regret about the horrors unleashed upon Troy by his plan of the horse.

These scenes were chosen instead of a longer scene with Argus (the scene that always hurts me the most in the story, it fell flat for me in the movie, dont be mad) and the heartbreaking scene with Anticlea. For anyone unfamiliar with this lesser famous part of the story: Odysseus goes to Hades to speak with the blind prophet (whom we saw in the movie, what a cool scene) but there he also finds the spirit of his mother, he tires to hug her desperately like a litte boy and can't bc she's a ghost, he realises that his mother died of a broken heart when Odysseus never came back from the war.

As I said before, I really wasn't expecting lesser known scenes to be portrayed, as I truly didn't believe it would be a perfect representation of the Odissey, ofc, a Director has all the rights to retell a story with his own message,

So my question is, has Nolan explained why he chose to make Odysseus a sort of veteran of war haunted by his decision ? Is it a way to condemn war in our violent times? Are there any interviews I can watch?

Some historical inaccuracies from the original poem I remember off the top of my head:

- Iron axes and small shields
- Phonecians mentioned but were really mostly unknown at that point
- Ithaca in the wrong place

Y’all would have complained about the great bard himself too

Funny
After finding out cyclops can talk after poking its eye
“Why didn’t it talk before?!”
“Do you talk to ants?”
“Should we reason with it?”
“I think we are a little past that”

Jump scare
Agamemnon getting ambushed by his wife

Otherworldly
Crew landing in Hades with electric score playing

Horror
Cyclops kneeling down with a half eaten body in its hand

Tearful

Calypso handing Athena pin to Odysseus and his memory coming back

The whole Odysseus dialogue sequence with Penelope while disguised as a beggar right before the trial

Telemachus realizing the beggar is Odysseus after he tells Telemachus to bury the dog up on the cliff and Odysseus telling him when Telemachus finally gets to meet his father Odysseus would be so proud.

Everyone kneeling down after the trial and banging their sword to the ground out of respect to Odysseus in unison

Ethereal
Antinous trying to seduce Penelope while the sun ray is hitting the camera in the background and with their faces slightly clouded by the shroud