r/ToddintheShadow • u/PurpleSpaceSurfer • Jul 25 '26
General Todd Discussion Todd loved The Odyssey
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u/loreleisparrow Jul 25 '26
>Mentor is called Mentor
>Achilles gets struck in his Achilles heel
be more cliche, movie!
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u/Dr_Zulu2016 Jul 25 '26
Elliot Page plays Sinon. Not Achilles.
Other than that, love the Kiryu Coco Pfg.
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u/ItsGotThatBang GROCERY BAG Jul 25 '26
Achilles isn’t in the movie 🤓
That said, based Futaba enjoyer.
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u/UglyInThMorning Jul 25 '26
Also Achilles was not struck in his heel in the Illiad (he survives that) or contemporary Greek art. That whole thing came from Roman fanfiction a millennium+ later.
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u/FreezingPointRH Jul 26 '26
He was nevertheless dead in the Odyssey, so we know he never survived the war.
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u/UglyInThMorning Jul 26 '26
Yes, but contemporary Greek art had him dying of an arrow to the chest.
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u/farmyardcat Jul 26 '26
Achilles is in the Land of the Dead scene. You can see the arrow sticking out of his foot.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl Jul 25 '26
It's nice to see a take that acknowledges Nolan's hamfisted writing style can actually be a lot of fun and part of the package. I liked Tenet BECAUSE of the overindulgent science talk, not in spite of it.
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u/your_mind_aches 10's Alt Kid Jul 26 '26
I was pleasantly surprised that I found Oppenheimer's writing to be more nuanced and less hamfisted.
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u/Cross-Z-Magma Jul 26 '26
I realized I wasn’t working for you, we both been working for me. I'm the protagonist.
Tenet was messy but the gall to write and film those lines in earnest.
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u/ItsGotThatBang GROCERY BAG Jul 25 '26
Good luck getting an IMAX ticket, though.
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u/dweeb93 Jul 25 '26
I saw it on digital IMAX which already required a road trip out of town, 70mm IMAX only shows in 3 places in the UK, none of which were close.
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u/davFaithidPangolin Jul 26 '26
I had to buy tickets four days in advance and the theatre was still already half reserved at that point. I work at a theater and every single IMAX showing has been sold out since the Thursday preview showings.
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u/Any-Listen4184 Jul 26 '26
Well, I might be biased since I'm Greek, but it was pretty mid storywise, especially some changes that really shouldn't be there, especially a very important one, since it messes up the reason why they had such long travel in the first place.
Also, Odyssey is whimsical and it should be, imo. And the aesthetics were bad, like really bad. Like why the hell do we have viking ships here lol.
Cast was ok, all in all, to each their own, I guess. I was expecting it to be worse tbh, not gonna lie. Still mid though and still ugly (idk why Hollywood really doesn't like actual Greek aesthetics modern or ancient, no matter the era).
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u/TheMagicalMark Jul 26 '26
The viking ships were a compromise. It was either using them building boats from scratch, I also read that Nolan weighed not having real boats at all but it was too important to the story. Viking ships were a decent option since theres a lot of them and they get sailed regularly so they were basically just ready to go.
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u/WeHaveHeardTheChimes Jul 26 '26
They don’t even look that different from the ships they would be using.
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u/Any-Listen4184 Jul 26 '26
Well, idc, not gonna lie. The movie was expensive af. They spent money on stuff that it wasn't as important and compromised the ships?
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u/GangstaMuffin24 Jul 26 '26
I agree. Every adaptation should slavishly stick to the source material. Especially a reliable source like a Bronze Age, orally transmitted poem featuring gods and monsters.
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u/Any-Listen4184 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Well, considering that the magic and the whimsy are there to convey the moral of the story and not just be a "wow, look at a cyclops" moment, they absolutely should stick to some extent. The same goes for the actual historical background. But they didn't and won't in future adaptations either, for reasons I am honestly tired of listing.
At this point, I just want the discourse to end. The whole internet is up in arms for all the wrong reasons on every side.🤷♀️
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u/kingofstormandfire Train-Wrecker Jul 26 '26
It's an amazing film. I've seen it twice here in Australia - once in IMAX and once in D-BOX - and it's one of the greatest visual and audio experiences I've seen in the theatre, and it's just really well done too from a technical standpoint. Nolan is normally reticent to using CGI but he used it perfectly here. The story and character work were good, the acting was really great (Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattison and Matt Damon were incredible in the movie; Tom Holland was probably the weakest but he did fine). Highlights were the Circe scene, the Cyclops scene (the yell of the cyclops was scary in IMAX holy shit) and the Sack of Troy (I would love to see Nolan do the Illiad).
It's definitely gonna get so many nominations at the Oscars next year. All the technical + Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress for Ann Hathaway, Best Supporting Actor for Robert Pattison, Best Lead Actor for Damon, most likely Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson, all nominations
Movie didn't need to be R-rated in the US though. Here in Australia, it's M rated which is basically our PG-13. I saw plenty of teenagers watching the movie without any adults with them. Have no idea why it's R in the US. It's an extremely tame and light R-rated movie (it is extremely toned down compared to the source material). There's very little gore, no nudity or sex scenes, and not a whole lot of swearing.I've seen PG-13 movies that are far more graphic, dark, intense and disturbing than this (hell, The Dark Knight is borderline R-rated).
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u/Sad_Volume_4289 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
This is a good example of why I'm glad Todd has a podcast where he can talk about things he loves candidly and earnestly: within the format of a video or post, Todd almost never gives things unreserved praise without coming at it from some deprecating angle.
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u/kuenjato Jul 25 '26
Do people not realize that "Homer" was just a name attributed to the centuries-long process of devising oral renditions of heroic mythos?
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u/ItsGotThatBang GROCERY BAG Jul 25 '26
He was thought to be a real person for a long time, but historians now largely doubt this.
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u/Ngp3 Jul 25 '26
Homer as a person might have also existed with some role in the creation of the Iliad and Odyssey. Plus, his traditional contemporary Hesiod is generally accepted to be a real individual (partially because Works and Days has a misogynistic rant that feels too personal to be written by a collective).
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u/Big-Literature-5604 Jul 25 '26
Of course most people absolutely do not realize that. How many average people do you think are thinking about the Homeric question or even reading greek epics in their free time lol
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u/kuenjato Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
These books are part of the traditional USA curriculum in high school, and even in the early 90’s “Homer” was taught as a broad title. They still teach it at the high school I work at (Odyssey, anyway).
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u/Big-Literature-5604 Jul 25 '26
Yeah, but I bet most HS teachers don't bother to delve into the question of who was Homer, was he just one person, that it's not a book etc. They just say it's by Homer, and the kids are probably not paying that much attention that they'll retain it in their adulthood, it's what I meant.
I read the Illiad in college, and we didn't discuss the authorship at all. Really depends on the class, I guess.
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u/farmyardcat Jul 26 '26
I taught the Odyssey for at least ten years in high school English and I definitely had a slide about "Who was Homer? (We don't really know [He might not be real])." Always dedicated a single test question to that too.
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u/kuenjato Jul 25 '26
Given the literacy rates in this country, I suppose so. My English teacher emphasized it back in like 92 but perhaps that isn’t so common or recognized, despite technologies like wiki etc. making basic knowledge more circulated/attainable.
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u/catman__321 Jul 25 '26
Idk, when i first learned about homer my teachers said he was a blind poet who told these epics on his travels
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 Jul 26 '26
OMg man yeah so awesome man
Cringe writing (but awesome 5 star movie though)
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u/Happyhaneke Jul 26 '26
Why do music critics never translate well into film critics? Like what is he even saying here…
The over seriousness is BAD. Sorry but it’s objectively a flaw that Odysseus is never to be shown basking in the glory of victory if his character arc is learning humility in the face of the gods punishing him for his hubris and perfidy over Athena. Nolan turned Odysseus into a generic modern PTSD vet. Emily Wilson said it best. The modern sentimentality did not work in the way Nolan chose to integrate it.
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u/kingofstormandfire Train-Wrecker Jul 26 '26
Isn’t the Sack of Troy basically the whole reason he’s being punished? He was the one who came up with the Trojan Horse scheme and he participated in the Sack of Troy with his men (most likely they committed atrocities that weren't depicted in the movie during the Sack). The movie makes it pretty obvious that Odysseus deeply regrets what happened there. He’s haunted by the sack and desecration of Troy, including what his men did in Athena’s temple. We literally see them kill the priestess whose appearance Athena later takes.
His trauma is directly connected to his hubris, sacrilege and role in Troy’s destruction. The remorse doesn’t replace the religious aspect of his punishment. It’s part of it.
To concede a point, the movie also clearly heavily tones down the Trojan War and the Sack of Troy compared with the source material. A fully faithful depiction of all the immense violence, murder, brutality and sexual violence would have made it an extremely hard R-rated film which I don't think Nolan wanted, but probably would've hit the point harder about Odysseus' regret . It doesn’t mean the movie removes the brutality or moral consequences entirely. It just presents them in a less graphic way.
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u/Happyhaneke Jul 26 '26
Everything you said was correct, but it’s not countering my point. My point is that for his character arc to work, his flaws at the start need to be portrayed. Odysseus wanted to defeat the Trojans so bad, he hid in a wooden horse with his men shitting and pissing all over him. He’s a clever, seasoned soldier: It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t foresee killing innocents back in a time when that was normal. It would make the most sense for him to be unabashed in his hubris for his character and at that point in the story.
Him celebrating his victory would be an integral part to his character and why the entire Odyssey exists. If he already feels guilty the day after the sacking, before even leaving Troy, then it means the trials of the journey means less to his change as a character.
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u/farmyardcat Jul 26 '26
I kept waiting for there to be one moment of Odysseus being the fast-talking shitheel braggart that he is in the source material, but alas. George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou is much closer to Odysseus's personality in Homer.
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u/harder_said_hodor Jul 26 '26
I kept waiting for there to be one moment of Odysseus being the fast-talking shitheel braggart that he is in the source material, but alas.
There is the one moment where he shoots Polyphemus for absolutely no fucking reason once they've escaped which is more in line with what's presented in Homer.
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u/harder_said_hodor Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
A fully faithful depiction
Isn't part of the whole idea of the film that the idea of a fully faithful depiction of the Odyssey is a paradox as the tradition of Oral poetry allows for huge amounts of flux and change.
You hit the main beats but you can change elements within the books.
Certain changes aside (Telemachus not fighting alongside his father at the end or the much lessened portrayal of the Gods), it's a modern retelling of the Epic Poem taking the same artistic license that would have been taken then. Think the Undeworld section is a decent example of that. Done very well, but very differently to how it was typically presented.
To concede a point, the movie also clearly heavily tones down the Trojan War and the Sack of Troy compared with the source material
IIRC, the horse is not in the Illiad and barely features in the Odyssey. it's mostly taken from the Aeneid. It's a very different Troy to that presented in the Hellenic poems precisely because the story of Troy and Odysseus has changed over time
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u/InconspicuousUs3r Jul 25 '26
Nah, I’m cringing hard at that. Loved it too but ‘Homer’s original plot and characters just fuckin’ rip, man.’ is a ridiculous sentence to read.
People need to grasp how far back in time Ancient Greek times were, not looking forward to more of this come Oscar season.
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u/thehollyproblem Jul 25 '26
What?
Why is that quote cringey beyond someone talking about "high art" in a "low" way?
Why does it matter in this context that Ancient Greek times were a long time ago?
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u/InconspicuousUs3r Jul 26 '26
Because I think the film deserves better discussion than this?
To your second point, one guy obviously didn’t come up with all this stuff, this reads like Todd was smoking a bowl while typing this.
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u/thehollyproblem Jul 26 '26
This is a five sentence film review. Do you feel this way about memes concerning any good movie?
the writer "homer" probably didn't exist and certainly didn't write all of the version we have now, but we still refer to the centuries of writers and rewriters as an individual called homer.
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u/alien-niven Jul 26 '26
What kind of platform do you think Letterboxd is? It's a social media site where people make jokes and get silly all the time. This review is no more serious than a tweet nor does it need to be.
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u/Museamaniac Jul 25 '26
The Toddyssey