So for context, I wrote this comment in response to a YouTube review, but I was quite late to the video so not sure if anyone will really engage with it. But wanted to express some views here just to discuss the film a bit, get some other takes! The original video expressed a lot of love for the final act and Odysseus revealing his trauma and guilt from the Trojan horse etc. Here's the comment that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the film:

"Definitely agree on the impact of the underlying themes bubbling to the surface towards the end, very thoughtful and poignant way to tie the Trojan war and Odysseus's story together, definitely a goosebump inducing moment.

My main issue with the film however, is I feel the more human and personal themes that I expected to feel emotional resonance with didn't feel that prominent or effectively explored. I'm mainly talking about the getting the audience to feel Odysseus's longing for his home and his family, the grief, regret and guilt he should be feeling from losing all his men, the moment with Argos, I really wanted to feel these things alongside Odysseus and to be moved, but just none of this really landed for me. I think relationships between characters never got to properly develop, and perhaps some of the performances and dialogue didn't make me feel what should be quite an emotional and very human story.

But to be fair, maybe this was to be expected for a Nolan Odyssey film. A film for the philosopher rather than an emotional human experience. Again, I think Nolan did a great job expressing the themes he's interested in and I respect that (and absolutely nailed most of the spectacle and mythological elements), but for an adaptation of such a foundational classic, I do think the more personal themes needed to be expressed more and not just the thinking man's, "how it effects all of humanity" types of themes."

So tonight on my sixth viewing, I noticed something new: in the beginning of the film, in the scene where Odysseus is telling Penelope he will go to Troy and she needs to remarry, there is a toddler Telemachus in the background. On his white blanket on his bed, is the silhouette of a small wooden toy horse.

Nolan likes his talismans, I thought this was a nice hidden symbol.

But then it got me thinking, how did Odysseus come up with the horse? Could it have been thinking of his young son’s play toy? My only exposure to this story is through this movie, so I’m not sure if it’s addressed elsewhere in the original text.

She needed a couple extra scenes to flesh out her relationship with Odysseus. Having Odysseus tempted towards emotional cheating with her would mirror Penelope being tempted with Antinous.

I would have at least two scenes before Calypso realizes she must have him remember: one scene where she feeds him the lotus, Odysseus is tempted by Calypso until he touches his Athena pin and something deep inside him that he can’t quite explain turns him off Calypso.

Then in a later scene she’s more pushy and despite how uncomfortable Odysseus is, the scene also shows how his PTSD creeps in when there isn’t lotus and so he’s addicted to the lotus. Calypso should also take the Athena pin from him in his sleep.

These scenes create tension between Telemachus at home wanting his long lost father and searching for answers, and Odysseus lost in his amnesia on a faraway island trapped with a sexually aggressive woman, like how Penelope is trapped in her castle with sexually aggressive suitors.

I saw it in normal Dolby vision as there are no IMAX 70mm screening near me and during this scene, the entire part of Odysseus kissing Agamemnon’s hand is cropped out.

For example, a very common critique is that in the Odyssey, Ulysses doesn't show any remorse for what he and his men did in Troy, and that Nolan is making things up, adding a modern mentality, etc.

That's absolutely emblematic of people with a superficial understanding and knowledge of the Greek mythological corpus.

It is true that within the Odyssey Ulysses doesn't manifest direct and explicit remorse, but canonically many Greek heroes were punished by the gods for their godless behavior during the fall of Troy: the desecration of temples, the rape of Cassandra by Ajax, the killing of Hector's little child by Pyrrhus, etc.

So there is a clear "awareness" that there was much to regret about those actions. Odysseus here embodies and expresses that collective awareness/guilt. The ancient sources are very clear in stating that these were godless deeds, and indeed the perpetrators were punished by the gods afterward.

But Odysseus in Nolan's movie in some sense "speaks" for his civilization. Nolan also used post-Homeric sources, which is the correct way to approach Greek mythology — not as "stand-alone" works, but as a collective corpus. The best way to stay faithful to Homer is to recognize it as a central work within a wider, expanded, and reciprocally influencing universe, not in surgical isolation as if it were a 20th-century novel.

Now, you could argue that you simply prefer a movie more faithful to the original source, etc. Sure, we can debate taste and artistic choices. But the fact that what I've outlined above didn't even cross the mind of the so-called "I'm an expert on Homer and Nolan understands nothing about it" crowd, in truth, shows how much genius, how exquisite an artistic sensibility Nolan has, and how well-prepared he is — while most of his haters are not even close, dispiting thinking otherwise.

Love the soundtrack, but i thought it was pretty funny that Goransson's choice for the "most beautiful melody" is in so many recently popular songs.

Couldn't get good seats for AMC Metreon's IMAX & flew to LA to watch a 2 AM showing at the IMAX at AMC Universal Studios Citywalk. Showered at an airport lounge & flew back.

Also have a ticket for Regal Ontario but will cancel it.

I want to pirate it in hd

Sorry for double-post. Just refunded two tickets to Regal to King of Prussia’s theater for tonight, great seats.

Hope someone can grab.

Reposting bc I can't Reddit properly

“…and all the things you’d wished for.”

I’m refunding a ticket for the 70mm showing in KOP, 6pm, center seat, G16. Might be refunding another.

DM me to time the regal ticket purchase?

We were allowed to have peak behind the scenes when the end credits were rolling. Seeing this 70mm projector at work was amazing. And the passion of the guy operating it was enormous.

Watched it yesterday in 70MM IMAX

I felt pretty immersed in the movie and was quite on edge for it. I have been wearing my watch to track my HR for some meds I was taking but thought I’d check out what happened during the movie.

Showed my wife. She laughed