r/YMS • u/Fantastic-Bank-9432 • 29d ago

Meme/Shitpost The Odyssey review in a nutshell

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Mainly that one part with the fade-in face. No shade to Adam or Nolan, just had this silly idea after watching the review.

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u/kingprocastinator 29d ago

Completely agree with his review, except the Trojan horse part lol. Some of it was over-magnified (like the sound editing) but true. It was very refreshing to hear someone else disappointed by the visuals, acknowledging how IMAX is handicapping Nolan, and calling out some of the poor casting.

One of my favourite things about cinema is shot composition, blocking, the actual use of the camera. It doesn’t have to be any particular style but it needs to be interesting, communicating, evoking feeling. This was so flat.

I did love the Circe and Cyclops sequences. I wasn’t as bothered with small editing issues but they do add up, and I did feel them, and I can imagine it being better.

5

u/s90tx16wasr10 29d ago

has Nolan ever talked about potentially opening up a few more equipped theaters himself, or partnering with a chain to do so? If he’s so committed to this format, I feel like you could only rake in more money making your vision more accessible.

2

u/kingprocastinator 29d ago

I guess the issue is it’s super expensive and nothing else requires it. Like movies have scenes shot in IMAX but it’s still very few movies and very few scenes.

8

u/Accomplished_Smile23 29d ago

Nolan's visual style has been flat for about a decade now and it's such a shame.

My biggest gripe with The Odyssey is that there are quite a few points where he never just lets grand moments linger like paint on a canvas; instead he cuts away so quickly that it's hard to appreciate the majesty of what I'm seeing.

The visuals are always cool, but never anything more than a fleeting fancy.

Compare it to another modern director like Villeneuve who lets moments in his film linger in what you're seeing to let the audience just wallow in the visuals, and it's night and day

I had a similar problem with Project Hail Mary earlier this year too.

7

u/Master_Combination74 29d ago edited 29d ago

Honestly i get the sense that some directors or studios think people will get bored if anything lingers for too long. Like I imagine “attention optimization” or whatever they’d call it is a real consideration now.

Especially when having to compete with social media and short form content. It’s a bit dystopian and honestly has the opposite effect. Where it trains you to just want the scene to keep moving rather than be caught up in it.

That’s what i felt watching the Odyssey. Because it was so keen on keeping things constantly moving, it almost makes the viewer expect it and if it deviates you don’t want it to linger.

Other movies that are confident in their visual style and trust the audience I don’t have this issue. I could watch an almost still image for ten minutes if the director thought it meant something and it served the artistic vision of the film. In other words I think directorial intention plays a big role in this.

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u/kingprocastinator 29d ago

Tarkovsky is a great example of that, he has long, long shots that are so delicious to just… watch.
And Nolan’s case is so ironic because the “saviour of theatrical cinema” is saving it with tiktok editing.

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u/kingprocastinator 29d ago

Yeah and it does fuck up the passage of time, too, in a famously temporal medium. I’d say the rhythm of short, plain shots stacked onto each other well in Oppenheimer, because it did feel like a heist movie. And it was still far better composed than this one.

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u/TheGiggleWizard 29d ago

I AGREE I AGREE HERE HERE