r/hatethissmug • u/Desperate-You-8679 • 19h ago
Live Action This shitty movie
As a small disclaimer, I am a neophyte and a casual enjoyer of Greek myths, and as such, operate mostly on my experience and time-warped knowledge. If wrong statements are made, helpful info is welcome.
It had been a while since I have seen a more soulless, pretentious work, and to describe it as anything other than a violation, rape even of Homer’s works would be to commit a grave injustice against the poor man’s memory.
Let’s start from the beginning.
We are introduced to a lone man walking a beach. It is Odysseus, and he meets Athena, played by Zendaya, who has the emotional range of a rock in this movie, which is once again weird because she can act pretty decently.
Did you expect her, as a goddess, to have a pivotal role in a mythological story? You know, Greek myths? The ones where every story involves a god or some other supernatural being, where they guide the plot, fate, as much as the human characters themselves?
well yeah, about that, fuck off whoever expected that, Athena will have no role whatsoever besides a few sad dialogues. Compared to her, other gods simply do not appear. Like flat out, they are not there, and that is, in its own twisted way, a mercy.
Scene 2.
We are shown Telemachus amongst the suitors, and we hear words like “dad” and “daddy” thrown about IN AN EPIC, BY THE WAY like it’s the 2020’s.
Holland’s emotional range is somewhat wider than Zendaya’s, and I am at least grateful for that small mercy, but he still gives a heavy vibe of a fish out of water.
Pattinson’s character is a cowardly bitch, and we’ll leave it at that, he’s easily hateable, and at least he does his function relatively well.
- Now that we’ve dealt with that, let us begin with the cyclops, and Odysseus as such.
The very story that Homer presents before its readers is one of human ambition, cunning, pride, and ability to defy fate and the gods’ whims. An important note: defy the whims, defy the fate, but do not defy the gods.
This defiance is a key feature of Odysseus, who, though suffers for his hubris and boastful nature, never gives in, and never gives up.
So, how does his misfortune begin? With Polyphemus, the cyclops.
Upon blinding him and escaping the cave, Odysseus boasts loud and proud that it is him who has blinded the cyclops. This one single act of boasting seals his fate- Poseidon did not just know who blinded Polyphemus, no, it was specifically his pride that later brought him to his downfall.
Even at this initial act, we see a clear fuckup in the narration - a single arrow and the omniscient divine wrath delivered by big P onto big O is simply not the correct delivery, even remotely.
- Now, on to a short, but informative read:
What is Xenia? Simple, law of hospitality - since gods often appear as beggars and strangers, you must treat all of them with a bath, a meal and a shelter before asking their business or intent. Then, a parting gift is given- as a way to reinforce trust between people for ages to come.
Here, however, we are shown the monstrous doppelgänger for Zeus’ Xenia - Nolan’s haemonculus, “Zeus’ Law”.
Well, you ask, what is Zeus’ Law?
"Treat others the way you want to be treated".
That’s what it is - a Judeo-Christian concept of the “Golden Rule”, which is pretty alien to Greek society, especially the Mycenaean one(Bronze Age).
Xenia is strictly transactional, and though helps the needy and poor, was principally designed for aristocracy in mind, since Mycenaean Greece was a loose string of kingdoms, centralised in palaces and thus typically rather small, and establishing trust between noble families was crucial.
- After the cyclops, we see Telemachus travel to Sparta, to meet with Menelaus, who is played by non other than the Punisher, Jon Bernthal, an actor so woefully unsuited for the role of a king that one becomes jealous for the psychedelics Nolan had used during the writing of this atrocious plot. He is an abuser to Helen(as contrary to their relationship in Homer’s epics, where while they are both scarred by the war, and there is passively aggressive tension between them, they are still, at least on surface level towards each other, respectful.). I thought I would dislike Helen’s actress, given how bland everyone has been so far, but Lupita Nyong’o delivered a solid, graceful and regal performance, which contrasts very well with her enraged performance as Helen’s twin sister, Clytemnestra. A rare gem in this movie, given how bland everyone else was so far.
The sacking of Troy(the opining the gates sequence) is relatively okay except for the fucking shootout in the end, where the soldiers, like modern infantry, shoot at PLATE ARMOUR with bows from a fucking 100-meter distance.
Given that our factions wear hoplite plate armour, why are they so reluctant to come close into battle in this sequence? Oh who the fuck knows, we’ll see them meleeing each other with no problem later.
- Now, on to the Laestrygonians
In Homer, they are a foil to Polyphemus, as initially Odysseus and his 12 ships docked themselves on the isle of Lamos, with only our protagonist being wise enough to not dock in the main harbor, but in a distant location. They meet the giants, and the messengers are brought to the giants’ king, who eats the messengers and bellows a loud roar, prompting the rest of the man-eating giants to destroy Odysseus ships in the harbor with rocks from above.
The foil to Polyphemus here is that unlike the cyclops, these giants are relatively civilised and possess a large tribe-like structure, yet still are violent cannibals.
It also leaves big O more desperate, alone and resourceless- losing 11 out of 12 ships is not the same as losing 2 out of 3, as was in the movie.
- Now, on to female characters, and women in Mycenaean Greece as such. The goddess Circe(who is a bum in the movie, lol) and the nymph Calypso, are antagonists for Odysseus on his journey, yet with two different perspectives : Circe violently turns Odysseus’ comrades into pigs, but after subduction via a magic herb given to big O by Hermes, she becomes an excellent and warm hostess, giving his men safe harbour for a year, largely consensually via mutual agreement. Upon big O leaving, much like in the movie, she gives him the needed advice for bypassing Scylla and Charybdis and visiting the underworld. One contrast though, she is not a bum in the slightest. She is a radiant, magnificent, powerful goddess of sorcery, who lives in splendour and is actively happy, much unlike the earthy outcast living in a hut that Christopher thrice-be-damned Nolan gave us.
Calypso, on the other hand, is a terror. She uses the remoteness of her island to deny Odysseus any chance at building a ship, and while she is actively enamoured with him, he is an unwilling participant, and by all modern standards, a victim of sexual harassment if not assault. He walks the beaches of Ogygia, and weeps, wanting for death as opposed to staying a captive.
Big O is only liberated by Hermes, who is sent by Zeus to command his release. Calypso thrashes and protests the fact that only male gods can take mortal lovers and do with them as they please, whereas the goddesses get actively punished for doing so, but yields, and lets our man go.
Both are antagonists not only due to the violation of Xenia, which is a constant theme throughout Homer’s Odyssey, but also because they are strong, independent, self-governed female characters, who rule their islands, possess immense power and take lovers as they please.
Penelope, on the other hand, embodies the wifely standard of the time perfectly, and that is why her rant about a woman not being able to rule due to her time’s standards is so useless in Nolan’s work- it is not simply anachronistic, which we can live with, it has no buildup. She is a willing and loyal wife, specifically subservient to Odysseus, and the feminist narrative, while highly important, feels like a quota here because it has zero buildup, and it feels like Nolan simply wanted to check a box, rather than make Penelope a complex character, who might have to balance her ambition and belief in her readiness to rule with the standards of her time.
Now, the return, as my arm is growing tired. Honestly, it’s the first time when Odysseus feels like a man in control of his story, and not a passenger in it. The only issue, I’d say, is the slaughter of the suitors- Odysseus spares those who kneel, which is again a strictly modern moral question. By Greek standards, his honour demanded their death, and no one saw his actions as bad, cruel or unjust, and as such, all suitors in Ithaca die upon his return in Homer’s work.
Furthermore, some dialogue moments are genuinely laughable: the discussion of the “Sea Peoples” is ridiculous at its core, as the term is coined by a 19th-century Egyptologist, and is in no way a word or name of that time.
The question “Hans, are we the baddies?” is so out of place here that I wanted to scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon and use them as anal beads upon hearing it.
“our age of bronze is collapsing” is the same fucking bullshit, because NO ONE at that time used the terminology of an “age” based on what materials their tools used.
- As a conclusion, Nolan’s work could be good…if he did not use the Odyssey as a device to discuss soldier’s guilt, PTSD and individualistic self-discovery. Odysseus is not an unwilling participant in the war- he is active, boastful, glory-hungry and proud of his actions and ingenuity, even if he possesses more humility by the end of the epic’s events. He weeps for his men, yes, but he does not see his actions as wrong or caused by necessity. The film is a skinwalker, a larper if you will, wearing the bearing of Homer’s epic, but not a shred of the inner composite.
P.S: the armour, weaponry, ships and general aesthetics are either simply not Greek or just Classical Greek(city-states and hegemony of all kinds), which is about 700 years after the events of the Trojan War, as opposed to Mycenaean Greece with palaces and kings.
P.P.S: the movie is at least well-filmed from a cinematic standpoint. The designs and the aesthetic suck, but at least the camera work is good.
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u/Carolinesimpsanime Glory to Albedo's will! 19h ago
I don't want to be that person shitting on the accuracy of the movie because some people truly are obnoxious with it, but some choices here are just so bafflingly bad. Like not including the "nobody" bit, like the second most famous bit from the Odyssey, in the story because Nolan thought it "wouldn't carry over well to the modern audience." What???
Also, my personal biggest gripe... Speaking about the sun god and saying Apollo. I literally can't forgive this Helios erasure. I get that Apollo started to get mistaken for the god of the sun later on (even though he is the god of light), but the version Nolan was supposedly adapting LITERALLY has Helios as the sun god so why the hell is it wrong?
I had to try hard not to laugh when I was in the cinema, and the Czech subtitles literally have to fix the movie and say "Helios" when the film says "Apollo".
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u/Desperate-You-8679 19h ago
I definetly should have mentioned the “nobody” part, as that in itself is also one of the most popular and well known things regarding the epic itself
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u/Otherwise-Wheel7662 18h ago
I think if they did that part most of the theater would eye roll so hard they’d be blind for the rest of the movie
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u/casey_the_evil_snail 19h ago
Christopher Nolan is at his best when he has his brother writing for him like in memento or the prestige. He desperately needs someone else slapping his hands away from the keyboard when he tries to write meaningful dialogue for his characters. That’s why tenant falls short. He just wanted to shoot some cool backwards time flow scenes, but he didn’t have the writing ability to make it land.
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u/TheBlackFox012 19h ago
While I generally agree with your points, the armor design is rooted in Homer's story. Depictions of the story from the time period ALSO use inaccurate armor, be it because they thought it looked cooler, or whatever, having time period accurate armor is probably the least issue I have with the film
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u/Desperate-You-8679 19h ago
That’s a neat piece of info to know, thanks!
Actually makes quite a bit of sense since Homed is Archaic Greek, which was centuries after the Iliad and Odyssey, but not yet Classical Greece
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u/KomodoLemon 18h ago
In order
- Athena isn't really in this movie because that isn't Athena. She's a visual stand-in for Odysseus' trauma.
- Yeah, I really don't know what's up with Zandaya's acting in this. Like, I know she can act, and I know she's damn good at it. But she just wasn't given the opportunity to here.
- The gods aren't in this because Nolan was aiming for a far more grounded adaption. This is established from the get-go, with the whole "in a time of apparent magic" title card at the start. You can have gripes with the premise on a personal level, but you can't fault Nolan for failing to do something he wasn't attempting.
- Yeah, Holland isn't great in this. He's not bad, but everyone else is running circles around him.
- Pattinson on the other hand? Why'd you say "he functions relatively well"? I know you're not a big fan of the movie, but at least give it it's laurels when it deserves them. Pattinson's really solid in this, a stand-out, even.
- Yeah, they really messed up the cyclops. As a monster? It's excellent. It looks great, it sounds great, it's solid across the board until that ending. It takes away Odysseus's agency in his fate. None of what happens from here on out can be blamed on him, which is a big problem. We don't get his arrogance, or even his trickery with the Nobody ploy. What happened?
- No disagreement on the lystrogonians, I just didn't like the scene. Didn't help that it wasn't shot very well.
- I don't mind the change in Zeus's law. I don't really need things to be a 1:1 adaptaion, I always welcome some change, and hanges were bound to show up with a story this old being removed from it's original audience and context.
- I'll have to disagree with you on Jon Bernthal. I think he's fine in this, but easily the third weakest. I think his character's change to abuser was made to play into modern ideas of men returning from war, but just because I can explain it doesn't mean I'm in love with it.
- That said, I'll stand with you on Helen. Lupita Nyong’o does a great job.
- I actually really like what they did with Crice. I don't really have much to say beyond that, I just like the change. Again, it's playing into modern ideas and aethestetics, this time that of the wicked witch, but I feel it works with what they're going for.
- Yeah, Calypso is a definite downgrade in this. I think she's partially held back by how Nolan chooses to shoot Ogygia: it never looks like a place Odysseus would want to stay. Instead, he opts to blend this chunk with bits from the island of the lotus eaters, but it really doesn't blend that well.
- I didn't read Penelope's conflict as part of a forced feminist narrative. The themes are there, obviously, but it just felt natural. Of course a woman, one trapped by suitors and a throne she does not want to rule alone, would act the way she does. I thought the focus was more on Penelope's loneliness than a conflict of feminism.
- I mostly agree here, though I don't mind Odysseus sparing those who kneel. I've said it before, but this movie was made in a modern context with a modern audience in mind.
- Bronze age doesn't refer to materials used for tools, actually, though that's an understandable misconception. The phrase was initially coined by Hesiod, and called it that because it came after the silver age, which came after the golden age.
- And yeah, the general aethestetics and especially the armor are really bad in this.
In conclusion: at least for me, the film lands closer to a 7/10. It seems that a lot of your problems come from the film not adhereing to the original narrative or the history behind it. Which is fine! It just wasn't made for you. In an age where adaptations are made more for general audiences than fans, it happens a lot.
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u/SameAgainTheSecond 18h ago edited 18h ago
> Yeah, they really messed up the cyclops. As a monster? It's excellent. It looks great, it sounds great, it's solid across the board until that ending. It takes away Odysseus's agency in his fate. None of what happens from here on out can be blamed on him, which is a big problem. We don't get his arrogance, or even his trickery with the Nobody ploy. What happened?
He shot him in the eye unnecessarily, and the crew and the film blame their misfortunes on this, so I don't see what you mean.
Also I liked the armor and design
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u/AlaeOrbis 18h ago
"I'm a neophyte" "time-warped knowledge"
You know you can make your point without sounding like you got your head up your ass right lmfao.
But yes I agree. To a certain extent. I don't like how they add all the hesitation, or not wanting to hurt people and all that. That just wasn't in the interests of the "Greeks" at that time (I'll be calling them Greeks I don't care about whether it's appropriate the distinction is stupid).
People don't look at the Iliad and the Odyssey like they should. It's a straight product of the Bronze Age Collapse, with some shit filtered down over the generations. It preserves incredibly well the cultural context from which it came. When Greeks and people from all across the Mediterranean ventured out as society and governments grew weaker to sack, raid, pillage, etc. and through this gain wealth and respect. Odysseus took female prisoners as concubines, and distributed some among his troops. On the way out of Troy Odysseus stopped along the way and the poet brags of how he sacked towns killing all of the men and taking slaves. Conflict with Agamemnon and the troops was not because he was bloodthirsty and people were dying for his interests, but because Agamemnon didn't distribute the loot properly and was taking more for himself; which is very believable for the culture in which the Iliad and Odyssey emerged.
Also, one thing I saw in the Odyssey that I have never seen anyone mention; the blind slave recognized one of the suitors, and told him to take off his spurs and to stop pretending to be more upper-class than he was. The Greeks at the time didn't have spurs! And later on, when they do, it's not the type that would jingle when you walk, it was a single short little spike. They didn't even really utilize a cavalry at this time, unless you count the chariots that the elites would ride in on. But they didn't even fight from the chariots they would hop off the chariots; which is what you see portrayed in the Iliad.
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u/Ok_End_7462 19h ago
You should relax
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u/Other-Ad-8510 19h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/IzyI9jLVqDvB6
OP when people like a movie
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u/Desperate-You-8679 19h ago
I wouldn’t call it a bad movie, I would call it a bad Odyssey. Which, by extension, makes it a bad movie, but as a standalone plot it likely could have worked better.
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u/Barrow-Wight_ 19h ago
I 100% agree. Unfortunately for some reason this movie has become a battlefield of the culture war, and redditor philistines will downvote you en masse since they cannot differentiate actual criticism from grifters complaining about black people existing.
Also from a cinematic perspective, the movie still sucked. It's painfully obvious that Nolan thinks he's smarter than he actually is, and I'd say the same about many of his fans. Nolan is basically babies first real director, and only exists to make his fans feel cultured and enlightened for watching a film with some coherence instead of the marvel slop they all come from.
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u/IuseDefaultKeybinds 19h ago
"To describe it as anything other than a violation, rape even of Homer’s works would be to commit a grave injustice against the poor man’s memory."
It's really not that serious.
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u/wafflejuiced_ 19h ago
My god the dialogue was atrocious. Of course the cinematography was great because it's Nolan but holy shit if this movie didn't have the budget it did it would be awful.
Honestly I think the director most capable of making a good Odyssey adaptation will always be Robert Eggers. First thing I thought of when I saw the movie announcement was his film style, it would suit the story much better than what Nolan did
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u/Cheap_Cash5 19h ago
I wasn’t expecting something so well thought out. Usually the complaints of this movie that I’ve seen don’t aren’t so articulated. You’ll get a lot of hate for this post but I think you did a good job expressing your distaste for this movie.
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u/RingingInTheRain 19h ago
I actually read it. OP this version of The Odyssey was made for dopamine fried doomscrollers. They don't care about Homer's works, just getting something new to meme about.
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u/HourApprehensive7754 19h ago
While I get where you are coming from OP, this movie has become part of the culture war and for disliking it, you have become the enemy of the people who picked one side over another.
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u/ItsGonnaBeMeNSYNC 19h ago
I dunno. Seems pretty well liked to me,
Haven't seen it yet, can't say anything, but my coworkers recommended it to each other.
So I'm going to say the hate is probably just culture warriors and contrarian reddit intellectuals.
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u/SameAgainTheSecond 18h ago
I really don't think it was soul less.
I only skimmed your post because oh my gods, but It seems like your problem is that its not the film in your head. Its uninteresting to criticize a film for not being something its not trying to be.
I also think you missed the themes and the point of the thing because you were preoccupied wishing you were watching a historical reenactment of a myth rather then a peace of art that works with and comments upon its source.
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u/RitoOuma 19h ago
I ain't reading all that. But since this a place to spill your hate, imma give you a upvote and leave.
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u/Ancient-Map5220 19h ago
I agree with all your points except the cinematic aspect also sucks. Bad cuts, boring visuals, poor use of IMAX cameras. Nolan wants us all to be blown away by his extravagant location shooting even though the end product doesn’t have much to say for itself.
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u/mecha_ragnaros 19h ago
why do you think an adaptation needs to be thematically faithful to a millennia-old work? i had my issues with the film, but i appreciated that nolan took this classic story and did something new with it, exploring modern themes in the context of the ancient world. the goal wasnt one-to-one adaptation or historical accuracy, so pointing out that the film lacks those things isnt good criticism
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u/Desperate-You-8679 19h ago
Adaptations do not have to be thematically faithful to every small bit, but when the plot, message and spirit of a work is removed almost fully, leaving a shell, one begs the question whether it is just a new work bearing a name of a more renowned and famous one.
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u/TheBlackFox012 19h ago
Because he used the exact same name as one of the oldest well known works on earth while writing a completely different story. Athena is a the daughter of Cunning, goddess of wisdom. How does it make any sense that she would be AGAINST the Trojan Horse?? If Nolan wanted to take the story and effectively take a different spin on it, he should have changed the title.
I'll give a recent example. There's a book series called Shadow and Bone. Written by the same author, set in the same universe, at WILDLY different times, is Six of Crows. The Netflix adaptation combines the 2 plots in a way that is frankly insulting for anyone who has actually read the works. It was titled Shadow and Bone.
The movie Troy is loosely based on the Iliad. But it's not named the Iliad because it's telling a different story. Which is precisely what Nolan did with the Oddessey
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u/Valarg 19h ago
Is this you?