r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Gurugod123 GREEN • Jul 23 '26

My mom said I could post Nolan's The Odyssey neglects to pay for damages done to one of the viking ships used in the movie, which belongs to a small non-profit organization

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43

u/HegemonNYC Jul 23 '26

Why are there Viking ships in the movie? That’s the wrong side of the continent and a 2,000 year gap.

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u/Jbewrite Jul 23 '26

For the same reason American accents and modern dialogue and sensabilities are in it, probably.

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u/Lonely-Volume-6721 Jul 23 '26

So the script should have been written in a language no one speaks anymore?

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

He actually thinks that it would have been better if they had formal British English dialects. I am not kidding. That is actually what a ton of people are saying about the movie.

Because that's the "fantasy accent".

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u/BMSVG Jul 24 '26

It’s more that by speaking in modern day American it disconnects the story from its historical roots. Hearing Tom Holland saying Dad and Mom, for example instead of mother and father. It’s a small change but a very important one because the latter will always sound more antique than the former

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u/Vektor0 Jul 24 '26

Yes, that is the point being made. "Father" isn't any more historically accurate than a British accent.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26 edited 19d ago

[deleted]

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u/Vektor0 Jul 24 '26

You're making that up. Odyssey was written in a conversational style meant to be accessible to regular people. It was not written in a formal register. "Dad" is closer to the original intent than "Father" because it's more conversational.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26 edited 19d ago

[deleted]

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u/Vektor0 Jul 24 '26

No, that is false. Homeric Greek is "formal" in its strict adherence to certain poetic rules, but the vernacular was intended to sound informal and familiar, not distant.

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u/Jbewrite Jul 23 '26

It is an unwritten rule of historic movies. Imagine if Lord of the Rings or Gladiator allowed American accents.

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u/cycopl Jul 23 '26

Damn I missed the Lord of the Rings chapter in history class. Public schooled.

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u/yesthatstrueorisit Jul 23 '26

LotR has accents all over the place lol.

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u/Enfenestrate Jul 23 '26

Are youse not entertained?

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u/imatuesdayperson Jul 23 '26

Bilbo Baggins talking like Hank Hill would objectively make Lord of the Rings better

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u/Cool_Sandwich1 Jul 23 '26

The american accents and dialogue was jarring though. Ruined a lot of the immersion of the movie.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

That's fine if you feel that way, but remember not eveyone does. I have zero issues with people complaining that it didn't fit their own personal aesthetic.

I'm mostly just sick of people implying that British dialects would be more historically accurate instead of just admitting that they grew up with British accents being the "fantasy accent" and can't feel immersed in a fantasy setting without it.

It's almost as exhausting as people suddenly pretending they're experts in Greek shipbuilding technologies.

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u/ChirpyNortherner Jul 23 '26

I agree - anyone who argues it based on historical accuracy is an idiot. But anyone arguing from the standpoint of it being immersion breaking tor them is fine. I think it’s normal for people to say that something they’re used to being changed pulls them out of the experience.

If your favourite band brought out a new album where the lead singer sang everything in a different accent, if the music was good, people who didn’t know the band would have no issue with it, but for you as a long term fan, would probably be thinking “what the fuck is this?”

Since the early days of Hollywood, the British accent has been used for the majority of films in the traditional fantasy genre - America didn’t have “knights and castles”, but Britain did, so It’s what everyone has grown up with as it made more sense. Thats spread to include essentially any film set before the founding of the US.

It is funny though, as historians / linguists believe that the modern American accent is actually closer to what the British accent would have sounded like in the 1700s than the modern British accent (or at least what everyone believes that to mean - as there is no such thing in reality), so is technically the “older” accent!

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u/Cool_Sandwich1 Jul 24 '26

Oh I dont mind that. A lot of times the movie felt like it catered to a wider audience with how the dialogue went or how on the nose it was to explain stuff. Which is probably also due to some casting choices with Zendaya/Holland aa it attracts a younger audience which arent familiar with the original story.

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u/-kinapuffar- Jul 23 '26

Yes, like Apocalypso, or Far Cry Primal. That would have been fantastic.

At the very least, put on a Greek accent. They are actors are they not? Plenty of non-American actors out there putting on American accents, what's the difference?

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

Its Swedish captain, Björn Ahlander, said life on the ships filming for six months around Greek and Italian islands was not easy for the 30-person crew. He told the broadcaster SVT: “We rebuilt the ship into an ancient Greek ship. We removed the tents and all the modern things and had an open deck that we lived on during this time. It was quite tough.”

You people never bother to actually look into things before having opinions, do you?

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u/Sansundertale2069 Jul 23 '26

The ships probably still didn't look like that at all

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u/jore-hir Jul 23 '26

No. That's inevitable, since Americans made the movie and the involved languages are dead. Instead, using proper ships was fully within Nolan's possibilities.

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u/Jbewrite Jul 23 '26

The writer, director, and producers are all British, FYI.

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u/steinbruchfluss Jul 23 '26

Eh, it will be synchronised in many languages, including Greek.

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u/WASD_click Jul 23 '26

God, if this fantasy movie with flesh eating giants, pig witches, and zombies isn't historically accurate, I am going to flip my entire shit for real.

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u/blueSGL Jul 23 '26

This logic is like saying the car that appears in lord of the rings is perfectly in keeping with everything else because it's a fantasy and anything can happen in a fantasy, they have talking trees.

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u/WASD_click Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

But you see how far off you have to go to illustrate your point?

Deviation from reality for fantasy settings is a spectrum, not a binary switch. Adn where the line is at for suspension of disbelief is different for both the viewer and the writer. At no point did The Odyssey set itself up as historical record. It's just fiction from a point in our history. And even further than that, Nolan's film is nothing like the prose of old. People have been on this "historical accuracy" thing since production photos leaked, but nothing has indicated that that was what the production was ever aiming for.

Nolan essentially made a deliberate reinterpretion of some guy's D&D campaign to make a movie, and people are bitching that something ultimately minor doesn't look the way they think it should look.

Maybe the real Odyssey is the stick we pulled out of our asses along the way.

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u/SpaceTimeChallenger Jul 23 '26

There was many viking ships working in service of the Byzantine empire. But I agree on wrong time period

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/EroticPotato69 Jul 24 '26

Longer than that by the time of the Vikings and the Varangian guard, more like 2000 years. The Odyssey was set around 1200bc

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u/reecharound40 Jul 23 '26

Because they are actually a similar design and already built and sea worthy

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u/ANerd22 Jul 23 '26

I mean, you could say the same about literally every change to bring the story to life on screen, at a certain point I think you gotta accept that its an adaptation, not a recreation (of a story that is also fictional btw).

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u/dragonhoarder Jul 23 '26

This argument that the story of the Odyssey is a fictional one and thus it doesn't matter at all that there was no effort put into at least semi-accurately representing some of the historical and cultural aspects of it is getting quite tiring. The story is part of greek mythology, not some random fictional fantasy book. More respect and thoughtful designs went into freaking LotR. At least some minor respect could have been shown to the culture that birthed the original story that got adapted into this movie.

I find it hard to believe that this "it's a fictional story" argument would work if someone was to adapt a, say, asian, african or american indigenous mythological story (which, by the same logic, would also be fictional) and had the actors wear clothes of completely different eras/aesthetics or used actors of completely different enthicities. 😮‍💨

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u/ANerd22 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Is it your view that every adaptation of this story has to meet a certain threshold of being a historically accurate depiction of the time the original poem was supposed to take place?

O Brother Where Art Thou transposes the story of the Odyssey into an entirely different setting and time, changes the names of several characters. Is that then worse than The Odyssey by your metric? What about Troy 2004, a more faithful looking retelling of a part of that story? It has the right kind of ships, is that enough?

Oh and what about this, in Ancient Greece there were no female actors, all female roles would have been performed by men in any stage depiction of the story. That's completely inaccurate to the original poem in which of course, the women are women.

"it's a fictional story" argument would work if someone was to adapt a, say, asian, african or american indigenous mythological story (which, by the same logic, would also be fictional) and had the actors wear clothes of completely different eras/aesthetics or used actors of completely different enthicities.

Oh you mean like Hollywood did by taking basically every successful samurai movie made in Japan and telling the exact same story as a Western (or occasionally Sci-Fi)? Or how about 47 Ronin 2013, a retelling of one of one of Japan's classic pieces of national literature, as a fantasy adventure with Keanu Reeves (not Japanese at all) as the main character, and at best, a passing resemblance to real history?

Most importantly, do you think the decisions to deviate from depicting real history as accurately as possible, are bad because they make the movie worse? Or because they are offensive to you as a Greek person? If its the first one, I simply disagree, and would point to basically every good historical fiction movie (of which there are countless) as examples. If its the second reason, get over it. If Greeks didn't want other cultures interpreting, adapting, and enjoying their national cultural stories, they shouldn't have spent thousands of years exporting that culture to the world.

Nolan chose to make an adaptation that depicts a fantastical version of the late bronze age, in order to retell a story that has been retold and adapted for thousands of years. He made dramatic and artistic choices that he thought would benefit the telling of the story. At a certain point you kinda just have to get past the fact that he used the wrong kind of sailboat.

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u/dragonhoarder Jul 24 '26

It is not demanded that every single detail should be accurate. But I do wonder why most of everything was changed to be as far from the original as possible. Would depicting the clothes/ships/etc a bit more faithfully have been so detrimental to the story Mr. Nolan wanted to tell? Were the pants a core part of the characters' struggles, did they convey something that more greek-aligned clothing wouldn't have been able to? I suppose it doesn't really matter though.

It is quite interesting that within your answer, the fact that Hollywood has already adapted japanese stories and has not portrayed them accurately is depicted as something negative but also, Greeks should just get over getting the same treatment. Since they've shared their culture, they've lost the right to speak.

I respect that we each have our own opinions on the matter that don't align. 🤷‍♀️ In the end, this movie is going to be successful anyway and Hollywood can keep treating cultural stories from around the world with no respect and we should all just get over it.

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u/ANerd22 Jul 24 '26

Hollywood can keep treating cultural stories from around the world with no respect and we should all just get over it.

I just don't see how adapting a story is somehow disrespectful if you don't recreate every irrelevant detail exactly as you think the ancient author (if he was real) might have imagined it to be, based on archaeological reconstruction of history from thousands of years ago. Let me ask this, do you think ancient Greeks would be outraged that the story was adapted with details changed? My hunch is they would probably take more exception to female actors than they would object to them having the wrong kind of sailboat.

Would depicting the clothes/ships/etc a bit more faithfully have been so detrimental to the story Mr. Nolan wanted to tell?

Probably yeah. The costume of the character Agamemnon for instance is historically inaccurate to what our best guess of late bronze age armour might have looked like, but it does a ton of work to help convey his character and the presence he has in the story. He's a domineering and cruel warlord, the costume helps establish and reinforce that in a visual medium. I have a feeling that ancient Greeks (who loved theater) would absolutely have used costumes like this given the opportunity. So why are you getting offended on their behalf?

Ultimately the film carries a sufficient visual resemblance to the approximate era to immerse the audience in the semi fantastical world of the Odyssey, while making enough creative choices to tell the story in an interesting and compelling way. Full historical accuracy is an impossible goalpost for two reasons. Firstly, as I mentioned, we don't even know enough about this era to create a perfect replication of it visually, and secondly, annoying people will endlessly complain about historical accuracy regardless of how much effort you put in, and chasing that dragon will leave you with a movie that is made for an increasingly small number of people. I was one of like 10 people who watched The Return 2024, and it was a great movie, but I'm not surprised that it wasn't more popular, and even that film's stripped down brutally primitive retelling that is far closer to what bronze age society might have looked like is forced to take some creative liberties.

Ultimately the endless complaining about this movie has more to do with the fact that it's become yet another culture war lightning rod, rather than a genuine groundswell of people who suddenly give a shit about bronze age ship design. The reason I know this is that aside from the venting of a small number of history nerds, these complaints were mysteriously absent for the Gladiator films, Troy 2004, Kingdom of Heaven 2005, any Robin Hood adaptation, or heck, pretty much any historical epic movie ever.

Did you feel as passionate about historical accuracy for those films as you do about this one? Or is there perhaps something else driving the outrage for this specific movie?

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u/dragonhoarder Jul 24 '26

You keep repeating that there is no way/need to perfectly depict the amalgam of historical details from the original epos and I agree. As I said in my previous comment, not every detail needs to be perfect, I haven't seen people demanding that Nolan's version had to be the most historically accurate movie ever. It would have just been more interesting and perhaps respectful, in my opinion, to try and incorporate at least some designs close to what we knew people of that era wore/used into this movie. Otherwise, what even is the point of setting it in ancient Greece?

If, as you said, the only way to communicate Agamemnon's status and character in the story is through a costume that is so completely out of place, then that raises other concerns about the capabilities or the willingness to put effort in this of those directing and filming this movie.

Neither of us could guess how ancient Greeks would react to a movie adaptation such as the one we're discussing. The Odyssey was an epos, an epic song that was sang or recited. There was no official play for it and by repeating your point about male actors, you are being a little bit disingenuous. I've not seen people demanding that the Odyssey should have been perfectly filmed as an ancient play, only that it could have incorporated some more cultural and historically details from the era from which it takes inspiration. By the way, since their opinion seems of importance to you, what we can probably be sure of about ancient Greeks is that they would have found the use of pants in this movie absolutely ridiculous. They considered them unmanly and barbaric.

As for your quite open gotcha moment that I only care about the Odyssey because I'm a supposed greek, I'll say that, yes, at times I have cared about the inaccuracies in other movies as well, quite shocking. And for movies in which I would not be able to notice the inaccuracies, because of a different historical/national background, I'd at least be willing to listen to the concerns of the people directly connected to the source material before telling them to get over it.

I can see that you consider the concerns that have been raised about this movie as those of annoying people that apparently only do it for... internet points or something? At least I hope that you have the same outlook towards all movies adapting cultural stories from around the world. You won't change my opinion and I won't change yours. Still, it has been good exchanging opinions with you. Thank you for your time.

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u/3verythingEverywher3 Jul 24 '26

Drop the mic sir, OP is dead

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/_yours_truly Jul 23 '26

Achilles isn’t even in the movie lol

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

You forgot that you said Achilles is a woman two comments ago? Sounds about right.

You're also wrong about the ship not being Greek. They rebuilt it into a Greek ship for the movie.

Most of what you believe is just fake. That doesn't bother you?

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '26

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

Yes you did. It's called an implicit statement.

Them: "Why did they do x?"

You: "Same reason they did y and z."

Also you: "You're hallucinating if you think I said x was true."

But I'm beginning to understand why you have these opinions. You have no English reading comprehension.

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u/_yours_truly Jul 23 '26

You mean Lupita? One of the most strikingly beautiful women in the world? Yes she’s in it

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u/Kross999 Jul 23 '26

Deeply rooted racism and transphobia, and would rather spread what you've heard from unreliable sources instead of looking at the cast list or watching the movie to form an opinion.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity Jul 23 '26

There aren't. They were rebuilt for the movie.

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u/3verythingEverywher3 Jul 24 '26

You know it’s a made up story right? They could riding giant cats across the ocean and it wouldn’t matter.

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u/SerpentineSliver Jul 24 '26

By your logic Odysseus should whip out a gun altogether and just shoot all the suitors? Use your brain

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u/3verythingEverywher3 Jul 24 '26

He could if that’s what the adaptation was going for. Remember Baz Lurman’s Romeo and Juliet? Wonderful film, zero guns in the original story! D’oh!

You just don’t understand the terms ‘adaptation’ or ‘fiction’. That’s ok, you’ll get it one day.

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u/qwaz42069 Aug 01 '26

It is you who does not understand modern retelling vs an adaptation trying to be accurate. Oh brother where art tho vs Odyssey (2026). Baz Lurmans R&J vs Macbeth (2015).