The Odyssey

[caleb35]

Christopher Nolan just doesn't do it for me. not sure why. To much spectacle not enough substance?
Different strokes.
not criticizing fans.
Just don't get the appeal.
I may be missing some inherent discernment.

He's overrated. I don't agree with all the criticism of this film that I read out there (see my previous post for why) but there are always valid reasons to dislike a Nolan film, no matter how good or great they may be in certain aspects of film-making.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I don't know where or who you heard that from but the translation he used (assuming you're referring to the Emily Watson translation) is fine. I also don't care for Nolan or am interested in watching his latest movie but there's a lot of bashing of this movie that is being done for solely political and/or "culture war" reasons. It's an adaptation of the Odyssey, period.

So, if you haven’t seen the movie then I suggest you don’t read beyond this sentence.

I’m not on any social media so I miss this kind of stuff but are there really people getting their knickers in a twist about the so-called politics of the film? As far as I could see, it extended to ‘war is bad’ and ‘we should treat strangers well’ - are people really so thin-skinned they can’t handle such basic messages? Have I missed something?

 

[caleb35]

So, if you haven’t seen the movie then I suggest you don’t read beyond this sentence.

I’m not on any social media so I miss this kind of stuff but are there really people getting their knickers in a twist about the so-called politics of the film? As far as I could see, it extended to ‘war is bad’ and ‘we should treat strangers well’ - are people really so thin-skinned they can’t handle such basic messages? Have I missed something?

I haven't seen it but I've read up on it and on the reactions. People were getting their knickers in a twist before the movie came out based on the casting. People were getting their knickers in a twist after it came out based on what they think Nolan should have done differently in it. People are always getting their knickers in a twist about something and it's exhausting.

 

[MajorRewrite]

It’s amusing that so many of these comments by people who haven’t seen the movie are negative.

 

[caleb35]

It’s amusing that so many of these comments by people who haven’t seen the movie are negative.

I'm negative about Nolan because I've seen many of his movies but I also hear good things about his latest film, even granting the criticisms about it. It's probably his best film in quite a while, even with the usual Nolan warts.

 

[sirhugs]

So, if you haven’t seen the movie then I suggest you don’t read beyond this sentence.

I’m not on any social media so I miss this kind of stuff but are there really people getting their knickers in a twist about the so-called politics of the film? As far as I could see, it extended to ‘war is bad’ and ‘we should treat strangers well’ - are people really so thin-skinned they can’t handle such basic messages? Have I missed something?

Yes

 

[anthrodisiac]

If you want to read the original... okay, that requires a good knowledge of Homeric Greek... never mind. If you want to read something that captures some of the freshness, and is exciting, I strongly recommend the Robert Fitzgerald translations. (Yes, more than Fagles.) Fitzgerald (of both Homer and Virgil) feels really exhilarating to me. I have no idea what it would have been like to be listening to blind Homer* reciting 2700 years ago, but these modern translations capture some of the excitement.

* I am convinced there was a real person, a genius, who brought together both epics, because they're both so good. I'm no expert, I've read studies about the stylistic difference between them, but that's still consistent with one genius Homer. This isn't some Milman Parry tunesmith who strung together a few popular tales. That gets you the Kalevala maybe, not the consistent literary masterpieces of Homer.

I actually beta read both The Iliad and The Odyssey for Homer. He was an okay, liked donuts, not terribly bright, stole a lot of ideas from Bartimedes. You should've seen his rough drafts. Utter kópros. He just claimed to be blind so people would forgive his weird descriptions and strange word choices.

Thank Zeus he had me to smooth out some of the stuff, it was about as incomprehensible as reading Finnegan's Wake while perfectly sober. Like, he only had four names, so like half of the character were called Odysseus or Helen, and there was an alien spaceship and a Michael Bay-esque rowboat chase scene and some random slapstick, just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. He'd have these grand, sweeping speeches about the nature of humanity, but throw in a fart joke partway through, and every time someone farted, a god died. "Man's rancid nature, so toxic nary a god could survive their putrescence." And that line was AFTER I helped him fix his original line, which was, "Blimey, thar be a wet one. Gods ain't spared the shitclouds o' mankind, innit?"

And did I get any credit? Noooooooo. Still, not as bad as the dude who wrote Gilgamesh... Fucking Jim...

 

[BeechLeaf]

Hey, Gilgamesh was fine before your suggestions. Two guys on a road trip, of course it's going to be mainly fart jokes. But oh no, you say stick in a love interest, stick in a quest for the meaning of life. They were fine just fishing and farting, fishing and farting, a few coarse jokes. Well, okay, a lot. I may have over-egged that particular pudding. And some of them were really... Well, different times now, couldn't get away with what they did to Siduri the ale-wife. Yeah, okay, changing it to ale was one good suggestion, I'll give you that one.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Hey, Gilgamesh was fine before your suggestions. Two guys on a road trip, of course it's going to be mainly fart jokes. But oh no, you say stick in a love interest, stick in a quest for the meaning of life. They were fine just fishing and farting, fishing and farting, a few coarse jokes. Well, okay, a lot. I may have over-egged that particular pudding. And some of them were really... Well, different times now, couldn't get away with what they did to Siduri the ale-wife. Yeah, okay, changing it to ale was one good suggestion, I'll give you that one.

Yeah, but everyone was doing fishing and fart jokes back then, so like, he wanted to do something novel and interesting, but only knew about fishing and fart jokes. Not my fault it wound up so convoluted. I mean, okay, it IS my fault, but he would either do really dumb, base humor, or massive sweeping epic plots, there was no in-between, no matter how much I tried to nudge him. Damn pendulum, that boy.

...yeah, the original was better. My bad on that one. Still, Jim was such a dick about it during the whole beta reading and editing process. Called me a dumb bird-brained dummy and defended his fart jokes as superior to all other fart jokes. His favorite, which I nixed, was:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
*fart*

That was it. He claimed he made it up, but I swear I heard Shamhat make that same joke down at the brothel (she was nice, a little crass, but nice) a day before he added that joke to his dumb poem.

 

[sirhugs]

I actually beta read both The Iliad and The Odyssey for Homer. He was an okay, liked donuts, not terribly bright, stole a lot of ideas from Bartimedes. You should've seen his rough drafts. Utter kópros. He just claimed to be blind so people would forgive his weird descriptions and strange word choices.

Thank Zeus he had me to smooth out some of the stuff, it was about as incomprehensible as reading Finnegan's Wake while perfectly sober. Like, he only had four names, so like half of the character were called Odysseus or Helen, and there was an alien spaceship and a Michael Bay-esque rowboat chase scene and some random slapstick, just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. He'd have these grand, sweeping speeches about the nature of humanity, but throw in a fart joke partway through, and every time someone farted, a god died. "Man's rancid nature, so toxic nary a god could survive their putrescence." And that line was AFTER I helped him fix his original line, which was, "Blimey, thar be a wet one. Gods ain't spared the shitclouds o' mankind, innit?"

And did I get any credit? Noooooooo. Still, not as bad as the dude who wrote Gilgamesh... Fucking Jim...

oh come on now, I know you're inventing to make a piont, but no one ever read Finnegan's Wake without getting high first...

 

[anthrodisiac]

oh come on now, I know you're inventing to make a piont, but no one ever read Finnegan's Wake without getting high first...

Maybe that was my mistake when I tried to read Finnegan's Wake: not enough drugs. On the other hand, I now know what it's like to drop acid without ever having touched the stuff.

 

[TheLobster]

I also don't care for Nolan or am interested in watching his latest movie but there's a lot of bashing of this movie that is being done for solely political and/or "culture war" reasons.

Considering what Nolan has done to it, it's not a huge leap to suspect its whole raison d'etre is political. It is truly bizarre what inconsequential triviality he was paying attention to (like the score using only plausible instruments of the era), while missing obvious and gigantic issues (like the fact that he's adapting one of the most important pieces of Greek culture but didn't bother to cast any Greek actors), and if such blunders weren't premeditated then they would hint at enormous stupidity.

I don't believe Christopher Nolan to be enormously stupid.

 

[sirhugs]

I don't believe Christopher Nolan to be enormously stupid.

No, just consumed by his own success, an unchecked ego unbridled by any constraints.

 

[SexualCuriosity66]

Anybody else stoked about seeing The Odyssey? I haven't seen it yet but am scheduled to see it with some family in a couple of weeks. I'm a fan of Nolan's movies, and a fan of the story, and I'm eager to see how he interprets it.

No spoilers, please!

I am also really excited to see this! Hoping to catch it in iMax at King of Prussia PA.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Considering what Nolan has done to it, it's not a huge leap to suspect its whole raison d'etre is political. It is truly bizarre what inconsequential triviality he was paying attention to (like the score using only plausible instruments of the era), while missing obvious and gigantic issues (like the fact that he's adapting one of the most important pieces of Greek culture but didn't bother to cast any Greek actors), and if such blunders weren't premeditated then they would hint at enormous stupidity.

I don't believe Christopher Nolan to be enormously stupid.

Honestly, the so-called politics amount to nothing more radical than 'war is bad' and 'be nice to strangers'. Anyone who is getting you all riled up about that is simply using the film to get themselves a bit of unwarranted attention.

Personally, I would have seen a version where every actor was Greek or Turkish or Libyan etc.

 

[TheLobster]

Honestly, the so-called politics amount to nothing more radical than 'war is bad' and 'be nice to strangers'.

Yes, it has sinister messaging that goes deeper than just the surface-level race swapping of the cast. Glad that you noticed.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Glad that you noticed.

*snorting in dactylic hexameter* It's pretty difficult to miss when Odysseus is played by the same actor who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb...

 

[PennyThompson]

Considering what Nolan has done to it, it's not a huge leap to suspect its whole raison d'etre is political. It is truly bizarre what inconsequential triviality he was paying attention to (like the score using only plausible instruments of the era), while missing obvious and gigantic issues (like the fact that he's adapting one of the most important pieces of Greek culture but didn't bother to cast any Greek actors), and if such blunders weren't premeditated then they would hint at enormous stupidity.

I don't believe Christopher Nolan to be enormously stupid.

And can you believe he cast Zendaya as Athena? She's not even a goddess, she's born of mortal man!

No doubt you also conscientiously boycotted 300 when you realized that Gerrard Butler was Scottish

 

[JGittes]

There seem to be some misconceptions here. Pretty much all $100 million-plus budget movies are profitable before they are even made. Streaming and international rights are signed before production. International revenue usually accounts for more than half of the income of these big-budget films. For example, MI:8 made less than 200 million in the US, but over 400 million everywhere else.

A film marketed to an international audience requires an international cast. All the complaining sounds an awful lot like the Italians moaning about Burt Lancaster cast in the lead of The Leopard.

The hands-down best adaptation of The Odyssey is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

All the complaining

Probably time to stop beating about the bush: the complaining is about immigration.

The usual culture warriors and grifters on the right are trying to kick up a bunch of dust about casting and accents and whatnot but it's really because the film repeatedly invokes Zeus's law - treating strangers and guests with respect.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Probably time to stop beating about the bush: the complaining is about immigration.

The usual culture warriors and grifters on the right are trying to kick up a bunch of dust about casting and accents and whatnot but it's really because the film repeatedly invokes Zeus's law - treating strangers and guests with respect.

Really? Are you sure? I thought it was about historical accuracy! How could they cast a black woman as Helen of Troy, instead of a woman hatched from an egg like in the original myth?

 

[TheLobster]

And can you believe he cast Zendaya as Athena? She's not even a goddess, she's born of mortal man!

No doubt you also conscientiously boycotted 300 when you realized that Gerrard Butler was Scottish

Silly me. I thought representation is important. Or is it only so when it applies to certain people?

 

[MillieDynamite]

One of the biggest Fo' Paws in the motion picture is "Zeus's Laws." Zeus was the supreme god of the gods; he didn't hand down laws to mortals. Zeus was the king of the gods and the supreme ruler of Mount Olympus and passed judgments on the other gods, not humans. There were never any laws from Zeus to humans. Besides that, the law in question was the Jesus's Golden Rule, which isn't exactly a law and wasn't around in Ancient Greece. It served a purpose for the story, but Zeus assigned different gods the duties of justice and punishment; he wasn't a hands-on god to humanity. Everyone who believes the gods appeared in human form to mere mortals, raise your hand, and join the ultra-right wing of Christianity in the corner.

 

[PennyThompson]

Silly me. I thought representation is important. Or is it only so when it applies to certain people?

I dunno, I support risky and interesting film casting choices pretty much always

If we're appealing to tradition, all of the female characters in the Odyssey should have been played by hot femboys!

But returning to my question, did you get mad when Leonidas was played by a Scottish actor?

 

[TheLobster]

But returning to my question, did you get mad when Leonidas was played by a Scottish actor?

If you really want a serious answer: the 300 movies was an adaptation of a comic that had no pretense to historical accuracy. Quite a far cry from Homer’s Odyssey.