Movies to dread
- Thread starter Walter
- Start date
Uhhhhh...
I don't even feel right posting this here, this is messed up
www.youtube.com
I don't even feel right posting this here, this is messed up
Cuties | Official Trailer | Netflix
Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.SUBSCRIBE: http:...
www.youtube.com
Franz
It's a dolphin.
The more I hear about the Borderlands film, the worse it sounds to me. Casting sounds wack and off. Kevin Hart, Cate Blanchett, and Jack Black are all reasons to drive me away from watching it. This also seems like a really odd time to be making the film as well, as we've passed its point of peak popularity. I guess I'll continue to replay the games instead.
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
Animal Crossing Horror Short Becoming a Feature Film from Hardcore Henry Director
Animal Crossing Horror Short Becoming a Feature Film from Hardcore Henry Director - IGN
Hardcore Henry director Timur Bekmambetov is set to adapt Julian Terry's Animal Crossing horror short 'Don't Peek' into a full-length feature film.
Short of someone using a cursed monkey's paw, this isn't happening. At least get a better director.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Here's one more way I'd never want to see Berserk come back:
The Matrix: Resurrections
This looks like a rehash that's simply about its own existence but didn't bother to even fake a reanimating idea, like we're going to have to re-watch Neo's original arc all over again so we can be thrilled as he re-enacts the third act of the first movie. This REALLY looks meaningless and terrible, and it's just a trailer, but if you can't make it look good in the trailer...
At least the title is appropriately awful tribute to the franchise's 90's anime fetish. I like that they even made it plural for extra stupid points! All out, baby. "Back to the Matrix!" lol
The Matrix: Resurrections
This looks like a rehash that's simply about its own existence but didn't bother to even fake a reanimating idea, like we're going to have to re-watch Neo's original arc all over again so we can be thrilled as he re-enacts the third act of the first movie. This REALLY looks meaningless and terrible, and it's just a trailer, but if you can't make it look good in the trailer...
At least the title is appropriately awful tribute to the franchise's 90's anime fetish. I like that they even made it plural for extra stupid points! All out, baby. "Back to the Matrix!" lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtq9s5azuBU
Not a movie but this thread feels proper for Picard's season 2. I feel bad for all the actors involved in this.
Not a movie but this thread feels proper for Picard's season 2. I feel bad for all the actors involved in this.
RaffoBaffo
Ex-Newser of the late Berserk Chronicles
I hope this won't be like Discovery.
I mean I hope RLM will review this, unlike Discovery.
Not having any hope about the show itself, these new shows are only good for this.
I think this is embarrassing enough that they may feel compelled to, not to mention that it really shits on TNG's legacy (seemingly even more than the first season).
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) is going to be bad. Also, this just points to how bad Netflix's reputation has become when they'll pick up the latest slop film: "As of August 2021, Legendary Pictures abandoned plans to release the film and opted to sell the rights to Netflix following a string of disastrous test screenings."
The IMDB trivia section is a goldmine for laughs at this movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11755740/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv .
The IMDB trivia section is a goldmine for laughs at this movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11755740/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv .
Dark Knight
I’ll gnaw right through your arteries!
Seeing how Netflix execs and show runners like to disrespect the properties they adapt, to me, Netflix adaptation of anything means “don’t watch.”
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
Honestly, it isn't totally Netflix's fault since they are the distributer for this movie. The movie (kind of a ripoff of Halloween 2018 since this is also a direct sequel to the original TCM) is made by Legendary Pictures. Netflix, however, didn't need to distribute this movie (though I will put this on during a slow day at work).
Well it's not like Hollywood studios generally swear by faithfulness...
Yeah, it'll likely just join the hundreds of bottom-of-the-barrel stuff they have in their catalog. Just because they bought it doesn't mean they paid a lot of money for it.
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
So what you're saying is that this is my fault? Excuse me for having poor taste!
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
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That might be the worst trailer I've ever seen. The humor, the music... why do this to police squad?
Vampire_Hunter_Bob
Cats are great
I'm definitely not watching this for many reasons, one of which is that Liam isn't funny, and he wouldn't meet my lowered expectations of his bad Leslie Nielsen impression. Just fast forward to this movie having a 20% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Resident Evil (2026) | Horror, Sci-Fi
Resident Evil: Directed by Zach Cregger. With Paul Walter Hauser, Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis. Follows a hapless courier tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must fight through hordes of mutated creatures...
m.imdb.com
Last edited:
I’ve said before that Homer is a big deal to me. I’ve spent the better part of the last 20 years studying his works closely, having discovered them myself and not read them at school. Suffice to say, I admire them above all other works. It’s therefore with great dread that I followed the news about Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the Odyssey.
First, we should make a distinction: this isn’t an adaptation of Greek Mythology. It’s more specific. It’s the adaptation of a specific work, by a specific author. So, the question of faithfulness to the material is different between the two. A director can make a Disney version of Heracles or adopt a more Nolan-esque style when telling his story, because there’s no fixed version to consult. But with the Odyssey, the question of faithfulness differs. There are, or at least should be, more constraints. How the director approaches his work will affect if you’re getting “the Odyssey” in any form here. And from what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think Nolan is giving you the Odyssey of Homer.
I will also preface this with the obvious fact that I’m talking about mere trailers here, and not the full production. The trailers, however, don’t leave me encouraged. Here is the latest one, the “countdown” trailer:
Immediately, there are issues to point out. Amazingly, there is a lot to say about a trailer that only lasts two and a half minutes.
First, the general points before the specific problems:
The Tone
The Odyssey, like all great works, has its own character and atmosphere. If you’ve read it, you’ll not find it hard to recall. It’s conversational and charming. It has a storybook atmosphere that feels like a buoyant dream. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments of grandeur, because it does, and it can be sublime, terrifying, and outright violent at times (especially during its climax). But the overall tone of the work is down-to-Earth, and it’s probably the most “chill” epic ever composed.
Nolan’s trailer does not look like any of the descriptors above. It’s his usual style instead, all literal thunder and lightning throughout. Might as well slap a Han Zimmer soundtrack to it. It looks too serious and I fear the entire movie may be like this. The actual Odyssey is serious, but it’s also funny, even silly at times (Homer has a hilarious simile in which he compares a sleeping Odysseus to a sausage being rolled over a fire as he tosses and turns). It’s reflective, grand, intimate, tragic, heroic, etc. A comprehensive work through and through.
Nolan’s project seems more like a one note compared to the symphony that’s his source material, let’s put it this way.
The Colors
We’ve discussed this in the chat, but the color grading is too dull and drab, for both the Mediterranean world and Homer’s fictional one. Homer’s world is famously vivid and colorful, and that works in tandem with the above tone of the work too.
Just take this description of King Alcinous’ house as Odysseus first enters it:
“Now as Odysseus approached Alcinous’ famous house
a rush of feelings stirred within his heart,
bringing him to a standstill,
even before he crossed the bronze threshold …
A radiance strong as the moon or rising sun came flooding
through the high-roofed halls of generous King Alcinous.
Walls plated in bronze, crowned with a circling frieze
glazed as blue as lapis, ran to left and right
from outer gates to the deepest court recess.
Solid golden doors enclosed the palace.
Up from the bronze threshold silver doorposts rose
with silver lintel above, and golden handle hooks.
And dogs of gold and silver were stationed either side,
forged by the god of fire with all his cunning craft
to keep watch on generous King Alcinous’ palace now,
his immortal guard-dogs, ageless, all their days.
Inside to left and right, in a long unbroken row
from farthest outer gate to the inmost chamber,
thrones stood backed against the wall, each draped
with a finely spun brocade, women’s handsome work.
Here the Phaeacian lords would sit enthroned,
dining, drinking—the feast flowed on forever.
And young boys, molded of gold, set on pedestals
standing firm, were lifting torches high in their hands
to flare through the nights and light the feasters down the hall.
And Alcinous has some fifty serving-women in his house:
some, turning the handmill, grind the apple-yellow grain,
some weave at their webs or sit and spin their yarn,
fingers flickering quick as aspen leaves in the wind
and the densely woven woolens dripping oild droplets.
Just as Phaeacian men excel the world at sailing,
driving their swift ships on the open seas,
so the women excel at all the arts of weaving.
That is Athena’s gift to them beyond all others—
a genius for lovely work, and a fine mind too.
Outside the courtyard, fronting the high gates,
a magnificent orchard stretches four acres deep
with a strong fence running round it side-to-side.
Here luxuriant trees are always in their prime,
pomegranates and pears, and apples glowing red,
succulent figs and olives swelling sleek and dark.
And the yield of all these trees will never flag or die,
neither in winter nor in summer, a harvest all year round
for the West Wind always breathing through will bring
some fruits to the bud and others warm to ripeness—
pear mellowing ripe on pear, apple on apple,
cluster of grapes on cluster, fig crowding fig.
And here is a teeming vineyard planted for the kings,
beyond it an open level bank where the vintage grapes
lie baking to raisins in the sun while pickers gather others;
some they trample down in vats, and here in the front rows
bunches of unripe grapes have hardly shed their blooms
while others under the sunlight slowly darken purple.
And there by the last rows are beds of greens,
bordered and plotted, greens of every kind,
glistening fresh, year in, year out. And last,
there are two springs, one rippling in channels
over the whole orchard—the other, flanking it,
rushes under the palace gates
to bubble up in front of the lofty roofs
where the city people come and draw their water.
Such the gifts, the glories showered down by the gods
on King Alcinous’ realm.” (Odyssey, Book VII)
I think little more needs to be said. The trailers show me little of this vibrancy.
The Dialogue
You can hear it in the trailer. We’re getting a dialogue as un-Homeric as it gets.
“My dad is coming home,” Tom Holland’s Telemachus says here, like a Disney version of the Ithacan prince.
“You’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know,” Robert Pattinson’s Antinous replies.
What the actual fuck was that?
This is how Telemachus actually speaks:
“You suitors who plague my mother, you, you insolent, overweening …
for this evening let us dine and take our pleasure,
no more shouting now. What a fine thing it is
to listen to such a bard as we have here—
the man sings like a god.
But at first light we all march forth to assembly, take our seats
so I can give my orders and say to you straight out:
You must leave my palace! See to your feasting elsewhere,
devour your own possessions, house to house by turns.
But if you decide the fare is better, richer here,
destroying one man’s goods and going scot-free,
all right then. Carve away!
But I’ll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes
that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance—all of you
destroyed in my house while I go scot-free myself!” (Odyssey Book I)
How did we go from that to “my dad is coming home”?
Antinous himself is quite barb-tongued, but I don’t think Nolan will give us the same kind of sharp rhetoric that Homer’s villain possesses.
I get that movie characters won’t speak like poetry figures, but they should still have sound better than, “you’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know…”
————
Now to some of the specifics:
1. We see glimpses of the Trojan War (the setting of Homer’s first epic, the Iliad) in the trailer. The city burns, with one tower falling with a controlled demolition. Bizarrely, we see what I assume to be graves of fallen warriors in the beach of Troy. Homeric warriors didn’t bury their dead; they cremated them on pyres. The graves had pieces of weaponry and armor too, which wouldn’t have been left there. They would either be taken or burned with their owners. A very strange scene to put in the movie.
2. A botox-faced Penelope says, calmly and confidently, “Ithaca’s king is coming back”. This is not Homer’s Penelope at all. After 20 years of waiting for her husband to return, the actual Penelope had all but given up on seeing him ever again. She’s been deceived far too many times by frauds claiming to have spotted him here and there, and she’s too afraid to trust any new rumor because of the disappointment that follows it. 3000 years ago, and people still thought like we do. Her attitude to her suitors is also quite complex, as she despises them while also enjoying their advances deep down. I’ve a feeling this great, complex character will be reduced to a shell in this movie, but then again this concern runs across the entire cast.
3. Odysseus talks about vengeance, presumably regarding the suitors that are courting his wife and consuming his house. But this completely misses Odysseus’ actual motivation. He isn’t there for revenge but a more delicate and complex reason.
To understand it, first you need to know that one of the main themes of the Odyssey is “xenia”, which translates to “hospitality” or “guest-friendship”. In Homer’s world, there were no institutions as we have them today, no national or international laws. What held society together was the concept of xenia. If you visit a person’s home, it was their sacred (literally – Zeus is said to be the protector of guest rights) duty to host you generously and send you on your way in the proper time. Your obligation, on the other hand, is to respect your host, to not steal from him or shame him in any way. This friendship becomes binding even on your descendants. The entire Trojan War was started because Paris violated xenia when he stole his host’s wife, Helen of Sparta. Adaptations would have you believe that the Greeks fought for 10 years in the Trojan country because Helen was beautiful or because of purely materialistic reasons while using her as a pretext, but those weren’t the only reasons. The primary reason was to restore the violation of guest-friendship that was committed by Troy. When the thread that ties your entire civilization together is violated so blatantly and is left uncorrected, society would literally collapse. The threat was existential, not merely political.
So this brings us to Odysseus. The suitors are violating xenia by consuming his house, courting his wife, and plotting to kill his son. He wants to kill them all not for mere vengeance, but as an act of restoration, a cleansing of the rot that has taken over his kingdom. Attributing his motivation to mere revenge is hilariously typical Hollywood oversimplification.
The entire Odyssey is built around the theme of hospitality. All the famous episodes are variations of this theme:
A) The Cyclops: Odysseus and his crew enter his cave and he eats his guests two men at a time.
B) The Laestrygonian Giants: similarly, Odysseus’ men dock on their islands, and their chief sets his people loose on them and they spear them like fish. Odysseus’ fleet is destroyed; only his ship survives because he doesn’t dock it. Funnily, in the trailer, we see Odysseus himself leading the crew against these very giants, which is unlike him.
C) The Lotus Eaters: they keep their guests in a state of constant high, feeding them drugs.
D) Circe: she turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, but Odysseus saves them and they spend a year in her care.
E) Calypso: she keeps Odysseus against his will for seven years, wanting him for a husband. The part xenia being violated here is that of delaying the guests’ departure.
And so on. You get the point.
I don’t think Nolan will explore this theme in depth at all in his movie.
4. Odysseus closes this trailer with, “then I defy the gods”. Of course, in our day, this is the cool thing to do. Every hero must be an impious, god-defying badass. Odysseus literally cuts off an idol’s head, like Achilles did in 2004’s Troy.
This is utterly unthinkable for a Homeric hero. Homer’s characters frequently prayed to their gods, worked with them, made sacrifices to them, and otherwise revered them. There are instances where they do defy the gods, to be sure, such as when Diomedes wounds Ares in the Iliad with Athena’s help, but only when another god is there to help them do so.
Nolan’s Odysseus' attitude to his gods is very bizarre.
5. Not shown in the trailer, but Helen’s actress will also portray her sister Clytemnestra. Helen and Clyemnestra are only half-sisters though, and not twins, with the former being Zeus’ daughter and the latter being Tyndareus’ (Sparta’s king), while sharing a mother. This is another instance of Homer’s world being violated. What makes it worse is that Homer, along with ancient epics in general, was obsessed with genealogies, so this wouldn’t have struck him as a minor change.
There is even more to say, from the costumes to the casting, but I think I’ll leave it here.
So I’ll go back to the original point: if you want Homer’s Odyssey, pick up a translation (I recommend Robert Fagles) or the original Greek if you’re lucky enough to be able to read it, and read away. If you want a Hollywood blockbuster to take up a few hours of your time, go ahead and see Nolan’s version.
I’m not sure I will.
First, we should make a distinction: this isn’t an adaptation of Greek Mythology. It’s more specific. It’s the adaptation of a specific work, by a specific author. So, the question of faithfulness to the material is different between the two. A director can make a Disney version of Heracles or adopt a more Nolan-esque style when telling his story, because there’s no fixed version to consult. But with the Odyssey, the question of faithfulness differs. There are, or at least should be, more constraints. How the director approaches his work will affect if you’re getting “the Odyssey” in any form here. And from what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think Nolan is giving you the Odyssey of Homer.
I will also preface this with the obvious fact that I’m talking about mere trailers here, and not the full production. The trailers, however, don’t leave me encouraged. Here is the latest one, the “countdown” trailer:
Immediately, there are issues to point out. Amazingly, there is a lot to say about a trailer that only lasts two and a half minutes.
First, the general points before the specific problems:
The Tone
The Odyssey, like all great works, has its own character and atmosphere. If you’ve read it, you’ll not find it hard to recall. It’s conversational and charming. It has a storybook atmosphere that feels like a buoyant dream. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments of grandeur, because it does, and it can be sublime, terrifying, and outright violent at times (especially during its climax). But the overall tone of the work is down-to-Earth, and it’s probably the most “chill” epic ever composed.
Nolan’s trailer does not look like any of the descriptors above. It’s his usual style instead, all literal thunder and lightning throughout. Might as well slap a Han Zimmer soundtrack to it. It looks too serious and I fear the entire movie may be like this. The actual Odyssey is serious, but it’s also funny, even silly at times (Homer has a hilarious simile in which he compares a sleeping Odysseus to a sausage being rolled over a fire as he tosses and turns). It’s reflective, grand, intimate, tragic, heroic, etc. A comprehensive work through and through.
Nolan’s project seems more like a one note compared to the symphony that’s his source material, let’s put it this way.
The Colors
We’ve discussed this in the chat, but the color grading is too dull and drab, for both the Mediterranean world and Homer’s fictional one. Homer’s world is famously vivid and colorful, and that works in tandem with the above tone of the work too.
Just take this description of King Alcinous’ house as Odysseus first enters it:
“Now as Odysseus approached Alcinous’ famous house
a rush of feelings stirred within his heart,
bringing him to a standstill,
even before he crossed the bronze threshold …
A radiance strong as the moon or rising sun came flooding
through the high-roofed halls of generous King Alcinous.
Walls plated in bronze, crowned with a circling frieze
glazed as blue as lapis, ran to left and right
from outer gates to the deepest court recess.
Solid golden doors enclosed the palace.
Up from the bronze threshold silver doorposts rose
with silver lintel above, and golden handle hooks.
And dogs of gold and silver were stationed either side,
forged by the god of fire with all his cunning craft
to keep watch on generous King Alcinous’ palace now,
his immortal guard-dogs, ageless, all their days.
Inside to left and right, in a long unbroken row
from farthest outer gate to the inmost chamber,
thrones stood backed against the wall, each draped
with a finely spun brocade, women’s handsome work.
Here the Phaeacian lords would sit enthroned,
dining, drinking—the feast flowed on forever.
And young boys, molded of gold, set on pedestals
standing firm, were lifting torches high in their hands
to flare through the nights and light the feasters down the hall.
And Alcinous has some fifty serving-women in his house:
some, turning the handmill, grind the apple-yellow grain,
some weave at their webs or sit and spin their yarn,
fingers flickering quick as aspen leaves in the wind
and the densely woven woolens dripping oild droplets.
Just as Phaeacian men excel the world at sailing,
driving their swift ships on the open seas,
so the women excel at all the arts of weaving.
That is Athena’s gift to them beyond all others—
a genius for lovely work, and a fine mind too.
Outside the courtyard, fronting the high gates,
a magnificent orchard stretches four acres deep
with a strong fence running round it side-to-side.
Here luxuriant trees are always in their prime,
pomegranates and pears, and apples glowing red,
succulent figs and olives swelling sleek and dark.
And the yield of all these trees will never flag or die,
neither in winter nor in summer, a harvest all year round
for the West Wind always breathing through will bring
some fruits to the bud and others warm to ripeness—
pear mellowing ripe on pear, apple on apple,
cluster of grapes on cluster, fig crowding fig.
And here is a teeming vineyard planted for the kings,
beyond it an open level bank where the vintage grapes
lie baking to raisins in the sun while pickers gather others;
some they trample down in vats, and here in the front rows
bunches of unripe grapes have hardly shed their blooms
while others under the sunlight slowly darken purple.
And there by the last rows are beds of greens,
bordered and plotted, greens of every kind,
glistening fresh, year in, year out. And last,
there are two springs, one rippling in channels
over the whole orchard—the other, flanking it,
rushes under the palace gates
to bubble up in front of the lofty roofs
where the city people come and draw their water.
Such the gifts, the glories showered down by the gods
on King Alcinous’ realm.” (Odyssey, Book VII)
I think little more needs to be said. The trailers show me little of this vibrancy.
The Dialogue
You can hear it in the trailer. We’re getting a dialogue as un-Homeric as it gets.
“My dad is coming home,” Tom Holland’s Telemachus says here, like a Disney version of the Ithacan prince.
“You’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know,” Robert Pattinson’s Antinous replies.
What the actual fuck was that?
This is how Telemachus actually speaks:
“You suitors who plague my mother, you, you insolent, overweening …
for this evening let us dine and take our pleasure,
no more shouting now. What a fine thing it is
to listen to such a bard as we have here—
the man sings like a god.
But at first light we all march forth to assembly, take our seats
so I can give my orders and say to you straight out:
You must leave my palace! See to your feasting elsewhere,
devour your own possessions, house to house by turns.
But if you decide the fare is better, richer here,
destroying one man’s goods and going scot-free,
all right then. Carve away!
But I’ll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes
that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance—all of you
destroyed in my house while I go scot-free myself!” (Odyssey Book I)
How did we go from that to “my dad is coming home”?
Antinous himself is quite barb-tongued, but I don’t think Nolan will give us the same kind of sharp rhetoric that Homer’s villain possesses.
I get that movie characters won’t speak like poetry figures, but they should still have sound better than, “you’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know…”
————
Now to some of the specifics:
1. We see glimpses of the Trojan War (the setting of Homer’s first epic, the Iliad) in the trailer. The city burns, with one tower falling with a controlled demolition. Bizarrely, we see what I assume to be graves of fallen warriors in the beach of Troy. Homeric warriors didn’t bury their dead; they cremated them on pyres. The graves had pieces of weaponry and armor too, which wouldn’t have been left there. They would either be taken or burned with their owners. A very strange scene to put in the movie.
2. A botox-faced Penelope says, calmly and confidently, “Ithaca’s king is coming back”. This is not Homer’s Penelope at all. After 20 years of waiting for her husband to return, the actual Penelope had all but given up on seeing him ever again. She’s been deceived far too many times by frauds claiming to have spotted him here and there, and she’s too afraid to trust any new rumor because of the disappointment that follows it. 3000 years ago, and people still thought like we do. Her attitude to her suitors is also quite complex, as she despises them while also enjoying their advances deep down. I’ve a feeling this great, complex character will be reduced to a shell in this movie, but then again this concern runs across the entire cast.
3. Odysseus talks about vengeance, presumably regarding the suitors that are courting his wife and consuming his house. But this completely misses Odysseus’ actual motivation. He isn’t there for revenge but a more delicate and complex reason.
To understand it, first you need to know that one of the main themes of the Odyssey is “xenia”, which translates to “hospitality” or “guest-friendship”. In Homer’s world, there were no institutions as we have them today, no national or international laws. What held society together was the concept of xenia. If you visit a person’s home, it was their sacred (literally – Zeus is said to be the protector of guest rights) duty to host you generously and send you on your way in the proper time. Your obligation, on the other hand, is to respect your host, to not steal from him or shame him in any way. This friendship becomes binding even on your descendants. The entire Trojan War was started because Paris violated xenia when he stole his host’s wife, Helen of Sparta. Adaptations would have you believe that the Greeks fought for 10 years in the Trojan country because Helen was beautiful or because of purely materialistic reasons while using her as a pretext, but those weren’t the only reasons. The primary reason was to restore the violation of guest-friendship that was committed by Troy. When the thread that ties your entire civilization together is violated so blatantly and is left uncorrected, society would literally collapse. The threat was existential, not merely political.
So this brings us to Odysseus. The suitors are violating xenia by consuming his house, courting his wife, and plotting to kill his son. He wants to kill them all not for mere vengeance, but as an act of restoration, a cleansing of the rot that has taken over his kingdom. Attributing his motivation to mere revenge is hilariously typical Hollywood oversimplification.
The entire Odyssey is built around the theme of hospitality. All the famous episodes are variations of this theme:
A) The Cyclops: Odysseus and his crew enter his cave and he eats his guests two men at a time.
B) The Laestrygonian Giants: similarly, Odysseus’ men dock on their islands, and their chief sets his people loose on them and they spear them like fish. Odysseus’ fleet is destroyed; only his ship survives because he doesn’t dock it. Funnily, in the trailer, we see Odysseus himself leading the crew against these very giants, which is unlike him.
C) The Lotus Eaters: they keep their guests in a state of constant high, feeding them drugs.
D) Circe: she turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, but Odysseus saves them and they spend a year in her care.
E) Calypso: she keeps Odysseus against his will for seven years, wanting him for a husband. The part xenia being violated here is that of delaying the guests’ departure.
And so on. You get the point.
I don’t think Nolan will explore this theme in depth at all in his movie.
4. Odysseus closes this trailer with, “then I defy the gods”. Of course, in our day, this is the cool thing to do. Every hero must be an impious, god-defying badass. Odysseus literally cuts off an idol’s head, like Achilles did in 2004’s Troy.
This is utterly unthinkable for a Homeric hero. Homer’s characters frequently prayed to their gods, worked with them, made sacrifices to them, and otherwise revered them. There are instances where they do defy the gods, to be sure, such as when Diomedes wounds Ares in the Iliad with Athena’s help, but only when another god is there to help them do so.
Nolan’s Odysseus' attitude to his gods is very bizarre.
5. Not shown in the trailer, but Helen’s actress will also portray her sister Clytemnestra. Helen and Clyemnestra are only half-sisters though, and not twins, with the former being Zeus’ daughter and the latter being Tyndareus’ (Sparta’s king), while sharing a mother. This is another instance of Homer’s world being violated. What makes it worse is that Homer, along with ancient epics in general, was obsessed with genealogies, so this wouldn’t have struck him as a minor change.
There is even more to say, from the costumes to the casting, but I think I’ll leave it here.
So I’ll go back to the original point: if you want Homer’s Odyssey, pick up a translation (I recommend Robert Fagles) or the original Greek if you’re lucky enough to be able to read it, and read away. If you want a Hollywood blockbuster to take up a few hours of your time, go ahead and see Nolan’s version.
I’m not sure I will.
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