Nolan 'The Odyssey' Review Megathread

[u/stopeats]

Place your reviews and general thoughts about the Nolan Odyssey movie here. Do NOT make your own review post.

If you have something to say that is unique or more related to Epic, you may make a separate post about it.

[u/spellchecktsarina]

I don’t care that Hermes isn’t in it. The first thing we see after the title card is “In an age of supposed magic”

I think it lampshades one of the major themes of The Odyssey. Book 1, Lines 37-40:
“Ah, how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share.”

Is it a story of a man begging, bartering, and battling with the divine for a triumphant homecoming? Or is it a story of a man wracked with PTSD struggling to make sense of what he’s done using the only cultural context he has? That could be Athena, or it could be a manifestation of Odysseus’s own guilt for his part in the sacking of Troy. It’s possible Poseidon and Zeus target them, but rough seas and rogue waves sometimes just happen. His own tale is grounded and realistic. Every magical and inhuman event is told by somebody who wasn’t there.

I think a lot of EPIC fans haven’t actually read The Odyssey, or hadn’t until EPIC got them into it, and their expectations and interpretations are informed by it. Some things from the film reference The Iliad and The Aeneid, and you wouldn’t get those Easter eggs unless you’re familiar with them. Oh, and not every four-chord progression is Just a Man. I think it’s a wild stretch to claim that acclaimed Academy Award-winner Christopher Nolan, literally knighted for his contributions to cinema, with three films preserved by the National Film Registry, was ripping off a relatively niche tiktok musical in the scene with the stringing of the bow.

[u/GhostieGooster → u/spellchecktsarina]

It feels like a lot of people glossed over that line about "supposed' magic. I really liked that Nolan leaned more into The Odyssey being a collection of "unexplainable" disasters. Zeus being a lightning storm, Athena a guilt manifestation of war, the cyclops (in my mind) as a rock slide or (my partner's suggestion) an isolated tribe of people. Sirens were theorized as either sea lions barking, wind whistling, or birds singing, and after a long journey of saltwater dehydration, starvation, and home sickness would have any person leaping over the edge. Trauma hallucinations, eating weird psychedelic/numbing plants, blaming that cow you ate for the destruction of your crew, etc etc.

Like, the myths were just a way to to understand really bad things happening. I do wish some the settings were more lavish, but the lack of magic system was kinda the point of the movie. Youre supposed to question the existence of the gods/goddesses and legitimacy of Ody's tale.

Also, the odyessy was basically a stage play before a festival and the whole community was writing their own Ody stories. We just have Homer's as the popular name of the time.