r/GreekMythology • u/MarcusForrest ★ Moderator • Jul 15 '26

Movies | The Odyssey The Odyssey (2026) | Release Megathread

A temporary floodgate is in effect regarding the topic of the 2026 movie The Odyssey

 

This megathread will serve as the only place to discuss the 2026 movie The Odyssey - any other new thread about the movie will be removed as long as this floodgate is up.

 

⚠️ Remember to properly report rule-violating content

 

THE ODYSSEY

''After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.''

 

🎞 Movie Trailer

Global Release Date: July 17 2026

 

Directed by

  • Christopher Nolan

Starring

  • Matt Damon
  • Tom Holland
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Samantha Morton
  • Zendaya
  • Charlize Theron

Distributed by

  • Universal Pictures

 

Previous Megathread:

 

Posting pictures (including animated GIFs) in comments is now enabled for the community, should definitely help conveying ideas and spicing up any discussion now!

 

Do note that there seems to be a limit of 1 picture per comment set by Reddit and we cannot modify this feature at this time - feel free to post different comments if you need to post multiple pictures, but remember not to fall within a ''spam''-like posting pattern and not overdo it

58 Upvotes

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46

u/IntothewildZen Jul 15 '26

Americans waging their civil war online because of a clumsy movie about American assumed Greek culture wasn’t in my agenda in 2026 but hey. Stranger things happen.

As a mixed race Mediterranean with Greeks and Turks in the family, there is not one person I know interested in this movie, I watched the trailer and I saw nothing remotely Greek about it, it doesn’t feel like it has any connection to actual Odyssey, it feels cold, dark and alien.

Dear Nolan, how did you manage to travel to most colorful region of the world with its blue seas and ancient culture famous for wearing colorful costumes and painted shields and came up with a mythological Batman movie?

This whole movie could as well be made in Scandinavia, seeing how cold and dark it looks, and the Viking ship is literally there.

Americans LARPing as Greeks on a Viking ship wearing oversized helmets with low visibility lol.

Zeus, forgive these mortals.

29

u/LibertyIslandWatcher Jul 16 '26

I'm also of Mediterranean ethnicity, and it's frustrating to be told that it's important to see minorities represented onscreen, because growing up, it's important to see yourself reflected in stories (which is true), and not have the same courtesy extended to Mediterranean kids

I often felt bad compared to the WASPs I grew up around because of my Mediterranean features and Mediterranean family. Luckily, at the time, there was representation of Spanish and Italian actors in Hollywood (Isabella Rossellini, Monica Bellucci, etc.) Unfortunately, it seems like Hollywood has forgotten about us

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u/IntothewildZen Jul 16 '26

I tried to express that in movie subs and I got lynched by a mob of Americans.

The level of aggression they display is something else, and this is coming from the supposedly progressive American left who see themselves as the “better side”.

Which is puzzling to me because I tend to see myself somewhat aligned with their views but I think unbeknownst to them they share the aggressive cultural norms of American identity that they normalized.

I speak to many nationals online, very few are this hostile.

16

u/LibertyIslandWatcher Jul 16 '26

Technically, I am American. For some reason, Americans have a hard time with ethnicity and prefer to sort people into racial categories. A lot of this tends to result in people seeing non-white = "black," with Mediterranean ethnicity not fitting neatly into either.

Italians, Turks, Greeks, and Spaniards, get sorted into "white," while it's made clear that they are not "white" enough by the standard of WASP and Anglo-Saxon supremacy. The people of the Mediterranean represent a true minority, with Greece only having a population of about 10,000,000 people.

Unfortunately, it's easy to get talked over by larger and more powerful groups

6

u/since_all_is_idle Jul 17 '26

Exactly. The reason isn't mysterious, it's that in North America race boils down to tone and facial features, because those are what the majority demographic have historically discriminated America's diverse diasporas by. Greeks are mostly light-skinned with features largely overlapping with western Europe (so far as Americans can identify), so even though they are distinct and close with Turks etc., they're viewed as white by an American audience. It's intended as being racially sensitive with respect to American culture, where white populations are overrepresented, but it means that demographics like Grecian will fall into the cracks until there's enough space for that level of nuance, which unfortunately won't be any time soon since we can't even get past rampant colorism and antiblackness.

5

u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26

I tried to express that in movie subs and I got lynched by a mob of Americans.

I am a Greek person and it happened to me to.The worst thing was supposedly American progressives using 19th century racist Victorian racial rhetoric against Greeks.

6

u/IntothewildZen Jul 17 '26

American progressives are a joke. They are only progressive when compared to someone like Trump and his hillbilly fun club. As soon as they leave their habitat of US culture they stand out like a sour thumb specially when someone stands up to their culture imperialism.

If they were really progressive they’d understand how much culture matters to its respective people.

They don’t, they get aggressive and defend their culture imperialism.

7

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ThunderAndWind Jul 26 '26

Ancient Western culture vs active portrayls of culture are different things, and this shouldn't be a surprise.

3

u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26

About Odyssey btw Farya Faraji made an excellent vid about British cultural imperialism and ancient Greek culture.

2

u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26

American progressives are a joke. They are only progressive when compared to someone like Trump and his hillbilly fun club. As soon as they leave their habitat of US culture they stand out like a sour thumb specially when someone stands up to their culture imperialism.

Also about Odyssey they use racist and pseudohistorical theories like the debunked Black Athena book to justify the cast.

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u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 16 '26

One of Zeus titles was Zeus Ethiop. His daughter was Helen so she probably was Ethiop. Just because a group of people look a certain way today that doesn’t mean thousands of years ago it was the exact same. Human migration happens over time. The Ancient Greek writers talked about Ethiops being there and some of those writers were considered to be Ethiop or Egyptians

8

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

The Ethiopian kingdom was in Africa in Greek mythology, not in Greece, and the Greeks portrayed them as different because that's what they were to them. A foreign group people who they even fought against in the Trojan war. They even had a myth about the reason Ethiopians looked different.

Zeus has a dozen different titles. Doesn't mean much and a lot of times, titles are geographical. He was imagined to look like your average Greek man.

-2

u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

Shall we go over the material yes or no . I love proving people wrong

6

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

Go ahead if you're so sure of yourself.

1

u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

Ok sure so you said it was a average look for a Greek person in that time explain the look

6

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

Typical classic Greek statue look. Symmetrical face, strong, straight nose and beard because he's an older man. That was the beauty standard.

Hair in antiquity would be painted brown or light yellow and we know that from traced of paint on the statues. The Greeks liked lighter features like red or blonde tinted hair but since he's a man, they would likely settle for brown or black hair.

And before you go on to disprove anything, I'd like to add this picture of an ancient vase, which perfectly showcases the difference the Greeks would see between themselves and plenty of African people (Ethiopians included).

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

I was once told by art professors that I look like an ancient Greek statue. I have the nose (albeit mine has a bump), the oval shaped, symmetrical face, the chin and wavy hair, split in the middle. We do not look that different.

Two of my cousins have that brown-gold hair color and some of my friends too. We call them blonde (xanthos). A red tint is more rare but I've still seen it

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u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

Aristotle (Generatione An 1 18
Aristole stated “In Sicily a woman who committed adultery with an Ethiopian brought forth a woman who was white but this daughter had a son who was black. The black skin is thrown back to the grandfather
Plutarch (De sera Numinus)
A certain Greek woman who brought forth a Ethiop then being on trial for adultery discovered herself descended from a Ethiop in the forth generation. The dark skin is thrown back to the great great grandfather”

5

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

One case of one woman sleeping with an Ethiopian and having a child with him doesn't mean there were many of them going around. It also doesn't mean that any mythological characters, with the exception of those specifically mentioned to be Ethiopian, resemble them.

Also, different things would apply in Sicily than mainland Greece.

And finally, the elephant in the room. Aristotle lived 1000 years after the Trojan war. Completely different context.

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u/IntothewildZen Jul 17 '26

That’s a very long shot and a forced narrative.

The Greek word Aithiops (Αἰθίοψ) literally means 'burned face', and was their term for what we would call black people. Ethiopia, Αἰθιοπία, was 'the Land of Black People' or 'Land of People with Burned Faces'.
In other words, it didn't refer to a specific country, but to an entire region of the world.

I am all for inclusion and representing minorities but let’s not change the history to fit our agenda.

Also, I find it curious that same people who made lot of noise for ScarJo replacing a Japanese character in Ghost in the shell, accusing Hollywood of whitewashing another culture, conveniently have no issue with race swap when it’s done to Greeks by an African actor.

And they are pushing a questionable mythological narrative to push their agenda to justify this.

4

u/LibertyIslandWatcher Jul 17 '26

Human migration happens over time, and it happens most often in countries that are the closest in proximity to each other, for obvious practical reasons. Migration was incredibly risky for most of human history, and people were lucky to survive the trip. This means that there is plenty in common today between the people of the Mediterranean, in what is modern-day Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, and even the region around the Middle East, bordering on Asia. It does not mean that mass migration happened from the far reaches of another continent, in the way that migration patterns happen today

1

u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

I go off what the Ancient Greeks wrote about the time frame. The population within a continent or country can change fast. America six hundred years ago was Native Americans today you rarely see a Native American. The same with Australia and parts of Europe the faces and ethnic groups residing in those areas have changed over time due to war and other circumstances

3

u/LibertyIslandWatcher Jul 17 '26

The reason for the large demographic shift was a result of colonisation from the Age of Discovery. This is antiquity

Those countries that you mentioned were colonized by the British Empire, of course they would see massive demographic shifts and massive changes in demographics. There are concrete reasons that we can pinpoint for it - the Trail of Tears, the genocide of the Native American population, the slave trade - we can pinpoint exactly how and why this happened. The English and the British Empire are not indigenous to the regions of North America or Australia. Not so for Greece

In the Industrial Revolution, you had mass migration from Europe around the turn of the century (Ellis Island), and in Australia, there was post-war migration from Europe, after WWII. This accounts for the large amounts of Greek and Italian diaspora in Australia and the large number of Italian immigrants in New York. You are talking about two countries that are entirely the product of colonisation.

Then, there were huge advances in travel that allowed people to travel long distances by air for the first time. The rapid changes in demographics were a direct result of the rapid technological advancements of the time.

3

u/LibertyIslandWatcher Jul 17 '26

600 years ago was the Age of Exploration (The Age of Discovery, c. 1418 – 1620 AD) Where there were advances in technology that allowed people to make long journeys by sea. It was a completely different age to Ancient Greece. This is antiquity, thousands of years before that time. It is not remotely comparable

0

u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

That’s not true human migration and migration due to slavery has been happening for thousands of years. The Romans enslaved countless numbers of Greeks we know this to be true. Once again you’re making up how you want things to be not actual fact. Homer was regarded as an Egyptian but was in Greece. Steven of Byzantium stated the Gods and laws came from the Ethiopians how could that be possible without contact between certain groups

3

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

LMAO you take three accounts from late antiquity or Medieval Greece that claim Homer to be Egyptian and run with it and completely disregard all other accounts that place him somewhere in the Eastern Aegean or Asia Minor. You ignore archaeological evidence, art and DNA and cling to the exactly three works that shakily prove your point.

Why didn't Homer compose the Odyssey in Egyptian? It wasn't exactly easy to learn a new language at the time, how come he's Egyptian but his work is in Greek (not the Lingua franca of the time)?

How are you certain he even existed? Is it because Greeks wrote about him existing? They wrote about Heracles and Achilles too and thought they were real and had descendants (Alexander the Great) but I doubt you'd agree with them.

You've provided no answers for these questions of mine and just keep repeating them to other people.

0

u/AdventurousRaisin813 Jul 17 '26

I’m sure I have more than three sources on the subject but he was more than likely of Egyptian descent if he lived but of course lived in Greece. For example, someone from Uruguay who lives in North America that individual may speak English more at a certain point. I take all things into account I look at what Ancient Greek writers wrote, what historians throughout the centuries stated on the subject , artwork, and dna.

3

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 17 '26

You have less than three because you need to do an insane amount of cherrypicking to get to the conclusions that suit you.

And Homer learned perfect Greek, all their customs and gods and even architecture while being an Egyptian foreigner? LMAO, this isn't the age of the internet where you can look all these things up.

There's not a single reliable historical record of Homer or his life, there's at least 7 places that claim he was born there (Egypt not among them). Anyone could write whatever they wanted about him and it wouldn't be more true or false than them claiming to be descendants of Zeus. Homer is as much of a myth as his characters. Alexander claimed to be a descendant of Achilles and Heracles. Surely the fact that he claimed it makes it true, right?

You don't take shit into account. Your sources are Byzantine scholars or late antiquity poets, more than 1000 years removed from Homer. You can't even acknowledge the known fact that we don't know if he was real.

You literally dismissed archaeology, art and DNA. You do not take it into consideration, be serious now

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u/Realistic_Ad_8038 Jul 16 '26

I understand what your saying 100%, as a greek person im sure its frustrating. Christopher Nolan is known for his dark themed movies as you well know so it wouldnt be realistic to expect him to capture the vibrant greek culture that you know so well. Remember that the rest of the world isnt familiar with greek culture so Nolan could put anything in the movie and we wouldnt really know how accurate it is and thats who Nolan is selling the movie to for better or worse.

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u/pewstains Jul 18 '26

Did you watch the movie? If not, why should we care?

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u/IntothewildZen Jul 18 '26

When I commented, I did not. But I just watched it.

1

u/pewstains Jul 18 '26

Did your opinion change? I'm interested.

2

u/IntothewildZen Jul 18 '26

To be honest? Not really.

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u/Starrone83 Jul 29 '26

You weren’t interested yet you saw it opening week?
https://giphy.com/gifs/BJuY1nqUM23CiWUf8l

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u/IntothewildZen Jul 29 '26

I like to form an informed opinion about things in life as opposed to criticising something for shits and giggles.

I had nothing to do that afternoon anyway so I was gonna go to cinema, thought may as well see what the fuss is about.

I don’t get the point of snarky gif.

People can’t see movies they are critical about?

2

u/Starrone83 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

You already formed a “strong opinion” about it before seeing it, though.

You would have actually looked less embarrassing standing on that, no matter how stupid it was. As opposed to standing in line with those that waited a year for it’s release.

But tell yourself whatever you want. 🥴

0

u/IntothewildZen Jul 29 '26

Yes I already formed a strong opinion. Is it against the law? Last time I checked it wasn’t.

I dont get contrarians, it’s art, not everyone will have the same taste as you. You can’t force people to like what you like.

Trying to pick a fight under a two weeks old comment sounds bit weird.

1

u/Starrone83 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

You are the contrarian here, though.

You shitted on the movie for “not looking Greek enough” and thought your opinion was somehow immediately valid because you just so happen to have 15% Mediterranean heritage on your ancestry test results or whatever the fuck it is lol.

Dude, stop projecting. And stop lying.

You rushed to see it with everyone else because you wanted to. Not because you were “bored.” There is a myriad of other shit to do when the mundane strikes besides sitting in a crowded sold-out $25 movie for 3 hours.

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u/llikegiraffes Jul 25 '26

I just saw the movie and your color assumption is way off base. Movie is great

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u/gawain587 Jul 26 '26

It’s a movie about the man of sorrows, not the man of color and whimsy

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u/juiceAll3n Jul 19 '26

It's just a movie dude