I'd like a comedy version of The Odyssey, directed by Noah Baumbach or Woody Allen or Albert Brooks that takes place after The Odyssey, wherein Odysseus is nervously explaining his absence to an increasingly incredulous Penelope.
O: Why do we have to keep going through this? I told you a million times, Calypso wouldn't let me leave her island and she forced me to be her lover!
P: She forced you? How could she force you? Was she holding you down? You were able to defeat the big strong Cyclops in battle, but you couldn't get away from Calypso?
O: She's a nymph!
P: Yeah, I bet she is...
O: I mean, she's part-god. Whaddya want me to do, defy her? Defying gods is what got me into this mess in the first place!
P: No, the last thing I would ever want you to do is to not have 7 years of sex with a hot Nymph all over her sex island.
O: Well what about you? You expect me to believe you spent the last 10 years just weaving and unweaving a shroud and never once banged any of the 108 suitors I murdered yesterday?
P: Am I as pretty as Helen?
O: Oh, Zeus, here we go again...
P: If I was as pretty as Helen you wouldn't have launched your ship, would you, huh?! I bet you and Achilles agreed to fight with Agamemnon because of how hot Helen is, you'd do anything for Helen, wouldn't you, admit it!
A bit reminiscent of this happens on “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” where Larry David, as Meriwether Lewis, is telling his wife that doesn’t WANT to leave her to go on a trip across the continent with his fishing buddy Clark (played by Seinfeld) and a group of young native women, it’s just that Jefferson insists!
It could also be a sitcom like Mad About You. Ody & Pene kvetching over something and then Cousin Ira shows up with another one of his wacky schemes...
"hyper-realism was never at play. After all: There’s a cyclops in this movie."
I haven't seen the movie yet and have no strong opinions on casting, but this is the wrong frame. A movie doesn't need to be realistic, but it needs to be grounded. It's fine if there's a cyclops battling a transformer, if you have an in universe explanation for it.
It's too much of a fully generalisable defence. If "there's a Cyclops in it/it's based on a fantasy novel/there are dragons/this isn't real world" works, then why are there no white, Asian, and Latinx folx in Wakanda, huh? Where's the diversity there? Wakanda ain't real, it's a comic book, it should be every bit as Diverse and Inclusive as 8th century BC Greece!
Granted, the roles were "blink and you'll miss them" for the DEI characters, so in the end they didn't really matter, but it's not nothing when they swap out Spartan Helen for a Kenyan-Mexican actress.
I look forward to the race-swapped version of Mulan set in Atlanta coming to our screens never.
Fully generalizable against *any* lazy writing, plot holes, etc too. Which is why the “it has magical creatures, why are you complaining” argument has always been a peeve of mine. Worldbuilding and narrative consistency still matter even (perhaps especially) in stories about fantastical worlds.
I don't think I've heard the word "honky' since it fell out of George Jefferson's mouth. Thanks for reviving it, Jeff, and in service of ancient Greek mythology.
This review has me intrigued enough to get into a theater for the third time since Covid. Thank you for your service to this country and its movie making business.
Hamish Patel is probably the only one who looks Greek enough. You are spot on that if the product sucks, screeching about it being woke “works”; but more importantly Nolan is the spectacle blockbuster director of our time, he’s James Cameron or Spielberg. Comic book movies and live action Disney fairy tale remakes are released to all the enthusiasm of a wet fart
I think the screeching about the screeching about it being woke was a 'get your defence in place' move by the studio in case this flopped, big budget epics aren't doing that well recently, and being able to trot out the tried and trusted "it was the fault of racist bigots who hate Strong Women and Minorities" line was covering their asses.
But it seems like it will be a success not a flop, so they don't need that anymore.
Swapping out Sinon for Achilles was a definite choice on Nolan's part, particularly with the visit to the Underworld; he obviously had A Message he wanted to convey by slipping in a character from the Aeneid instead of the source meeting of Odysseus with Achilles where Achilles says he'd rather be the meanest slave on earth but alive than a king amongst the dead. "You deceived and betrayed me!" message of how Odysseus is indeed the bad guy whose fault this all is, is a choice as to what the director wants the audience to come away with.
It probably will be a good movie, I just wish he didn't have to chew up and spit out the Odyssey to do it but then I'm one of the lore nerds who wince at the (necessary at times) changes when literary media get adapted to the big screen.
He’s basically on a press tour for the movie though (he got to meet Tom Holland, the actor, for the memes) so I’m not sure we can take that entirely in good faith.
Plus historians are one of those professions where you can ask two and get three opinions so I don’t think any one opinion can ever be cited as definitive.
There isn’t a definitive answer, so of course people can reasonably disagree but as someone with some, but not detailed, knowledge of the source material I’m happy to outsource an opinion about the film’s relative authenticity to Holland. Listening to him explain the discrepancies between source and film was informative and interesting: And it all certainly seemed to be done in good faith
I agree Nolan's Odyssey is not unbearably woke in casting . . . but it also is not the Odyssey at all; it is a similar story in some respects that has been fitted into a modern moral standard. For a main instance, the Trojan horse, that greatest trick of all ages celebrated by Odysseus and Homer . . . but now which "Odysseus laments [because] the cleverness of his tactics destroyed the natural bonds between people. The people of Troy were trusting and grateful for the gift" and he now sorrows for his actions. It may be pretty and nice and progressive as all get out . . . but it ain't Homer. "It also turns Odysseus into a great modern hero, a universal figure whose journey can be adapted and understood by anyone, anywhere, because it is, after all, a sojourn to understand those common creeds that make us all human." The quotes are from an excellent review essay that mostly loves the film but notes the changes wrought by modern moral posturing: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/christopher-nolan-odyssey-mostly-pro
"The gods could have protected the cows by not letting the sailors near them to begin with, but they would apparently rather coax the sailors into a rule violation so that they can dispense some Ancient World justice."
Just like Yahweh could have protected the tree in the Garden of Eden.
One silver lining to all of the reflexive accusations of wokeness is they bait the hook for studios to telegraph how much faith they have in a film. If they lean into the controversy, that's because they know it's a turd and want to pre-emptively deflect criticism (see, e.g., Ghostbusters: Answer the Call), but if they ignore it, that's because they think it's good and don't want to alienate any potential audience they don't have to.
I've seen reviews by guys I generally agree with saying it's a great movie. I think it works best on the big screen because let's face it, the trailers were dogshit. I did find the anachronistic Viking ship and pseudo-mediaeval armour on the Laestrygonians (and Agamemnon's Batsuit) annoying, but what can you do with a director who says he's updating the material for the modern audience?
Venturing into spoiler territory here, but Odysseus blaming himself for the Bronze Age Collapse probably is the silliest thing in the movie. Wow, we broke the old customs of guest-right and introduced modern total war, the world has now changed? If that was Nolan's message, he should have set this movie in immediately post-First World War Britain: all the old verities are exploded, the Empire is now on its deathbed (though they don't know it yet), I am become Death Destroyer of Worlds - oops, sorry, that was his *last* movie.
If I go by the reviews, it seems to be a good Nolan movie if you like Nolan movies. I just hope the movie is visually better than the gloomy, grey, dull, dark, everyone wears black pleather armour trailers.
The funniest thing about the groyper griping is how little screen time Lupita Nyong'o and Billy Paige have in the film. Nyong'o has, tops, 6 minutes, four of them as Helen and one and a bit as Clytemnestra.
Sinon has probably the funniest line in the film when he's telling Odysseus to tell his family that he died doing his duty and then adds, "feel free to add some stuff".
Beyond that, this was a very small "c" conservative movie. It can be seen as a warning of the welfare state and immigrants (There is a line about how the suitors, as guests, are abusing the hospitality of Odysseus's house) and the need to defend civilization. And yet, because Elon has decided he hates Nolan, the utterly online, have to keep acting like the entire production was cast from season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
"A theory: The “IT’S WOKE!” play works best when the movie is a snow-capped mountain of shit in the first place."
I will co-sign these theory, if that's how theories work. I once watched a YouTube video which made the point that most of the time when people nitpick plot-holes in movies, it's because there was something bigger about the movie that ultimately didn't work, and the plot-hole is just a convenient thing to pick at. I think there's something similar with regards to WOKE, in that no one really cares if a movie has a message, and people are even willing to tolerate a message not being particularly subtle (especially if it's a message they agree with); they care when there's bigger problems with the movie that are preventing them from enjoying it, and the message is just something easy to pick at. Pretty much every story has a few little plot holes (because hey, story, doesn't work like real life) and some message the author wants to communicate (because hey, kind of the point of communicating in the first place); the problem is when both are not done well
Of course, the alternative that some people are bitter pedantic nerds who consider nitpicking fault with things that have been made by more talented, successful and creative people than they are to be a substitute for living a meaningful life cannot be wholly ruled out either.
I'd like a comedy version of The Odyssey, directed by Noah Baumbach or Woody Allen or Albert Brooks that takes place after The Odyssey, wherein Odysseus is nervously explaining his absence to an increasingly incredulous Penelope.
O: Why do we have to keep going through this? I told you a million times, Calypso wouldn't let me leave her island and she forced me to be her lover!
P: She forced you? How could she force you? Was she holding you down? You were able to defeat the big strong Cyclops in battle, but you couldn't get away from Calypso?
O: She's a nymph!
P: Yeah, I bet she is...
O: I mean, she's part-god. Whaddya want me to do, defy her? Defying gods is what got me into this mess in the first place!
P: No, the last thing I would ever want you to do is to not have 7 years of sex with a hot Nymph all over her sex island.
O: Well what about you? You expect me to believe you spent the last 10 years just weaving and unweaving a shroud and never once banged any of the 108 suitors I murdered yesterday?
P: Am I as pretty as Helen?
O: Oh, Zeus, here we go again...
P: If I was as pretty as Helen you wouldn't have launched your ship, would you, huh?! I bet you and Achilles agreed to fight with Agamemnon because of how hot Helen is, you'd do anything for Helen, wouldn't you, admit it!
A bit reminiscent of this happens on “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” where Larry David, as Meriwether Lewis, is telling his wife that doesn’t WANT to leave her to go on a trip across the continent with his fishing buddy Clark (played by Seinfeld) and a group of young native women, it’s just that Jefferson insists!
Dillon: I want to see this movie!
"When Ody met Pene."
It could also be a sitcom like Mad About You. Ody & Pene kvetching over something and then Cousin Ira shows up with another one of his wacky schemes...
LOL! Jeff, are you in on this?
"hyper-realism was never at play. After all: There’s a cyclops in this movie."
I haven't seen the movie yet and have no strong opinions on casting, but this is the wrong frame. A movie doesn't need to be realistic, but it needs to be grounded. It's fine if there's a cyclops battling a transformer, if you have an in universe explanation for it.
It's too much of a fully generalisable defence. If "there's a Cyclops in it/it's based on a fantasy novel/there are dragons/this isn't real world" works, then why are there no white, Asian, and Latinx folx in Wakanda, huh? Where's the diversity there? Wakanda ain't real, it's a comic book, it should be every bit as Diverse and Inclusive as 8th century BC Greece!
Granted, the roles were "blink and you'll miss them" for the DEI characters, so in the end they didn't really matter, but it's not nothing when they swap out Spartan Helen for a Kenyan-Mexican actress.
I look forward to the race-swapped version of Mulan set in Atlanta coming to our screens never.
Fully generalizable against *any* lazy writing, plot holes, etc too. Which is why the “it has magical creatures, why are you complaining” argument has always been a peeve of mine. Worldbuilding and narrative consistency still matter even (perhaps especially) in stories about fantastical worlds.
If “there are Cyclops in this world” is a good enough explanation then “there are black women in this world” is too.
You know that cyclops don't really exist, right?
Yes, I do. Do you?
And black women do exist?
I don't think I've heard the word "honky' since it fell out of George Jefferson's mouth. Thanks for reviving it, Jeff, and in service of ancient Greek mythology.
This review has me intrigued enough to get into a theater for the third time since Covid. Thank you for your service to this country and its movie making business.
Hamish Patel is probably the only one who looks Greek enough. You are spot on that if the product sucks, screeching about it being woke “works”; but more importantly Nolan is the spectacle blockbuster director of our time, he’s James Cameron or Spielberg. Comic book movies and live action Disney fairy tale remakes are released to all the enthusiasm of a wet fart
I think the screeching about the screeching about it being woke was a 'get your defence in place' move by the studio in case this flopped, big budget epics aren't doing that well recently, and being able to trot out the tried and trusted "it was the fault of racist bigots who hate Strong Women and Minorities" line was covering their asses.
But it seems like it will be a success not a flop, so they don't need that anymore.
Swapping out Sinon for Achilles was a definite choice on Nolan's part, particularly with the visit to the Underworld; he obviously had A Message he wanted to convey by slipping in a character from the Aeneid instead of the source meeting of Odysseus with Achilles where Achilles says he'd rather be the meanest slave on earth but alive than a king amongst the dead. "You deceived and betrayed me!" message of how Odysseus is indeed the bad guy whose fault this all is, is a choice as to what the director wants the audience to come away with.
It probably will be a good movie, I just wish he didn't have to chew up and spit out the Odyssey to do it but then I'm one of the lore nerds who wince at the (necessary at times) changes when literary media get adapted to the big screen.
Tom Holland, the historian, is happy with the adaptations, which is good enough for me.
He’s basically on a press tour for the movie though (he got to meet Tom Holland, the actor, for the memes) so I’m not sure we can take that entirely in good faith.
Plus historians are one of those professions where you can ask two and get three opinions so I don’t think any one opinion can ever be cited as definitive.
There isn’t a definitive answer, so of course people can reasonably disagree but as someone with some, but not detailed, knowledge of the source material I’m happy to outsource an opinion about the film’s relative authenticity to Holland. Listening to him explain the discrepancies between source and film was informative and interesting: And it all certainly seemed to be done in good faith
I didn't think Nolan swapped out Sinon for Achilles. It seemed more like he was swapping out Elpenor and replacing him with Sinon.
With this movie, Anti-woke just had its Icarus moment. Flew too close to the sun.
I'd watch a Porgy & Bess with Joe Pesci.
“It’s fuckin’ summertime and the living’s fuckin’ easy. You got these fuckin’ fish jumpin’ — look at those fuckin’ bastards!”
“Hey, Sportin’ Life. Do I fucking amuse you?”
I agree Nolan's Odyssey is not unbearably woke in casting . . . but it also is not the Odyssey at all; it is a similar story in some respects that has been fitted into a modern moral standard. For a main instance, the Trojan horse, that greatest trick of all ages celebrated by Odysseus and Homer . . . but now which "Odysseus laments [because] the cleverness of his tactics destroyed the natural bonds between people. The people of Troy were trusting and grateful for the gift" and he now sorrows for his actions. It may be pretty and nice and progressive as all get out . . . but it ain't Homer. "It also turns Odysseus into a great modern hero, a universal figure whose journey can be adapted and understood by anyone, anywhere, because it is, after all, a sojourn to understand those common creeds that make us all human." The quotes are from an excellent review essay that mostly loves the film but notes the changes wrought by modern moral posturing: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/christopher-nolan-odyssey-mostly-pro
"The gods could have protected the cows by not letting the sailors near them to begin with, but they would apparently rather coax the sailors into a rule violation so that they can dispense some Ancient World justice."
Just like Yahweh could have protected the tree in the Garden of Eden.
Liking just for the subtitle
Jeff has wise eyes, Athena's eyes. We should tell him this every 10 minutes after commenting on Zeus' law just like they did in the movie.
One silver lining to all of the reflexive accusations of wokeness is they bait the hook for studios to telegraph how much faith they have in a film. If they lean into the controversy, that's because they know it's a turd and want to pre-emptively deflect criticism (see, e.g., Ghostbusters: Answer the Call), but if they ignore it, that's because they think it's good and don't want to alienate any potential audience they don't have to.
I've seen reviews by guys I generally agree with saying it's a great movie. I think it works best on the big screen because let's face it, the trailers were dogshit. I did find the anachronistic Viking ship and pseudo-mediaeval armour on the Laestrygonians (and Agamemnon's Batsuit) annoying, but what can you do with a director who says he's updating the material for the modern audience?
Venturing into spoiler territory here, but Odysseus blaming himself for the Bronze Age Collapse probably is the silliest thing in the movie. Wow, we broke the old customs of guest-right and introduced modern total war, the world has now changed? If that was Nolan's message, he should have set this movie in immediately post-First World War Britain: all the old verities are exploded, the Empire is now on its deathbed (though they don't know it yet), I am become Death Destroyer of Worlds - oops, sorry, that was his *last* movie.
If I go by the reviews, it seems to be a good Nolan movie if you like Nolan movies. I just hope the movie is visually better than the gloomy, grey, dull, dark, everyone wears black pleather armour trailers.
Yes I would argue that that play did not work on those movies; it’s just that the play was deployed on movies that very few wanted to see anyway.
The funniest thing about the groyper griping is how little screen time Lupita Nyong'o and Billy Paige have in the film. Nyong'o has, tops, 6 minutes, four of them as Helen and one and a bit as Clytemnestra.
Sinon has probably the funniest line in the film when he's telling Odysseus to tell his family that he died doing his duty and then adds, "feel free to add some stuff".
Beyond that, this was a very small "c" conservative movie. It can be seen as a warning of the welfare state and immigrants (There is a line about how the suitors, as guests, are abusing the hospitality of Odysseus's house) and the need to defend civilization. And yet, because Elon has decided he hates Nolan, the utterly online, have to keep acting like the entire production was cast from season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
"A theory: The “IT’S WOKE!” play works best when the movie is a snow-capped mountain of shit in the first place."
I will co-sign these theory, if that's how theories work. I once watched a YouTube video which made the point that most of the time when people nitpick plot-holes in movies, it's because there was something bigger about the movie that ultimately didn't work, and the plot-hole is just a convenient thing to pick at. I think there's something similar with regards to WOKE, in that no one really cares if a movie has a message, and people are even willing to tolerate a message not being particularly subtle (especially if it's a message they agree with); they care when there's bigger problems with the movie that are preventing them from enjoying it, and the message is just something easy to pick at. Pretty much every story has a few little plot holes (because hey, story, doesn't work like real life) and some message the author wants to communicate (because hey, kind of the point of communicating in the first place); the problem is when both are not done well
Of course, the alternative that some people are bitter pedantic nerds who consider nitpicking fault with things that have been made by more talented, successful and creative people than they are to be a substitute for living a meaningful life cannot be wholly ruled out either.
If they were really going for an anti-woke myth, they would have adapted the myth of Morpheus instead.
Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the chicken.