So the fact that Odysseus's ship was a viking longboat bothered me while I watched the movie because it should have been a Greek bronze age ship. The two are kinda similar at a glance but do have several key differences.
However, I just found out that the reason this was the case was because Nolan wanted to film as many of the boat scenes on the actual sea as possible, but there are no operable replicas of Greek bronze age ships, and even if they did use a significant amount of their budget to build their own operable replica, there are no professionals trained to sail that kind of boat, so it would have been dangerous, too. There are, however, operable replicas of viking longships available with a trained crew to sail them, and Nolan utilized both for the boat scenes.
Part of me wonders if this was a worthy sacrifice just to film at sea, wonders what would have changed if the filming was done on set instead, but honestly, when the vast majority of your target audience won't know the difference, I kind of get it.
Now that I think about it, the same issue may have been why the architecture was the way it was. Are there any full-scale replicas of bronze age architecture? If so, would they be available to film in? Were they limited by their options for passible and available filming locations? For the costumes, especially the armor, they decided to go with a design that was more recognizable to the contemporary viewer as Greek rather than what we think is more historically accurate armor and clothing to the bronze age because what is more accurate is not recognizable as Greek to the common person. With that being the case, couldn't they have found a filming location with architecture that was more recognizable as Greek (especially with the Ithaca castle) rather than what I can only describe as ancient brutalism? Then again, I'm not an expert on that specific point.
Idk, I understand the longship and the costumes to a lesser extent, but the architecture still bothered me. Maybe they really were limited by where they could film in terms of scenic locations.
I get it, though. As a director, you have to ask yourself, what is this production's target audience? Who is going to see the production? When the answer is that the vast majority of the audience is made up of people who won't know the difference or may even be confused by the more historically accurate option, I kind of get it.
The choice to only use period appropriate instruments for the score WAS an inspired choice, though.