I don't know how to organize this. I wasn't taking notes while I watched, since I wanted to absorb it as it happened. I've been writing this off and on for over a week.
I'll say as a movie, I enjoyed it. It didn't drag too much, and there was always something happening. I went into it assuming they were going to cut things, which is understandable. You really cannot cover the whole story in 3 hours, which is why I'm baffled at some of the things they changed when they really did not have to.
My main gripes are with the Polyphemus sequence and the ending. Everyone has been talking about the cut 'nobody' scene. I knew about it before I went in. Nolan said it just wasn't going to work. I get what he was going for to some extent. There wasn't humor in the movie. I don't mind this so much, since a lot of Hollywood movies make too many jokes and don't take the material serious, but that doesn't always work for this story. Odysseus is a trickster. And cutting that joke cuts a crucial part of his character.
Odysseus is compelling to me for many reasons. One is because he doesn't cleanly fit into labels we try to put on him. He's a trickster and a liar, but very loyal to certain people. He kills without remorse but cares deeply for Ithaca and the people he rules over. He'll sacrifice any child that isn't his own. He's in love with his wife, but other legends have him be a cheater (I don't count Circe and Calypso as adultery. I would call it rape). He's deeply pious, but still let his hubris get the best of them and revealed his name to Polyphemus. You might say he's...just a man.
The moral ambiguity of his actions aren't found in the movie. He didn't trick anyone. The horse was the closest he really got to it (side tangent: I'm still not over the design. Why is it upright and rearing like that? I thought how they transported it into the city looked cool, but why was the plan to bury it in the sand? The movie showed people using straws to breath over the tide. That was so stupid. How did they decide what unlucky chaps have to be in the bottom? Did they just have to hope they didn't drown all day? Come on. That has to be the most uncomfortable way to be before a big battle.). I thought the siege was a cool sequence where they're frantically trying to get the gate open was really cool. The light showing all the soldiers standing in the dark was so cool. Agamemnon aura-farming was a little silly, but it looked awesome, so I'll allow it (my sister said that was one of her favorite shots from the movie <3). But then he spends the rest of the time regretting all the pain he's causing like a stereotypical western protagonist. What is this, Epic the Musical (That musical has a special place in my heart, but I admit it isn't very accurate to the epic itself)? If Odysseus truly regretted his actions in Troy, he didn't show it in the Odyssey. He's chucking babies off of walls (or Neoptolemus is) or throwing Polyxena on the altar. And that's after making sure Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia (which the movie pretended he wasn't involved in). I don't think he's a psychopath, but I don't get the impression it burdens him as much as this movie was making it out to be.
The movie smooths him down until he's no longer Odysseus. He's just a good, noble man with no real flaws other than maybe short-sidedness. It's now the story of a man who carries the war with him. It literally haunts him in the form of 'Athena'. I think a man bringing the war home with him is a theme in the Odyssey, but it's not a main theme. Odysseus does not primarily overcome adversity through physical prowess alone. He lies and tricks. Even the suitor battle involved him taking their weapons from them first to gain the advantage. And it starts by a trick where he reveals himself and shoots the leader to throw everyone off guard. He lies to Polyphemus about his identity. He tricks Circe to not harm him and gets his crew turned back. He doesn't tell his crew what will happen with Scylla (which does happen in the movie, but it played out kind of weirdly). And he lies to everyone in Ithaca before revealing himself. There were more tricks during the war, but it's more understandable they didn't go into those.
The Nobody scene one of the first scene chronologically that really shows his character. I heard someone say that Odysseus is the man who wants everything. He wants the glory, but he also wants home. If he was willing to accept the title of Nobody, then he would have been able to go home a lot faster (yes I know about the myth that he knew a prophecy that he wouldn't make it back for 20 years. It's not in Homer's Odyssey, so I'm putting it aside for now.). But he wanted the glory of tricking and defeating a Cyclops. So his pride shows, and it ruins everything. This is the inciting incident of the whole story, so it would have been nice for the movie to get it right.
Instead, Odysseus is a victim of bad luck. Which yeah, he was unlucky in the Odyssey. But I think a crucial part of the story is how so much of it could have been prevented (prophecy aside). It makes it tragic. If only they had left Troy with more supplies. If only they hadn't left Ismarus too late. If only he hadn't revealed his name to Polyphemus. If only the crew hadn't opened up the windbag. If only the crew hadn't killed one of Helios' cows. But the movie makes the Polyphemus incident an understandable mistake rather than an act of pride. And that weakens the story.
That being said, I did really like the visuals they did for Polyphemus. Apparently it was puppets? I really liked it. It was very creepy, which is what I wanted for it. Being trapped in a cave while your friends get eaten by a giant monster is harrowing. Even Polyphemus getting in the water and reaching for people was cool. There wasn't a lot of boulder throwing, but I thought it worked well. Why couldn't a son of Poseidon swim?
Though at the end, they revealed that Polyphemus could speak, so it was frustrating that they didn't do the Nobody stuff earlier. And the crew said Polyphemus cried out to Poseidon? I didn't hear it. It was too mumbley. And besides, Poseidon doesn't know who to curse! Odysseus never revealed his name!! Greek gods aren't omniscient. Whatever.
The sequence was so close to being really, really good. Thus my frustrations. I feel like they could have easily changed it to match the story better, but they didn't.
Which brings me to my other main gripe. Who thought it was a good idea to change the ending of a 3000 year old story? How could you skip the olive bed scene? Why would you make Mr. I-love-Ithaca leave Ithaca at the end? They dropped hints here and there that home wasn't really what Odysseus wanted throughout the movie, but I was in disbelief by the end. Book 1 literally says that he yearned to even see the smoke rise from the coastline. I know they skipped over Odysseus' side quest to appease Poseidon (which I'm okay with, narratively), but the point was that afterwards he would be able to stay in Ithaca and live to an old age (and yes I know about the Telegony).
But the movie ending is very much not that. Penelope goes with him and they ride off into the sunset. They crown Telemachus king, implying that they may not be coming back, or it'll be a long time before they do. After being an absentee father to his son for 20 years, Odysseus just ditches him again. So much for Loving Father of Telemachus.
That scene really soured the movie for me. It proved to me that they didn't just misunderstand Odysseus, they made him a completely different person. They changed his entire characterization. He's not a trickster or a liar. He's not even shown as particularly clever. He isn't pious. He never has to make morally challenging choices. He loves Penelope, but what else? Just his men? The movie didn't even mention his parents.
I think they were close to getting Penelope right, but she wasn't quite there. I feel as though they stripped a lot of her cleverness from her. It said the elders told her to weave the shroud for Laertes before she marries away. So it wasn't something she came up with. It's not a large distinction I suppose, but I feel like it robs her of agency. I feel like it's better to have her come up with the entire scheme. It's her that weaponizes the role of women against men, and succeeds for so long because none of them know how weaving works. We did have the challenge, which I thought was pretty well done. I think everyone has their own idea on what shooting through 12 axes means, and I thought it looked pretty good (I really liked the pre-war odypen scene where Odysseus is showing off and Penelope loves it.). Having him use the axes in the suitor combat was also fun. I even like the little detail that he strums his bow right before he fires. I think it's referencing the one line in the Odyssey before the slaughter when he strings it and it sounds like a bird, and I liked how they tied it together, though I would have preferred they kept other methods of identification (I didn't like the explanation for why he does it, though. The trickster wants to give the prey a heads-up?? The lying liar who lies??).
Maybe they wanted to cut the bed scene for time, but I think that is a very crucial scene. It proves Penelope's character and why her and Odysseus are so suited for each other. It shows her cleverness and caution. It also pairs well with Odysseus' character as a trickster since it's Odysseus who ends up getting tricked in the end. It was only through Penelope's actions throughout the story that allows Odysseus' nostos to happen in the first place (and it's super romantic and sweet. I want it for shipping reasons).
Cutting it cuts out a lot of the heart of their love story, which is a lot of the heart of the story. Odysseus loves Ithaca and loves his son and loves his parents, but he has not truly made it home until Penelope accepts him back. It limits a lot of Penelope's character to not include it.
They also didn't leave it ambiguous on whether Penelope knew who he was, which I think leaves her more interesting, but maybe that would have confused a general audience too much. One of my friends said he really liked the scenes where you can tell Penelope knows who he is.
Those are my main gripes. I have many other nitpicks, but it's expected that parts of the story will change.
I keep going back and forth on depicting the gods as forces of nature and nothing more. It's not a choice I would have made, but I think it's interesting. I thought it was weird that Athena was the only one to get personified until the ending, when it's revealed she's a manifestation of Odysseus' PTSD (at least that's how I interpret it). It tied it together, but I'm still left with questions.
Why have a Cyclops and a witch and real monsters to fight if you were going for a more grounded take? They kept mentioning the Bronze Age and Sea People, which are real historical things, so it felt like this was supposed to be leaning on realistic rather than fantastical. It felt like they went down the middle on it. I would have preferred they just pick a lane (and that being the lane of fantastical gods and magic).
I heard one reviewer say it was supposed to show Odysseus as an unreliable narrator. Like he didn't quite remember what happened and his mind was trying to fill in the blanks. That would have been interesting and an homage to the actual epic, since there is debate on how honest Odysseus was to the Phaeacians, but I don't feel like it was executed all the way if that was the case.
I also don't like that they stripped Odysseus of his piety. I'd say his devotion is one of the main reason he gets home. When the gods tell him to do something, he will do it. It's not a matter of 'defying the gods'. Odysseus defies maybe one god, and then has a lot of gods help him on the way back. Athena even uses his piety to persuade Zeus to let him leave Ogygia.
Not having magic strips a lot of the whimsy. It is a serious story, but it can also be quite funny. The Nobody joke. Odysseus whopping everyone in the Phaeacian games. "I'll tell the complete truth" says lying Odysseus. People throwing things at beggar Odysseus and him shrugging it off because he's too cool. Odysseus going off on long tangents about false identities with barely any prompting (and Athena getting a kick out of it). The fight with Irus. Nestor never shutting up.
I felt like the suitor battle at the end was a little underwhelming. Getting injured is more realistic, but it just kind of felt like an old man a little past his prime rather than a victorious hero. They didn't even let Telemachus get in the proper fight. No father-son bonding murder:(
I didn't mind Antinous being the last to die rather than the first. Robert Pattison did a great job. He was a sniveling, slimy asshole. The scene where he confronts Penelope about the shroud and going straight into making out with Melantho was really good, I think. A great way to condense it.
What I can't forgive, is Menelaus. Why is everyone determined to make him an asshole? I have my own ideas on how Menelaus and Helen's relationship works, but I find it easy to say that he loves her. Especially in the Odyssey story. In what world would he scare his wife (which I think is the interpretation I'm supposed to get from it)? He fought a 10 year war to get her back! I haven't heard any legend or myth where Helen gets scared, so Nolan must have made this up. An utterly perplexing choice. I think Helen is way more interesting when Menelaus was at least a decent husband and she still chose to leave for whatever reason. But everyone wants to make her a damsel in distress or whore with no nuance.
We also didn't get any Helen sass. Real Helen would have smacked Menelaus if he talked to her that way. Sparta is her home terf. I know including the drugging scene would have taken too long, but Helen didn't have a personality other than being bitter towards Menelaus, and that sucks.
And then there's the Helen/Clytemnestra choice. I think it's an interesting choice, but I don't like it. I can't decide if Nolan is making a point here about Agamemnon abandoning someone just as beautiful at home to wage a war or if the face of the war is both Helen and Clytemnestra, or if he heard that they were twins and assumed they were identical. I think it brings up too many lore implications and they should have just hired a second actor. How can there be two most beautiful women in the world? That introduces a lot of lore issues (and they didn't even mention that they were cousins with Penelope).
They notably didn't mention the Oath of Tyndareus, which was the whole reason the war started in the first place. They made it seem like it was primarily because of Agamemnon's greed, which might have been part of it, but the real reason was the oath. It's why everyone is duty-bound to go. There wasn't anything particularly magic about the incident, so why not include it? Would it take too long to explain? It's yet another instance of Odysseus' cunning coming into play that they skipped.
I did like that we saw Agamemnon in the underworld scene (even if he still didn't take the armor off. Why is he aura-farming after he's dead?) and that he talked about the Orestia. The sequence turned out well (even though I'm not sure why they didn't want to show Agamemnon's face??).
It felt like Nolan really like the Argos stanza. It was a prominent reunion given as much weight as other reunions (except Laertes, who they skipped). And I actually like that they made that how Telemachus recognize him. I thought it was sweet and showed Telemachus as intelligent. I admit that doing the full sequence at Eumaeus' followed by a whole beggar scene/feast might have taken too long. I don't feel like we missed out on anything there.
I'm not sure why Eumaeus was blind? I don't think I've seen that anywhere, but it didn't exactly affect anything, so it was fine, I guess. I'm just glad they included him.
They also included Mentor, and they had Telemachus keep implying that it was Athena. I couldn't tell if this was a reference to the epic while keeping with the no-gods thing or if it was actually just Athena. Since Mentor dies, maybe it's the first.
I think I should say what I liked.
The monsters were really good, which saved a lot of the movie for me. I was very worried they wouldn't look good. I said before, but Polyphemus looked awesome. I felt how oppressive that cave is. I loved Scylla just reaching down and eating people before retreating for the cliffs. I liked that they gave Circe animals leading up to her house (even though I wish she had a proper house rather than a hovel. Oh well). I thought the whole Circe arc was kind of cool, really. Yes it's different, but wow I loved that body horror. I felt that. I was whatever about Charybdis until I heard that they made it with jet-skis. That bumped it up a lot in my mind. I liked that the focus was on the siren's song rather than their appearance.
I really liked the soundtrack. They were trying to use more ancient instruments, and I approve.
I liked that they kept the general format of the epic where we learn about what happened in flashbacks instead of experiencing it chronologically. I liked that they tried to talk about Xenia (even if it's very simplified).
I thought the sequence of escaping the horse and opening the gate was cool. I loved that they actually stuck a bunch of guys on the ocean in a boat. It felt like I was in there with them (though the lightening scene was hard to watch, literally). I loved Penelope's loom. I loved the pre-war odypen scenes with little baby Telemachus. I loved that they foreshadowed the bow scene and the boar scar early on. I liked how they kept it moving. They really did shove a lot into a 3 hour movie.
Another let down is the sets and costumes. I know this has been harped on to death, but I really feel like it's a missed opportunity. When was the last time we had a big movie with iconic outfits? What was memorable about the anachronistic, dull mess that we got? I'm not expecting documentary level stuff (since even Homer had anachronisms), but something even paying homage to it would be nice. They looked cheap to me, and I think it's a weird time to cut corners.
Nolan implies that Odysseus and his crew are the sea people or at least Odysseus' actions in Troy caused the sea people. I think drawing a parallel between the Trojan Horse trick and Xenia is an interesting take, but it's not quite there. I won't claim to be an expert on Xenia or ancient Greek culture or anything, but Nolan is missing out on an important rule: if the gods tell you to do something, you do it. Paris (and therefore the Trojans) violated Xenia first by taking Helen and robbing Menelaus. The war is the correction of that. If the guest violates the law, then the host is allowed vengeance. Paris got away with a lot because Aphrodite told him to do it. As a pious hero, Odysseus does a lot of things because a god told him to do it. I don't recall if Athena specifically signed off on the horse plan, but I have to assume she did. Athena and Hera wanted Troy to burn, so that was okay. It was the raping girls in the temple that was the bigger atrocity, which is what did in Lesser Ajax.
And that's my other issue. An emotional climax of the story is Odysseus telling Penelope of the atrocities they did in Troy and how he's changed from it. Athena has been taking the face of a girl they killed the entire movie. I think the moment works well in the movie for western audiences, but I don't feel like it goes far enough to show what really happened. Yes, killing everyone is awful and emotional, but I'd argue a greater crime is the raping and enslaving of the women in Troy, which wasn't touched on. It's a rated R movie. Not that I particularly want to watch a rape scene, but if they had depicted Lesser Ajax raping Cassandra and Agamemnon taking her as a war bride or anything with Hecuba or Andromache begging for her son's life to be spared or just women being bound and hauled off on ships, I think that could have really hit the point home. Even Epic delved into this a little in the first two songs. But Nolan doesn't want to see Odysseus as a morally ambiguous person. I guess this Odysseus never thought about how violent taking the city would be in the 10 years he was stuck there with that as his goal. As if he hadn't raided the rest of the countryside already.
It also makes Athena's presence interesting. I think if you want to go the no-gods all-natural route, having Athena be a figment of his imagination is a good move. But having a war goddess look mournful of the horrors of war...is a choice. I don't know if I've ever seen Athena as Odysseus' conscience. I would describe her more as his enabler. I don't think Nolan has ever read the play Ajax. She is unhinged in there.
I think Nolan would have been happier depicting the Aeneid. He put a heavier emphasis on Sinon, who is featured more in that story, and it ends in Odysseus sailing off 'west', which would be Italy. I hope he and Penelope can go hang out with Diomedes while they're there. Maybe odydiopen is canon in this timeline.
Focusing on Sinon so much is interesting because they also completely changed him. He's also supposed to be a trickster, and even Odysseus' cousin! And I'm pretty sure he doesn't die? So that's a choice. And how could have possibly not known there were Greeks in the horse? Did they knock him out while piled in? Get him drunk? If he honestly thought he got ditched, why didn't he just leave? It's just kinda weird.
And I know the costume issues have been beaten to death, but I do think it's a missed opportunity. I'm not asking for documentary accuracy, I just think it would help the film have a more distinct look. The costumes were just boring. Penelope is shown weaving something that looks nothing like the texture of the actual clothes worn. Telemachus kept wearing the most drab brown outfits you've ever seen when he's supposed to be a prince. I think it could have gone a long way to make the outfits look unique. It can help the audience feel like we're in a place that most people aren't familiar with. And when was the last time we had a big blockbuster come out with everyone saying how amazing the outfits looked? Something that inspired people for years to come? If I wore a knock off of any Penelope outfits, would people know what I'm referencing? My gripe is more that I think it's missed potential.
I had some issues with a few of the sets. I heard that they filmed parts in real ruins, which I think is cool, but everything already looks old. Why does it already look ruined by time? Wouldn't this stuff be new? And looking at just white stone for so much of the interior shots was just bland. Especially 'Athena's temple' in Pylos. We don't want to have tapestries on the wall? Vases? Mosaics? Gold? I feel like they could have had more fun with it, but they just didn't.
And so I'm divided. I saw it with my friends who had never read the Odyssey (though they had read Song of Achilles a while ago, lol). And the movie really did jam a lot of information into 3 hours. I have to remember that most people don't know a lick of the lore. I think the movie served well as an introduction, but not much more.
And that's not to mention the pollution and props that Nolan left behind. wtf is up with that????
Like, I had a good time watching it, but I'm left wondering what could have been.
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