Did The Odyssey Miss the Mark? | Honest Analysis

[00:00:00]What's going on, guys? I just got out of the theaters watching Christopher Nolan's Odyssey movie, and I have to say, I had a tremendous time watching this movie. It's filled with complex characters. It's filled with very interesting concepts about loyalty and love and gods and fate and defiance and uh guilt and everything in between. And I can't wait to talk about it. So, this video is going to be it's not going to be spoiler-free. I'm going to go into all the details. Then again, this is the Odyssey. It's been around for a long time, so like you should know what happens in it. But I'm going to talk about the entirety of the movie, highlighting the things that I liked, the things that I didn't like, and really diving deep into the intricacies involved with this adaptation and the overall story in of itself. So, if you enjoy the content, please be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. Now, the first thing that I want to talk about here is the pacing. Nolan opts for a nonlinear storytelling structure for this movie. What that means is we're not starting from a certain point in time in, you know, Adysius leaving Troy and then we follow him the way through. You know, we we're picking up at his Omenithica with his son, with his wife, telling the stories of what happened in Troy. And then we're going to catch up with Odyssey Adysius [music] in the present living with um this lady uh Calypso [music] and we're just going to be jumping all over the place because he's lost a bit of his memories and he's regaining these memories. And so you're just going to be jumping back and forth of what will happen there. Then you go flashback. You go see where that is.

[00:01:34]then you can catch up to the present or whatever it's happening with tam tamakus tamakus I don't know how to say some of these names and you're just going to go back and forth and slowly all the pieces fit together until the end you're all caught up with uh Adysius arriving in Ithaca and then you go all the way through so I'm not like I I'm personally speaking I've never been bothered by these kinds of nonlinear storytelling quite frankly I actually like it it's it's it's whenever I'm watching movies that start in meteor you how we start in the middle and then we go back. I'm usually a fan of that. This isn't exactly meteor because we don't then go back and then go all the way through. We're going back and forth. Um, I've never really been bothered by that, but there are some people who if they don't have the patience or attention to keep all the different timelines intact, they might be bothered by um the storytelling structure. So, it was a bold move on Nolan's part. I didn't mind it. I actually enjoyed it. It made for a very engaging experience. So, I just I just want to put put it out there. The general plot of the movie is Adysius has finally taken Troy. Troy has fallen to Argamen Nom's forces and now he's trying to find his way back home. But he's having difficulty getting back home because a lot of crazy stuff is getting in his way. So, will he make it back home? And if he does make it back home, who are his allies? Who are his enemies?

[00:03:00]and what will happen to his family.

[00:03:03]That's the general plot of the movie. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through every sequence that I can remember, talk about how it was depicted, talk about the good things there, the bad things there, [music] and then we can go through it. We'll build all the way to the end. And then after that, we'll talk about the thematic, the messaging, the themes, the lessons, the cool aspects of this Odyssey story that has made it so legendary throughout millennia. And then after that, I do have to go on a little bit of a rant, if you will. But we do need to talk about the social discourse regarding this movie outside the movie in of itself because I do think it's worth speaking about. So let's first start from this Troy sequence over here. So Adysius, as as you know, the way that the story goes, they decide because they can't break Troy down. So they decide to do this um they build this horse, wooden horse. The men are inside. But what Odysius does is he has his most trusted well one of his most trusted trusted [music] soldiers, Sinan I think is his name. And he the idea is everyone else is going to go home. Son is going to stay back and Son is going to be the one there to present this wooden horse to the Trojans with the expectation that Sinnon might not survive, but he's prepared to die.

[00:04:21]So this is right at the beginning of the movie. They get there and he's dead. All right, he dies. The men are about to destroy the Trojan horse, but they don't because of this idea, which is very important in the entire story. This idea of Zeus's law. And Zeus's law effectively basically um comes down to treat other people um as you would treat like a god or treat other people as you would treat a god manifest because you don't know when it's a god in disguise.

[00:04:50][music] It's basically a different way of just saying treat strangers well, be hospitable, bring them in, give them food, give them shelter because you never know because it could be Zeus in disguise, it could be Helios in disguise, etc., etc. It it's effectively a law of hospitality. All right? And that's how they have been able to structure their civilization. That's how they are able to function so well, at least relatively well, up to this point.

[00:05:17]As you will find out later on in this movie, Adysius doing this doing this gift of the Trojan horse and gifting it to the sorry not yeah of the Trojan horse and gifting it to the Trojans is in defiance of Zeus's law because he's taking advantage of what would be their hospitality in taking in that horse because he wants to win. And this is a very important thematic point that will that it sort of uh you can see the ripple effect across the entire movie and we'll talk about the you know we'll talk about that later. So um the sequence where we actually see what happens with the Trojans and the horse and them getting out. It's it doesn't happen here because again it's nonlinear so we're jumping all over the place. But I'm going to address it here. One of the coolest things that I have found with Nolan, what what he did was the way that he showcased how difficult it was to pull this off because they created the horse. They got in and then they had to stay there for a while. All right, I don't know exactly how long it took, per se, but they had to stay there for a little bit. And um whenever the tides would come in, those who were at the bottom would drown and they would have to give the men at the top cuz they're stacked on top of each other would have to give these straws to the people down below so that they could breathe. And they lost some men just in the part where they were waiting. [music] They had to poop in there. They had to piss in there. They they had to stand together. And it was a brutal depiction of just how much or how bad war can be and and the cost that it takes for victory. I thought that was really cool on Nolan's part. So they get into the city and there's this shot where one of the Trojans stabs the horse to see if it's hollow. And one of the men in there, I think he gets Nick to get stabbed. he's about to scream and all the other men just grab him just to close his just to cover his mouth so he doesn't um scream and you know give away their position. So in any case later on after the night is over they break out they open the door. Agamemnon's forces are waiting. They take the city. They destroy everything. They pillage and that's sort of like where that is. So now Adis is ready to go home. So everybody says their goodbyes and he goes home. Now, as he's going home, we're going to go through all this like all this stuff because I just on a basic level because those of you who are actually watching this, I'm predominantly I do anime, I do manga.

[00:07:42]It is such a fascinating um it's a fascinating thought process to think about it because if I sit and I think about like the world of One Piece or the world of Hunter Hunter, the world of Bleach and Naruto and all these different popular series, you're just kind of left in awe at how amazing these guys are at what they're doing. And it's a little bit um it's you get aruck because it's crazy. And it's the same thing happening here. This Homer dude, bro, that dude is legit. All right, that brother is really good at this stuff.

[00:08:10]All right, so the first place that they go, they arrive at [music] um an island, an undisclosed island, and they're going out to shore to sell to to find food as they normally would. So they go out there and they see a lamb. Now the men are about the men, initial men, they're about to just kill the lamb and is like, "Wait, lambs come in flocks." So, we need to follow it. They follow the lamb into a cave. There's a bunch more lambs there. They're about to, you know, take Well, there's not a bunch of lambs there, but they go into the cave. They see that there's a fire. It looks like it belongs to somebody. And that's when the cyclops comes back. You know the idea. Cyclops, oneeyed, giant, huge. He comes in and he closes the door. So, when cuz he's coming home to sleep, I guess. So he comes and closes the door and he ends up attacking the men who are there. When he attacks them, the the way that they set it up here is that when the Cyclops eats two men, he falls asleep. That's his limit. He if he eats two men, he immediately falls asleep and he's the only one who's big enough to actually open or remove the stone that's guarding the door. So what ends up happening is a series of them attempting to get out. You know, first they try to just run out, but they can't. They try to, you know, hide and sneak away. They can't. They try to They try a bunch of different things. All right. Ultimately, in the end, what they end up doing in order to escape is that they take this uh, you know, wooden pillar, they set it on fire, so it's, you know, burning hot, and then they blind him. So after they blind him, the next time around when they're trying to get out, they cover their backs with like wools. Like they tie these wools or hay or something because what the what the Cyclops does is that he sits at the door and his hand is leaning over the entrance and he's just feeling the back of the sheep and the lambs as they go out to know who it is. And so they put these things on their back so they can escape, which they do, but it comes with a price because they end up um hurting the Cyclops. And it's revealed that the Cyclops is a son of Poseidon and Poseidon is going to be mad at them, which he is. All right. So So because of that, Poseidon sends a storm that blows them off course. So now they don't know where they are. All right. They are way off course right now. And this is the first of many, many such instances.

[00:10:31]Okay, one of the prevailing themes of this movie when you watch it and of the story of the actual content is brother, these guys go through so much. It is so hard. The desperation everywhere they turn, some crazy is happening. It [music] is baffling. Absolutely baffling. But as a as a watcher, I'm having a lot of fun because I'm like, "Oh my goodness, what other crazy stuff are they going to meet in this next location?" It was really it was really intriguing in that way. So the next place they go, they go onto the land and they meet like this kid, but the kid is as big as them. So like, "Oh, shoot.

[00:11:13]This kid is as big as us. What did the parents look like?" So the kid screams and these giant dude then pull up, right? And they start destroying all of Adysius's crew. And I think he loses like two ships because of that. It It's brutal. They are It that sequence that it wasn't my favorite sequence because Nolan didn't want to use CGI. So they were using like dwarves and force perspectives and like really like 8-foot people in order to I'm like to me I'm like just just use CGI. It's cool. But it it was fine. You you just you could tell that they were doing force perspective. And personally speaking, I I didn't I I I thought that we could have done something else and been fine with it. But I I digress. It was still a very good scene. But now we're down to like one ship. Okay. He's lost a lot of his crew. The next place they go, they go to this uh island, another well, not an island, per se, but they they arrive at the shoreline of another place where this time the crew is like, "Hey, you wait over here. We'll go ahead." So Adysius goes and he tries he tries to say, "I'm going to go hunt for food." So he goes, he goes to hunt for food. And the men go up there. Now, as they're going up the hill to this house on top of this hill where they can see smoke, they can see like lions. And the lions are just chilling looking at them and tigers. Well, a tiger, like a leopard or whatever. It's just weird. You got these animals and the animals are just looking at them. So they get there, they they enter the house and the house belongs to this woman who fains being scared or whatever, but you know, she ends up receiving them in, put, you know, she tells them, "Put your armor outside and uh I'll give you food." And then he she gives them the food. Now, all the while, Adysius is, you know, with his bow and arrow, he's searching for a deer. And there's this character point about the character of of Adysius where they say, well, for one, he's really good with a bow. All right, whatever whatever weird things going on with that bow only, he can string the bow. And every time he's every time he strings the bow, it's a very cool thing about the movie, I would say. He'll string the bow and he'll strum it one time. And the um uh Ludwick Guransson, the composer, has this theme that fits perfectly with when he strings the bow, strums it, and the strumming of the bow hits this dominant, really all-encompassing note of the score. And I found that one of my most appreciated parts of the entire movie when he does it, cuz you can see the strain and how hard it is to string the bow. And when he does it, he, you know, he then leans his his hand out and he strings it.

[00:13:56]Boom. You just hear that resonate throughout the theater. It was it was amazing. So anyway, what Adysus does here is that uh before he hunts and, you know, attacks one of these animals for prey, he'll strum the bow in order to make it fair. All right? And sometimes it's okay. Other times, like in the one that they showed, he strummed the bow and uh he was attacked by the boar and he actually got hurt and you know, one of the other uh ladies, his servant had to, you know, patch it up, which will be important later on because when he comes back, she recognizes that scar because she was the one who did it.

[00:14:33]Okay, so um back to back to the point.

[00:14:36]So, Adysius is searching for the deer.

[00:14:38]So, he goes in there and he strums like he strums the bow. The deer runs away.

[00:14:42]He shoots it anyway, but then when he comes close to it, he notices the deer turned into a human being. So then he's like, "Oh, shoot. My men, what's going on?" So he runs all the way back.

[00:14:52]Meanwhile, the men are given food. And this is it's such a hollowing. It's like the second uh horrific scene here. Um I didn't think [clears throat] Nolan had that in his bag, but he does. I would not be surprised if the next thing he does is a horror movie because it was this was intense. The the men are all sitting around the table and they're eating and they're just like it's just weird cuz they just they can't stop eating. They can't stop feeding and it's just it's it's disgusting. It's awkward.

[00:15:19]All right. It's horrific. And then she starts um walking around them and she starts mashing their faces and contorting their bodies and physically transforming them [music] into pigs. All right. So, she turns his men into pigs.

[00:15:34]Adysius then arrives at the scene. He doesn't know what's happening. All All you hear is the pigs oinking because they want to tell him like, "Yo, this woman's dangerous." And all you just hear is the oinking and the bashing of their heads on the other side of the door. It's so haunting. Um, so anyway, he gets in there and she tries to coersse him into eating the food. And he almost does, but then obviously having seen what he saw ahead, he wasn't going to fall for it. and she has this bird, whatever the deal with the bird is. Um he that's how he's able to get her to transform his men back. Uh cuz he was like, "If you don't turn them back, I'll kill the bird." And she doesn't. I think it's said to be her sister. And um it's it I don't really know what the, you know, where that is going or not where that's going. I don't know the backstory behind that, but they end up staying there. And [music] this particular witch is also like she can see things. She can see the future. So she tells Adysius to head to the underworld where the sea of fire meets the sea of ice or something like that. So he goes there, offer the sacrifices and a bunch of the dead manifest in the flesh including Sinnon who he then speaks with. But then he also meets Aragamemnon who tells him that when he got home he was received home thinking that everything was okay but he got he was uh killed by his wife I believe and which you know I don't want to get too much into that on in this particular occasion but effectively all Aragamenon was just telling Adysius that when you go home you need to disguise yourself to find out who your allies and enemies are before you reveal yourself. That was the point there. But anyway, so they get in there and they meet with this uh with this prophet, right? And and the prophet is going to give Adysius the prophecy. So, and he only he only tells him, "If you want to get home, sail past the sirens and then you're going to be caught between dying to the monster Charibdis, which is like this waterbased monster who swallows you whole, or the maneing monster called Sila, or Sicil, I don't know how you would say it. um who's going to kill six of your men. Effectively, the the [music] prophet is just saying there's no world where you and your men get home. All right? You're going to have to take the route where some die. And Odysius is defying the God in this way because in a way it's at least in my interpretation, having only watched the movie and not [music] read it read the Odyssey in a long ass time, I don't remember all the details associated with it. I had to read it for school years ago. I don't remember. But um it would seem that Adysius is in defiance of the gods and he's unwilling to bend to their will and so he's like no I'm going to we're going to do this but at the same time [music] having with what he did to Poseidon's son Poseidon is not happy with him and a bunch of you know different things are happening are happening all around him but he's still in defiance. So um he hears the prophecy and they end up leaving which they do.

[00:18:27]So when they leave, they end up sailing by past the siren. So what he does is he gives earw he gives earwax to all of his men. Don't take it off or else you will die. Okay? And then he asks his uh first mate to tie him to the master of the ship because he wants to hear the siren song, but because he's tied, he won't be able to leave. All right. So he's there and you just see him crying and screaming because he wants to go to these sirens as they sing their song.

[00:18:53]After we're done, we learn that, you know, it's he his description is a little bit um it's a little bit funky, but you know, it the sirens tell you what you want to hear. They you know, it's like he describes it like, you know, an itch that you can't scratch, but it's being scratched. And um you know, at least for Adysius, if I remember the dialogue properly from the movie, the reason why he was almost crying as as if cuz he was he was crying and screaming almost in pain in a way.

[00:19:23][music] Um was because they told him everything that he wanted to hear and his true desires. And in a way they were affirming an inner idea of his that he did not actually want to go home which conflicts what he wants which is to go home is like oh this weird thing where it's like oh do I actually want to get home [music] after all sort of like the cool aspect of that. So they get past the sirens [music] and then the next thing that happens is this sea monster uh Gripis which is like this it's like this swelling of the of the ocean which is about to suck the boat in into it.

[00:20:00]The men decide to go the other way and they instead go past these cliffs but then that leads them directly into um what's the name of of to Sicil who kills six of them. All right. Now, back to the to the prophet from before. The prophet told Adysius that you could you should take the option where six of your men die and or where a bunch of your men die, but you make it. But if you end up stopping at this particular shoreline where there are cattle belonging to the sun god Helios, your all of your men will die if you do that [music] because your men end up this is the prophecy.

[00:20:42]Your men end up killing the cattle and eating them [music] angering the sun god who then make sure that they don't survive. Okay. So after they evade this um chipus and then also six people die from Sicila or Sila however it's said they see like the cattle and the land and everything and [laughter] Odysus is like no we cannot go there but the men are like we're tired we're out of food we need repairs he's like if you go there you will die you guys will eat those cattle it belongs to the son god don't go there the men end up saying no we'll just we'll find some fruit or we'll find some berries or whatever.

[00:21:21]We'll fix the ship and then we'll leave.

[00:21:23]And they have, you know, Adysius has them swear. So they swear to him, they swear to him, then they go in. So they go in, they do the repairs on the ship, but here's the kicker. Poseidon then sends this um headwind towards the shoreline. And so they can't leave the island or the the wherever they are, they can't leave. All right? Because the wind is blowing inward. So, the ship can't get out of there, which is really frustrating because they run they're running out of provisions and there's a bunch of cattle right there, but they can't eat it because if they do, they'll die. Ultimately, the men are not able to stop themselves. Adysius wakes up one night and he's led by Athena, like not the ghost of Athena, but like the spirit of Athena. He's led and then he can find them killing and he's they're eating the food and you know, he's obviously mad about that. Um, and the moment they eat the food, the headwind stops. And so they're like, "Guys, we can leave now."

[00:22:21]So then they leave. We don't know what's going to happen. They're get they they get hit with a massive storm. Absolutely devastating storm. And it's to me that's probably one of the most bone chilling moments in the entirety of the movie.

[00:22:35]Seeing the desperation of the men, the way the oceans were battering the out of them. They were screaming for their life. They were praying to Poseidon for forgiveness. And forgiveness never came. As Adysius just watched and they broke away, all of his men died. He washes up of the shore next to Calypso. And now we're caught up to real time. Okay. So now Adysius ends up regaining his memories because like Calypso is giving him this uh flower. I forgotten what it's called, but she's given him this flower which eases the pain in his mind, but he still has pain in the body. And Adysius is addicted to the flower because there's so much um psychological trauma that he's having to endure. So, he ends up eating it and eventually he, you know, he regains his memories. He's now willing and ready to go back home. And the before he before he leaves, Calypso then sort of gives him the key to I guess getting back, which is basically Adysius constantly is fighting against fate because he believes that he should be relying on his own sense of wisdom and knowledge, understanding, and wit.

[00:23:48]All right, defy the gods. Like, I'm the one who came up with the plan that ended the 10-year war and destroyed Troy.

[00:23:54]Okay, I am smart. I know how to do this.

[00:23:57]I know how to figure out a way out of these messes to get where I want to go.

[00:24:00]And Calypso is saying, you have to give yourself up to fate. Okay. So, he gets on this raft, this this shoddily made raft with the, you know, made from the the aftermath of his prior ship. All right. And he just lies on it. And Calypso just tells him, "Stop trying to control everything. Give up control.

[00:24:22]Float out into the sea." All right.

[00:24:24]Poseidon wants to kill you, but Zeus won't let him. And there he is, Adysius, on the raft. All right. Winds and storms and battering rain. And through all that, he survives. And not only does he survive, he washes up on the shores of Ithaca with Athena next to him. So now that he's there, he goes through the process of finding his allies. I'm not going to go through all the details here. I've gone into enough details as it is. He finds all his allies. He saved um his son. He doesn't reveal himself to him just yet, but he saves his son and um they do this whole thing with um him being able to speak with Penelope, which he does. And to me, this this third act was extremely important. This was an extremely [music] important part of the movie because I en I enjoyed all the movie. Okay, I understand people who didn't enjoy all of it. I enjoyed everything here. Truly, I'm having fun with all of this. But I understand the people who um were bored the or not bored but were bothered with the first act. That's fine. The third act is one of the most satisfying third acts you will ever see because throughout the entire movie all the suitors who are, you know, trying to get Penelopey's hand in marriage, they're evil, they're brash, you know, they're conniving.

[00:25:45]They're drinking the place dry. They're harassing the people there. They're breaking all these laws [music] and you just you just want them to get what's coming to them and and and they get what's coming to them in a massive way.

[00:25:57]So what happens is um Adysius he goes and he speaks to Penelope and um he's parading himself as a person called Sinon or I hope I'm saying that right. Yes, [music] Son who was a part of Adysius's crew but not Adysius himself. And um there is a particular moment where they reveal that um throughout well throughout the movie there's this subplot of the men from the sea or the these men from the sea who are not honoring Zeus's law and um the reason why there's strife in Ithaca is because they're worried about these men from the sea and so they need to mobilize an army to defend themselves but without a king they can't do that.

[00:26:44]That's why Penelope is being forced to have to take up a husband in marriage.

[00:26:48]All right? And the entire nation of Greece, the entire um kingdom of Greece and all these different nations [music] are worried about these supposed men from the sea who are not honoring Zeus's law. And then comes the kicker. The men from the sea that are being spoken about were Adysius and his men. Because they in in order to in order to arrive back home, they would go to these places.

[00:27:13]They would pillage. They would kill and then they would steal the provisions because they wanted to get home. That story spread so much that it became a legend and the people that that was about was Adysius's crew himself. All right, that was to me that was a really really cool twist right there. But it doesn't stop there. From there, you sort of you sort of get this moments where Adis is speaking about where his mind is at his psych psychological state because the and I'll talk about this more. I suppose I'll talk actually I'll just talk about this when I get to the thematic section. In any case, Penelopey ends up um putting forth a challenge.

[00:27:52]String this bow and fired through a bunch of axes that were stacked in a row and uh I'll take your hand in marriage.

[00:27:57]So, a bunch of men get in there, they close all the doors, they go in, they try to do it, but they can't. Um, and uh, Robert Patson's character. I forgot his name. Yeah, I feel like he had a complicated name. I forgotten his name.

[00:28:09]But he's wise enough to understand what Penelope is doing. None of the men over here amount to Adysius. But Adysus isn't here. We are. the best of us.

[00:28:19]That's when Adysius parading as the beggar says, "I haven't done it." So he goes in there. He sits down. It's this massive moment, man. Like what a fulfilling moment. Sits down, gets in there, strings the bow. Now he can't quite get it the first time. He's old.

[00:28:33]He's tired. He's weak. But his conviction is still there. Strings that bow, connects it, fires his arrow through, and it's like, "Oh, it's Adysius." And a huge fight breaks out.

[00:28:45]One man, one man against like 40 dudes, and he starts going in on all of them.

[00:28:52]An amazing scene, just killing each and every one of them. Just just showing the difference in quality of fighter and skill. It was amazing. He ends up killing all these men. He reunites with his family because of what he did. He ends up being exiled. But that's exactly what he and his wife wanted all along to just set sail towards the setting sun free of all of this. And so they leave.

[00:29:15]Tmicas becomes the new king of Ithaca.

[00:29:18]And that's where the story kind of ends.

[00:29:21]Now, what I want to do is I want to talk about the cool thematic messaging and the and the more so deeper analysis of the story itself, both on how Nolan depicted it and how really cuz the source material is Homer's Odyssey. But either way, I think it's important to point this out because I think there are some really cool lessons, messaging themes, and important qualities that are vital no matter the age, no matter the time period. So, one of the things here that caught my eye the most is this complexity to Adysius's character where Adysius by and large he's a traumatized man who is burdened by the guilt of the decision he made that he feels destroyed their current civilization and that was the decision to destroy Zeus's law.

[00:30:15]Sorry, I mentioned it before. Zeus's law is basically a law of hospitality. Even when a [music] stranger comes to your house, receive them with honor, with hospitality, with kindness and care.

[00:30:25]Feed them, clothe them, bathe them, do all those things. All right? In order to win the war, Adas had to prey on that law to get the Trojans to accept the horse, and that's how he ended up defeating them. But in doing so, he had triggered the start of the death of their civilization. And there's this scene, you see him in the city of Troy as it's getting destroyed and he's witnessing the chaos and death that he wrought onto the city. And there's this moment where you see Athena sort of like part of the reason why he's haunted by Athena here. It it's like this depiction of what he's looking at. I don't think cuz she doesn't manifest in the flesh, but you can see Athena just descriptively. All right. Athena being strung by a bunch of the men and beheaded. And in the same way, it's almost like he was beheading her statue and her the head of her statue falls to the ground almost to say the decision that he did was the death of Athena, the death of their known civilization as they knew it because they the the thing that held them together was this understanding of hospitality and Zeus's law in the way that we interact with each other. and he was the person who ended that and now they can never go back. And other people have said this and I agree with it. The Odyssey, Chris Fenolins, the Odyssey is a prequel to Oppenheimer. And it almost ends in a similar way because Oenheimer ends with uh Oenheimer standing there, [music] you know, talking to Einstein about like and I told you if we built this bomb, you know, we would set off a course that would, you know, drench the earth in fire and start a chain reaction that would destroy the world. And Oenheim is like, "But you didn't" or whatever. It's like, "No, I fear I already have." And you can just see the zoom in on his face as the realization sets in that [music] what we have done has changed the world forever. The exact, not the exact, a mirror image of that happens here with with with Adysius just watching the Trojan horse burning, leaning over Athena's temple as it's just engulfed in fire. [music] and the realization in his face, in his eyes, that what he did sparked the trigger that ended their civilization. And after a while, people will end up forgetting about the mistakes they made to make those mistakes again, which is exactly what happened in his Oenheimer movie.

[00:32:56]Absolutely beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Um, one of the one of the other things that I want to address here about the Odyssey here is uh it's a story of loyalty, trust and love between Adysius and his wife [music] Penelope because he was gone for like 20 freaking years and she waited and and you know it's almost whenever we're whenever we're cuz we live in a climate where inter inter uh intergender and interexual dynamics are a little bit veiled and um not clear to certain people just in terms of deciding how you want to interact with each other. And I think this was a very very poignant call back to the bedrock of what makes marriage and family work. The determination, the loyalty, the love and the faithfulness of these two individuals to each other despite anything that happened. Because Adysius had to make his way back home no matter what happened. and and he went through a lot of stuff as you have seen in this movie. It was not easy to make it back home, but he [music] was convicted. I will get back home to my wife. And his [music] wife waited and she fought off these suitors as long as she could and she waited for her husband to return.

[00:34:17]And it's a beautiful story of the power of the conviction that you get when you have that love and dedication to another person. But also, and I say this to challenge any any individual, any specifically any [music] man that's watching this, I say this to challenge you. Um, in Christian in Christian theology, whenever you talk about the meaning of the word wife, wife translates to beneficial adversary. And some people have opinions about that beneficial adversary. What? What do you mean beneficial adversary? Beneficial adversary in that a woman, a good wife is one who challenges you to be better, one who forces you to be a better version of yourself. That's what biblical theology means when we say beneficial adversary. All right? It demands a certain level. It demands a certain level of skill, a certain level of character, a certain level of morality, of intelligence, of strength, of will, beneficial adversary. A good wife is one who challenges you to be better. Not maybe not even if it's not directly, the end result of that relationship is you wanting [music] to be better, wanting to get better, to ascend. All right? It's a very important part of I suppose biblical theologyy's idea of the wife. All right. Penelope is a perfect example of this. Perfect example of this because she had an expectation of her husband.

[00:35:55]All right? Because Adysius is a very remarkable individual. Okay? that like the the the the challenge the Penelopey's challenge of this bow string this bow whatever it is it's because she there is a specific standard or I forget the literal bow itself the bow is important yes but it's it's about her holding him to a certain standard right holding her obviously holding herself to a certain standard but holding her husband to a certain standard of this is what you are meant to be able to do and I will hold you to that. And so even if it's after 20 years that you're back or whatever, I'm not taking you in until you prove to me that you still possess the thing that bound us together initially. [music] String this bow that these other men are not able to do and fire it through all of these axes. And he did so. All right.

[00:36:52]Some people are met with that expectation and they cower. they get scared or bothered like why are you expecting all this from me? I'm only human or whatever. And I understand some people ask for crazy things. I get it.

[00:37:04]But the point I'm trying to make here is that I was so enamored with the strength and willpower of Penelope. All right. In understanding that she had an expectation of her husband to be of a certain caliber of man. All right. And not only did she believe in that man who he was, he had to prove that he was who she said who she believed him to be even 20 years later. And he did and they, you know, live happily ever after all of that.

[00:37:39]Great stuff all around. All right, so yeah, great great stuff. Okay, so now let's get to the final part here and then I'll let you I'll let you guys get out of here. Let's talk about the social discourse about this movie because my goodness, this was nasty. All right. So, I'm going to make a point here, a very important point here. Okay. Listen.

[00:37:59]Are there miscasts miscastings in this movie? Absolutely.

[00:38:05]There are characters in this movie who are cast to who are cast and do not look like the characters who were as the characters were originally written [music] in the book. That's a fact. Um, and to me, I'm not really going to fight you on that part. Um, I think for me, the angle that I have on this discourse, and I'm going to speak my mind here, like I don't care. I'm speaking my mind.

[00:38:29]You can agree with me. You can disagree with me, but but my mind will be spoken here. Okay.

[00:38:35]Um, I think that it's a fair shot to say that we should try to be as I'm going to say comic accurate. I know it's not a comic, but we should try to be as quote comic accurate as we can be with some of these characters, but once you enter the real world, you know, where we are, [music] it's always been a little bit more nuance. And I do believe it can be a little bit more nuanced in the sense that if you know, if you're trying to if you're if you're casting a role for, I don't know, George Washington, there's no reason why a black person should be playing George Washington. It's like kind of like an important part of what's going on over there, you know? Like I get it, you know, a character like Black Panther, [music] I think like him being black and him being black is a pretty important part here of the point trying to get across about the character of Black Panther. Um, so it's like I understand those I can understand it along those lines, but like seeing the vitriol spewed at the feet of Lepita who was cast as Helen of Troy, it broke my heart. It broke my heart because we should be we can have a conversation about this. We can seeing where it went. Seeing the racial direction that it was directed in broke my heart and it bothered the hell out of me and I was actually very conflict I was very conflicted [music] because on one end I was like yo Nolan why would you put Lepita into the line of fire like this? But at the same time I was like you know what these racists need to like we need to step up the middle finger to these racists. And so, in a way, I I don't care because there is a conversation to be had about this entire casting issue. There is a conversation to be had, but you can't have these conversations with the people whose response to this is to turn to racism. All right? I hate that that that is not that is not the way to have this conversation. Okay? Because here's the reality that some people don't want to admit. All right? The reality is one of the things that they'll say is they'll say, "Well, it's a work of fantasies."

[00:40:34]like yeah there are cyclopses and mermaids and sirens or whatever but it's set in it's set in a particular geographical location and so the people in that geographical location need to look a certain way you know just ignoring the fact that Ethiopians are mentioned in the Odyssey like yeah sorry Africa is referenced in the Odyssey because Ethiopia is referenced in the book but I digress the point I'm trying to make here the point that I'm going to be getting to here is that The supposed crime, the miscasting crime that was committed here is neither new nor few. It has happened many times in the past and it has happened more times the other way and people have been willing to look the other way and forgiven it. And that is a fact. I would argue that probably a bigger deal, all right, a bigger deal than Helen of Troy. All right. In the Odyssey would be Jesus from the Bible.

[00:41:37]Jesus is not a white man. He was He was played by a white man. He wasn't a white man.

[00:41:43]He Jesus is not white. All right. Now, he's not black either, but he's not white. Did you see like um I'm sure maybe some people some people had problems with it when it was in originally casting of the passion of the Christ and all the different movies about Jesus that have come along. I would argue that Jesus and the advent of Christianity is even more impactful than Homer and his and the Odyssey and the main dude all right the main guy to whom we say BC and AD you know before Christ this important figure when you were doing a movie about him you didn't cast him AC that wasn't accurate to the source material it wasn't it wasn't accurate to the source material but what's what's the point like what did we say at least for me as somebody who is a Christian what do we say well like I get that it's not how he looks, but it's not it's not important it's not as important um to the point that we're trying to get across. Okay? Like the whole idea here is of this Jesus figure who is for everyone who is not limited by race and can manifest. And so it's like I'm not I'm not going to get too bogged down by it. The reason I'm pointing this out is to get the point across that this supposed casting crime has been done many times before to more important characters more times and yet has got has not gotten even close to the amount of vitriol that fell at the feet of Lupita being cast as Helen of Troy.

[00:43:09]you know, specifically within the context of Helen's role in the Odyssey [music] being, you know, the idea here is like, I understand she's depicted to look a certain way. I get it. But the point about Helen, at least in the story, is about how beautiful she was to the point where [music] people would be willing to go to wars over her. I get that. Like, it's not it's not as much about the literal way she looks as much as it is the fact that how she looked was considered very pretty. Okay. So, I can understand why some people would be like, "Yo, just follow the source material and keep it [music] consistent." I would have kept it consistent if I could. The point I'm trying to make here is that Nolan wasn't consistent. He didn't [music] stay consistent with what the source material was. I can't get mad about this when there are numerous other examples that would be considered more egregious going the other way that we let that go. So, I'm like, I'm not going to like I'm not going to like, you know, get my panties and I'm I'm not going to like trip over this when more and worse have been done the other way for for longer over the course of Hollywood's history. I'm just not going to do that. Especially when it's a character who, in my opinion, um the the particular disposition of her racial appearance is not as important to the character. The point is that she was supposedly beautiful. Now then to me then we get to the real point here. The real problem if we're willing to just be honest about it over here is that um Helen is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world and Nolan cast a black woman to be that. And I think it would be a lot easier if you would just discuss it along those lines and just be as forward with it. You know, [music] as in I'm somebody who's like you should have just cast somebody who looked like what it was said in the source material. I get it. But once you start getting into the nitty-gritty details associated with this, okay, bottom line here is he cast a black woman as the supposed most beautiful woman in the world and people are not as forgiving to that compared to a bunch of other examples where the source material wasn't followed there either as far as casting was concerned. Why is there a difference in the level of hatred being spewed when worse crimes as opposed as it pertains to casting mishaps [music] have happened for more important characters? Why is there more vitriol directed here? Because he cast a supposed black woman, sorry, he cast a black woman as the supposed most beautiful woman in the world. And people, it is harder for them to imagine and accept that than to imagine and accept other more fantastical things or other versions where the cast was miscast. And and I think people should just come to terms with that. Okay. And to make matters worse. All right. And this bothered the hell out of me.

[00:46:01]Lupita. Look, Lepita is not I wouldn't say that Lupita is like it's like, "Hey, find me the top five most beautiful black women in Hollywood." I couldn't understand Lupita Lupita not being like top five or top 10 or whatever the case.

[00:46:14]All right. Um, but she's not ugly. Okay.

[00:46:17]She's attractive. She's just not I wouldn't necessarily see that she's the most attractive black woman out there.

[00:46:22]So, like if Nolan wanted to make her black, he had a lot of other options to pick [music] to do that. But the point I'm trying to make here is that when if you go back to when this discourse first came out and I noticed it and and other people if you're out there and you noticed it too, kudos to you cuz I noticed this when the story first broke that Lupita was playing Helen and people wanted to discuss it.

[00:46:43]All right, watch go and find what they did because Lepita is an attractive woman. All right, even if she's not the most attractive woman in Hollywood, she's an attractive woman. These individuals didn't go and find photos of her at red carpets. They didn't go and find photos of her when she was playing, you know, normal characters or how she looked normally. You know what they did?

[00:47:03]You know what they did? They went and pulled pictures from Lupita playing a character in 12 Years as a slave where she's playing a slave. [music] All right. And the the particular role that she's playing demanded that she looked dirty and [music] you know beaten and and you know her her hair wasn't done right and and just you know cuz she was she was playing a slave and so it needed to depict how terrible the living situation was for those people. Every single one of those guys and girls. All right. When it was time to talk about this, tell me tell me that it's a coincidence that they all went and pulled Lupita photos of Lupita of when she was playing a slave in 12 years as a slave and that is what they used for their thumbnails. That is what they use for their tweets. That is what they use for their profile pictures in the articles that they wrote. Tell me that it's nothing but a coincidence. Tell me that there isn't something more sinister going on here. Tell me that there isn't more something underhanded going on here. Again, I am not saying that there is not a conversation to be had about Nolan miscasting the role. He did miscast the role. But you tell me that the reactions to this are purely objective and are not ill-intentioned. Tell me that there's nothing dark and sinister about what they're doing. If you have eyes, see. If you have ears, hear. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quack collects a duck, my brother, it's a duck. I see them for what they are.

[00:48:42]And my point to you who's listening is that it's fair for us to have conversations, these types of conversations. It's worth having these conversations with people and having these respectful disagreements and respectful dialogue. However, not everyone deserves the honor and respect of disagree disagreement dialogue because we don't agree. Not everyone deserves that right. Not everyone deserves that respect from you. The people who are doing that, the people who are doing these underhanded shady they don't deserve the right to sit and discuss the intricacies of like, well, you know, like was it miscast? No.

[00:49:19]Why? Because you're turning to you're turning to racism. You're using this as an excuse to be racially abusive towards a person. Now look, you would tell me that Rebirth, what are you talking about? It's it's a movie that she did and yeah, tell me you tell me that there's nothing if you believe that there's nothing sinister about this.

[00:49:39]You're lying to yourself. Okay.

[00:49:42]Do you guys remember when they they recast Snape? So, there's a Harry Harry Potter movie coming out series coming out and Snape, who was uh white in the prior version, um was recast as a black man. Now, look, again, if I'm the director, just cast a white dude and let's just get on with it. That's just that's the truth. Cast a white guy.

[00:50:02]Let's get on with it. Who? Like, like, brother, let's just It's whatever. Like, it's it's genuinely whatever. However, however, once that was cast, come to find out some of these individuals, this one dude in particular, I won't give him the respect of telling you who he is, but if you know, you know. They made an AI video. Okay, Snape was cast as a black man. They made an AI video of Snape on a broom holding fried chicken drinking Kool-Aid doing a driveby.

[00:50:40]They made an AI video of the Snape black actor who was cast on a broom with fried chicken Kool-Aid doing a driveby.

[00:50:50]You tell me that these people are coming to the table in good faith. You tell me that they actually care about what they're saying and they're not using this as an excuse to be racist.

[00:51:02]You tell that's to me that is the point that I want to get across here. There is a genuine conversation that could be had. All I'm saying is not everyone deserves the honor of having that conversation with because some of them are not engaging in fair discourse. They are using it as an excuse to be racist and not have to be told that they are in the wrong because technically speaking it is true they were miscast. A miscasting does not give you an excuse to be a piece of All right. The miscasting doesn't give you an excuse to then do this racist nonsense. It doesn't. And I've seen that too many times within this within the discourse involving um Helen and with the example of Snape. So look, look, the bottom line here is I hope I was able to get my point across that it was a miscast. He should have just followed what it was.

[00:52:02]However, this has been done many times before. It's been done to more important characters where it mattered more where they were where they came from and how they looked and we let it go. The vitriol thrown at these individuals, compare that with the vitriol that is happening that you see the venom that's being spit on Lupita and some of these other characters. You tell me that it warrants the crime of the miscast. You tell me that it warrants it when worse have been done the other way and have been forgiven.

[00:52:39]That's all I'm saying here. Open your eyes to the realities that are before you. We should be able to have a discourse about this. But not every one of them deserves the honor of that discourse. Because if you're going to be racist about the fact that somebody was miscast and if you're going to tolerate the racism because somebody was miscast, you don't deserve [music] the honor of having the dialogue where we can talk about respectfully disagreeing. We are not the same. That is not the same thing. And that's important. So anyway, I will leave you guys there with that.

[00:53:15]This is your boy Rebirth. This is my review and analysis of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, a movie that I tremendously enjoyed. If I was rating this out of five, I would give this a four out of five. I genuinely enjoyed it. Um, look forward to my next review on Bleach or any other show or any other movie. I will see you guys in the next review of the video. Like, comment, subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Peace out.