Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey: a Masterpiece

[00:00:00]Hey everyone, welcome or welcome back.

[00:00:02]Today's the day. It's finally time for us to talk about The Odyssey, a film by Christopher Nolan. I saw it. I have thoughts and feelings and I'm going to share those with you today. Which leads us to one of the funniest spoiler warnings I've ever given because whenever I make content surrounding a book to movie or in this case, poem to movie adaptation, I like to talk really in depth about both. And so I am going to be just telling you the plot that is in fact like 3,000 years old. So, you have had time to read it to be fair, but just in case you don't know what the storyline is and you are planning on seeing the film or reading it and you don't want that spoiled, I am just going to be talking about it because I normally like to do that on this channel. I very decidedly left my opinion on the Emily Wilson translation as well as my opinion on the Odyssey as a story at large out of my last video.

[00:00:54]So, I kept that one more to like the classists and the masses opinions. And now it's all about me. This is going to be my opinion and my opinion only. So, if you're not interested, now is your opportunity to escape. All of that to say that I read the Emily Wilson translation to prepare for the film. And I do want to make really clear that this was just one of the few translations that Nolan read and based his film off of. It was not the only one that he used. There was a lot of drama surrounding it specifically because it is kind of a controversial translation, which is what last week's video was about. However, it is the one that I read and so it's the one that we're going to talk about here today. I had actually never read the Odyssey before.

[00:01:34]I somehow completely avoided that growing up. Reviewing the Odyssey in the modern day feels like a very silly thing to do. And so, I don't want any of this to come across like I'm reviewing the story necessarily. It is just like ancient. And it's really cool that we still have it. And I'm really happy that I made last week's video because I feel like it gave me an appreciation for the age and the history of the story that I didn't have prior to making that video.

[00:02:01]Thought it would still be interesting to talk about what my experience was reading it and how I ended up feeling about it, especially in the midst of doing all the research about what the criticisms of the Emily Wilson translation were and comparing those to the experience that I was having reading it. The Odyssey is an epic that is made up of 24 books. Book is the word that they use, but if you have never read it, the books are like chapters. And it mostly centers around Odysius, who was one of the pivotal generals, if you want to call him that, main leaders during the Trojan Wars that Agamemnon is the leader for. And he rallies up an army to go with him to Troy. And they fight a 10-year long war. And in the end, Agamemnon and his crew win via the Trojan horse. You're probably familiar with it. It feels kind of silly to explain this stuff, but I just will just in case, but essentially, they put a few men inside of a wooden horse because the walls of Troy were pretty much unpenetrable. They pretended to surrender, offered this wooden horse as a peace offering and a gift, and the Trojans brought it inside the walls, and then the men came out of the horse and opened the doors to let the army in. And that's how they got past the walls of Troy. And that's how they ended up winning the Trojan War. And then Odysius tried to go home and it ended up taking him about 10 more years. It doesn't work out perfectly like that, right? But he's essentially been gone from home 20 years in total. By the time we pick up with the story, we see how his family at home, Penelopey and Tmicus, apologies for my Greek pronunciation. I have tried to nail every pronunciation for this video, but that's not my strong suit. I don't know if you guys have noticed that. I learned a lot of my words by reading them growing up, okay? So, I'm not the best at pronouncing things. But Penelope is Odysius's wife, and Tmicus is their son, and he was an infant when Odysius left for war. And so, now he is around 20 years old. And there are a bunch of suitors at their house that are trying to convince Penelope to marry them and to give up on Odysius, but she doesn't want to. However, she won't just tell the suitors off. My chair keeps really slowly lowering. I'm sorry. I'm trying to keep up with it, but I need to get a new chair. This is something that I sometimes see people frame out to be a flaw of Penelope, but we do eventually get an explanation as to why she's doing this. She doesn't want to give up on Odysius, but she won't just tell the suitors she's never going to remarry either. And the eventual explanation that we get for this is that Odysius warned her that he might not come home and asked her to remarry when Tmicus was of age. And so she can't just spook the suitors off because she needs to marry somebody if Odysius never comes back.

[00:04:46]But she doesn't want to marry them yet because Tmicus is not yet of age. like he he doesn't have hair on his chin, which was what Odysius told her. So, she does have her reasons for doing it, but we don't know those at the beginning of the story. All we know is that Penelopey will not tell the suitors no, but she won't choose anybody either. And so, they're all just eating up the house and are wasting away Tmicus' fortune, and he doesn't really have an avenue to get rid of them. And so, he decides to set out to try and figure out what happened to his father. And the rest of the story plays out from there. And it essentially is Tmicus going out and trying to find as much information on Odysius as he can and getting told some of what people who knew Odysius knew both about his journey home and about the war itself and then flashing to Odysius's perspective where he is stuck on an island with Calypso.

[00:05:41]In the poem, Athena pleads to the rest of the gods to say, "Odius has been lost at sea for so long. I really want to help him get home." And the rest of the gods are like, "Okay, I mean, Poseidon kind of hates him, but like, sure, okay, fine. It's been enough time. We'll help him get home." So, they tell Calypso that she has to let Odysius leave. And so, she finally does, but she's very upset about it. She is a minor god that essentially had him held captive for a very long time on her island because she wanted to marry him and make him immortal, but he wanted to get home to Ithaca and Penelopey and Tmicus. Then Odysius ends up with the hang on Fatians.

[00:06:19]I'm sorry if that's not correct, but he goes there and then he tells them his story and it's really his recollection of what happened between Troy and being on Calypso's island that is the Odyssey that we think of within the Odyssey.

[00:06:36]Does that make sense? We don't actually watch these events play out. Everything that we know about Odysius's journey was told to us by Odysius when he was telling it to the Fatians. And this adds a really interesting layer to this because one of the things that's really important to Odicius's character is that he's very clever. He's a bit of a trickster and he's a notorious liar. So, there is this very fascinating element of this for me now of how much of Odysius's recollection of what he went through is true. There is something very fun to me about the potential that some of this story isn't 100% accurate because who knows if Odysius is telling the truth or not. We're just going off of his word of what he remembers of his journey that he's telling the Fatians, right? At first when I was reading it, I was a little bit surprised by this. I hope that I don't make myself look kind of silly by saying that I kind of expected the story to be about him getting home and so I expected to see it from his perspective and for that to be a lot of what his books were about. But I do like this. I like the question of like how much of this journey is real?

[00:07:45]how much of it actually happened and can we trust Odysius's word on what he was telling the Fatians? So anyway, then he is very quickly boated home by the Fiatians and left in Ithaca where he doesn't reveal himself to his family right away both from a learning of a conversation that he had with Agamemnon after he died because he was betrayed by his wife upon his homecoming and out of advice from Athena. And eventually Tmicus and some other servants of his hatch this whole plot to get back at the suitors. And it involves getting Penelope to say that she's finally going to choose somebody and hosting this competition. And Odicius appears as a beggar and reveals himself as Odysius and then kills all the suitors and executes all of the slaves afterwards that were more loyal to the suitors than they were to Odysius and his family. And that's the Odyssey. And like I said, I was surprised by how much of it ended up being people remembering events more so than they were the events actually happening. I knew so much about this story just from how much of it has permeated our pop culture, but I just didn't realize that that's how you actually learn about it in the story.

[00:08:59]Admittedly, that did kind of disappoint me at the time when I first realized that, but I was so hooked in the story and it was such a page turner anyway and I was fascinated by it and I don't really feel like it ended up affecting my experience that much. I do really like the was Odysius telling the truth question that we allowed to now have about the story because we did not actually see the events play out. We're hearing his recollection of it. But all of that to say that I really loved reading it and I'm very happy I picked up the Emily Wilson translation because it really felt like a page turner for me and I've seen many people who have read multiple translations say that that is the thing that makes this one so special that it turns it into a really gripping story that puts you on the edge of your seat that other translations of the Odyssey just don't necessarily feel that way because of the more archaic language that they use that it it can be a little bit more effort to read it. And so it doesn't feel so page turny essentially.

[00:09:58]And again, reviewing the Odyssey feels kind of silly. Who cares what my opinion on it is, I guess. But that is the whole point of this channel. And so I just I did really really enjoy reading it. And I get why it stood the test of time all this time. It was interesting to see so many of the myths I'm so familiar with and to see how they're presented in the story and just have a much deeper understanding of it. I I've already said this a few times, but doing the research that I did for my last video, I'm so happy that I did it because I feel like it just gave me an appreciation for the scale of this story and the age of it and the history of it that I otherwise wouldn't have had. It made it a very, very cool reading experience for me and a very unique one because how often do I get to read something that's 3,000 years old for the first time, you know? So, that's the Odyssey at large, but what about the Emily Wilson translation specifically? Well, any review I have of The Odyssey at Large is on some level going to be a review of the Emily Wilson translation because that's the one I read and so that is going to affect my experience reading it, right? But knowing now what the criticisms of her version are, it's fascinating to me to then think about my experience with it as a first-time reader of The Odyssey and some of the things that I heard people say her version was going to give people the impression of that just wasn't honestly what I took away from it. That's just my experience. Maybe other people had different experience, but if that comforts you at all, if you are one of the Emily Wilson translation haters because you think it makes people feel a certain way about Odysius or feel a certain way about the story, I'm going to be honest with you, I was very surprised to see what some of the criticisms of her version were because I just felt like they were so opposite of what the actual experience I had reading it was. The biggest one to me is the whole Cyclops thing. So the number one thing I saw everybody saying about it from other classicists I should say is that she makes the Cyclops more sympathetic and she herself said that that was an active choice on her part because she thinks there's room for sympathy for the Cyclops and she humanizes him a little bit. She has defended that approach. That's been a huge topic of debate about it. I'm just going to be so for real with you guys. I didn't get that from the scene. I didn't like I read it and I very much interpreted the Cyclops as a monster. I did not realize we were supposed to be sympathetic to him at all. And really the only part of it that made me feel like eh at all was his relationship with his sheep. Like he does really love his sheep. And I don't know if that is true in the original version. And that did make me go a at least he likes his animals. But he's eating humans. like he eats people and is like his plan is just to eat all of them and they have to harm him to escape. So, you could say that it was a little bit silly of them to go into the Cyclops's den to begin with, but I don't really think that excuses him eating them. And I don't really think that that frames him as not a monster. So, I just it was really funny to me to like see how mad people were about that. And to be fair, I'm not saying that their criticism isn't valid because Emily Wilson has said herself that that was her approach. And I guess I have no idea in another translation how much more monstrous the Cyclops would have come across. And so maybe there is a humanization aspect that I'm missing just cuz I haven't read another version. But I'm just being honest. As a first- time reader of the Odyssey, I in no way, shape, or form felt like we were supposed to be sympathetic to the Cyclops. But also, Emily Wilson used a lot more modern of language. And she shared that her reasoning for this was because using more archaic English is a little bit of a trick to make you think of it like an older story. But the English of 200 years ago is no closer than the English of today to homeriic Greek from 3,000 years ago. And so she said that she preferred to use a lot more modern of language. Not just to make it something that we can connect more to in the modern day, but also because she said that she thinks that the dissonance that that sometimes causes of expecting the language to be a little bit more archaic and a little bit more formal and then reading something that's a little bit more modern and a little bit more simplistic. that the dissonance that that sometimes causes in your brain can cause you to really think about the span of the distance between us and when the story originated. And that that she thinks does a way better job of getting across the distance we actually have to when this oral tradition would have been going on than her using archaic language from like 200 years ago. Whether or not you agree with that choice of hers is kind of irrelevant to me, right? That was the choice that she made and she made it for that reason. And honestly, I did feel like I had that experience. There definitely were moments where there were certain words used or certain phrases, certain terminology that made me go, "Huh, I've never heard that described in that way or I'm not sure I would have thought of it like that." But it made me think about the characters in a much different way than I ever really have.

[00:15:09]And I feel like it gave me an understanding of a lot of the characters from this myth that I never really had had before. And again, this was my first time reading it, so maybe another translation would have given me that understanding as well. But I really do feel like she was successful in that. I feel very connected to it and to the history of it through her translation and through the introductory materials and through the story itself. I think there's value in that. And so I stand by a lot of the defenses of her. And I I will just go back to my main stance from my first video on this, which is that generally speaking, there's no such thing as a direct window into what experiencing the story would have been like at the time. Translator is going to have to make choices that make the experience different for you. And there just isn't a way for it to be a perfect recreation so that we have the same experience that they had in ancient Greece. So, you have to think about what experience you want out of the story and look into the different translations and figure out which one is right for you.

[00:16:12]For me, I do really feel like this was the right one for me and I loved this version and I I am interested in reading a different translation now cuz I want to see how different it feels to me.

[00:16:24]Honestly, I really really liked it and I do highly recommend it. If you've never read the Odyssey or if you have but you're curious, then I don't think that you would regret picking it up to be honest. But that brings me to the film, which I did see in 70 millimeter, not to brag, and it was incredible. I really loved it. I can see why the critics were hyping it up so much before it came out.

[00:16:48]And I think it's in real contention for best picture. I can't guarantee it'll win, but feel like it is a guarantee that it's going to get nominated because I find it really hard to believe that 10 films are going to come out between now and the end of the year that are better than this one. It was really intense and very engaging the whole entire time. It has about a three-hour run time, but it didn't feel like three hours to me at all. I was hooked. I was on the edge of my seat. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I do have ADHD, and sitting still for 3 hours is not the easiest thing in the world for me. When a film has a really long run time, I usually find myself at some point thinking to myself, when is this going to end? In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a film with this long a run time that I didn't think that at some point in except for this one. And that really says something to me about it cuz that is something that is very hard for me. And even like when the credits rolled, I was like, "Wow, I could have watched another hour of that to be honest." Now, let's talk about the 70 mm of it all because this has been a little bit of a small point of contention with the film amongst the rest of the chaos surrounding it. I'm no film expert and so I'm sure I'm not going to use all the right terminology.

[00:18:00]I did not. So, I'm popping in a voice over to explain it. But basically, here are the three different formats, right?

[00:18:05]There's 35mm, 70 mm, and 70 mm IMAX.

[00:18:09]When I was filming, I didn't realize that IMAX was different from your regular 70mm. And so, anytime you hear me say 70mm, just assume I mean 70mm IMAX. And then the regular format version that's playing in regular movie theaters is 35mm. From what I can find and have been told by my film friends, this is the first time that a film has been shot entirely in 70 mm IMAX because the film IMAX cameras are really really loud. And so normally it's hard to capture dialogue with them. And so what they've done with them in the past is either nature documentaries, doing action sequences with them, and otherwise filming the rest on a different camera. And Nolan was like, "No, I'm filming the whole thing on 70 millimeter." And everybody was like, "This is where I'm a little bit confused to be honest." And again, I'm no film expert, so I decided to just tell you what I know and we're going to move on.

[00:19:07]They built a blimp for the camera for Oppenheimer so that they could record audio with it and not capture so much of the noise, but they didn't shoot all of Oppenheimer on the IMAX cameras. And I'm not sure why, but they did do all of the Odyssey on the IMAX cameras with said blimp. It's just the first time it's been done, so that's cool on its own.

[00:19:28]However, due to his choice to do that, there are a lot of people upset because there are only 41 IMAX theaters in the world that can play 70 mm. And so, if you don't live near one, then you don't really have the option to go to a theater and see this version of it. You would have to see it cut down to the aspect ratio that films are normally shot in. You will be able to stream it online and see all of it, but that's not the same thing as seeing it in the theater. Obviously, this is where I just have to feed myself to the slaughter.

[00:19:58]And I know that about opinions like this, but I'm going to be honest with you. I don't really understand people blaming Nolan for this at all. I understand people being upset that they don't have access to a 70mm theater near them that they could see this version in. I don't really understand why that is being carried over into Nolan is a bad person for shooting this in 70 mm and that he shouldn't have done it. Like I I don't really agree with that to be honest. I think there's just a lot of people online who don't know how to separate between I was disappointed by XYZ and I have been wronged by somebody.

[00:20:34]And I completely understand being disappointed that you can't see it in a theater in 70 mm, but I don't think that that means that Christopher Nolan wronged you personally. I think you can be disappointed by something and that's valid, but that doesn't mean that he did something wrong. You see what I'm saying? And when I see the side by sides, like I'll show you guys some images that have been circulating around of the difference between the 70 mm version and the 35mm version. there is more in the shot, but that's because there's more. Like that's the benefit of 70 mm. But if you take the framing of the shots in the 35 mm version and you compare them to films that were filmed for 35 mm, they're framed very similarly. And when I was talking to a friend when I was saying like, I don't really understand why people are saying this, they said something about Nolan framing the shots for 70 mm and what that did to the 35mm experience. But that's where I'm saying look at this side by side with some other films and the close-ups and I'm just not 100% sure that they would have framed it any different. I think that the benefit of 70 mm is that you have more screen and so of course the 70mm version is going to show you more than the 35mm version is. But I don't think that that means that he was wrong for doing that just because there are so few theaters that can play it in theater. But I also don't think that that means that it's invalid to be disappointed by that. I just don't really understand how this turned into like an ethics discussion. But it kind of feels like everything to do with this film is turning into that. So, whatever.

[00:22:05]But some of the shots were crazy, dude.

[00:22:09]Christopher Nolan notoriously really hates CGI. And so, everything that he can do practically, he does. As you guys know, I don't know that much about the technical side of film. And so, usually when it comes into talking about shots and all of that, I just kind of throw up my hands and go, "That's not really my wheelhouse." It was so gorgeous. And I maybe can't exactly explain why. I don't know all the technical terms, but I I will just tell you as a casual viewer that I found myself in awe sometimes of what I was watching. And it really is so beautiful and so impressive. And I think it really says something to me because I am a casual viewer that I noticed how impressive some of the shots they got were and how crazy what they would have had to do to get that would have been.

[00:22:56]and just the scale of it and the amount of effort that went into it. Then you factor in the fact that they only filmed for 91 days. They actually wrapped up early. I've heard from my film friends that that's one of the things that Nolan's really known for is he is on schedule and he does not waste time. But it is kind of crazy to see the film and realize that a lot of films shoot for longer to do less. It was just insane.

[00:23:21]And specifically the scene where Odysius is floating on the raft. I made myself giggle so hard in the theater. Honestly, I was like openly laughing at the idea of them just putting Matt Damon on a raft and pushing him out to sea, being like, "Yeah, just lay there. We're going to circle around you in a boat. Get some shots." Half hour later, he's like, "Are you guys still good?" They're like, "Yeah, we're good. We're getting stuff.

[00:23:42]Just keep laying there. Don't worry about it." And I'm sure they were safe about it. I'm sure there was more boat under the raft and maybe there were divers. I don't know. I presume they did it safely, but there is just something so funny to me about it. like you know at some point he's laying there thinking why did I take this role as far as the actual story of it goes. I was quite frankly impressed by how much of what's in the epic they packed into this film.

[00:24:07]I told you they used every minute and none of it was boring. I thought that they were going to have to leave out more than they did. I I was kind of shocked by how much they kept and the changes that they did make kind of fall into two buckets for me. And one of them is streamlining things. And there's always changes that have to be made between a book and a film to streamline things. And so those things don't usually bother me. And in this instance, they bother me very little because this story is just so expansive. And they packed such an impressive amount of it in that I feel like it would be so nitpicky to whine about the few things that they streamlined, you know.

[00:24:48]However, some of them do lead to somewhat spiritual changes in the way the story plays out. And so that's why I'm saying they kind of fall into two buckets for me. I thought all of that would be kind of confusing if I didn't kind of break down what his overall approach was. First, I'm not sure if Nolan is the first person to approach the story in this way. And so, I'm sorry if he isn't. A lot of the Odyssey and Greek mythology in general really centers around this hospitality rule.

[00:25:13]You should treat others how you want to be treated, especially strangers, because you never know when you're interacting with a god in disguise. And the gods can curse you and it can come back to haunt you. And so this is how they taught their youth to respect strangers and to welcome strangers and to be kind to others and all of that, right? Was through this mythology. Nolan noticed that the Trojan horse breaks that rule. Odysius and Agamemnon and their army fake surrender and offer a gift for Athena as a fake peace offering and get the Trojans to accept the peace offering believing it's a surrender and a kindness and then use that as the way to invade the city. And so in the end, Odysius reveals that in the aftermath of it, in seeing all of the violence of what happened in Troy and understanding that it was him violating this hospitality rule, because he was the one who came up with the idea for the Trojan horse to begin with, that this is why he believes that basically everybody on their side of the war had so much trouble getting home and so much of them have had so much strife in the meantime because the gods are mad at them. and that he actually then canonizes this as before the dark age of Greece, which is really interesting because we talked a little bit mostly in the comments under the last video about something that I said that I didn't realize was going to be controversial about us not knowing exactly when this story is supposed to be set. You know, like in what era of ancient Greece, like beyond just ancient Greece, because that's a huge span of years, like when exactly was this story supposed to take place? It isn't sure.

[00:26:54]And interestingly, even with me following up and explaining why I said that, I've had some people argue back, they do believe that it's a sure thing.

[00:27:02]My point is it's speculation. It's speculation. We don't know for sure, right? People argue about it. Some people feel strongly that it is for sure from the Mcinian era that the story of the Trojan War is about a battle that potentially actually happened in the dark era of Greece when there was a lot of fighting. And so it's interesting to me because in a way his version canonizes that in that era sort of but like before it essentially Odysius predicts that they're going to face a very dark age in Greece with a lot of fighting that their age of bronze is coming to an end. It's really during that dark era that people who think that the story dates back to those wars believe that that's when it was supposed to take place. So anyway, all of that to say that really they shattered the social contract between humans by doing this Trojan horse thing and that that was what was going to lead to the downfall of Greece as they knew it. That Odysius feels really responsible for this and that is kind of like the central theme of the story. The reveal that that's how Odysius feels about it is this big emotional climax. I do think that that approach to the story is really, really cool. And again, I don't know if anybody else has ever done that before, but I think it's a really fun angle on it and almost explaining why Odysius had so much trouble getting home in that maybe he really angered the gods with his Trojan horse idea and maybe he really regrets it in the end. That being said, I find myself torn because I do really like that overall approach to the story, but I think that led to some other changes that I just wish hadn't been made. But I honestly can't think of a way to do what Nolan wanted to do without making those changes. And so, I don't know that these are criticisms as much as it's like, man, but I liked that aspect of the original epic and so I'm kind of bummed that we didn't get that right. And the first is that Odysius doesn't go to the fiat in this version.

[00:29:09]He's on Calypso's island and Calypso has been feeding him lotus root this whole time. And if you don't know in Greek myths, lotus root makes you forget who you are and your past and basically makes you very centered on the present moment and you don't know how much time is passing and all of that. And so she has been feeding him this for eight years to keep him on the island. So over the course of the film, instead of it being him telling his story to the Fiatians is how we get most of it, it's him remembering it on Calypso's island.

[00:29:40]And that's where I'm saying I don't know how you do what Nolan wanted to do without doing that in some way. But it does remove the was Odysius lying part that I do think is kind of fun. Again, is that a criticism or is that just like me as a personal viewer? Like I like that aspect of it. I like that.

[00:29:59]Wondering if Odysius is telling the truth. And if we're watching him actively remember it, then the implication is at the very least that it's real in his memory. The other big change that this forced was a removal of specifically Athena really loving Odysius and being in support of him. And in this version, Athena feels like she is really disappointed in him almost and understands the gravity of what he's done. And she also doesn't actively meddle in any of the affairs of the story that we see as much as it's implied that she does. But that's what the Odyssey was, right? And so that's the other part of it that I'm like I feel like he could have maybe done what he needed to do with Athena and her opinion of Odysius without completely removing the confirmation that the gods are real and that they actively are intervening in the events of the story.

[00:30:51]I do feel like that's kind of nitpicky though in the grand scheme of how good this film was. that just was his approach. I'm not sure I agree with that choice specifically, but otherwise I'll just go back to I'm actually impressed at how much of the original story they could keep. But anyway, that's my general commentary on his approach. I loved the score, the music, song, poem aspect of the whole thing. I thought that was done so well. And specifically, I loved that there were very distinct books. So essentially there was always music playing which normally isn't true in a film. Noticeably there was almost always score and it only ever really faded out in intervals and then a new song would fade in and so each book of the story had its own song underneath it that then transitioned to the next song when it was time for the next like chunk of the story, the next book. And I loved that. I thought that was absolutely genius. I don't know if it was Nolan who came up with that or Lwig, I forget his last name, but he's won best score three times in the last six years. So, if he were to win it again, then he would have won it four times in the last seven years. And what's his name? Oh, Lord have mercy. Okay, so we know I'm not fantastic at pronouncing things.

[00:32:06]>> Goransen, >> that doesn't feel right.

[00:32:11]>> Ludwig, >> that feels a lot more accurate. That guy. Anyway, I don't know if that was his idea, if that was Nolan's idea, but whoever's idea was absolutely genius and I feel like it added so much and it really does show a respect, I think, to the history of this story as a poem.

[00:32:29]There also was a lot of complaints about the choice of ASAP Rocky as a bard, which Nolan said he did as a tribute to rap and how it is a modern version of spoken poetry and that he thought that having the bard be a rapper was paying tribute to that. And I really agree with that choice and I'm really surprised that people were upset about it because he didn't look like ASAP Rocky to me when he came on screen. just because he's a recognizable face to you because he's so famous doesn't mean that he was a bad choice for that character. I think there were a lot of people just kind of like looking for issues with this and complaining about ASAP Rocky was one of them and especially because he's the first face that you see. I also really liked that we didn't really get to hear the siren song. That was a small choice but I thought it was fun. the modern language aspect of it didn't bother me at all, but it did bother my friend. And so, I'm just going to say I think that's going to end up being a personal thing for me. There wasn't really a point that I was watching it that I was jarred out of the viewing experience by any of the language being used, but my friend did say that that happened to him a few times. So, I feel like that's just going to end up being a personal thing. And finally, I just want to chat about the performances for a second because I generally thought they were all really good, which I expected from this cast.

[00:33:46]It's not just a bunch of A-list actors, but a bunch of very good A-list actors.

[00:33:51]And I expect good performances from all of these people, specifically with Tmicus and Tom Holland and the you have wise eyes, Athena's eyes lines. Is it him or is it the way the line was written? I'm not entirely sure, but basically every time he said it, it felt like he was reading a line. Especially, I think in comparison to all of the other very natural sounding language, for him to just randomly be saying to people, you have wise eyes, Athena's eyes phrased like that. It just I again I don't know if it was the writing or if it was Tom Holland or if it was both, but in those moments, it just it felt like he was reading a line to me, not that he was the character saying the line, if that makes sense. But otherwise, I thought he did a really good job. Robert Patson. Oh my god, this made me so excited for Dune 3 because he plays the main freak bad guy in Dune 3.

[00:34:45]And to be fair, he is kind of the main freak bad guy in this, too. But there's so much going on that he doesn't get a ton of screen time. And I'm just so looking forward to much more screen time of Robert Patson as Evil Freak. I think he nails that kind of role and he did it here as well. I also loved Himesh Patel.

[00:35:06]It was impressive to me in a sea of so many good actors that he stuck out to me for the performance he was giving. I just think he did a really really good job. And I wonder if some of it too was that he was playing across from Matt Damon who is an incredible actor. And that's why I want to be very careful in the way that I'm wording what I'm about to say now. because weirdly enough for me, he was kind of the only performance that fell short and there were moments in it that I was incredibly confused by because I know the caliber of actor that he is. And in researching after just out of curiosity of some of how they filmed some of those shots, he has talked a lot in the press tour about how grueling this shoot was for him and it was for all of the actors, right? But Matt Damon is in like 90 to 95% of the film. It was hard on everybody and he had to do the most of it. And I wonder if this isn't more of an instance of a learning lesson for Nolan that I know that he's known for not babying his actors. And I'm not saying he needs to start babying them, but maybe it is important for him to understand that there is a line because if he can push Matt Damon to the point like Matt Damon of all people that I feel like he's not giving his best in some of these scenes, then to me, what actor could have gone through that shoot and been at 100% the whole time? And maybe that is more of a Nolan problem than it is a Matt Damon problem. And again, I understand that that is something that is very celebrated about him is that he doesn't baby actors no matter how A-list they are. And I don't want to make it sound like I think that he needs to start like coddling these actors. But I am just saying that like maybe there's a line and maybe he found where the line was and maybe it was how intense this shoot was for Matt Damon.

[00:36:58]And I do think the film suffered for it to be honest. I think it was one of the only things in watching it that really made me feel disappointed. Like everything else we're talking about is more of like philosophical like approach to the story, how I feel about it. All of which is fine. But again, I'm not necessarily criticizing it as much as I'm just like kind of talking about what I got from it and what I interpreted from it. And like there's just Matt Damon's performance in points just really fell flat for me. And it was essentially the only thing about the film that fell flat for me. And it was very confusing because Matt Damon is an incredible actor. And so that's my understanding of what probably happened to lead to that. But I could be wrong.

[00:37:37]Oh, and Hathaway can do no wrong to me.

[00:37:40]John Bernthal nailed it. Interestingly enough, like I in the discourse I saw afterwards, I was very surprised that people said he's one of the people that people are picking out as like feeling like they didn't do as good a performance. And I was incredibly confused by that. I thought he did really, really well. And then I saw somebody saying, "Some of y'all are suffering from the fact that you can only see somebody as their main role."

[00:38:02]I've never seen any of the Punisher. So I I don't think of him as Punisher at all. And again, that kind of brings me back to the complaint that people had about ASAP Rocky that when they see him, all they think is ASAP Rocky. And so it was like jarring or whatever to the experience. But I'm like, I don't know.

[00:38:17]Like is that the film's fault? I feel like you can make that argument about a lot of different actors. I think there's something to be said for specifically Ariana Grande and the way she does her makeup in the films she's been in and the fact that word has gotten around that she's very picky about it and often does her own makeup or brings her own people and so she kind of looks the same and it's noticeable and she had like visible strip lashes in Wicked like that is a different conversation to me because you have to understand that if you're going to be in films you're handing your look over to the people making the film and that if you're going to be as specific about your look as pop stars normally are then that that's going to affect how you look on screen.

[00:38:56]But this ASAP Rocky situation and the John Bernthal situation aren't that.

[00:39:00]It's just that I think they're more known for other things and that's why people saw them that way. But I honestly thought both of them did a really good job. It's so funny to me, too, because the main casting choices that people were really upset about, Lupita, Elliot Paige, and Zenaia, all had like 5 minutes of screen time each. And so even commenting on their performances feels silly. And in any other circumstance in making a video about the film, I would never have talked about them in their characters because they were just so backseat to everything else. But because there was so much hullaloo about the three of them, all three of them also did a great job. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

[00:39:38]Actually, I do have one other thing. I said that Matt Damon's performance at some points was the only thing that fell flat for me, but you guys were right about the Agamemnon costume. I'm sorry for doubting you on that. It was so distracting. Here's the thing. Okay, I know that the point was that he stuck out and he looked ridiculous and that seems to be what the costume department was like doing on purpose, but there reaches a point where a character sticks out and looks so ridiculous. It was distracting enough that it went beyond thinking that Agamemnon the character looked ridiculous and I just thought the costume looked ridiculous and it reminded me that I was watching a film and that's never what you want, right? I didn't realize he was never going to take it off and just every time they showed him, oh my god, it made me laugh.

[00:40:24]My friend said that when the doors open during the Trojan horse scene and you could just see him standing in the middle that he was expecting Imperial March to start playing cuz he looks so much like Darth Vader. And once I see it, I can't unsee it. It does kind of look like a Darth Vader cosplay to be honest. So anyway, I'm sorry for doubting y'all on that. I was all whiny last week about people complaining about the costumes, but the Agamemnon one, dude. Anyway, and finally, I can't believe Matt Damon didn't go full frontal for the final battle scene.

[00:40:53]Canonically, he's naked. And I think they should have been brave enough to bring that to screen. Also, that's a joke, which feels silly to explain, but every once in a while I make a joke like that and people are like, "Oh my god, we were complaining about that." So, just to be clear, I'm kidding. But overall, I just want to say this is a hilarious outcome for me from the perspective of somebody who dared to speak a little bit on the culture war conversation going into it and got absolutely attacked by all of the people that were out on the internet saying that this was a ridiculous film and that he put no effort into making it good and it was going to be terrible and it was going to tank at the box office and it was going to just suffer so much because of its wokeness. It's so funny to me because it's not just very commercially successful in its opening weekend, but it's also super highly rated, at least as of me filming this. The critic score is at like 96% and the audience score is at like 98%. Like people are loving it and they're loving it for good reason.

[00:41:58]It is really good. And again, I just find that to be absolutely hysterical given the hysterical nature of the culture war debate leading into this. I went and I watched the trailer. The trailers have a bunch of comments about how they can't believe that Universal hasn't turned the comments off yet.

[00:42:16]People talking about the like to dislike ratio on the YouTube video and just going after Universal for some of the woker choices that people felt like they were making. And I know I kind of skipped over talking about it in my last video intentionally and I kind of talked about that more in depth then, but I do just want to say it really did put into perspective for me just how much of those complaints are based in this weird gotcha like online culture warrior kind of culture where a lot of these people men dare I say it seem to take a lot of pride in getting a high dislike ratio.

[00:42:57]and having the comments be filled with people insulting something and that these are their signs that they are winning the culture war. But as my mom always used to say, it's the craziest people that yell the loudest. I think that this film is the number one example of that. There were a lot of crazy people yelling very loud going into the release of the film and the masses just don't agree with the insane people online. and I think we should all just ignore them. All in all, I think it's a feat. I think it was super impressive and I just feel very grateful to be alive at a time when Nolan's making films. I don't really think anyone's doing it like him right now. Hey everyone, there's one thing I wanted to add. One of you lovely commenters made me aware of an aspect of the production of this film that I didn't know about, which is that one of their filming locations was in Dacla in West Sahara, which is designated as non-self-governing territory by the UN.

[00:43:55]It didn't feel right to make the video and not talk about it, obviously. But admittedly, a situation like that is so serious and so consequential that I just don't think that a few days is enough time for me to educate myself enough on it that I would feel comfortable educating others. And so, instead of synthesizing the information for you the way I normally would, I've just decided to link some resources. I highly recommend that you go learn more about it and learn more about what's going on in West Sahara. It's kind of what I'm looking at to learn more about it myself and to kind of understand what happened.

[00:44:28]I think that this gives us the opportunity to bring more awareness to that. I hope you can understand why I'm just going to leave it there. I just think something like this is way too consequential to risk me getting some kind of detail wrong and causing more harm than good in talking about it.

[00:44:43]Anyway, I've linked some stuff. I highly recommend that you go check it out and learn more about it. And now back to me to do the outro. That is going to be all for me today, you guys. Guys, I hope you enjoyed. Have you seen the film? How did you feel about it? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments down below. I love you and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.