What’s up with The Odyssey’s Modern Dialogue?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]I realize I'm a little bit late to the plate on this one, but I want to talk about the latest trailer for The Odyssey, which is Christopher Nolan's uh newest movie, and of course, it's based on Homer's The Odyssey, which of course is a major Greek epic and a very important piece of literature. Now, a lot of people have been expressing how underwhelmed they are by this, and I have to say, I'm also quite confused by it. Uh the trailer feels very disjointed actually. We don't really get a sense of who Odicius is uh played by Matt Damon, but the the biggest complaint that has been leveled against the movie is the dialogue.

[00:00:45]So obviously the original story is Greek, but its translation into English should reflect a more archaic high formal way of of speaking. You know, this is the Bronze Age, but instead we we have this ancient masterpiece and it's filled with characters speaking in in quite contemporary vernacular.

[00:01:11]Personally, I would have accepted if the dialogue sounded something like, you know, the characters in Gladiator. And I understand that there is 1,400 years of a difference between the the time period of the Odyssey and the time period of Gladiator. But you know just for the film I personally and and believability you know for suspension of disbelief I I would have accepted that the the characters speak like that or even if they speak in in a more formal manner that they do in in something like the Lord of the Rings for God's sake. Uh because some of the dialogue here is just this this to me feels like they're dumbing the movie down um for a modern audience, right? It's um and this this is really upsetting because it just feels like this ancient tale is being sullied somewhat, you know. So this this dialogue like, "No, he's not. Let's go.

[00:02:10]You're pining for a daddy you didn't even know."

[00:02:15]Really, daddy?

[00:02:17]My dad is coming home. You You couldn't have said, "Father, was that was that that difficult bringing it all?

[00:02:28]Bring it. Bringing it all."

[00:02:33]and I think it's asleep and then the the monster attacks them and that's kind of played as a as a joke, you know, cuz trailers always so often trailers have this stupid tag at the end just before the the the final titles come up where there's a joke or something and then it kind of smash cuts to the to the to the end credits or whatever. Um, and that's very common and it's just it just feels it just feels totally inappropriate for that to to for that to be done in a trailer in a movie that should be very serious.

[00:03:11]Uh, it should be very serious in tone.

[00:03:13]When it comes to making period pieces like this, either based in the distant past or the distant future, I don't think it's a good idea that the characters sound like, you know, they could be speaking today. it it it shouldn't sound like uh 20th or 21st century dialogue in particular late 20th century early 21st century um because it just dates it and this is what's happened to Star Trek modern Star Trek you know whether it's Star Trek Starfleet Academy or Strange New Worlds or Peicard uh or Star Trek Discovery the characters are are no longer speaking the way that Star Trek characters did in Star Trek's golden era in the '90s for example.

[00:04:00]So throughout the next generation and Deep Space 9 and Voyager and to a lesser extent Enterprise because that was based in the 22nd century and they were trying to make the characters sound closer to us.

[00:04:11]Certainly in the 23rd and 24th century shows, they removed any modern slang or terms of phrase or diction. You know, they they made sure that the vernacular of the characters was a bit more formal.

[00:04:26]So the dialogue had a particular identity, a particular style and tonality to it. And so you couldn't place it. And that was a good thing because it's given those shows a timeless quality. And quite honestly, people speaking in the 23rd and 24th century are likely going to be speaking in a very different form of English than we do today in the Western world.

[00:04:49]And so when you're dealing with a translation of a Greek epic like Homer's The Odyssey, the dialogue should also be stylized.

[00:04:59]It should have a formality to it. And I don't think audiences today are incapable of understanding a more archaic form of English. I mean, for for crying out loud, they they could have even given it a more of a a sort of Elizabethan or or Jacoban style, you know, which of course would have been more Shakespearean and uh the Odyssey takes place thousands of years before Shakespeare, but for the purposes of this film and giving it a sense of being of a of an ancient time, I think that would have worked very well actually. Now, the counterargument to what I'm saying is, look, there's a there's a degree of bias in my thinking here, because we've grown up watching uh cinematic classics based on epic tales, be it Greek or Roman, and they use European accents, like modern European accents, uh or English accents quite often. And this is supposed to denote ancient, right? even though it's not accurate to those places and those periods, but it has become um a theatrical choice in cinema. It's what Hollywood has done for a long time and it's what we've gotten used to and it works.

[00:06:23]Look, um, again coming back to the Star Trek thing, the way in which Star Trek characters speak in the 21st century is not how people are actually going to speak in the 21st century.

[00:06:36]But it works because at least they're not speaking the way we do today. So it makes it somewhat believable. So when you're dealing with an epic, I feel as though you have to do something with a dialogue.

[00:06:50]uh when you're dealing with something that's supposed to be the ancient past, you do expect people to sound somewhat differently to do just stylize the dialogue in some respect to give it an identity.

[00:07:04]And I I don't think people would be complaining about this if it were not for the fact that there's something jarring about it. I mean, look, maybe I'm being pedantic and it doesn't really matter and the film will end up being great, and I hope it is. Um, but I just feel like the film could have so much more weight and gravitas if the dialogue didn't lean so heavily on contemporary vernacular.

[00:07:29]I think the dialogue has a daddy issue.

[00:07:30]That's all I'm saying. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there, guys. Thanks very much for watching. Apologies for not getting to this topic a little bit sooner, but I was away on holidays in Tenneref for a week. Um, and I just got back today. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Computing Forever. Hit that like button. Hit that notification bell to be notified of future updates. Take care. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.