Nolan Doesn't Want To Tell The Odyssey

[00:00:00]Nolan does not want to tell the Odyssey.

[00:00:02]There's an important shift in what the movie is about and everything that is different from the original poem flows from that shift in my opinion for the worse. On one hand, we have the classic Odyssey, the restoration of order, the return of the king, humbling yourself before the gods, carrying out justice, the ancient idea of justice, not the modern one. And on the other hand, Nolan's Odyssey, the cost of war, PTSD, the we did such atrocious things in war, there is no going back. And that's quite literally the case. I will go through three major elements that are changed to stray away from the original to fit Nolan's narrative. The gods, Odysius himself, and the language and customs.

[00:00:42]By the way, this certainly contains spoilers, so just be warned. At first, just because we can derive a lot from that decision, the gods. In the original, the gods are a driving factor in the story. They give advice. They decide. They appear in person physically to our characters. And Adysius is in a favor of the gods, except of course Poseidon. That is the only reason he survives. Make no mistake about it. He does ultimately not have the power over his own fate. His fate is in the hands of the gods. He can either comply and live or defy and die. Hm, that's telling. Right now, in Nolan's adaption, it is ambiguous whether the gods are real and are there or not, which is already weird because we do have the supernatural elements like Cersei's magic, the cyclops and [ __ ] But yeah, Nolan always wants to ground his movies.

[00:01:30]So here, Athena is just a figment of his imagination, the image of a Trojan girl who they killed. So it's the manifestation of his PTSD and guilt.

[00:01:39]Now, if this still is in fact Athena who is appearing in that way to Adysius, Nolan is not clear in that way. That's why I said ambiguous. This destroys the tail in so many ways. But to be fair, it does make a lot of sense in Nolan's world of naturalism and scientism to ground it all in this psychological PTSD stuff. But it's just not the Odyssey.

[00:02:01]You lose the fantastical and the adventurous elements of the story. For example, he is disguised as an old man, which he is not in a movie. He's just disguised by clothing. He is made stronger and bigger by Athena. And so at one point he has like this hobo duel. He fights a different beggar. And then he uncloses and all the people, the suitors are completely amazed by his thighs.

[00:02:22]They're so big and [ __ ] So that's just one fun fantastical part of it, which of course you don't have because it's not supposed to be fun in a PTSD detail. And of course, the Cyclops should talk.

[00:02:32]That's a big loss here because the whole Cyclops scene could be even more tense and interesting. Nolan just made a more or less generic monster scene out of it.

[00:02:40]In a vacuum, you could say, "Hey, this scene is cool, tense, cool creature design. I agree." But the original is just way cooler. But more importantly, it's the catalyst for the whole damn story. And of course, Nolan can't put it in there because he doesn't want to tell the real story. Now, let me explain that scene because it like could be so awesome. They find the cave of the cyclops and enter. Because even though they know that it must be a huge man living there, Odysius still wants to find out what kind of man is there. When a cyclops arrives, he doesn't really care about the men. He just locks the door with a giant boulder. He milks his goats and sheep all real cool and calm.

[00:03:17]Makes a fire and only then asks the men who they are. And Odysius answers him and says that the cyclops better be a good host because Zeus, the guardian of hospitality, will punish him if he breaks the laws of hospitality. The cyclops then responds that he has no fear of the gods since the cyclopses are stronger and he is the son of Poseidon.

[00:03:37]Now this is the first moment where Odysius should go like this is no longer a guest and his host situation. This is a predator and a prey situation. Cyclops asks where he landed, where his ship is and how he landed. So the mood shifts.

[00:03:51]This is now an interrogation. Maybe the cyclops want to assess the threat. Maybe he hopes for more prey. Maybe he wants to destroy the ship so there's no more escape. And Odysius sees that and lies that their ship was destroyed either to save his men or to save the ship. We don't know. After hearing that, the Cyclops doesn't say anything else. He just gets up, grabs two guys, slams them merciless on the ground that their brains splatter everywhere, then cuts them up and eats him raw like a lion devour his prey. This is insane. The helplessness, the mercilessness. You can't harm him. He's too powerful.

[00:04:24]Almost the same level with the gods. But you also cannot reason with him. The rules don't apply to him. You just have to endure getting eaten. And he picks up two guys each time. He eats them for dinner, for breakfast, and he just lies down to sleep because they can't harm him. The boulder in front of the door could only be moved by him that he knows because he's not stupid or mindless like in a movie. Then on the second day, they make their plan while he is out hurting his flock. And after coming home, he again first milks the goats and sheep, then grabs two guys again and eats them.

[00:04:53]And after the meal, Odysius offers him strong wine, saying it is too good not to enjoy with the human flesh. He drinks it all up like it is said to be especially potent. And because he's so happy about the tasty wine, he asks Odysius for his name so that he could give him some wine in return, making it seem like he might set him free. So Odysius say, "Nobody. My name is nobody." And then the Cyclops goes, "Nobody." Okay, then I will eat nobody last. This is my gift to you. So you see the character the ruthlessness that is way more terrifying than this mindless creature that Nolan put there and is saying that is the important part because you could argue about that in taste but it is saying more about the law of hospitality which Nolan almost completely ignores. Then the cyclops falls asleep drunk. He pukes out some wine and chunks of human flesh so the man can blind him. And after ramming the piece of wood in this eye, he screams for help and the other cyclopses come to ask if he's in danger and if somebody wants to kill him. And he replies, "Nobody, nobody wants to kill me." So they leave again. And then Odysius and his men can escape through the sheep and how it's almost the same depicted in the movie. But then when he is sailing away just in yelling distance, he couldn't resist yelling after him and saying, "Hey, and remember if anybody asks, it's no meek human that just wounded you.

[00:06:11]It's Odysius, ruler of Ithaca, the destroyer of cities." So then the Cyclops in agony prays to his father, Prooseidon that he may be cursed. And that is the whole catalyst for the story. That's why it goes that way. It's Odysius's hubris. Now, how much better would that scene be? And I know that looking at the scene in a movie, you might come away thinking, "Hey, that was tense and cool." But it's nothing against the merciless situation that the poem gives us. And Nolan said even, "We tried to get the nobody line in there because it's so iconic, but it just wouldn't fit." Of course, it wouldn't fit. You didn't want the hubris against the god being the catalyst for the story since that is your PTSD from Troy. And you didn't want direct involvement by the gods and a supernatural anyways. So you didn't let the cyclops talk. This need for naturalization. This dogma of scientism. It can even be seen in the creature design. The one eye by the cyclops. It makes it seem like the cyclops is not supposed to be like that.

[00:07:07]It's not the cyclops in its natural form, but it's a distorted human face as if you dragged the eye from the horizontal and the vertical. So, it's a cool creature design. I can give you that. But it also shows that Nolan doesn't accept the supernatural like the cyclops is that mythical being. It just has one eye. No, he drags it down to the human level by saying it's a distortion of humanity. Point two, Odysius. The character of Odysius is completely changed and it has to be. The trauma and guilt of Troy, they lay heavy on it.

[00:07:36]Whereas in original, there's none of that. But you see, this rewriting of his character also comes at the cost of one of his most famous traits, the wit. He's so cunning and smart, the smartest of all the men. For example, because they didn't have the whole Cyclops scene, right? They still wanted to give some reverence to his hubris there by doing it more like an Easter egg that he shoots an arrow after they already left at the Cyclops and then risking a chase.

[00:08:02]And that is just out of spite. But that makes him stupid. Like in the original, you can accept it because it's a real character flaw. It's a hubris. It's not in contrast or it's not in contradiction to the intelligence. But to poke at a seemingly mindless creature out of spy, that just makes you stupid. That doesn't make you arrogant. It makes you stupid.

[00:08:20]And then Nolan wants to introduce this idea of mercy and fairness, which is a bit more modern. So he has to cram in the scene where Odysius always warns his prey with the noise of the bow, you know. So he can later say that this idea and his mindset is broken in Troy because there was no fairness and mercy, which is already a modern idea. It's not in the story, but okay, that for later.

[00:08:43]So they inject this new idea of the bow and I want to warn my prey. This is so stupid. Like he wants his prey to have a chance when hunting. Like what? I mean, he even gets confronted by I think you may and he says, "You know, this is hunting. Yeah, this is not an honor duel or something." And Odysius just replies, "A duel and hunting is the same thing, just one involves stealth." Yeah. Like, no [ __ ] That's the whole point. That's why you don't make sounds. I can't believe that that made it into the movie. And even if you accept that he wants to be merciful to his prey, you would want a stealthy, clean shot without it noticing you. So, it's quicker and faster. And just like the character suffers there because of the injection of foreign ideas, this whole idea of cost of war and PTSD also destroys the ending as well as the leadup to the killing of the suitors.

[00:09:35]The killing of the suitors is a brutal event. And in the original, Odysius even kills 12 women servants as well because they were in cahoots with the suitors.

[00:09:43]They were hanged. And one goat herd that betrayed Odysius got his ears and nose cut off, feets and hand cut off, and castrated by Humeus. by the way, the loyal Swinhard. This is of course disturbing for modern audiences. But it is important to note this does not make Odysius some kind of morally gray character just because we nowadays don't agree with this form of justice. In the ancient times, for the ancient listener, it was justice be done. That doesn't make Odysius a complicated character.

[00:10:11]That's a modern reading. Of course, this is not my understanding or our understanding of justice, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to the story. I mean this is the climax.

[00:10:20]Odysius restores order and brings every grave sinner to justice. And in the modern version he spares a lot of them because they yield. And of course it has to go this way because Odysius is haunted by the cruelty of war, the injustice. And here of course I mean it in a modern sense. So he puts mercy higher on the list of priorities. And he doesn't even want to rule anymore. He wants to leave with his wife. So the king did not return. The king refused his crown. This is a violation of the whole arc that the Odyssey set up.

[00:10:49]That's why I don't like the I adapt this and make a modern spin out of it. And believe me, I've seen that time and time again because I have done hundreds of plays in the theater. And you do a lot of like Sophocles or Shakespeare or like ancient Greeks, whatever, you know, and the directors always want to put a modern spin on it. Put it in a different setting, interpret it in this way. What if this was that way? What if this guy was kind of like a fascist and you put it in a Nazi Germany setting? whatever.

[00:11:16]You know, you get the gist. While that's in theory kind of interesting, you always run into obstacles at some point of the text and you either you're you're caught between a rock and a hard place.

[00:11:26]You either change the text to the point where it's no longer the original story or you keep it, but then it just doesn't go together, but it never works out fully. And here, I don't know why he spares the suitors and the women since they sin so gravely against him and the gods. And if he's some kind of so modern, merciful, enlightened hero, then why does he set out to kill any of them in the first place? If he's so traumatized by the injustices of war and [ __ ] why didn't he come there and think of a way of a nonviolent way to set it to justice? You know, that's what I mean. Changing the thing consistently to a point where it's no longer the original. Because he is so smart and cunning, he could find a way, right? He should find a way. These two things, they don't go together. And by the way, he's also not really planning to kill the suitors. Also more winging it. It's undermining his great cunning again. And this is where we come to my favorite scene from the original by Homer. The reuniting of him and Telameus. Very different in the movie. In the original, he plans the whole thing with his son and he reveals himself to him way earlier than or way different than in the movie. And this is a kind of initiation ritual for Telameas. That's why it's such an awesome it's a father and son scene. It's a beautiful dramatic scene because Telameus never had the guts to do what is right or couldn't do it. He didn't know what to do. Like he was not a man. And now Odysius comes and shows him the ropes how it is to be a man. You can imagine how his son's eyes must light up because he sees now finally one guy comes and knows what to do. And he's my father. He's a legend and he knows exactly what to do. And his father is showing him the robes and saying, "Hey, you haven't been trained by me. So now is the first day." and we're going to do the hardest lesson immediately. You're going to kill a lot of people. Probably you haven't done that before. This is a scene, man. And then they fight alongside each other, which is not in the movie. In the end, Telameus helps, of course. But Matt Damon tries to stop him, saying some kind of weird [ __ ] like, "Hey, no, this is my fight." I don't know. It's subtext. We don't really know what he's thinking, but I think it's like, "Hey, don't get involved. This is my thing because I'm already tainted by this cruelty of war. you're still naive or like innocent. Maybe that's what they try to say here. I don't really know.

[00:13:40]But the thing is again, he has no clue.

[00:13:42]He's just winging it. It makes him stupider. So you see how this adaption chips away at every foundational pillar one by one of this original tale. And you remove enough of these, you don't have a tail anymore. And other thing to mention, like I said, adventurous tone is gone because Nolan wants to ground everything in this naturalism. So his hero is bleak and depressed. And the episodes, the little set pieces, sirens, blah blah blah, they're all more a thing that they have to get through. It's not some joyous, adventurous, exciting tale because he's not interested in the sirens or caribas. Hell, for him, it's just a giant whirlpool. He wants to tell his modern PTSD tale. Point three, language and customs. Here, the modern American accent actually didn't bother me as much, but the vocabulary did. And it's not so much about historical accuracy and immersion, but the poetic and powerful language that you find in good faithful translations. You know, the structure of sentences is different.

[00:14:38]They got some weird speech patterns.

[00:14:41]They have longer monologues. And Nolan made this modern American psychological pingpong dialogue. There is no great monologues, no recognizable patterns.

[00:14:50]Like the only thing that we got is Tom Holland saying, "You have the eyes of Athena twice in the beginning, but then it completely fades out." But this is a distinct time and space and this is supposed to be epic and larger than life. I don't like the trend of simplifying everything for our modern Tik Tok brains to make it believable in our time. People back then had longer attention spans. And it's not just some aesthetic choice. It really supports the story as well. The ritual of hospitality was important. You had formulaic phrases that were always repeated in a poem. And same with the animal sacrifice for each guest. The host always gets the finest pig or buck or whatever for the guest and it's always told in the same way and they prepare the meat in the same way and then they ate it. That's a fun fact by the way. Did you know that the animal sacrifice wasn't like killing the animal and let it rot at the altar of the gods?

[00:15:36]I always thought that somewhere before I read the Odyssey, but it's more eating it in communion with the gods. So, you do use it the stuff. You don't let it rot, but the gods get the rich, flavorful, fatty smoke and the humans get the rest. I just didn't know that before. And I mean not once do we see how they prepare a meal. This is not just an Easter egg. This builds the world that the characters like live in.

[00:15:56]It is a window into the time and the customs of that people that are so different from us now. And it is totally important to the story as well because the theme of Genya, the guest friendship is an important pillar of it and Nolan almost completely ignores it. Again, something that he didn't have time or energy or any interest for since it is PTSD. And at some point, you must ask, when does this become a different story?

[00:16:19]Is it still the Odyssey? I think it's a sickness of our times. You strip away everything that made the story endure 3,000 years in the first place, and you put your modern spin on it, but it's not an American psychological pingpong naturalistic acting kind of tale. It's not a PTSD story like Taxi Driver or Deer Hunter. And people are hyping this movie so much. And I even see comments, this is the thing here. I even see comments of people saying, "Yes, of course, the PTSD is better because in the original, Odysius is totally nonchalant about losing his men. He's not really faced by the atrocities of Troy kills in such brutal manners, the suitors and blah blah blah." So yeah, there it is. They say yes, Nolan made it better. He made it right because before it's just a aic immoral stupid tale and I resent that sentiment and be clear I'm not in favor of what of what Odysius does from my ethical standpoint. I got my Christian ethics and I don't think that is justice in our perspective. But I can still listen or see or think of that tale in its intended form and enjoy it while still keeping the good message part about it and categorizing the other stuff as products of our time. But the story doesn't really work if you if you change it. The changing must be in your head, not in the story. We need to get back to that point where we can take in stories more unbiased. And that's why I say Nolan doesn't want to tell the Odyssey because he is not interested in giving us the message that is 3,000 years old because that is old and stupid. He gives us this new updated sanitized version. Every part of the movie works towards that end. And in this way, the subversion of the movie is even worse than any DEI casting or stuff. I didn't even talk about that because that is the cherry on top. I would talk about that if the whole other thing was handled, but it's even worse.

[00:18:12]It's not a Odyssey with DEI elements.

[00:18:14]It's just not the Odyssey.