- The moment I knew the film was doomed came early, when we got the back story on Odysseus’s faithful dog. We see the dog, who is over 20 years old because he is so loyal he won’t die until his master comes home, as a puppy, when Odysseus adopts it, and as an old dog. The puppy and the dog aren’t the same breed; they’re not even close to the same breed. The puppy is some kind of brown and white smooth coated hound, and the puppy grown has somehow turned into a terrier mix with gray fur. Magic? No, just inexcusable carelessness by everyone on the set.
- The Trojan Horse. I know it looked cool to have the horse designed to be rearing up and standing on its hind legs, but it made no sense. That design would have been more difficult for warriors to hide in, and also more difficult for the Trojans to move into their walled city. The traditional Trojan horse stands on four legs and has wheels:
Nolan’s version is structurally unsound:
Again, there must have been someone on the set to say to the genius, “No, Chris, that’s just stupid.” But nobody did.
- The scene on Circe’s island was just silly. Matt walked by oddly placid and posing CGI beasts…a lion, a leopard, a tiger…like they were exhibits in the San Diego zoo. Ah! Those were once men, see, turned into big cats by the sorceress! Then Odysseus kills an antelope or something, but when he checks on the body, it’s turned into a naked man! So Circe’s menagerie is like…werewolves? At that point, wily Odysseus finally puts two and two together, almost. He still seems a little foggy about where all those pigs came from.
- One of my main objections to “Titanic” was that the film-makers had to add Billy Zane chasing after Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio with a gun to add gratuitous excitement to one of the most dramatic events in history. In “The Odyssey, a story stuffed with monsters and deadly perils, Nolan added a scene where the Greeks are attacked by armored, broad sword-swinging giants. There are no such creatures in “The Odyssey”; they looklike refugees from a “Transformers” movie.
I think that’s enough from me, especially after only viewing half the movie. I’ve been trying to think of other similarly bad films that critics went gaga over. The closest was probably Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” like “The Odyssey” a long, big cast “spectacle,” but at least that film had an intermission. I would watch “Reds” again twice before I would see the last half of Nolan’s “masterpiece.”
Oh…I almost forgot! The critics who complain about the American accents are just wrong. They were not a distraction, and heaven knows its long past the time when movie Romans and Greeks were expected to speak in British accents. Furthermore, Kubrick had the gladiators in “Spartacus” speak in American accents; so did the Jews in “Ben Hur” and almost everyone in “The Ten Commandments.” I did find it jarring to hear Odysseus use “fuck” as an expletive, but there is so much else of more consequence wrong with “The Odyssey,” I am willing to let that one go.
Ethics Alarms 
https://www.facebook.com/share/1EWpEhh35d/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Come on this is hilarious.
Watched it
And….?
Wrote a long comment. Wrote a shorter version
Not here!
Is this the long comment and your first one the short comment???
I don’t object to revelations arriving at the end. Detective stories, among others, often save them for the final act. My objection is structural. The last scene is the only real dramatic tension in three hours. Homer’s Odyssey accumulates dramatic tension with each adventure, each one deepening our investment in Odysseus’s return. In Nolan’s hands, those adventures are merely a series of dull attractions, without building either. The final scene is exciting enough, but the three hours leading up to it don’t deserve it.
I basically agree, but in a mystery or detective story, you know the genre, and you are looking for clues. In Nolan’s film. the whole thing is a bait and switch.
[I]t’s long past the time when movie Romans and Greeks were expected to speak in British accents.
Hah! Cover your ears, Richard Burton!
(See, Alizia? That’s an ethical “appeal to authority,” the opinion of a Homer scholar who has read the work in Greek and wrote the translation the film she’s critiquing was based on.)
Oh bloody hell!
Jack, you are a lovely, lively, intelligent and thoughtful man with an enormously important background in the presidency of the US among many areas. And recently you carried your over-bloated self like a giant child.
And despite the also obvious fact that you drove off poor suffering Alizia (::: sob, whimper :::) solely because she made a few sharp comments directly to your face and your ego cannot handle such insubordination among your sycophantic crew here…
(No names will be mentioned …)
…and the FACT that the war against Iran has at this point been soundly lost at SIGNIFICANT COST on my levels to the US that will cost the Republican Party all of its gains Jack, all of them; and that you insist that Alizia, making reference to men who, like you, have significant background in their area of political analysis (John Meersheimer and Pape among a various few) is “appeal to authority”) and is somehow “unethical” …
… is simply stupid on your part. You are smart but you are also sort of dumb at times. But a greater stupidity on your over-stuffed, over-inflated part is to have assigned the extremely unfair term “anti-Semite” to her.
You have in truth recently acted like a spoiled child and, as she carefully pointed out, a bully.
To be ethical you should apologize. Most important though, you should encourage people to participate on your blog who hold opinions contrary to those you insist are absolutely right. They have all flown away! and you know it.
Remember: Cassandra saw things and made predictions but no one believed her. You will soon see the results of this idiot president’s horribly bad decisions.
Love this! Wins, hands down, the EA Tongue Piercing Cheek Pseudo Sarcasm of the Year Award
Even worse, I don’t think Wilson’s critique was that good to begin with. It was bad when the Greeks killed the Trojans because they were violating xenia in the process. They entered Troy under the pretense of a gift and proceeded to kill their “hosts.” Odysseus’ killing the suitors was good because they were violating xenia. It is perfectly consistent.
What happened as a result? Agamemnon went home to be killed and Odysseus was tormented for 10 years on his way home. Menelaus seemed to do okay though. Ajax, however, did not fare so well.
(This was part of the theme of Euripides’ Trojan Women, which I read recently with my book club; some of them had seen the Odyssey, so the conversation went in that direction.)
-Jut
When I saw the picture, I thought they were fighting Cylons.
YES! That’s exactly what they looked like. And probably their inspiration, ’cause it sure wasn’t Homer.