Not sure how I feel about it. I think I'd rather see something more accurate to the period or maybe leaning more into the fantasy of it. (Which maybe this does and we're just not seeing it.). But...
Not sure how I feel about it. I think I'd rather see something more accurate to the period or maybe leaning more into the fantasy of it. (Which maybe this does and we're just not seeing it.). But I suspect what speaks to me about Greek myth in general and the Odyssey in particular is probably different than to Christopher Nolan.
Yeah, I think The Odyssey is at its best if when emphasized for fantasy or authenticity. The Odyssey as written has a LOT of moral lessons with the potential for a powerful message. This trailer...
Yeah, I think The Odyssey is at its best if when emphasized for fantasy or authenticity. The Odyssey as written has a LOT of moral lessons with the potential for a powerful message. This trailer seems likes it's straddling an awkward middle line.
Fun fact, Christopher Nolan was attached to Troy when the original director, Wolfgang Petersen, was stepping aside to direct an early version of Batman v Superman. When BvS fell through Petersen...
Fun fact, Christopher Nolan was attached to Troy when the original director, Wolfgang Petersen, was stepping aside to direct an early version of Batman v Superman. When BvS fell through Petersen got the project back and Nolan moved on to Batman Begins.
It's not like we're overwhelmed with Odyssey adaptations! Looking at Wikipedia, there are a good few of them on film, but most are Italian and very few of them are any I would expect most people...
It's not like we're overwhelmed with Odyssey adaptations! Looking at Wikipedia, there are a good few of them on film, but most are Italian and very few of them are any I would expect most people to have seen. Besides, it's no surprise that some of the greatest poets and playwrights continue to be relevant.
There is nothing new. There's only eight stories. But you are right. At least this isn't a reboot/rehash of a middling-quality IP from a few decades ago, which is even more annoying than...
But you are right. At least this isn't a reboot/rehash of a middling-quality IP from a few decades ago, which is even more annoying than retellings of the classics, which have at least had centuries of refinement.
I feel like some big budget Odyssey telling is absent from my collection, but I'd be more interested in a retelling, like a sci-fi adaptation or a satire of the hero's journey. Maybe they're out...
I feel like some big budget Odyssey telling is absent from my collection, but I'd be more interested in a retelling, like a sci-fi adaptation or a satire of the hero's journey. Maybe they're out there and I'm just not interested in finding them.
But yeah I'm tired of hearing the same old white guy stories too -- I don't think these authors and poets are the GOATs, just the ones being culturally reinforced as such again and again above others.
Percy Jackson and Oh Brother Where Art Thou come first to mind. Epic the Musical (which I think is still concept album(s) not a musical) also covers it. Madeline Miller has written both Circe and...
Percy Jackson and Oh Brother Where Art Thou come first to mind.
Epic the Musical (which I think is still concept album(s) not a musical) also covers it. Madeline Miller has written both Circe and the Song of Achilles which tell the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey from side characters' perspectives.
But Hadestown is also big (not Homer though) and there's a lot of Greek myth fanfic in fantasy, webcomics, etc. with Persephone and Hades really grabbing a lot of that attention especially in the romantasy sub-genres (but certainly not limited to them.) you can read a dozen books about the Greek gods in some form of modern day without trying. So if you're just feeling saturated by Greek myth remakes/reworks/fanfic essentially, then that can count too.
(Personally I think people should rework those stories to serve them now, that's what the stories of the gods have been forever, but if it's not someone's cup of tea that's all fair too)
Okay, so you're not just talking film, or strictly just Homer, but more so classical Greek mythology appearing in modern narratives. So much of Western culture is wrapped up, inspired by, directly...
Okay, so you're not just talking film, or strictly just Homer, but more so classical Greek mythology appearing in modern narratives. So much of Western culture is wrapped up, inspired by, directly drawn from those stories that originated in Greek mythology. Shit, The Odyssey is one of the classic examples of the Hero's Journey. I don't think it's so easy to just get away from.
Shakespeare himself pulled much from mythology. Romeo and Juliet is just a modernized adaptation of the Pyramus and Thisbe myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Anyway, my point is I think there's a difference between overt adaptations (The Odyssey) and retellings (O Brother) and also a difference between mediums (movie vs. book vs. stage musical), and we haven't had many overt adaptations in film of Homer specifically in a long while.
I wasn't the person you were talking to originally. Just FYI! I am not expanding it to the concept of the Heroes Journey, because that gets to a point where Star Wars would be an adaptation of the...
I wasn't the person you were talking to originally. Just FYI!
I am not expanding it to the concept of the Heroes Journey, because that gets to a point where Star Wars would be an adaptation of the Odyssey by the transitive property. (And I have opinions about the monomyth.) But we do keep going back to the well, so to speak.
I mentioned the broader Greek myth adaptations because it can feel interchangeable to folks who haven't read the original. (And a lot of those can dip into Homer too.)
But while different media are, well, different, I think all of them speak to our returning to these stories. To use Shakespeare as a comparison, we talk about reading but they're not really the same unless they're performed as plays. And then there are straight movie adaptations. And then there's modern day twists in Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the Man. (Yes I'm an elder millennial) And then there's endless novels - Macbeth as a police detective, King Lear as a media mogul, etc.
These stories are good ones, but I do agree that we probably miss out on others, and I'm a critic of the "western canon" being this static thing.
So I get you haven't seen an Oddysey movie recently but I've actually read/watched/listened to all the things I cited in that previous comment (plus multiple novels/comics) so even just the explicit adaptations/retellings can make it feel like "again?". And yet as Hermes says in Hadestown
It's an old song (it's an old song)
It's an old tale from way back when
It's an old song (it's an old song)
And we're gonna sing it again
And
It's a sad song
It's a sad tale
It's a tragedy
It's a sad song
But we sing it anyway
'Cause here's the thing
To know how it ends
And still begin to sing it again
As if it might turn out this time
I learned that from a friend of mine
It doesn't help me personally that the women in the story, Penelope aside and Athena included, don't get a great portrayal, and our hero is not as loyal as his wife. It's why the reimaginings are often more interesting to me.
I have an equally unpopular opinion, that I only liked Momento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar from his portfolio..... He used to call himself indie, and I would say the ones I likes were...
I have an equally unpopular opinion, that I only liked Momento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar from his portfolio..... He used to call himself indie, and I would say the ones I likes were his indie films. Tenet was already a blockbuster type that just looks cool and didn't feel internally consistent. From Wikipedia:
Joseph Bevan wrote, "His films allow arthouse regulars to enjoy superhero flicks and multiplex crowds to engage with labyrinthine plot conceits."[118] Nolan views himself as "an indie filmmaker working inside the studio system".[211]
This one....the Odyssey is a solid ancient epic, the most old school of Hollywood blockbuster genres. It'll be too loud and too long and too much CGI. I'd like it less than Oppenheimer, I predict.
we’re pretty much on the same page i think his work is best when he’s working with jonathan. I didn’t like Interstellar (jonathan script he heavily reworked) until i got this one fan edit that...
we’re pretty much on the same page i think his work is best when he’s working with jonathan. I didn’t like Interstellar (jonathan script he heavily reworked) until i got this one fan edit that tightens it up.
I think he’s caught up in spectacle — but he isn’t backing it up with a good enough script. TENET has a cool mechanic like Inception but the whole thing feels rushed and tedious at the same time, somehow. I also have a fan edit for that that tightened it up — but it isn’t enough. The spectacle is wicked, though.
yeah! Interstellar: Where We're Going. I saw Interstellar in the theatre and I really liked it visually, but it always felt like a cheap compilation of Signs, Contact, 2001 etc -- not to mention...
yeah! Interstellar: Where We're Going. I saw Interstellar in the theatre and I really liked it visually, but it always felt like a cheap compilation of Signs, Contact, 2001 etc -- not to mention another goddamn voice over from Michael Caine. I hope Nolan has finally put a stop to that bookending bullshit. Its so lazy.
Anyway, having seen the original edit a few times, I saw this and couldn't tell you what was actually taken out; it just feels better.
This is Interstellar with some adjustments to make dialogue and character interactions feel more natural, and with the removal of what feels to me like forced conflict. In particular, this edit completely removes the conflict between Murphy and Tom on the farm. There is no intercutting back to Earth while Cooper is in distress on Mann's planet.
... and all of this amounts to twenty minutes removed.
I wish I could find something like this for Fury Road -- I've watched that movie about five times over three different versions and every time I finish thinking its the stupidest movie. I'm not big on pure spectacle, though.
Yeah I didn't even bother with Oppenheimer and won't bother with this this. Momento is one of my favorite movies of all time and The Prestige is also really good, and Inception and Interstellar...
Yeah I didn't even bother with Oppenheimer and won't bother with this this.
Momento is one of my favorite movies of all time and The Prestige is also really good, and Inception and Interstellar are both solid - but they also start the downward trend IMO with so much bad exposition and montage scenes and bloat and such (and were what I'd call his first foray into blockbusters).
He's still talented enough that I'll at least hear about what he has coming out. Eg Aronofsky didn't have a good movie for over a decade, but still kept my tabs on him and really enjoyed The Whale. But this definitely isn't going to grip me into seeing it.
Really? Damn, that movie seemed like it was four hours long for me. It was practically the definition of “things happened”; I don’t remember any of the characters and barely remember anything that...
Really? Damn, that movie seemed like it was four hours long for me. It was practically the definition of “things happened”; I don’t remember any of the characters and barely remember anything that happened.
Interesting series of vignettes to make the trailer out of. I'll forgive the production style of the trailer since they apparently didn't want to spoil major things, but I think it's reassuring to...
Interesting series of vignettes to make the trailer out of. I'll forgive the production style of the trailer since they apparently didn't want to spoil major things, but I think it's reassuring to identify all the parts of the epic that the film will touch on -- too much and the film will feel convoluted, too little and it's just setup to what might be an overly-long series.
Here's what the trailer touched on (which I think we can prove is not chronological to the movie):
The trailer's opening scene is during the battle of Troy or after the raid on Ismarus? Cuts to Menaleus/Batman (or Agamemnon?) and Odysseus.
Sailing home, his wife Penelope in Ithaca, the shores of Aeetes?
Men (Trojans?) pulling a carved horse from the sea (perhaps the Trojan horse, but this seems a fantastical take on carving abilities); other men hiding inside a vessel
The cyclops
The dragon's teeth are sown and the five Spartoi rise? Not sure what's going on in the background. Maybe it isn't the Spartoi.
Various shots at sea, I would guess at least one set is from earlier in the film and one is later.
Ending with the beginning: Penelope asking Odysseus for a promise.
Things they didn't show, but naturally follow:
1. Cameo appearances of Helen, maybe Paris?
2. Big O meeting Circe. Introducing Circe to little O. Men are such pigs.
3. All is not happy on the homefront. Penelope knitting her brow and unknitting her scarf.
4. Whirlpools fuckin' everywhere.
5. Giving the sirens a hard pass and leaving them for Jason and the Argonauts.
6. Sequel setup or rounding out the story in a way that respects the source material.
Not sure how I feel about it. I think I'd rather see something more accurate to the period or maybe leaning more into the fantasy of it. (Which maybe this does and we're just not seeing it.). But I suspect what speaks to me about Greek myth in general and the Odyssey in particular is probably different than to Christopher Nolan.
Yeah, I think The Odyssey is at its best if when emphasized for fantasy or authenticity. The Odyssey as written has a LOT of moral lessons with the potential for a powerful message. This trailer seems likes it's straddling an awkward middle line.
The IMAX teaser in front of Avatar suggests it leans more into the fantasy of it all. Like Troy (2004)
Thanks, I'm not sure if that's better since, well, Troy. But I'll keep an open mind for another trailer.
Fun fact, Christopher Nolan was attached to Troy when the original director, Wolfgang Petersen, was stepping aside to direct an early version of Batman v Superman. When BvS fell through Petersen got the project back and Nolan moved on to Batman Begins.
Interesting to see batman in the Odyssey.
Certainly I'm not the only one who saw it.
I'm not an expert on period armor, but that helmet looked so anachronistic that I expected a sci fi preview to follow.
It's not like we're overwhelmed with Odyssey adaptations! Looking at Wikipedia, there are a good few of them on film, but most are Italian and very few of them are any I would expect most people to have seen. Besides, it's no surprise that some of the greatest poets and playwrights continue to be relevant.
There is nothing new. There's only eight stories.
But you are right. At least this isn't a reboot/rehash of a middling-quality IP from a few decades ago, which is even more annoying than retellings of the classics, which have at least had centuries of refinement.
And yet even that is a problem that's been around for, like, a thousand years.
I feel like some big budget Odyssey telling is absent from my collection, but I'd be more interested in a retelling, like a sci-fi adaptation or a satire of the hero's journey. Maybe they're out there and I'm just not interested in finding them.
But yeah I'm tired of hearing the same old white guy stories too -- I don't think these authors and poets are the GOATs, just the ones being culturally reinforced as such again and again above others.
You mean like this
O Brother Where Art Thou is one of my favorite movies! So I suppose I did mean like that hah.
Like this one ?
(the opening theme lives rent free in my head)
I have not heard that music in maybe forty years and yet now here it is, playing in my brain as I hovered over that link.
Thanks?
Now y'all just clowning on me lol, is it a good show though?
I think Troy is the only Homeric adaptation I can name and even that is very loose, and of a different story. What others are you thinking of?
Percy Jackson and Oh Brother Where Art Thou come first to mind.
Epic the Musical (which I think is still concept album(s) not a musical) also covers it. Madeline Miller has written both Circe and the Song of Achilles which tell the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey from side characters' perspectives.
But Hadestown is also big (not Homer though) and there's a lot of Greek myth fanfic in fantasy, webcomics, etc. with Persephone and Hades really grabbing a lot of that attention especially in the romantasy sub-genres (but certainly not limited to them.) you can read a dozen books about the Greek gods in some form of modern day without trying. So if you're just feeling saturated by Greek myth remakes/reworks/fanfic essentially, then that can count too.
(Personally I think people should rework those stories to serve them now, that's what the stories of the gods have been forever, but if it's not someone's cup of tea that's all fair too)
Okay, so you're not just talking film, or strictly just Homer, but more so classical Greek mythology appearing in modern narratives. So much of Western culture is wrapped up, inspired by, directly drawn from those stories that originated in Greek mythology. Shit, The Odyssey is one of the classic examples of the Hero's Journey. I don't think it's so easy to just get away from.
Shakespeare himself pulled much from mythology. Romeo and Juliet is just a modernized adaptation of the Pyramus and Thisbe myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Anyway, my point is I think there's a difference between overt adaptations (The Odyssey) and retellings (O Brother) and also a difference between mediums (movie vs. book vs. stage musical), and we haven't had many overt adaptations in film of Homer specifically in a long while.
I wasn't the person you were talking to originally. Just FYI!
I am not expanding it to the concept of the Heroes Journey, because that gets to a point where Star Wars would be an adaptation of the Odyssey by the transitive property. (And I have opinions about the monomyth.) But we do keep going back to the well, so to speak.
I mentioned the broader Greek myth adaptations because it can feel interchangeable to folks who haven't read the original. (And a lot of those can dip into Homer too.)
But while different media are, well, different, I think all of them speak to our returning to these stories. To use Shakespeare as a comparison, we talk about reading but they're not really the same unless they're performed as plays. And then there are straight movie adaptations. And then there's modern day twists in Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the Man. (Yes I'm an elder millennial) And then there's endless novels - Macbeth as a police detective, King Lear as a media mogul, etc.
These stories are good ones, but I do agree that we probably miss out on others, and I'm a critic of the "western canon" being this static thing.
So I get you haven't seen an Oddysey movie recently but I've actually read/watched/listened to all the things I cited in that previous comment (plus multiple novels/comics) so even just the explicit adaptations/retellings can make it feel like "again?". And yet as Hermes says in Hadestown
And
It doesn't help me personally that the women in the story, Penelope aside and Athena included, don't get a great portrayal, and our hero is not as loyal as his wife. It's why the reimaginings are often more interesting to me.
i hope this is a return to form. most don’t agree, but after the Dark Knight trilogy ended, he’s put out nothing but bloated stinkers. :)
Dunkirk is only an hour and forty minutes
different bloat :) I think he's washed up... but this is not a popular opinion.
I have an equally unpopular opinion, that I only liked Momento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar from his portfolio..... He used to call himself indie, and I would say the ones I likes were his indie films. Tenet was already a blockbuster type that just looks cool and didn't feel internally consistent. From Wikipedia:
This one....the Odyssey is a solid ancient epic, the most old school of Hollywood blockbuster genres. It'll be too loud and too long and too much CGI. I'd like it less than Oppenheimer, I predict.
we’re pretty much on the same page i think his work is best when he’s working with jonathan. I didn’t like Interstellar (jonathan script he heavily reworked) until i got this one fan edit that tightens it up.
I think he’s caught up in spectacle — but he isn’t backing it up with a good enough script. TENET has a cool mechanic like Inception but the whole thing feels rushed and tedious at the same time, somehow. I also have a fan edit for that that tightened it up — but it isn’t enough. The spectacle is wicked, though.
maybe Odyssey is 2026’s Megalopolis :)
Do you mind linking to that fan edit? All of my friends love Interstellar, but it has never landed for me. Maybe the edit will click with me!
yeah! Interstellar: Where We're Going. I saw Interstellar in the theatre and I really liked it visually, but it always felt like a cheap compilation of Signs, Contact, 2001 etc -- not to mention another goddamn voice over from Michael Caine. I hope Nolan has finally put a stop to that bookending bullshit. Its so lazy.
Anyway, having seen the original edit a few times, I saw this and couldn't tell you what was actually taken out; it just feels better.
... and all of this amounts to twenty minutes removed.
I wish I could find something like this for Fury Road -- I've watched that movie about five times over three different versions and every time I finish thinking its the stupidest movie. I'm not big on pure spectacle, though.
Yeah I didn't even bother with Oppenheimer and won't bother with this this.
Momento is one of my favorite movies of all time and The Prestige is also really good, and Inception and Interstellar are both solid - but they also start the downward trend IMO with so much bad exposition and montage scenes and bloat and such (and were what I'd call his first foray into blockbusters).
He's still talented enough that I'll at least hear about what he has coming out. Eg Aronofsky didn't have a good movie for over a decade, but still kept my tabs on him and really enjoyed The Whale. But this definitely isn't going to grip me into seeing it.
Really? Damn, that movie seemed like it was four hours long for me. It was practically the definition of “things happened”; I don’t remember any of the characters and barely remember anything that happened.
Interesting series of vignettes to make the trailer out of. I'll forgive the production style of the trailer since they apparently didn't want to spoil major things, but I think it's reassuring to identify all the parts of the epic that the film will touch on -- too much and the film will feel convoluted, too little and it's just setup to what might be an overly-long series.
Here's what the trailer touched on (which I think we can prove is not chronological to the movie):
Things they didn't show, but naturally follow:
1. Cameo appearances of Helen, maybe Paris? 2. Big O meeting Circe. Introducing Circe to little O. Men are such pigs. 3. All is not happy on the homefront. Penelope knitting her brow and unknitting her scarf. 4. Whirlpools fuckin' everywhere. 5. Giving the sirens a hard pass and leaving them for Jason and the Argonauts. 6. Sequel setup or rounding out the story in a way that respects the source material.