#odysseus — Public Fediverse posts

The Odyssey: Lots of Good Stuff, Some Bad Stuff as Well 🔱

What’s likely to be the biggest cinematic hit of 2026 is Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey. Anyone and everyone have already said their bit about the film, but we’ve decided to crop up with our opinions all the same!

At nearly three hours it’s a monstrous undertaking. Unquestionably a mighty cinematic experience in IMAX, it does also suffer from stumbling stuff that drags it down, but all of it adds up to a glorious time of it. We had fun.

Guilt and PTSD in The Odyssey

Right. You probably know the plot already as this is adapted from Homer’s ancient Greek poem of the same name. Christopher Nolan has taken various liberties with the text, but the thrust of the story is sort of the same.

Star, front and centre, is Odysseus (Matt Damon) the King of the island of Ithaca. He’s been away from home for 20 years as he’s been battling it out during the Trojan War of 12th century BC.

After winning in a thrilling, last ditch Trojan Horse war move thing, it’s now left to Odysseus and his men to finally head on home. His wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) tentatively awaits him, in his absence she’s barely able to hold off 100 suitors eager to take Odysseus’s throne.

But on the way back, Odysseus hits a series of relentless problems that escalate steadily into increasingly disastrous nightmares. As each episode plays out, the reality of the previous decade weighs heavily on his mind.

For Nolan’s Odyssey, it sees Odysseus become mired in an increasing sense of PTSD. The reality of war plays on his consience to the extent he questions whether he even wants to return home.

Hmmm! Well, there aren’t any official scenes available on YouTube yet, but you can get a great sense of the film with some sequences in the below.

Okay, the great stuff sits with the set pieces. The cyclops, the giant dudes in armoured plating, the Trojan Horse build-up and battle sequence, and Circe the witch are all goddamn outstanding.

It’s up to you which is best of the lot, but for us it’s the Trojan Horse stuff. Nolan at his absolute best and one of the best cinematic moments we’ve ever seen.

However, quite a chunk of The Odyssey is also a bit on the flat side of things. Some of the acting and casting are questionable (we’re looking at you Tom Holland), the script can be Mickey Mouse, plus there are big chunks of dull stuff. Mainly anything involving Tom Holland’s bland performance.

Plus, the super talented Mia Goth is in this film and she’s utterly wasted with almost no screen time or character development. As is the case for the excellent Robert Pattinson, whose Antinous is the main antagonist but 97% of the time is only ever in one room whilst grimacing.

It’s almost like Nolan should have spread this out into two films to properly develop out the story. To get everything into three hours was hellish ambitious of him and it often works, but for us this isn’t a 5/5.

It’s a very good film all the same. Highly recommended you see it in IMAX as this is the whole point. Take in the full cinematic spectacle, revel in the set pieces, and don’t get too upset about the story dwindling around a little bit. Well done to Mr. Nolan, he’s got people interested in history!

A Quick Note on Odyssey’s Soundtrack

Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson handled the music for Nolan’s latest film. The result is often very beautiful, he went to great lengths to use musical instruments that were around in antiquity.

This meant his team had to bring many of them back to life, re-inventing instruments that haven’t been around in thousands of years. That included an ancient lyre and aulos (a wind instrument). Hurling in Albanian iso-polyphony choral music over the top and it’s quite distinct as a soundtrack, although does lapse into bombast when it needs to.

Our favourite pieces? Sirens above is eerie and fabulous, then you’ve got the lush Ithaca theme below.

The sound effects in the film are frequently deafening, too. In IMAX, the scream from Polyphemus the cyclops registers in at 125 decibels. That’s the loudest scream in modern cinema and up there with Roger Daltrey’s big moment in The Who’s hit single Won’t Get Fooled Again (for reference).

Anyway, full credit to Ludwig Göransson as he does create some excellent moments with his score. Although, following Nolan’s lead, he’s often left to produce less intriguing pieces than the above.

The Production of The Odyssey

Okay, so this launched on 17th July 2026 and is still very much in cinemas. It’s just had its IMAX run extended into at least September as the tickets keep fully booking out. It’s really triggered a big response from the public, many of whom will experience the glory of IMAX for the first time.

It’s like being hit by a sledgehammer of cinematic spectacle and that’s why we love it.

The downside? It’s had a tedious backlash from the alt-right (headed by Elon Musk), who claim the film is whitewashing “history”. Their main beef is it’s “woke” as it was a trans actor in a small role and Helen of Troy is Lupita Nyong’o (i.e. not white). The hysterical meltdown they’ve had about it has done nothing to dent global box office figures. The film has already made $1.301 billion off its $250 million budget.

Go woke, go broke indeed…

As for the production cycle, following Nolan’s last film (2023’s Oppenheimer) he hadn’t worked out what to do next. Once decided, he went on to write the screenplay for The Odyssey and take on directing duties.

The shoot last for 91 days across February and August of 2025. He worked so effectively everything wrapped nine days ahead of schedule! Despite shoots taking place all over the shop, including locations such as Morocco, Western Sahara, Greece, Italy, Scotland, and the US.

Nolan is famous for embracing practical effects, so pretty much everything you see in the film most definitely isn’t CGI. That included building a 30ft cyclops for that scene, plus setting 5ft stunt actors against 7ft ones for others.

The Odyssey is almost certain to win a big bunch of Oscars. No way a film earning this much, and getting so much internal attention, isn’t going to win a load of them. Watch this space in 2027 then for the Academy Awards.

Wenn #Odysseus wegen der #Sirenen nicht nach Hause fahren konnte, war er bestimmt bei der #Feuerwehr.

Nolanin suurelokuva The Odyssey nosti Homeroksen eepoksen jälleen suosioon – kirjan myynti nousi huikeisiin lukemiin

Odysseian äänikirjaversioiden kuuntelumäärät kasvoivat yli 600 prosenttia. Teos on ollut myös nuorten suosiossa.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20240662

#Elokuvat #Christophernolan #Odysseuskirja #Odysseus #Theodyssey #Kirjallisuus #Kulttuuri #Äänikirjat

A quotation from Homer

And in return may the gods grant you your heart’s desire; may they give you a husband and a home, and the harmony that is so much to be desired, since there is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends, as they themselves know better than anyone.
 
[Σοὶ δὲ θεοὶ τόσα δοῖεν, ὅσα φρεσὶ σῇσι μενοινᾷς,
ἄνδρα τε καὶ οἶκον, καὶ ὁμοφροσύνην ὀπάσειαν
ἐσθλήν· οὐ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ γε κρεῖσσον καὶ ἄρειον,
ἢ ὅθ’ ὁμοφρονέοντε νοήμασιν οἶκον ἔχητον
ἀνὴρ ἠδὲ γυνή· πόλλ’ ἄλγεα δυσμενέεσσι,
χάρματα δ’ εὐμενέτῃσι· μάλιστα δέ τ’ ἔκλυον αὐτοί.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 180ff (6.180) [Odysseus to Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Rieu (1946)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/homer/46493/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #homer #odyssey #odysseus #nausicaa #blessing #harmony #home #husband #marriage #meme #partner #spouse #together #unity #wife

Kävin katsomassa Nolanin Odysseuksen. Haarniskojen ajantasaisuus ei ole itselleni iso ongelma, ja Troijan Helenan hipiä kelpasi kyllä, mutta en oikein saanut kiinni siitä, mitä Odysseus-elokuva ennen kaikkea halusi olla.

Veijarinelkeet oli siivottu pois, ja palaa mieleen Terry Gilliamin toteamus, ettei hän hahmota, miten voisi ohjata Iliaan, kun ei saa mukaan näyttelijöiksi kreikkalaisia jumalia. Kirke ja Calypso olivat kummallisia - Calypso tuntui olevan jostain "Viidakon tähtösistä" eksynyt - ja äitinä paheksun, ettei Odysseus tavannut äitiään Manalassa.

Jotkut osuudet olivat näyttäviä, mutta eivät istuneet kokonaisuuteen. Mitä ne alumiinihaarniskaiset isokokoiset saarityypit edes olivat?

Anne Hathaway riutuneena Penelopena oli mainion kulunut ja rasittunut. Hyvin kriittinen elokuvaseuralainen teki sen myönnytyksen, että Odysseuksen koira näytteli hyvin 😆 Itse tykkäsin alkupuolen unenomaisuudesta. Äänimaailmassa myös paljon hienoa.

Mutta en oikein lämpene sille, että sankari kirmaa ratkaisevissa kohdissa kolme nuolta torsossaan.

Joihinkin asioihin oli panostettu paljon, mutta toiset jäivät irrallisiksi. Agamemnonin kypärä oli komea, mutta jäi vähän epäselväksi, mitä hän siellä pasteeraili. Ja Sinonin sota-arpajuttu meni ohi. Välillä oli autenttista ja välillä ei yhtään, olisi ehkä voinut tyylitellä enemmän.

Ihan rauhassa kyl saa tykätä, jos tykkää.

Hankin ehkä katsottavaksi tämän vuoden 2024 elokuvan vastapainoksi. Ja lapsuudessa nähty vuoden 1968 toteutus pitäisi ehkä myös katsoa uudestaan.

#Odysseus

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19861162/

Good movie.

#Odysseus

"Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island" is the most anticipated film in Japan, grossing ¥2.24 billion in its opening weekend, and has taken over most movie screens during the school summer vacation period. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2026/08/04/japan/japan-odysseus-chiikawa/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #commentary #japan #chiikawa #anime #manga #movies #hollywood #genz #hellokitty #sanrio #pikachu #odysseus #us

A quotation from Homer

And, oh! whate’er Heaven destined to betide,
   Let neither flattery soothe, nor pity hide.
Prepared I stand: he was but born to try
   The lot of man; to suffer, and to die.
 
[πέρι γάρ μιν ὀιζυρὸν τέκε μήτηρ.
μηδέ τί μ᾽ αἰδόμενος μειλίσσεο μηδ᾽ ἐλεαίρων,
ἀλλ᾽ εὖ μοι κατάλεξον ὃπως ἤντησας ὀπωπῆς.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 3, l. 96ff (3.96) (c. 700 BC) [tr. Pope (1725), l. 114ff]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/homer/49946/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #homer #odyssey #telemachus #odysseus #brutallyhonest #candor #destiny #doom #fate #honesty #meaningoflife #misfortune #mortality #suffering #death

🎞 watched “The Odyssey” at the Metreon in 70mm IMAX on opening weekend, and mostly enjoyed it. No spoilers in this post.


My pal Rohit (@rohit.khare.org) had bought tickets last year, had a spare, and invited me along last minute. After an early dinner at Cha Cha Cha (@chachachasf.com) we made our way to the Metreon.

There was a line to get in. I have never before seen a line merely to get into the IMAX theater. We only missed maybe 1-2 movie trailers.

Our seats were in the front row, only a few seats from the left edge. In general I would not recommend the front 3-4 rows at an IMAX theater because it requires craning your neck back, and lots of swiveling to see the entire screen. Ironically being near the corner helped minimize the latter. Despite being sold out, the seat to my left was empty so I was able to lean back kinda diagonally to take in most of the screen.


The film itself was excellent (as many others have said).

There were parts that felt like they dragged a bit, yet also parts that felt rushed, where a bit more build-up before resolution would have hit harder. The only negative of the experience was the seating location in the IMAX theater, and the rigidness of the seats (they’re quite old, not like newer, plushier reclining seats that most theaters have upgraded to.)

The best part of The Odyssey is despite all the action, it dives into a number of philosophical and other intellectual challenges, illustrated by the situations encountered and paths taken.

I recommend seeing this film with nerdy friends on the earlier side, grabbing dinner after and discussing the nature, ethics, decisions, actions of the characters, and consequences thereof.

I definitely want to see it again.

#TheOdyssey #Odyssey #Odysseus #IMAX #70mmIMAX #IMAX70mm #Metreon #Blaugust #Blaugust2026 #2026_199 #2026_07_18

The Odyssey: A Review

Have you ever had one of those moments in life that at the time felt like a great victory, but then turned sour later on, leading to regret? I have. It’s no fun to look back on. It can hurt worse to look in the mirror.

Sure you can go into therapy to help you feel better about your choices and the ramifications. But first you have to face them, own them, and accept responsibility.

Or you could try to bury them in the bottle. Or drugs, illicit or otherwise. Or some other way of trying to keep them from resurfacing. Or you could just throw up your hands, blame the gods. Perhaps defy them. But in the end the choices you make define you. How you deal with the definition tells your story.

That’s essentially the story of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Much the same as it was with Oppenheimer. Do a thing. Do it well. Succeed. Then realize what you’ve done has unleashed problems bigger than the one you set out to overcome.

Is The Odyssey a good film? In my opinion, yes. Bordering on being very good one. It’s not a great one. You can see Nolan’s affection for the story he’s telling and his passion for the techniques he’s using to do so in every frame. That passion for filmmaking his way is also what keeps The Odyssey from being a great film.

In general I blow hot and cold on Nolan’s work. While he can create some thrilling cinema, his attention to his process creates an almost Brechtian alienation, while still embracing the story he’s trying to tell. And make no mistake this Odyssey is Nolan’s story more than it is Homer’s. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is a movie after all, and a story to tell the way he wants too. But in most of his movies, his love for his craft and artistry is too distancing to lure me in.

As to the story, the similarities between The Odyssey and Oppenheimer are easy to see. Man uses his ingenuity to do the impossible, man ends up regretting the result. Nolan told that story better in Oppenheimer.

Both films contain big moments of spectacle alternating with more intimate scenes. I walked away from Oppenheimer less impressed with the apparent painstaking to create explosions than I was with the more intimate scenes which I found infinitely more frightening and revealing. I don’t feel the same way about The Odyssey, although the work to create the Cyclops and Circe’s turning Odysseus’ men into swine pays off very well. The intimate scenes in The Odyssey did not capture me the way I think Nolan thought they would. The spectacle largely worked well. Which brings me to Matt Damon.

I don’t think Damon was the best choice for the lead. Given the framing that Nolan chose to wrap his story in, he certainly wasn’t. Following the poem’s lead in alternating timelines, Damon seemed to be the same throughout most of the film, until his return home.

Damon’s known for his straight ahead with purpose presence on screen, plowing through any obstacle in his path, typically with a strong resolve that’s unyielding. Prior to seeing the film I thought the casting made great sense. Yet it did not in practice. I never felt Damon transition from a “something’s really bothering me about all of this” gest into a leader of confidence and cunning until the final act. He just seemed bothered.

Part of that is certainly in the writing, both Nolan’s and Homer’s, given that the story is more about looking back in the aftermath. That makes sense while he’s trying to come to grips with all he’s wrought after the sack of Troy, but not in the early stages of his adventure, which we’re treated to in flashbacks. There’s no self-accomplished, self-aggrandizing height from which he can fall. His compatriots around him acted as if they were seeing something out of the ordinary, yet we never really saw what bonded their allegiance to him in the first place.

The other aspect of The Odyssey that keeps it from being a great film is the Netflix-like don’t trust your audience to pay attention restating of Zeus’ law, which grounds Odysseus’ guilt. The point that Zeus’s golden rule (be kind to strangers and guests-you never know they may be a god in disguise) is repeated so frequently, it often feels like Nolan the screenwriter didn’t trust it as the central motivating point for his character’s actions and struggles.

On the plus side, Nolan has assembled an incredible cast of actors around Damon that we’re used to seeing carry their own films and that largely pays off. Although some seem underused. The visual and aural experience can be stunning. I particularly like the choice of orchestrations in the soundtrack. The special effects have their special moments.

Is it worth seeing? I’d say yes. I’d also say that what it offers will not be substantially different once it becomes a streaming success than it is in the theaters, especially the limited number of venues that show it in the format the director wishes.

I won’t get into the squabbles that have surrounded this film with more free publicity than you can shake a stick at. With one exception. I keep reading and hearing folks saying Nolan’s version of The Odyssey is as much about today as it is about the age the story takes place in. Of course in today’s world that means some love that and some hate that. That has more to do with Homer than it has to do with Nolan.

The reason many of certain generations are at least tangentially familiar with The Odyssey is Homer wrote a story about humankind that is as enduring as the flaws and faults we as a species share and keep repeating. It’s a mirror that exposes those flaws that we really work hard to avoid looking into. It’s a difficult story that needs telling in and of itself, and has found itself as the foundation of many different variants in other forms. Funny thing is, we never seem to learn from it, regardless of its trappings.

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

【鄒崇銘】奧德賽：創傷、離散、療癒和回家之路
路蘭新作《奧德賽》，重構三千年前荷馬筆下Odysseus長達十年的漂泊之旅，難免觸動離散港人的鄉愁。 在路蘭的 […]
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https://points-media.com/最新/【鄒崇銘】奧德賽：創傷、離散、療癒和回家之路/

https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Sachsen-Odyssey/pages/001-chapterhead/

Another engraving from Homer’s Odyssey. Seems like a good time for them :-)

This time i included the border, which is also used for the full-page illustrations.

Can you tell me more about what’s going on here? This is at the start of the poem. See Web page for my uninformed guesses :-)

#vintageEngraving #vintageArt #fobo #Homer #Odysseus #Odysee #Odyssey #ancientGreece #chapterHead #engraving

So, I read an excellent essay about #ToxicMasculinity a few years ago. Pretty much, it has to do with #hierarchy (#capitalism / #colonialism) making men feel powerless -- so they bully other men for dominance, and the result is dominating attitudes toward those perceived as lower in status (women, girls, foreigners, etc).

In many ways, it goes way back to #AncientGreece -- pretty much, the only ones who had any rights at all were landowning men who were Greek citizens. And, of course, power, wealth and status dominating over those dominated men. #TheOdyssey and #Odysseus' attitude toward women (other than Penelope), those of lesser status, and foreigners -- was typical of the Achaean male viewpoint.

@Remittancegirl @Crystal_Fish_Caves

There are so man #craft lessons #writers can learn from #TheOdyssey (#homer, not #ChristopherNolan), as long as they don't try to shoehorn modern paradigms onto an ancient poem. Learn how Homer uses parallel episodes to show #Odysseus' character growth.

#writingcommunity #odyssey

https://aarubin.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/craft-lesson-from-the-odyssey-parallel-structure/

The dog who waited for Odysseus: Argos reflects the deep human‑animal bonds of ancient Greece

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://interaksyon.philstar.com/trends-spotlights/2026/07/31/317211/the-dog-who-waited-for-odysseus-argos-reflects-the-deep-human%e2%80%91animal-bonds-of-ancient-greece/

I would watch the Miss Piggysseus movie.

#muppets #odyssey #odysseus #misspiggy #misspiggysseus #movie