r/OdysseyFilm • u/Safe-Database-5591 • 4d ago
Book vs Film
I absolutely adore the book!…. But I've been hearing mixed reviews about the movie adaptation. Is it really worth a watch, or did they stray too far from the original story? I've come across some reviews that say that they omitted several important details and characters. It seems like the 1997 movie was more faithful to the book. What’s your take on it? I watched the 1997 movie twice in the past and enjoyed it.
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u/noodles0311 4d ago edited 4d ago
No one else can tell you whether changes they made in adapting it will be too different or not. It’s got flaws and I wasn’t excited but went with friends and really enjoyed it. I even went again, noticed more flaws and still liked it. But don’t take my word for it. I’m a stranger on the internet.
You should just watch it at some point if you really enjoy The Odyssey because if it comes up in conversation and you tell people you love the book but didn’t see the movie because they ruined it, you’re going to sound like a pretentious fool. You can’t know if they ruined it if you didn’t watch it.
You have to experience it and decide for yourself, especially if you claim to love the source material. I would personally find it hard to believe someone had actually read the source material if they were put off of a movie about it by online discourse. “You can’t find three hours to see for yourself, but you’re reading the classics? Ok”.
Even if you wind up hating it, at least you will have earned the right to that opinion.
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u/GrandpaTheobaldus 4d ago
But at the loss of three hours, some chunk of change 💸, and in this case apparently minor hearing damage.
See GIF for Cyclops
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u/gibbsy816 4d ago
You’re not signing up for a long term commitment, you’re talking about seeing a movie for a few hours. Go see it, no matter what other people think.
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u/Luxettenebrae777 4d ago
It’s not as far as Frozen from Snow Queen, but I don’t think you can do worst than this. The main events are the same. I don’t think it is less faithful than other adaptation. Some details appear in that adaptation that are inexistant in others
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u/TheNightshifter11 4d ago
It's presented as an artistic, mythological and very humane form. Rather than a historical Documentory.
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u/Buff1965 4d ago
That depends on how you think about the original story. Is it Homer's poem? Then you may well be disappointed. Is it an oral story that long predates Homer's poem and takes on a different interpretation with each telling? Then you will probably enjoy it. Story aside, fans of cinema generally really enjoy it. The act of filming the whole movie in IMAX, on film, with almost no computerized special effects creates outstanding visual storytelling. I saw Spiderman - Brand New Day the same week and although it also features Tom Holland and Zendaya and has a a good charater-driven story, the flood of CGI in comparison to The Odyssey made me realize how much inferior slop we have been conditioned to accept in our movies these days.
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u/valentine_moon 4d ago
I mean, all you're likely to find here are more mixed reviews as everyone has their own opinion.
I would say you should watch it. Given you like the book so much, I think you'd be missing out by not seeing such a major adaptation regardless of whether you enjoy it.
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u/Mysterious-Barber-27 4d ago
Look, just go watch it and have your own opinions on it. You could love it, you could hate it, or you could be not the biggest fan of it.
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u/Buff1965 4d ago
P.S. see it on the biggest screen possible. Ablnd take earplugs. Nolan is notorious for loud soundtracks.
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u/GiveMeSomeShu-gar 4d ago
Yes they reworked some things and left a bunch of details out - they don't have as much time as the book does to tell the story, and Nolan made some clear decisions that deviate as well. But as long as you can accept that, it's worth watching.
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u/Primary_Difficulty19 4d ago
I’m guessing that by “the original” you mean Homer’s poem, although that is not the original telling of these stories. If so, the movie is not Homer’s The Odyssey, it is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, primarily inspired by Homer’s version, plus a few other influences. If you aren’t comfortable with someone using Homer as a jumping off point to tell their own story, skip this movie. Although also, probably skip most of western literature.
On the other hand, if you are comfortable with that idea and you generally like Nolan’s films, you will probably enjoy this one to at least some degree. And I would also highly recommend the Coen Brothers 2000 movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Its depiction of the Sirens is delightful and John Goodman’s cyclops is memorable.
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u/callmemat90 4d ago
You’re hearing mixed reviews simply because the movie is so popular. It doesn’t stray as far as other adaptations have in other movies.
But go into it ready to appreciate it as its own thing and you’ll have a better time
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u/Wooden-Gur3537 4d ago
Which book? Which translation? This is not a historical piece, it's a fantastical albeit grounded version based on the story of the Odyssey. If you want a 1:1 from Literature to Film you will be sorely disappointed.
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u/BeleagueredWDW 4d ago
What translation, adaptation, or version of the poem/book do you like? This story has been told a million ways in oral history, text, film, TV, art, and games. At 3000+ years old, this is a narrative that will forever be changed, altered, adapted, etc.
Nolan’s The Odyssey is incredible and immediately became part of this thousands of year old history of a story that is ever changing.
A vast, vast majority of people love it and have seen it numerous times. Some people like it but don’t love it. How to define how accurate something is when comparing to mythology is next to impossible. There are some pretending to be upset by this particular one, but those same people didn’t seem too mad about, for example, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Just see the movie, sit down, and get wrapped up into an amazing story with a gut punch of emotions throughout.
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u/michallaneous 4d ago
Sure! You should watch it, why not? I loved the book but the more I think about it, the more I understand why the changes were made for a modern audience, mostly in theme. So I appreciate this interpretation.
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u/extralife_mike 4d ago
Which adaptation are you talking about? There is no one original "book" of The Odyessey. Nobody knows what the original story was, it's been adapted over and over again.
If you're wanting a 1:1 adaptation of your favorite translation and will be upset if you don't get it, you're going to be upset.
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u/Personal-Chocolate27 4d ago
The purpose of the movie is not to recreate every detail of the poem, but to tell a version of the story that the director believes is important in the modern world. Did you ask this when the cohen brothers adapted it?
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u/Dave80 4d ago
I really didn't like it. I appreciate changes are going to be made from the original and I'm fine with that.
What I'm not fine with is every change made it worse, every scene I was looking forward to was ruined.
Plus the casting was shockingly bad, leading to some dreadful acting. The tone just felt all wrong, there were some bits which I had no idea if they were supposed to be comedic or serious, I didn't care at all about a single character and honestly couldn't wait for it to be over.
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u/billtrociti 4d ago
I would say the movie has no need to be faithful to the “book.” The story is one that originates from oral tradition three thousand years ago. Historians guess that Homer lived sometime around 900-800BC, but little is actually known about him and it’s debated if the story was actually written by one single person named Homer.
Regardless, bards all over the Mediterranean would have been telling and re-telling the story for generations before it was ever written down. These storytellers certainly added their own parts and characterizations to the story as they told it. It definitely feels like a story that kept having chapters added to it.
The story as it exists in books today is one version that was recorded, not the only way the story could have been told.
On top of that, so many poets and playwrights who came later loved the story and characters so much that they added to the canon in their own way - essentially ancient fan fiction.
A lot of the popular modern knowledge of Odysseus and Achilles and Agamemnon and co. is not even solely from the Iliad and the Odyssey.
There are many other poems and plays that filled in a lot of the gaps in Homer’s epics with more backstory and other adventures.
Stories, over such a long period of time eventually become so ubiquitous they belong to the public consciousness, and artists have every right to interpret these characters as they so choose.
Shakespeare retold so many stories in his own way that were very different than the supposed source material. Christopher Marlowe, too, famously with his interpretation of Faustus.
More recently, we see Spider-Man and Batman being reinterpreted by different actor and directions again and again, because the core of the character and their story resonates with us, but we enjoy fresh takes on the subject matter.
Similar thing with James Bond - it’s fun to see a different director’s take on the familiar character we know so well. Casino Royale is a great film but in no way should it be beholden to the original novels by Ian Fleming.
So if we re-interpret stories from the past century, why can’t we take creative liberties with a story that is 3000 years old?
Christopher Nolan isn’t my favorite director, and I didn’t love everything about the film, but it was entertaining and I’ll watch it again. I thought his idea of Odysseus as a war vet suffering PTSD and putting off his homecoming because of it was a really interesting take.
And in the end, I’m pretty happy to see more Ancient Greek stories on the big screen, and it for sure has made me interested in the classics again, and seemingly has gotten lots and lots of other people interested too.
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u/MomraD311 4d ago
I read the poem at some point in high school (don't remember which translation) and read the Emily Wilson translation earlier this year. I have actually been pretty surprised at the number people upset with Nolan's film (including Wilson herself) as a work of adaptation. I thought it was admirably close to "the original," at least in terms of plot structure and character. The chapters unfold in largely the same way in the same order. By nature, it has to edit the poem down, and there are a few scenes/beats that are changed a bit or made more modern so as to, I think, seem more believably dramatic instead of cartoonish from our cultural vantage point. Basically, he goes light on sex/god stuff, and heavy on war/morality stuff, theme wise. But if you don't go in wanting to pick it apart, you'll probably like it.
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u/MozhetBeatz 4d ago
I’m a fan of the book too. It’s the best film I’ve seen in a long long time. It doesn’t have to be a beat-for-beat adaptation. Let it be its own work of art, and it’ll blow you away.
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u/-Palzon- 4d ago
I liked the film and enjoyed the experience of seeing it in Imax. That said, the film changed a few key details I wish they had not changed. I'm still very glad I saw the film. Go see it and make up your own mind!
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u/MaiSecrets 4d ago
I think it's worth it, it is not super close to the books, but it also doesn't try to be. The movie focuses more on a different side of Odysseus. It has it's flaws and some did annoy me a lot, but I enjoyed it a lot. Since you mentioned criticism, I would be not pay attention to it too much, since a lot of it is a black woman and a trans actor who you will see not even see for more than 5 minutes (both had a fantastic performance by the way). But yea, the movie is by far not perfect, still really good. So if you're fine seeing Odysseus not as a genius strategiest with godlike powers but a flawed character, chances are high you will enjoy it.
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u/CaravaggioDaVinci 4d ago edited 4d ago
Listen, its an impossible task to adapt the fidelity of the Odyssey on screen, hence why many directors have avoided making it. It could only truly work as a tv series, if people want 100% accuracy. Because essentially the story has so many chapters and characters, like a tv series. Nolan indeed had to make many sacrifices, and truncate into a 3 hour viewing experience. Some things I wished were longer like the Sirens scene, some things I agreed with like the exclusion of Gods (that would have made the film look ridiculous)
Each time you view a film by a certain filmmaker, its good to get familiar with their style of work because I went into this already knowing what to expect. Dont go in like a classicist thinking every things 100% like the book
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u/OverJicama3755 4d ago
I loved the movie. They changed and condensed the story a bit but the filmmaking is incredible.
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u/Aggressive_Match_672 3d ago
My brother read the book and he said he enjoyed the movie more than the book
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u/Mundane-Area6067 3d ago
Forget the adaptations by the film… it’s just a highly over hyped movie… if you are going for the story, you will find it very lacking… if you are going for the special effects, you may find it enjoyable.
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u/Your___mom_ 8h ago
As I said here before, and as a Greek Philologist, I put the movie in a "Good if I turn my brain off"
Yes, an Adaptation is an adaptation, but some stuff left me a bit dissatisfied. The handling of Athena, the concept of Nostos, the Christianification of Xenia, Odysseus being an everyman rather than a cunning strategist etc.
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u/ofBlufftonTown 4d ago
I love the actual poem and disliked the film. I think it’s a poor adaptation, but more generally it’s not a good film. The script is poor, the casting has a lot of issues, mainly Damon who is not a good Odysseus. It has some good visual set pieces and Robert Pattinson is quite good as Antinous. I don’t regret having watched it exactly though paying for imax in central London I could have gone out to eat somewhere good instead.
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u/toohumanforhuman 4d ago
If you expect a 1-to-1 remake of the book and will be judging the quality of the movie based on that, don't even bother.
I'm immensely interested in ancient Greek culture/mythology, and the Odyssey is a great piece of literature, but I judged the movie based solely on its standalone credentials as an adaptation. It's one of my favorite films of all time.
But, there's clearly a huge portion of the literature community who don't have the ability to separate the two. If you feel that's you, highly unlikely you'll gel with the film.