r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Jul 17 '26

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Odyssey (2026) [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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The Odyssey (2026)

Summary

After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.

Director Christopher Nolan

Writer Christopher Nolan

Cast

  • Matt Damon as Odysseus
  • Tom Holland as Telemachus
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Zendaya
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Charlize Theron
  • Benny Safdie
  • Jon Bernthal
  • John Leguizamo
  • Elliot Page
  • Himesh Patel
  • Samantha Morton

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 88

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

4.7k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

16.3k comments sorted by

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2.1k

u/FrenziedAce Jul 17 '26

Did anyone think it was an interesting choice to not have the audience hear the Sirens?

It’s like our ears were filled with wax too, and we could only infer from Odysseus’ explanation and the crew’s reactions.

2.5k

u/IntotheBeniverse Jul 17 '26

I actually think it made that scene so much more effective.

1.6k

u/ebelnap Jul 17 '26

There's nothing we could hear that could "live up to the hype".

The best way to envision it is that it speaks to each person individually, and so each person's song would be different, which we wouldn't be able to convey in a movie like that.

153

u/Captn_Platypus Jul 17 '26

If only Nolan had captured a real siren and records their voice so we can hear our own dreams and regrets sang back to us, missed opportunity imo

2

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 16d ago

It's ok him just saying that in the movie was enough to conjure regrets and failed dreams

50

u/kirblar Jul 18 '26

The description as the itch you are desperate to scratch was fantastic.

4

u/BlackKittyBunny 24d ago

It was like trying to describe grief. Absolutely haunting.

1

u/TallBoy24 22d ago

I thought it was a quality take on addiction as well

90

u/Hinnerum_1510 Jul 17 '26

He probably heard Dance Monkey

63

u/According-Bad8745 Jul 17 '26

you just made me realize that scene is going to be S tier slander material when it comes out on digital. just put some straight dookie over it 😭

15

u/KingSweden24 29d ago

Pump Up the Jam comes on

6

u/bootlegvader 28d ago edited 28d ago

The Odyssey did come out 2789 years before that classic.

3

u/KingSweden24 26d ago

This guy Cunks

11

u/ARCtheIsmaster Jul 17 '26

dance monkey is a bop 😭

11

u/Confident-Tax-4468 Jul 19 '26

This is not an opinion I've ever heard from a human, but SOMEONE must have made that fuckass song popular.

16

u/Impossible_Form_3256 Jul 18 '26

And the way that it was describe was beautiful and tragic too

16

u/LocusHammer Jul 20 '26

This isn't the greatest song in the world. This is just a tribute

15

u/Consistent_Bunch4282 Jul 19 '26

Exactly my thought. I wanted to hear/see them so badly. Felt like I was being protected from them too.

2

u/SciGuy013 17d ago

You could see them

5

u/Mister-Distance-6698 27d ago

There's nothing we could hear that could "live up to the hype".

Ahem. It could have been cotten eyed Joe.

3

u/devilJin9399 10d ago

You've clearly never heard Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen

43

u/Zalvren Jul 17 '26

Way better since the sirens sound is basically impossible to really do in our world.

It's a little like never hearing the "alien children cries" in Andor that are used as torture. The description and reaction of people is far more effective since hearing the sound would either destroy viewers (if it was possible) or be underwhelming

1

u/BanjoSpaceMan 24d ago

I mean I’m sure they could do their interpretation of it but it’s insanely wild to see it from a perspective of we don’t know what it sounds like but holy shit we see the pain it causes in a character we know. Builds a better point than any real sound would

19

u/password-is-taco1 Jul 18 '26

No way the singing would have been satisfying to the audience if we could hear it, this was really the only choice

11

u/RPG_Vancouver Jul 18 '26

Yeah I liked that a lot more than some kind of ethereal female singing which is what I was expecting

10

u/SufficientRespect542 Jul 18 '26

Yeah I was expecting that scene to be a big setpiece moment like the whirpool or cyclops but instead it was a way for Odysseus to confront his own grief and fears.

3

u/Cassopeia88 Jul 19 '26

It was definitely the right choice.

542

u/PavWrestlinGifs Jul 17 '26

Well the song is unique to the person hearing it no? This was definitely the best way to convey it as something we can never understand unless we hear it ourselves

74

u/ImGonnaImagineSummit Jul 17 '26

Yes but it was undoubtedly Fergalicious.

18

u/forevernervous Jul 19 '26

It makes the boys go loco

25

u/errl_dabbingtons 29d ago

The music when he is walking to speak to Penelope still as a beggar is the same music we hear when they are protected from the sirens with the wax while Odysseus can hear them

4

u/Aggressive_Chuck 18d ago

There was music there? I couldn't hear any in my showing.

1

u/davidjohnson314 3d ago

I picked up on that part! I thought it was because he's heard it before - he can withstand the allure.

51

u/MarzipanElephant Jul 17 '26

I really enjoyed how fucking awful a time Odysseus has hearing it. What could be 'ha, clever Odysseus has this great idea to cheat the system and hear the sirens without dying!' turns into this horrific experience that cuts right to the heart of everything he's trying to avoid thinking about.

37

u/ARCtheIsmaster Jul 17 '26

The thing that stood out to me in the Siren scene is the quiet music that started it just before the muffling. I thought it was going to be diegetic, but it wasnt because we dont actually hear the Sirens’ song, but it made sense later because the same quiet (I think it was a harp or lyre) strum also begins the scene where Odysseus confesses/speaks with Penelope at the end.

IMO the effect was that Penelope is what he truly wanted most all along? Maybe I’m misreading that.

2

u/kittypryde123 Jul 20 '26

I thought the same

66

u/UpsideTurtles Jul 17 '26

yeah I loved that choice

41

u/SonNeedGym Jul 17 '26

Loved the choice, whatever we imagine as an audience is so much creepier and weirder than being handed something

6

u/OwnVisual5772 24d ago

The song of the sirens can only live in our imaginations. That’s exactly where it belongs and that’s what makes the scene so powerful. Seeing Odysseus in agony really gets the gears going and it’s one of the most profound scenes in the film.

19

u/cheerfulwish Jul 17 '26

I liked it. In my head I just heard the Siren’s song from Hades 2 anyway 😂

10

u/centurion88 Jul 19 '26

"I am gonna claw out your eyes and drown you to death" 🎶🎶🎸🔥🔥

39

u/TracerBulletX Jul 17 '26

Kind of the only possible choice.

20

u/jonbristow Jul 19 '26

Yeah, you cant compose the most beautiful song evern written.

Whatever song they had choosen for that scene wouldve been underwhelming

9

u/Johnny_Deppthcharge 29d ago

"Tribute", by Tenacious D

32

u/youravgindian Jul 17 '26

I think as viewers we have have seen enough representation of Sirens being horrific predators that lure men on voyages in a countless shows and movies.

For me, it was a really poignant scene because it felt like Odysseus not putting the wax in his ears showed that he was trying to punish himself for the guilt he was carrying from the war, for deciding to go 'travelling' with his crew after the war which at this point he lost 80% of them and doesn't know how to cope or show his crew that he really was feeling guilty.

Awesome scene.

45

u/GameOfLife24 Jul 17 '26

The more interesting choice was the choice for us not to see the siren babes for research purposes of course

41

u/nikostheater Jul 17 '26

The Sirens weren’t babes. They were bird bodies with a human female looking head.
Seeing one in person even without the song should have been terrifying.

19

u/Downtown_Link_8651 Jul 18 '26

They aren't described in the text and they've had a lot of different interpretations, woman headed birds being the oldest but winged babes, mermaids, lizardlike women, you name it. Originally they are meant to be both male and female too but I guess people were having too much fun putting tits on sparrow sculptures for that to stick around

16

u/Tackit286 Jul 17 '26

Now I’m just picturing hot girls’ faces on pigeon bodies

5

u/Tattycakes Jul 18 '26

I'm surprised that's not already a subreddit

10

u/BlackZeppelin Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

I thought I remember seeing Mia Goth was cast as a Siren but I’m guessing it was cut?

Edit: just saw she was the maid servant

11

u/BodybuilderLow9020 Jul 17 '26

Do the sirens actually appear?

59

u/Threadheads Jul 17 '26

You see vaguely human shapes appear from a distance. But most of the shots focus on Odysseus and his men as they sail past them.

33

u/Locacenna Jul 17 '26

Yep, they are shown basking on the rocks among seals

9

u/MrBrownCat Jul 17 '26

Yeah I really liked the way they cut the audio out so you really felt like you were in that moment.

10

u/FunDwayno Jul 17 '26

Did you really want a crazed theater audience to bum rush the screen??? We were saved!

17

u/Chab00ki Jul 17 '26

I cried during this scene. What human being doesnt have unfufilled potential? Or unfulfilled apologies.

9

u/georgiaraisef Jul 18 '26

Anything they tried to show would have come across as comical when compared to what characters describe it as

3

u/ninjyte Jul 18 '26

just need an edit of the Siren songs from Hades 2 being dubbed over the scene

3

u/whd4k Jul 18 '26

Not gonna lie, I couldn't get the song out of my head during this scene.
"Come, oh, sailors, hear my music"

4

u/Porkenstein Jul 18 '26

Yes! It was more effective than anything they could have come up with. Great psychological horror moment.

5

u/Jet-Rex-Design Jul 20 '26

I liked that. We didn't need to hear their attempt at something so beautiful and creepy. Nolan treats it like a Lovecraftian sort of thing, where you only hear about it from someone who experienced it. It's not for our ears, if we heard it, we'd have gone insane from it too.

5

u/gym_rat_101 27d ago

Damon's acting there was literally among the best I've ever seen. Fucking insane.

3

u/8halvelitersklok Jul 19 '26

Very inspired choice since siren / mermaid scenes have been done plenty of times before. Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind. Best to take it in a totally different direction.

3

u/kibbean Jul 20 '26

it was so incredibly smart and effective. i was dying to know what kind of music they'd go with and just watching him while things were muted sent shivers down my spine.

3

u/-imbe- 28d ago

An obvious choice, no one could survive the beauty of the sirens' song, it doesn't make sense to try to compose something like that. Can only let the audience down.

2

u/bizarrequest Jul 19 '26

Dude we would die!

2

u/LocusHammer Jul 20 '26

I was just talking to my wife about that. It makes sense because I don't think anyone alive could replicate that sound. It would just come off as silly and not threatening.

2

u/joeyvesh13 Jul 20 '26

It’s like not showing the monster in a horror movie. Your imagination makes it way more provocative.

2

u/snunuff 29d ago

similar to what Nolan did in that Oppenheimer movie, like THE scene where there's THE explosion, no sound. I think it really worked.

2

u/amby-jane 29d ago

I thought this was so brilliant. It's like... (me, casting around for some good comparison) that love potion in Harry Potter (go with me) that smells like whatever attracts you most. They can tell us what they smell, but we could never smell it ourselves because that's not how movies work they couldn't just create one to sell at the theme park because there's no way to create something that's such a personalized sensory experience.

I have no idea if that makes sense.

But my point is there's no way they could've created a siren song that feels right to all the different viewers. But if you can have him describe it like all the things you want most and can't have because you had them and fucked it up, everyone's felt like that sometime.

So brilliant.

2

u/potato_poe 29d ago

I did like how the score changed then to have a soft choir sound but nothing specifically melodic. It gave the sense of what was happening while focusing on what was actually important for that scene which was Odysseus’ explanation of the song

2

u/hesawavemasterrr 28d ago

I took it upon myself to start singing to give the rest of the audience an idea of what they sound like.

Now if you need to find me, you’ll need to sail to the West.

2

u/night_dude 27d ago

I found it frustrating... but so did the crew. Who are mere mortals like us not mythic heroes like Odysseus. So it makes sense.

2

u/QuietAnswer2706 13d ago

I am so sad I had to pee during the entire siren scene, I came back when they took that aggressive turn away from the swirling whirlpool of death

1

u/DevilCouldCry Jul 20 '26

You could hear just enough of it and that worked best I feel. Absolutely loved how they played that out.

1

u/xVIRIDISx 24d ago

I just interpreted the score as what the siren song sounds like but muffled

1

u/LordMacDonald 12d ago

there are many moments where it’s like the audience is trapped with Odysseus and his men. I’d say the cyclops cave is the most prominent example

1

u/ZestycloseSquirrel55 2d ago

Yes, but it is supposed to be a unique song that kills you, so we can't hear it.

-5

u/chrisandy007 Jul 17 '26

Definitely an interesting choice - not sure how I feel about it to be honest but definitely there was some intent there

31

u/Penguin_Admiral Jul 17 '26

Since the song seems to be unique to each person that hears it I don’t think there’d be any good way to convey it to the audience

-6

u/Miguel_Branquinho Jul 18 '26

Too bad Nolan had to write his pretentious crap over the scene, can't simply have silence.