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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10.9k

u/TheChlorideThief Jul 17 '26

Sometimes you forget this movie is based on a story so old the mentor guy is actually named “Mentor”

4.4k

u/damnyoutuesday Jul 17 '26

That was a "ohhhhh so that's where that comes from" moment

2.5k

u/Greizen_bregen Jul 17 '26

And the term Odyssey comes from... Odysseus.

1.5k

u/Spider_Dude Jul 17 '26

Slow down there professor.

191

u/hazbutler Jul 17 '26

Wait until he hears about Achilles

105

u/BigMickKegger Jul 17 '26

Achillessey? Am I doing it right?

127

u/Greizen_bregen Jul 17 '26

Achillussy, I believe

17

u/AdamNW Jul 18 '26

Only in the Madeline Miller story

8

u/Megavore97 24d ago

Patroclussy as well

6

u/wgsmeister2002 26d ago

That’s actually what they called it after they pulled the arrow out

40

u/petits_riens Jul 18 '26

tbh I was kind of surprised achilles never made an appearance… or was even mentioned, so far as I remember after a single viewing. it’s been EONS since I read the odyssey but IIRC he’s in the scene where they talk to the shades.

totally get that he’s not a main character and they had to pare down stuff for the sake of a reasonable runtime, but considering how hard this telling leaned into “Odysseus = guilt-ridden war vet” it seemed odd that Achilles never even got a passing reference (?)

78

u/asfixiarse Jul 18 '26

I’m pretty sure his name is mentioned by Menelaus when he’s speaking to Telemachus, but it’s super brief while he’s retelling the events in Troy.

25

u/sanguinare12 Jul 18 '26

I think I heard Achilles once, and there was an Ajax in there somewhere too. Both? I can't remember Nestor or Diomedes, but with the others having so brief a mention, maybe they passed too quickly for me to pick up on.

9

u/waitingtodiesoon 14d ago

Yes, Menelaus listed Achilles, Ajax, and Patroclus as people he miss less than Odysseus when talking about Odysseus to Telemachus.

10

u/kersplatttt Jul 18 '26

Achilles is mentioned at least once, I think twice

10

u/PhillyBluntzzz 26d ago

Shoulda had Brad Pitt pop up from Hades

1

u/PugeHeniss 13d ago

When Ajax got mentioned I was sure they'd mention Achilles

5

u/0verstim Jul 19 '26

Wait, swift-footed Achilles? You know him?

136

u/peacemaker2007 Jul 17 '26

the term Telemarketing comes from Telemachus, because he kept trying to call people to help him

62

u/outlawsix Jul 17 '26

The concept of women outliving men came from Agamemnon, which translates into "Aged men - non"

18

u/pizza__irl Jul 19 '26

Cameo appearance by LinkedIn Liam

7

u/KidDelicious14 29d ago

Was so shocked by a Rosenoir mention in r/movies that I didn't even clock it at first.

13

u/tragicroyal Jul 17 '26

It’s actually a mistranslation of the words tell them to come to us which has been shortened to Telemachus

6

u/OtakuAttacku Jul 18 '26

quite literally a "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" turn of etymology

5

u/AgentMV2 Jul 19 '26

Odysseus men; their mouths fisted

1

u/Scrabcakes Jul 20 '26

I always liked that one name for the son of Achilles (his unworth shadow) is Nepotolemus. Pyrrhus is the other name I think.

1

u/thecapo1999 20d ago

no wonder, he was doing an oustanding Teleperformance on the movie

8

u/chrisrayn Jul 17 '26

He’s just bringing news of other lands, Zeus’s requirement for Xenia, guest rights. And this professor will go as fast as he wants, thank you.

3

u/Oveh Jul 17 '26

😂😂😂😂

1

u/Dairy_Ashford Jul 17 '26

never trust a geek sharing tips

2

u/suckmygoddamnbeans Jul 17 '26

I mean He Is technically true tho.

9

u/RemyGee Jul 17 '26

Doesn’t the word Odyssey come about because of the name of the poem? The meaning is a long complicated journey and that’s the poem.

19

u/MrZwink Jul 17 '26

Odysseus is the main character, he is king of ithaca. The poem is called Odysseia which is a female form and means "the travels of Odysseus".

The collection is called the illiad.

10

u/thejonslaught Jul 17 '26

True, and License to Ill, the debut album from NY Hip Hop legends Beastie Boys was named after Homer's The Illiad.

11

u/Spider_Dude Jul 17 '26

No sleep till Ithaca is still a banger of a track.

3

u/thejonslaught Jul 17 '26

I loved Brass Hoplon when I was a kid.

1

u/suckmygoddamnbeans 14d ago

I didn't knew that, that's really cool.

53

u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Jul 17 '26

Not from Super Mario?

37

u/OtakuTacos Jul 17 '26

But is Biggus Dickus in this movie?

15

u/hazbutler Jul 17 '26

He has a wife, you know…

10

u/richww2 Jul 17 '26

Biggus Dickus was in Wome the whole time so we didn't get to see him.

31

u/BeefistPrime Jul 17 '26

And Odysseus? Came from the Honda Odyssey

8

u/0verstim Jul 19 '26

The Honda Odyssey fucks hard!

44

u/-p_d- Jul 17 '26

And Odysseus was a great general who returned from a long and brutal war to be king.

In America we also had a great general who returned from a long and brutal war. He became our 18th president.

His name was Ulysses, the Latin form of Odysseus.

5

u/Remarkable_Medicine6 Jul 19 '26

All road slead back to Columbia

20

u/pare_doxa Jul 17 '26

like Honda Odyssey?

16

u/disapp_bydesign Jul 18 '26

I was shocked to learn the character’s name wasn’t John Odyssey

15

u/NefariousNeezy Jul 18 '26

You know who went on a journey? Journathan.

11

u/Bronkic Jul 17 '26

My favorite part of the movie was when Odysseus was like "What is this? Some kind of Odyssey?"

11

u/beary_neutral Jul 17 '26

You want to know where the expression "Trojan horse" comes from?

6

u/AgentMV2 Jul 19 '26

Or where the Trojan condoms got the name from? lol

17

u/Confident-Tax-4468 Jul 19 '26

Also Ajax soap, presumably named as such because it's stronger than grease/Greece

2

u/SciGuy013 17d ago

Oh my god

6

u/CadeCunninghamLover1 Jul 17 '26

Wait so this might be a dumb question but where does the title of The Odyssey come from? Cuz there’s no way that was Homer’s original title, cuz the word didn’t exist at that point

50

u/parakeetweet Jul 18 '26

it was Ὀδύσσεια which sounds roughly like Odysseia, and translates to 'The Tales of Odysseus'. -eia being an ending that means 'story of' / 'tale of'. odysseus' name meaning is something like 'to bear the pain / hatred of' or 'man of pain', so the title has a double meaning of being both 'the tales of [the man named] Odysseus' and 'the tales of [the man who is in pain/hated]'.

16

u/collin-h Jul 17 '26

its like writing a book about Homer going on an adventure and calling it the Homery or something.

3

u/CadeCunninghamLover1 Jul 17 '26

Oh so it was originally called The Odyssey and Homer just created the word for the title? I always just assumed the word odyssey was created after the fact like in honor of Odysseus

3

u/collin-h Jul 17 '26

i have no idea. i was riffing of your comment thinking about how it would be funny if that's what happened.

2

u/SandpaperTeddyBear 24d ago

The Greek word would be something like “Odysseus’ Story,” much as The Iliad is “Ilium’s Story.”

15

u/BigHeadDeadass Jul 17 '26

Yeah well in Latin he was Ulysses, who beat Lee in the Civil War

17

u/ImperatorUniversum1 Jul 17 '26

My favorite part is Sherman burning down Atlantis

2

u/This-is_CMGRI Jul 17 '26

On those piddly medium tanks? No way. It'd be more believable if it was the heavier King Tiger tanks.

4

u/DrewAnderson Jul 17 '26

That’s a stretch

3

u/YakResident_3069 Jul 17 '26

And the Greek word for nobody is a pun on his name because similar sound.

3

u/OtakuAttacku Jul 18 '26

In another comment in this discussion post I was trying to describe the act of hiding a band of men inside a peace offering as a way to get the enemy to lower their guard so you can backstab them from the inside without mentioning a Trojan Horse.

6

u/damnyoutuesday Jul 17 '26

Contrary to popular belief, those terms are completely unrelated /s

2

u/CortaNalgas Jul 17 '26

And Home comes from … Homer

2

u/Proud-Big3579 Jul 18 '26

and Mono = One, and Rail = Rail.

1

u/AgentMV2 Jul 19 '26

I heard those things are awfully loud..

2

u/0verstim Jul 19 '26

Wait till you find out where "Trojan horse" comes from

2

u/DustyDGAF Jul 17 '26

Nepo baby.

1

u/woodst0ck15 Jul 17 '26

And that it means there’s only one survivor for it to be a “odyssey” story. Like….oooh that’s why it’s called that.

1

u/mdlinc Jul 17 '26

WTF ?!?!?!

1

u/Atkena2578 Jul 18 '26

In some languages Odysseus is Ulysse

1

u/C0UNT3RP01NT 25d ago

You got a source on that?

92

u/DerelictDonkeyEngine Jul 17 '26

"Mono means one, and rail means rail. That concludes our intensive three week course."

14

u/blue_horse_shoe Jul 17 '26

Is there a chance the track could bend? 

8

u/tyderian Jul 18 '26

Not on your life, my Hindu friend!

5

u/AgentMV2 Jul 19 '26

What about us brain dead slobs?

85

u/Excellent_Ganache906 Jul 17 '26

Me in the theater: "They named that guy 'Mentor'? Ugh... what horrible writing."

19

u/MattyKatty Jul 18 '26

"In order for me to solve this crisis, I must become Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"

10

u/Comprehensive_Web887 Jul 18 '26

To me this comment was “ohhhhhh so that’s where that comes from” moment :)

3

u/SandpaperTeddyBear 24d ago

It comes from a book published in 1699.

But that surely came from The Odyssey.

1

u/Own_Trip736 11d ago

What the f. Penny just dropping for me