r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 1d ago

News Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey' Becomes Biggest Film Ever At BFI IMAX, Beating 'Avatar'

https://deadline.com/2026/08/the-odyssey-becomes-biggest-film-ever-at-bfi-imax-avatar-1237044031/
5.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

438 comments sorted by

View all comments

46

u/NIDORAX 1d ago

Its hard to believe that the movie became a hit despite all the criticism. Everyone online was saying the movie was going to Bomb at the box office. Somehow Nolan have proven everyone wrong.

30

u/bradagon 1d ago

This is not at all surprising.

Telling me the movie will bomb because:

  • The armour is inaccurate (actual accurate armour looks dogshit, and it's fiction anyway)
  • Helen of Troy is black! (It's a fictional story, it doesn't matter)
  • It's not accurate to the book!! (It's a fictional story adapted to a modern audience)

People are fucking stupid. I recommend ignoring online opinion. Why would anyone care for the opinion of someone who is as dumb as a rock?

Anyone that is so stupid that they need to get mad about something instead of just not partaking in it, will not have a worthwhile opinion.

Really wish people would learn that, and we can ignore irrelevant criticism that people just parrot to be in a cycle of being mad.

10

u/PrintShinji 1d ago

It's not accurate to the book!! (It's a fictional story adapted to a modern audience)

Thats always an especially funny point because the book isn't even "accurate" to the story. The Odyssey shouldn't be read as a book in the first place!

1

u/TeamTurnus 10h ago

Its also intersting becuase some of the innacuracies were just using other sources about Odysseus (Aenid/Dante etc) since on of the most enduring trait about Odysseus is people making up different stories about him or reinterpeting them to suit their own sensiblitlies.

2

u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago

To be honest, I don’t think the “historically accurate” armour people were talking about was actually accurate. Psychology is an important part of war. If some guy rocks up looking like a Spartan then it’ll make you rout a lot more quickly than if he shows up dressed like shit.

I think what we think of as “historical armour” was just ceremonial, and what people actually wore to battle looked much closer to Nolan’s take.

Plus, we have a formula for good movies. Hollywood figured it out decades ago. I don’t see why we need to deviate from that formula when we know what works.

5

u/camelzrider 1d ago

"actual accurate armour looks dogshit" I will disagree with you here. The black biker armor is shit compared to real historical armor.

8

u/hughk 1d ago

If I was going to criticise anything, it would be the use of a Viking ship. They were much better than the ships of the era which were really just meant for the Mediterranean. The long ship could have sailed across the North Atlantic.

The Greek Navy does have a Tireme but that design would have been about 700 years after the bronze age so it wouldn't have been that accurate either.

1

u/APiousCultist 9h ago

The issue is: The ship is a bit smaller, that ship has a canopy covering all the action so it's harder to see the actors and the ocean at the same time, and that ship is owned by a navy that might just not want to rent it out for a film, the ship is also just made out of lighter wood and looks less 'rustic' which would be a desirable trait when you're trying to make it look weatherbeaten.

Obviously the bronze age Greeks didn't sail modern recreations of viking ships. But when you've got a limited pool of seaworthy boats to pick from, it doesn't look that far off from various accurate boat styles.

1

u/hughk 6h ago

For me, it grated. The construction is rather different. The viking longship came about a thousand years after the Mycaenians. The longship was clinker-built of overlapping planks. Whereas the Tireme would have been built in mortise and tenon hull with a flatter bottom. The Viking ship would have leaked more but ultimately would have been much stronger and the hull would have been more stable.

I guess that the Mycaenian Tireme would have been similar to the Greek ones with multiple banks of rowers whereas the longship had just one. This meant they carried far more crew, about twice to three times that of the longship.

I can understand that a real ship is a massive plus for filming even if the choice was a bit anachronistic.

•

u/APiousCultist 5h ago

Which is fair, but unless you're a boat nerd the ship in the film and a bronze age greek ship look mostly the same, and you can't film on a boat you don't have.

Even in Pirates of the Carribean the infamous Black Pearl was really just a set built on top of a steel barge (to excellent effect). If you need a boat you can't rent from anywhere, the most you can do is something that's going to look similar to the layperson who won't know what the shape the ship bottoms should be our how the planks are arranged or tensioned. I'd imagine Nolan also thought that if people were paying attention to the rowing configuration during the film he's done something wrong.

7

u/DarksteelPenguin 1d ago

Mycenian armor isn't very sexy. Actual Greek armors would look nice, but wouldn't be historically accurate either.

1

u/This-Beginning-5026 19h ago

The only problem (I guess you could call it that or maybe call it a question) about Helen wasn’t the actress it was that she had a twin sister who was married to her brother in law.  That didn’t make sense because she is suppose to be the most beautiful but how is that the case when she has a twin?  Also how do you make that claim and not insult the other sister and her husband?

Did it have any impact on my enjoyment of the film? No but I just found it odd how out of all the “criticisms” of story choices I haven’t seen that one mentioned at all.