Tams
Member
Now, enough about your fantasies...
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Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey - July 2026
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
MrTroubleMaker
Member
oh noDays like these...
Have a Blessed Day
"It's fantasy!" wreaks of "Leave Britney alone!" weird angle for a defense.The Odyssey is a fantasy tale, so I'm not sure why people are getting hung up on the accuracy of the armour. It's an epic poem that features fantastical creatures like the Cyclops. It was never meant to be a historical account.
I'm certainly intrigued on how Nolan will handle this. Will he go all out on the fantastical elements, or will they be more grounded
The premise of the story certainly fits the theme of time that Nolan is known for.
Nolan should have made the Iliad and Odyssey back to back.
Cyberpunkd
Member
TBH I don't understand why this film is getting made when you can just watch Troy for a 1000th time.
MayauMiao
Member
TBH I don't understand why this film is getting made when you can just watch Troy for a 1000th time.
For all its flaws, its a fantastic fun movie especially the extended version.
The best part is by the end of the movie, Sean Bean lives.
Doom85
Member
Whoa, they really rolled the dice on that one. The two other movies that dared to defy the "Sean Bean must die" rule of the film universe were cursed into being absolute piles of shit.
(note: I know these movies suck for many reasons that have nothing to do with that, well, except actually Sean Bean's character surviving Silent Hill Revelation is just one of many ways that movie absolutely butchers the video game Silent Hill 3's far superior storyline)
calico
Member
KyoZz
Tag, you're it.
4K version of the teaser:
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IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I don't think tickets have ever gone on sale for a film that is 12 months from release. And to sell out in some locations as well. Wow.
The Nolan hype is real.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Nolan kind of forgot It was Ancient Greece.
The armour from the period would have been more like this.
kpopSuperstar
Member
Nolan is great and I am hyped.
But this is some of the lamest casting I have ever seen.
But this is some of the lamest casting I have ever seen.
Bernardougf
Member
Ill trust nolan .. but Tom Holland and Zendaya ? ... fuck me.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Yeah. Kind of kills my excitement some. But at least Tom will play the crybaby son of Odysseus. That looks like a part that would look natural for him.
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IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Tom Holland gets a lot of hate, but the guy has shown he has acting talent. The issue is that he hasn't been in a lot of roles that really allow him to show off his acting abilities.
Holland wasn't picked to get bums on seats. Nolan often casts actors in roles that challenge them and expand their range. Nolan personally picked Holland after meeting with him in 2024 and must have seen his potential.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I see his potential for that character as well.
Bernardougf
Member
I like Tom H. Just think Ive seem him too much and he did like 7 movies as spider man, hope he makes him unrecognizable or probably he will take me out of the movie. And Zendaya.... Nolan likes a challenge, because she cant act, and she got no range, shes always smug face im bettter than you Zendaya in all her movies that Ive seem, if at least if she was there for the eye candy, and she definitely isnt.
But I'll give the benefit of the doubt.. just love Nolan movies (outside Tenet)
May as well just film in black and white if this is gonna be the color palette and the muted color grading used.
Trilobit
Absolutely Cozy
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IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I don't know about this.
They look like modern day people badly cosplaying as Romans/Greeks. I know Mycenaean bronze age armour might be hard to portray on film, but this just looks like generic leather cosplay.
Are those two guys on the left wearing Ponchos as well?
falconhoof
Member
I'm a little out of touch with my Greek history of late, I know that there was a lot of people trade back then, but I was under the impression it was more within the local region of Greece. I wasn't aware of them bringing in far eastern, Indian, Scandinavian looking people as fighters. Like, I'd expect fighters from as far as Egypt at the most.
Given the power of cinema these days and the ability to pull quality actors from anywhere. Why would you not use Greek actors to rep Mycenaean Greece.
Compare this to the shots from Nakadai movies, inspired by reading the thread the other day.
Hits so different, I presume because it feels much more authentic.
Maybe I'm wrong and the armies of The Odyssey did look like that. It's been a long time since I read the book.
Oberstein
Member
The problem is that they're doing the typical Hollywood version of Antiquity, with sets and costumes that look 3D-printed or pulled out of storage. I get that they don't want to be historically accurate... otherwise it would look a bit ridiculous to a modern audience: people back then wore massive box-like cuirasses, and no matter how you frame it, it just wouldn't work on film…
But still, they're playing it so safe, with a kind of early Roman look that's even worse, especially when we're talking about Homeric Antiquity. Troy reimagined the costumes, but some of them still worked. And honestly, if you're going to stray from historical accuracy, you might as well make it stylish, with a distinctly Greek vibe.
But still, they're playing it so safe, with a kind of early Roman look that's even worse, especially when we're talking about Homeric Antiquity. Troy reimagined the costumes, but some of them still worked. And honestly, if you're going to stray from historical accuracy, you might as well make it stylish, with a distinctly Greek vibe.
P:axMagellanic
Member
More leather than the village people.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Agreed. It's especially head scratching when you remember this is a Nolan film, a man who I thought prided himself on accuracy. I hate to say it, but it looks like a cheap CW TV series.
Having Greek actors and have the dialogue spoken in Mycenaean Greek would have been amazing, but as it's Hollywood, they need big name US actors to get bums in seats.
Compare this to the shots from Nakadai movies, inspired by reading the thread the other day.
Hits so different, I presume because it feels much more authentic.
Maybe I'm wrong and the armies of The Odyssey did look like that. It's been a long time since I read the book.
You're not wrong.
Another obstacle to accurate representation of historic dress, especially armor, is that Hollywood likes to show these guys wearing that stuff ALL THE TIME, and having just the warriors, minus the large retinue of servants, women, traders, etc that follow these guys around. So instead of the purpose made period correct armor that isn't that easy to just casually stroll around in all day as an actor, they gotta make compromises to accommodate the characters they have. Plus if they want to outfit 100's of extras they usually can't do anything other than vacuum molded breastplates and lots of leather.
Once we transition to fully CG rendered characters we might see a big jump in period accuracy, who knows?
Audiophile
Member
I haven't been super-excited by Nolan since Interstellar and I loved that along with all of his previous work (despite TDK Rises falling a bit short...though still very entertaining). Dunkirk kinda won me around in the end but it's still a bit laboured and I probably won't watch it again, unlike everything else of his beforehand which is extremely rewatchable..
I thought Tenet was a miserable, clunky mess with no soul and Oppenheimer has lots of great parts but it's too "here, there and everywhere" to the point that it -- along with the music/sound -- became obnoxious; it feels like Nolan is just becoming a caricature of himself. The best scene in the whole of Oppenheimer is the one with James Remar as Secretary Stimson quietly talking to a small room of people incl. Oppenheimer where Nolan dials the excess back, stops all the theatrics and lets people converse calmly without trying to drown it out with noise and disorientate you with cuts/movement.
Just the idea of this movie [Odyssey] doesn't really appeal as a Nolan flick and everything I've seen just has me less excited. The cast just seems too "the current people" to the point it's gonna distract in this setting. The aesthetic just looks bland too.
Nolan has one obvious weakness which is exposition, but it never bothered me in the slightest until Tenet; his other weakness though is world building. He did very well in The Prestige & Batman Begins (where I suspect he had more help), forwent it with TDK and yet it somehow worked, faltered a little with TDKR and since has just circumvented it in his films as world building wasn't a major point. He could craft a coherent feeling in other ways (though again, less so after Dunkirk). When I look at this, I just don't see the slightest hint of someone 'building a world'. He certainly doesn't come close in that way to say, a young Ridley Scott or even a Spielberg at any point.
On one hand I wanna be proven wrong with the Odyssey cause I sorely want to see a return to form -- I used to be so excited to see what's next --, on the other hand I feel like Nolan needs a stinker to course correct. He's so talented in many ways but seems to be leaning into his weakest areas without growing them. He's just leaving me at arms length more and more, it's like he blew his emotional load on Interstellar and leaves me cold now. I look at these press shots, leaked set shots or see the trailer and I don't see someone who has reverence for what he's doing...like, if you're doing this, why wouldn't you be making the best thing you can? I also wonder how incredibly mundane and fake that bland, plastic-looking armour is gonna appear on pin-sharp, hyper-real IMAX.
I really would love it if he just picked up a basic 35 or 65mm film camera, picked an aspect ratio and made a somewhat smaller film focused on a few people with a mostly linear or naturally coherent storyline, just a back to basics as it seems he's going bigger and bigger in many ways but the fundamentals aren't what they used to be. Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception & Interstellar, even though they're increasingly bigger, especially compared to many other films, there's a coherency to them that's been lost. They each flowed as one whole, while everything since feels like lots of bits haphazardly strung together.
I thought Tenet was a miserable, clunky mess with no soul and Oppenheimer has lots of great parts but it's too "here, there and everywhere" to the point that it -- along with the music/sound -- became obnoxious; it feels like Nolan is just becoming a caricature of himself. The best scene in the whole of Oppenheimer is the one with James Remar as Secretary Stimson quietly talking to a small room of people incl. Oppenheimer where Nolan dials the excess back, stops all the theatrics and lets people converse calmly without trying to drown it out with noise and disorientate you with cuts/movement.
Just the idea of this movie [Odyssey] doesn't really appeal as a Nolan flick and everything I've seen just has me less excited. The cast just seems too "the current people" to the point it's gonna distract in this setting. The aesthetic just looks bland too.
Nolan has one obvious weakness which is exposition, but it never bothered me in the slightest until Tenet; his other weakness though is world building. He did very well in The Prestige & Batman Begins (where I suspect he had more help), forwent it with TDK and yet it somehow worked, faltered a little with TDKR and since has just circumvented it in his films as world building wasn't a major point. He could craft a coherent feeling in other ways (though again, less so after Dunkirk). When I look at this, I just don't see the slightest hint of someone 'building a world'. He certainly doesn't come close in that way to say, a young Ridley Scott or even a Spielberg at any point.
On one hand I wanna be proven wrong with the Odyssey cause I sorely want to see a return to form -- I used to be so excited to see what's next --, on the other hand I feel like Nolan needs a stinker to course correct. He's so talented in many ways but seems to be leaning into his weakest areas without growing them. He's just leaving me at arms length more and more, it's like he blew his emotional load on Interstellar and leaves me cold now. I look at these press shots, leaked set shots or see the trailer and I don't see someone who has reverence for what he's doing...like, if you're doing this, why wouldn't you be making the best thing you can? I also wonder how incredibly mundane and fake that bland, plastic-looking armour is gonna appear on pin-sharp, hyper-real IMAX.
I really would love it if he just picked up a basic 35 or 65mm film camera, picked an aspect ratio and made a somewhat smaller film focused on a few people with a mostly linear or naturally coherent storyline, just a back to basics as it seems he's going bigger and bigger in many ways but the fundamentals aren't what they used to be. Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception & Interstellar, even though they're increasingly bigger, especially compared to many other films, there's a coherency to them that's been lost. They each flowed as one whole, while everything since feels like lots of bits haphazardly strung together.
This is my only hope right now. ^
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Nolan isnt really that interested in authenticity. He goes for capturing the feel instead of accuracy. Watch Dunkirk and you will see what im talking about.
Giallo Corsa
Gold Member
In before the usual "it's based on an epic/fantasy, why so angry" comments - that's always how it goes whenever foreigners, usually Westerners, get to judge other people's thousand-year-old cultures through movies and video games.
It happened with God of War: Ragnarok (Angrboda), it happened with Assassin's Creed Odyssey, where every other character seemed to be anything but "Greek-looking," and so on.
The same crowd went after Kingdom Come: Deliverance and The Witcher for not being "representative" enough, so none of this should come as a surprise. God forbid creators try to be historically accurate or even adjacent; the universe would apparently implode in today's climate.
Looks "diverse" enough for modern audiences, I'd say.
It happened with God of War: Ragnarok (Angrboda), it happened with Assassin's Creed Odyssey, where every other character seemed to be anything but "Greek-looking," and so on.
The same crowd went after Kingdom Come: Deliverance and The Witcher for not being "representative" enough, so none of this should come as a surprise. God forbid creators try to be historically accurate or even adjacent; the universe would apparently implode in today's climate.
Looks "diverse" enough for modern audiences, I'd say.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I think historically accurate armour would look amazing, although you're right that most people would think it looks ridiculous.
I'm sick of historical movies looking like modern cosplay. Films are supposed to provide immersion and escapism, but I don't get that with woeful historical accuracy and the actors speaking English in American/English accents.
3liteDragon
Member
That's not from the film camera, it's crazy to me that people are debating this online. All movies have a BTS crew taking still shots on set which is independent from the actual movie camera.
falconhoof
Member
Another image from Empire
Trilobit
Absolutely Cozy
This is the only way to go with period pieces. Even if they are fantastical like The Odyssey. Representation is mostly a distraction nowadays.I'm a little out of touch with my Greek history of late, I know that there was a lot of people trade back then, but I was under the impression it was more within the local region of Greece. I wasn't aware of them bringing in far eastern, Indian, Scandinavian looking people as fighters. Like, I'd expect fighters from as far as Egypt at the most.
Given the power of cinema these days and the ability to pull quality actors from anywhere. Why would you not use Greek actors to rep Mycenaean Greece.
Compare this to the shots from Nakadai movies, inspired by reading the thread the other day.
Hits so different, I presume because it feels much more authentic.
Maybe I'm wrong and the armies of The Odyssey did look like that. It's been a long time since I read the book.
The_hunter
Member
These costumes look like they are made of plastic, something feels off.
JimmyRustler
Member
Are there any good real artists with experience left in Hollywood? With all the push for CGI in the last decade or two I somewhat doubt that.
Liopleurodon
Member
I think it will be a very enjoyable movie.
Trunx81
Member
Oh boy, can´t wait to see how Nolan tells this story in a non-chronological order.
- Odysseus washes up on Phaeacia with no idea how many years he has lost.
- Penelope pulls apart her weaving at night, time looping visually.
- Odysseus in disguise steps into his own hall, the sound dropping out.
- The crew opens the bag of winds long before we know why they have it.
- Hard cut to Circe turning the men into pigs, then forward to Odysseus already forgiving them.
- Sirens' sequence appears early, long before any viewer understands why he's tied to a mast.
- The Underworld scene drops in abruptly, showing deaths we haven't seen happen yet.
- Cyclops episode arrives late, retroactively explaining the "Nobody" references scattered earlier.
- Trojan Horse construction shown as fragmented flash-cuts.
- Horse enters Troy just as the suitors feast in Ithaca centuries later.
- The fall of Troy is revealed in pieces, each time explaining a detail we saw earlier in the other timelines.
- The slaughter of the suitors, the opening of the Trojan Horse, and Odysseus drifting alone at sea are intercut as if they occur in the same emotional instant.
- Penelope recognizes him only after a flashback from Timeline C reveals the secret of their bed.
- The timelines collapse into one shot: Odysseus finally home, but the sound echoes as if time itself is still catching up.
3liteDragon
Member
3liteDragon
Member
The Odyssey’s Revolutionary IMAX Leap Was Proven Possible By A Bowie Classic
How David Bowie helped Christopher Nolan make the first ever film to be shot entirely on IMAX
Giallo Corsa
Gold Member
Mia Goth sure is going places lately and Anne Hathaway seems like a good casting choice for Penelope.
Other than that...I think we'll have to wait but I'm not exactly holding my breath, it's not like Nolan is an infallible director/human being and judging by some of the diverse cast for "modern audiences"...for ancient Greek epic of all things...
You know what ? The straight to TV Armand Assante Odyssey movie was A-OK both for its time AND it's budget, pretty fun watch if you haven't done so yet :
such a cool scene (again, for being a 1997 straight to tv movie/2ep series)
Other than that...I think we'll have to wait but I'm not exactly holding my breath, it's not like Nolan is an infallible director/human being and judging by some of the diverse cast for "modern audiences"...for ancient Greek epic of all things...
You know what ? The straight to TV Armand Assante Odyssey movie was A-OK both for its time AND it's budget, pretty fun watch if you haven't done so yet :
such a cool scene (again, for being a 1997 straight to tv movie/2ep series)
calistan
Member
I expect it's going to be a straight-up swords and monsters epic, but I'm kind of hoping Nolan frames it as a tall story and not necessarily to be believed.
Odysseus is an unreliable narrator, and you can almost read his entire story as a series of ever more unlikely yarns to explain why he couldn't be bothered going home to his wife.
(So Odysseus, how many years did you spend boning a goddess on a paradise island? And as soon as you escaped that terrible ordeal you wound up the sex slave to yet another goddess? How awful, no wonder you had to spend a few months in disguise as soon as you got home!)
Odysseus is an unreliable narrator, and you can almost read his entire story as a series of ever more unlikely yarns to explain why he couldn't be bothered going home to his wife.
(So Odysseus, how many years did you spend boning a goddess on a paradise island? And as soon as you escaped that terrible ordeal you wound up the sex slave to yet another goddess? How awful, no wonder you had to spend a few months in disguise as soon as you got home!)
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
Famous Indian spartan behind Matt Damon there.
E-Cat
Member
Tom Holland is to this era as Orlando Bloom was circa Troy 2004.
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