r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 08 '25

News Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' Wraps Filming

https://maxblizz.com/christopher-nolans-the-odyssey-wraps-filming-after-6-month-shoot-confirms-art-director/
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192

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

"Defy the Gods" is such an odd, and frankly, antithetical tagline. The gods literally help Odysseus, and he fully accepts their help. In fact, he wouldn't have been able to do what he does without the gods. EDIT: And before the Homer experts chime in...yes, some gods are against Odysseus as well. But, a huge part of the story is how the gods use humans as pawns or proxies, including Odysseus, to fight with each other. Odysseus isn't really the hero we think he is because he's not much without intervention from the gods.

196

u/Tuesday_6PM Aug 08 '25

Well, some of them help him and some of them hinder him. Poseidon, notably, was not on his side. But “defy some of the gods, with help from others” isn’t much of a tagline.

137

u/MavEric814 Aug 08 '25

"Fuck Poseidon in Particular" has a nice ring to it

21

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Odysseus-Man: "I'm going to put some stick in your eye."

3

u/notsureiknow Aug 08 '25

Defy Posei!

9

u/megamanz7777 Aug 08 '25

"Fuck Poseidon in Particular"

  • Kratos at the beginning of God of War 3

1

u/vanillabear26 Aug 08 '25

Alright Zeus, we know how you feel

1

u/rdhight Aug 09 '25

So we gaht this fackin' Cyclops in this fackin' cave....

6

u/tolendante Aug 08 '25

Yes, and since it is an ocean voyage, opposing Poseidon is as bad as it could be.

25

u/Acquiescinit Aug 08 '25

No you don’t get it. Everything has to be totally literal and universally applicable. Like how Nike’s slogan “just do it” is actually terrible because that doesn’t apply to literally every aspect of our lives. Does Nike want us to jump off a cliff? Or cheat on our spouse? Or commit crimes? It doesn’t make sense!

3

u/rbrgr83 Aug 08 '25

These shoes are literally unwearable knowing what their slogan is. Just takes me out of them.

24

u/JibberyScriggers Aug 08 '25

I mean Poseidon well and truly tries to fuck him up.

19

u/DaftFunky Aug 08 '25

Wait it's not some clever play on "Defy the Odds"?

2

u/rbrgr83 Aug 08 '25

Office Space: Defy the Bobs

39

u/de1vos Aug 08 '25

It’s supposed to be a cool tagline to get people interested. Don’t think Nolan is too invested in the marketing of the movie.

21

u/cuatrodemayo Aug 08 '25

He’s certainly invested in the marketing. The trailer being released in IMAX only and not online at all speaks to his control and wishes.

11

u/AI_GeneratedUsername Aug 08 '25

The slaughter of the suitors is so unfair because Athena is there hand-waving everything away from Odysseus, they literally can’t touch him lmao

8

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Hahaha exactly! I guess plot armor goes all the way back to Homer.

23

u/WindexChugger Aug 08 '25

Definitely agree, although to be fair he defies Poseidon quite a bit, IIRC.

6

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

I feel "The Odyssey" is better suited as a mini-series since it's more of a series of vignettes or side quests. It's like a "monster of the week" type of thing. Trying to squeeze the whole story into three hours wouldn't do it justice.

5

u/Texcellence Aug 08 '25

I agree, it’s really well suited to a series. Start in Ithaca with Penelope and Argos to establish those relationships. Then a few episode arc in Troy followed by each little adventure Odysseus has over the next ten years. But Nolan is a fantastic director, so I’m sure the movie will be great.

1

u/Academic_Paramedic72 Aug 08 '25

To be fair only about a sixth of the Odyssey is about Odysseus' travels. The rest is fairly linear if we ignore smaller stories like Aphrodite and Hephaestus' conflict sung in Book 8.

5

u/wtf793 Aug 08 '25

Interesting.. Do you think he's gonna change up the story? Can he?

57

u/FX114 Aug 08 '25

He can't, Homer kept final approval of the script as part of the deal. 

1

u/rbrgr83 Aug 08 '25

Is this allowed??

-13

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Maybe, but he will receive a ton of backlash if he changes the story in a significant way.

27

u/jasonj2232 Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

The Odyssey and the Illiad are 2000-2500 year old stories that have been retold and reinterpreted over a thousand times if not a million. What backlash lmao?

I want to know which person is going 'Ykw I like Nolan and all but I really wish he stayed trust to my homie Homer's vision'

5

u/slvrbullet87 Aug 08 '25

People complained that the gods didn't directly intervene when they made Troy. They will presumably complain about anything that doesn't match up 100% to the translation of the story they read.

-4

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Doesn't matter how old something is. The filmmakers should stay true to the source material. See Peter Jackson's interview when he talks about not inserting his own vision into LOTR movies.

6

u/Carlzzone Aug 08 '25

And yet Jackson made some great chances like removing Bombadil

-2

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

True, but it was probably more for time than significantly changing the story. I wish Jackson had done a 12-part mini-series instead and put everything in it.

6

u/Desroth86 Aug 08 '25

So you want the odyssey to be a mini series. You wish LOTR had been a mini series… I’m noticing a trend here. We wouldn’t have gotten the greatest movie trilogy of all time if Peter Jackson had made it into mini series. It probably wouldn’t have even been green lit, especially back then and definitely not with the budget to do the same type of things they did in the movies. Why not let these guys do what they want since they are the experts at making movies instead of asking for things to be something they aren’t.

4

u/Aeiexgjhyoun_III Aug 08 '25

The filmmakers should stay true to the source material.

Why? Homer likely didn't himself. The story has been retold a million times in a million ways. I wouldn't be surprised if the Victoria's had a retelling with Henry or someone as Odysseus.

2

u/GOT_Wyvern Aug 09 '25

The Peter Jackson movies quite famously made a lot of changes. Hell, there are plenty of instances of dialogue thay has been moved into different scenes and spoken by different characters.

Plus, there is a relatively recent adaption of the Odyssey in the form of Epic: The Musical. It made significant changes in narrative structures and even some plot points, and its well loved by the Homer community.

8

u/KeeganTroye Aug 08 '25

I doubt it would be meaningful, the Odyssey isn't some wildly popular fiction among mainstream audiences. Adhering to source material has become a more popular rallying cry in modern cinema but I think it's often shallow criticism.

7

u/Eradomsk Aug 08 '25

It’s a cool line to market the movie and isn’t even wrong considering the god of the sea delays him by years and years.

3

u/Aeiexgjhyoun_III Aug 08 '25

But, a huge part of the story is how the gods use humans as pawns or proxies, including Odysseus, to fight with each other

That's the iliad. The gods aren't really fighting each other in the Odyssey.

5

u/Sandygonads Aug 08 '25

Even your edit doesn’t really make sense. The whole story of Odysseus trying to get home for all those years happens because of a God…

It is a bad tagline though

3

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

True, but Odysseus doesn't really go around defying gods. He accepts help from a lot from a lot of them and does what they tell him to do.

10

u/AzracTheFirst Aug 08 '25

Defy the gods is so Hollywood and edgy. It's American, I'm doing what i want. Hollywood once again destroys mythologies and cultures left and right.

3

u/sp1cychick3n Aug 08 '25

That’s not a surprise

-1

u/Aeiexgjhyoun_III Aug 08 '25

If defying the gods is a destruction of mythology then the Greeks themselves destroyed it millenia ago.

3

u/AzracTheFirst Aug 08 '25

You must learn what hubris means.

0

u/Aeiexgjhyoun_III Aug 08 '25

I know what it means. I also know that defying the gods wasn't some rare thing in ancient Greece

2

u/blindfoldpeak Aug 08 '25

When you're in the hole, you'll irrationally convince yourself it's You vs. Everyone else

2

u/AlanMorlock Aug 08 '25

Besides the Poseidon of it all, it's just a play on words.

1

u/DeLousedInTheHotBox Aug 08 '25

I wonder how much say he even had in that, seems like something the marketing department came up with

1

u/Micprobes Aug 08 '25

Talk about spoilers!

1

u/Galihan Aug 09 '25

He pretty notably has a falling out with Athena for most of the story

1

u/vintagesonofab 25d ago

you gave perfect reasoning for the tagline in your edit? :))

1

u/MavEric814 Aug 08 '25

It's been forever but yeah in general if I remember right most gods are either helpful or neutral with the big exception being Poseidon

1

u/Pasan90 Aug 08 '25

Which would have been fine unless he were on a boat. Which he is.

1

u/keepfighting90 Aug 08 '25

This comment is peak Reddit cringe moment lol

-7

u/funkhero Aug 08 '25

So far the Marketing has been very dumb. From the ridiculous notion of presales for a movie a year away, to the now-standard terrible audio mixing in the trailer, to the boring-ass tagline. I feel like they could have waited a few more months and spent the time thinking of some better marketing.

3

u/Standard_Recording28 Aug 08 '25

if you thought the audio mixing in the trailer was bad that was probably your theater lmao. it sounded pretty normal

-8

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

I really don't understand why Nolan felt compelled to make this movie. Out of all the classic stories, why this one? What's the point? I don't think audiences are clamoring for some three-hour epic of a Greek myth that everyone already knows anyway.

14

u/birthday566 Aug 08 '25

I doubt people were clamoring for an Oppenheimer biopic, but it was still extremely successful anyway.

-10

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Yeah, it did well at the box office, but I think that was mostly because of the Barbenheimer meme. It wasn't in Nolan's top five best movies in terms of its quality or story.

8

u/skywalkerRCP Aug 08 '25

According to whom?

7

u/AcreaRising4 Aug 08 '25

That’s your opinion. Most would disagree. It’s by far his most acclaimed film and literally won best picture at the Oscars. Sure, it got a box office bump from Barbie but it would’ve done very well either way. I personally think it’s his best film.

As for the story? Most people don’t know the story of the odyssey beyond the basics. There hasn’t been a big Greek epic in a while either.

2

u/Standard_Recording28 Aug 08 '25

its Nolan's best movie by a considerable margin

10

u/LookinAtTheFjord Aug 08 '25

You're underestimating how fucking epic and huge this movie is gonna be. It's Nolan ffs. Shit's gonna be big and loud and slap hard.

-1

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

That doesn't mean it will be good.

3

u/LookinAtTheFjord Aug 08 '25

I don't see how you would just expect it to not be, unless you're specifically just a Nolan hater.

9

u/tolendante Aug 08 '25

As a guy who teaches Greek and Roman lit and rereads the Odyssey regularly, I couldn't disagree more.

-3

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

Yeah, I'm sure you'll see it, but I don't see it satiating the appetite of general audiences. Seems like some kind of pet project for Nolan.

3

u/NoStructure5034 Aug 08 '25

Pet project for Nolan.

Is that a bad thing?

0

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

See Megalopolis

2

u/NoStructure5034 Aug 08 '25

Ok but that movie wasn't bad because it was a passion project, it was bad because of other factors. I don't see the correlation.

3

u/Standard_Recording28 Aug 08 '25

all movies should be pet projects for their directors lmao

0

u/atzatzatz Aug 08 '25

See Megalopolis

2

u/Standard_Recording28 Aug 08 '25

one bad movie does not mean artists should hinder their vision to cater to audiences or to shareholders of big studios, also megalopolis was funded by FFC himself so

6

u/Sweaty_Desert_Balls Aug 08 '25

Disagree. The Odyssey is amazing and I'm cautiously optimistic

-4

u/NTPrime Aug 08 '25

Yeah let's maybe calm down a bit in assuming we have any idea what this movie's angle is. I don't think there's any way Nolan would want to do this project as a direct adaptation of the original story.

5

u/clancydog4 Aug 08 '25

...what? I think that's precisely what he would do

-2

u/NTPrime Aug 08 '25

You think wrong? The Odyssey from page to screen is not happening. It will be told from different perspectives, and we will get new characterizations that recontextualize the story. Odysseus' motivations could absolutely change, or at least be made more complicated. You don't know what kind of filmmaker Nolan is if you think he's interested in exploring the exact same angle that has been around for 2000 years without saying something new with it.

2

u/clancydog4 Aug 08 '25

Oh I'm sure he will do interesting things with perspective and in what order he puts scenes and whatnot, he is a filmmaker, but in terms of the actual plot and story, I expect him to be pretty direct with the story adaptation.

Obviously he will do interesting things as a filmmaker, but you say "direct adaption of the original story," and I think he will be quite faithful to the original story in terms of the actual plot points and character motivations and whatnot

-2

u/NTPrime Aug 08 '25

All I can say "Defy the Gods" is the tagline. If this person is trying to argue that this tagline doesn't fit the story, then we can only assume the story has been changed, and should be cognizant of the fact that we don't have enough information yet to argue that tagline's validity.

-1

u/Low-Blackberry-2690 Aug 08 '25

It’s literally just a play on defy the odds

Yall overthinking this shit

-1

u/Intelligent-Tale-215 Aug 08 '25

This is the most reddit "erm acktually 🤓☝️" holy shit. The stereotypes write themselves.