r/OdysseyFilm

The debate over The Odyssey’s casting goes far beyond a simple quarrel about historical accuracy. At its core, it asks us to consider who we think should stand as the living faces of beauty, wisdom, courage, and heroism.

No one is really suggesting that Homer pictured his characters through the lens of our modern ideas about race, or that every choice to diversify a cast is inherently profound. What’s really at stake is the way mythology is always filtered through the eyes and values of those who come after. Our image of ancient Greece as a world of marble-skinned heroes owes as much to later European art and the ideals of neoclassicism as it does to anything from the ancient world itself.

So the real question isn’t just whether this casting keeps alive a particular vision of the ancient world. It’s whether these actors can truly capture the ideals and inner struggles that figures like Helen, Athena, and Sinon have come to symbolize.

It’s worth asking ourselves: do mythological adaptations owe more to the look of tradition, or to the spirit and meaning behind the myths themselves?

My first viewing left me a very underwhelmed. The sound mix was not good in my theater. Too loud then too muffled then too loud. It pulled me out of the film constantly.

I thought the film looked amazing for the most part but the relentless gray of the movie started to disappoint.

Honestly I think I was just out of sorts because of the sound issues.

So I decided to give it another try. I have loved every Nolan film since Memento.

The second viewing was much better. The sound was much much better balanced. Yes, it was still very loud but I could hear the dialogue and the score .

Positives- Anne Hathaway was very good.

The entire supporting cast was great.

I was a little underwhelmed by Charlize Theron but I don't think it was her fault. Her character was very thin.

Samantha Morton was BRILLIANT. I loved her scenes. I wish we got more.

Negative - the fight scenes ....the hand to hand fight at the end was a little too John Wick.

I always struggle with Matt Damon. For me he's always Matt Damon playing Matt Damon. He was serviceable but sadly I just didn't feel anything for him.

Some of the dialogue was a little on the nose... It occasionally pulled me out but it was minor.

Overall it's a 7.5/10.

It's not top 5 Nolan but it's a good movie.

Just seen this movie and, as a Classics nerd and regular reader of Homer’s epics, I have some thoughts. There’s been a lot of furore about diversity casting, the accents, the costumes, so I went into this film semi-apprehensive. None of that bothered me. In the slightest. I was fully immersed from the first minute.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t a fully faithful retelling of the epic (although it’s more faithful than I expected!), but one thing I do want to point out is that all of Nolan’s changes, for me, improved the story rather than take away from it. I never got the sense Nolan was trying to diminish Homer’s work by changing it.

I’ll start with what I didn’t like so much:

-It was very, for want of a better word, glum. Visually. I realise that this is a modern trend in cinema but it’s one I will rage against as much as I can. We’re travelling around the Mediterranean, where’s the sun? Where’s the colour? It all felt very monochrome. It may have been a conscious decision by Nolan to emphasise the melancholy and guilt, but I found myself thinking of Troy (2004) and how bright and lovely that film looked in comparison.

-A minor thing, but I didn’t like Menelaus’ allusion to ‘the face that launched a thousand ships.’ This line wasn’t said for a couple of thousand years after Homer was reciting.

What I liked:

-Loved the >!Athena/Zendaya/priestess!< reveal. While we’re on her, I ADORED the fact that >!Athena!< wasn’t purely a benevolent guide, helping him. In the epic she’s rather one-dimensional. A shining goddess whose only purpose is to help our hero. Here she is a quiet companion, a silent reflection of grief and, ultimately, guilt.

-Loved the >!sea people!< reveal. >!Making the men seem so desperate to return home that they become the villains.!<

-Certainly didn’t mind combining the >!Calypso, Nausicaä and Lotus Eater!< arcs. Having Odysseus slowly remember his tale rather than simply reciting it to the Phaeacians was a nice change.

-I thought the entire last third, when Odysseus landed in Ithaca onwards, was exceptional. >!The final Troy flashback, while he’s narrating to Penelope and seeing Athena!<, was so beautiful.

-The onrunning of theme of xenia was a really welcome inclusion.

-Agamemnon’s armour has received a lot of flack. I liked it. The scene of him >!standing menacingly at the head of his army as the Trojan gates open was stunning!<.

-All of the >!Argos!< scenes were incredibly well done. Emotional without being exploitive.

House Atreides translates to "sons of Atreus" in Greek. Dune canon explicitly confirms that Agamemnon is an ancestor stored in Paul and Alia’s Other Memory. In fact, the Dune Wiki highlights Agamemnon speaking directly to Alia from inside her genetic memory.

​What if Dune Messiah is actually a timeless karmic rematch of the Trojan War? What if the main characters are reincarnated souls carrying their Odyssey trauma across millennia? And what if Robert Pattinson playing both Antinous in an Odyssey adaptation and Scytale in Dune Messiah serves as the casting glue holding it all together?

​Here is why this crossover theory goes far beyond late-night brain nonsense and turns into an uncannily spot-on dissertation on myth, fate, and cosmic irony.

​1. Antinous > Scytale (The Sheep/Wolf Paradox & The Trojan Horse Inversion)

​In The Odyssey, Antinous was the lead suitor trying to usurp Odysseus's throne. Much like Polyphemus the Cyclops, who relied on brute size only to be blinded by Odysseus's stealth, Antinous relied on loud posturing. Beneath his arrogance, Antinous was fundamentally a sheep in wolf's clothing. His bravado masked deep insecurities and a desperate fear of rejection by Penelope. The moment he realized the filthy beggar stringing the bow was actually Odysseus, his grand illusion collapsed. He tried to flee before an arrow pierced his throat.

​Imagine Antinous sitting in Hades after taking that arrow, analyzing his humiliation. His ultimate realization? Loud, front-door posturing fails against a mythic ruler. True infiltration requires absolute stealth.

​Reincarnated thousands of years later as Scytale the Face Dancer, he flips the paradigm to become a true wolf in sheep's clothing. He does not build a wooden horse to breach Paul's citadel. Scytale literally becomes the Trojan Horse through shape-shifting, facial manipulation, and biological stealth. Antinous spent his afterlife studying his mortal enemy's best move, only to evolve into a living Trojan Horse in his next life.

​Having Robert Pattinson play both characters makes it magnetic. Pattinson excels at playing characters who look composed on the outside while harbouring quiet, unhinged chaos underneath. Imagine Scytale delivering cool Tleilaxu philosophy with the ancient, petty grudge of a Greek suitor who never got over getting shot in the throat.

​2. Agamemnon > Paul Atreides (Bloodline Curses & The Divine Leto Archetype)

​In Greek myth, Agamemnon was the high king who led a war across the sea, cursed his own bloodline, and sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis to catch a favourable wind for his fleet.

​Reincarnated as Paul Atreides, he merges with the solar archetype of Apollo, the deity of prophecy, desert light, and plagues. Paul leads a galactic Holy War across the stars instead of the Aegean Sea.

​The divine genealogy maps with eerie precision. Duke Leto echoes the Greek goddess Leto (mother of Apollo and Artemis), while Lady Jessica carries the masculine spiritual locus of the divine spark (Jess-ica / Jes-us = Ze-us). Together, they spawn the twin messianic forces of Paul (Apollo) and Alia.

​The phonetic and thematic echo of Iphigenia (the sacrificed daughter) and Artemis (the wild hunter deity) merges directly into Alia Atreides. Notice how Dune: Awakening even names a location "Passage of Artemis" in the Haga Basin, subconsciously anchoring this divine link in the lore. Alia becomes the untamed child-regent carrying the terrifying weight of her family's ancestral curse through Other Memory. Paul sacrifices his sight, his peace, and his family for the Golden Path, directly mirroring Agamemnon sacrificing his own bloodline to fuel a cosmic campaign.

​3. Children of Dune (The Preacher & The Transmutation of Apollo)

​This mythic cycle reaches its ultimate cosmic payoff in Children of Dune. What happens to Agamemnon and Apollo's spiritual essence after Paul walks into the desert blind?

​Paul reincarnates spiritually into The Preacher, mirroring both the blinded prophet Tiresias and Apollo in exile. Stripped of his divine empire, he wanders the sands critiquing the very religion built in his name. Meanwhile, Alia is entirely consumed by the ancestral voice of Agamemnon inside her Other Memory, fulfilling her tragedy as the sacrificed Iphigenia who succumbs to Abomination.

​The solar spiritual mantle of Apollo then transmutates into Paul's son, Leto II. Leto II fuses with the sandtrout to become the ultimate solar monarch, taking on the burden of the Golden Path for thousands of years, while his twin sister Ghanima embodies Artemis, preserving the wild, untamed human instinct to survive.

​4. Odysseus > ODI (The Weapons Master Who Refuses to Die)

​Odysseus (ODI: Odysseus Duncan Idaho) was the master archer, supreme tactician, and ultimate survivor who simply could not be killed no matter what the gods threw at him.

​Reincarnated into Duncan Idaho, he becomes the undisputed master swordsman of the known universe. The cosmic irony is brutal. Duncan is so ridiculously skilled and fiercely loyal to Paul (Agamemnon) that the universe refuses to let his soul rest. He is condemned to an infinite cycle of rebirth as a Tleilaxu ghola. Duncan is essentially Odysseus stuck in an eternal loop, forced to fight for the house of his past lives forever.

​The Ultimate Twisted Irony

​Look at what Scytale (Antinous) actually does in Dune Messiah.

​Scytale takes the Hayt ghola (Odysseus reincarnated) and presents him as a Trojan gift to Paul Atreides (Agamemnon reincarnated).

​Think about how insane that loop is. Antinous takes his old mortal rival Odysseus (Duncan Idaho), turns him into a literal Tleilaxu Trojan Horse, and hands him to Agamemnon (Paul Atreides) to dismantle his empire from the inside out through psychological trauma. It completely flips the Trojan War on its head. Odysseus's soul becomes the weapon, Antinous (Scyfi-Tale) becomes the sneaky strategist, and Agamemnon gets undone by his own cursed bloodline.

​It turns Dune Messiah into a multi-millennial Greek tragedy where everyone swapped weapons, but nobody escaped the curse.

​P.S. Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan need to collaborate on several long-lost Homeric poems crossing over with the Dune series to fill in the gaps.

I know the green knight came out a while ago, but Dev Patel was cast as the Gawain. The green knight was a story from like the 1300 hundreds in England, revolving around the mythical Arthurian court. In my mind, similar broad strokes to the odyssey. Written long ago, for a different group of people in mind, obviously fictional with magic and people, however most likely rooted in some kind of truth (Arthur existing in some form IRL). Dev Patel is obviously Indian, but playing a English knight. I think Arthur and Guinevere are Indian as well.

Did that movie have as similar backlash to the Odyssey casting, or is the Odyssey backlash with Lupita (although I don't see as much or any backlash against Himesh Patel or the Asian crewmate, or surprisingly Zendaya) just a sign of how much more conservative and white-nationalist pilled the western public has become since 2021.

Edit: On second thought, why aren't the people who are so focused on very white-minded 'historically accurate" casting not moreso upset about Himesh Patel having such a relatively large role when India did much less face to face trading than Asia or Africa?

Much ink has already been spilled about Nolan’s grounded take, removing the gods from the story, and making interpretations of Zendaya’s character seem as if they are solely a manifestation of Odysseus’s guilt/regret. And, obviously that is the take the movie wants you to understand.

But, this does not exclude the fact that the gods were real, even if only Athena was shown.

What is the given purpose for Xenia? You should be hospitable to guests, and never harm them, in case they were a god in disguise.

The priestess beheaded at Athena’s temple WAS Athena in disguise. Her disgust at the desecration of her temple, and their willingness to kill a god under the guise of hospitality, is what sent the ships off course. Zeus and Poseidon were both real, as manifestations of thunder and storms, as was Athena.

Edited to clarify and expand on some thoughts

sorry not sure if anyone else was curious about this. maybe they covered it in the movie but I missed it?

edit: this was sarcasm lol

A lot of comments are out there on everything Nolan did wrong with the film, but I think he did exactly what he set out to do. He deconstructed the historic war epic genre using arguably it's most famous example. We're all familiar with how Peckinpah, Altman, Eastwood, and Leone killed the myth of the "Good Guy in the White Hat" and "Bad Guy in the Black Hat" by showing a violent, cynical, opportunistic American West. Nolan has done the same thing with the Mythic Hero and the Epic War. Odysseus being a man tortured by his choices isn't a bug in the final product, it was the point.

People who disliked the movie after having watched it - your opinion is valid too - but if you haven't even seen the movie then sorry your opinion is invalid.

For me personally, I loved the cyclops scene the most, but I think it's because I love horror movies so much in general.

That, and the shot of the burning trojan horse statue. Apparently in chinese astrology we're in the year of the "fire horse", so it just felt cool on so many levels.