[QuickTidal]

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE was bad. I don't know how you fuck up leaning into the campiness with charm (like D&D Honor Among Thieves managed so well), but they managed it. I don't know if it was the really poor script, or the overacting from Jared Leto, or how they made Adam still have Adam-sucks-alot vibes once he was He-Man....but they managed it. Cringer is barely in it. It was just action nonsense 90% of the time. Paper thin story. Now I know what you're going to say, the TV show was just meant to sell toys...sure it was...but when the 1980's movie was able to cobble together a more interesting story, you've done something wrong.

The music (needle drops AND guitar-solo score) were super out of place. The acting was subpar even by great actors like Idris Elba.

Just a mess.

[QuickTidal]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 27 July 2026 - 03:07 AM, said:

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 24 July 2026 - 03:59 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 July 2026 - 01:38 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 July 2026 - 12:15 PM, said:

Also speaking of ATLA, this new movie looks incredible!

NOTE: This come out tomorrow on Paramount+ (sigh, I know....annoying streamer).

I would love to see it in one of the theatre screenings but there aren't any in Canada sadly. The question is do I hold off on watching it till my trip for the long plane ride or just watch it right away?! Ahhhhh...we are eating so good with new Avatar material!

I get tropey vibes of "lonely person finds the last of his people and tries to become friends with them, but it turns out that they are actually evil and lonely person has to fight them".

Oh, and I called this one on the nose.

Did you think they were attempting to hide it?

[amphibian]

A strong and full review by Emily Wilson of the Odyssey. https://www.lrb.co.u...complicated-man

I disagree with her view of Helen, Clytemnestra, and Penelope. They had more agency than she gives them credit for. I do readily take the points about how this one didn't do a great job of exploring much beyond the often all over the place relationship Odysseus had with hospitality, connection, and getting to his end destination.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 27 July 2026 - 03:22 PM, said:

A strong and full review by Emily Wilson of the Odyssey. https://www.lrb.co.u...complicated-man

As an authority on the work she's great...as a film critic she's shit. And I maintain that Classicists should not be weighing in on movies that feature subjects they are phd-level-educated on....it's an exercise in futility. Just like every other time a scholarly someone weighs in on a fictional movie version they miss the forest for the trees because they are hell bent on showing off their brass buttons in the subject matter. Like when NDT weighs in on anything to do with Space, or when Roman scholars weigh in on movies like Gladiator, or Centurion...no, stop....you miss the point.

I don't have any interest in what historians think about period piece films. None. You know why? Because the VAST majority of the movie going audience who went to be entertained don't know any better...nor should anyone ask them to know better. Missing the point of Art is frequently the realm Classicists exist in...because to THEM the history is enough on its own to be interesting, and be damned the casual audiences the filmmakers are seeking to entertain right? That's what this review amounts to....a Classicist weighing in on piece of art that was made off the thing she's spent a decade or more of schooling on..she was never going to be happy. It's silly to keep pointing to her take. I motioned her upthread as an authority on the notions in the story, but she's being asked to be a critic and it's asinine. There are people out there hellbent on pulling this film down from success....and quite frankly I think she's helping them. You didn't see think pieces like this on previous Sword & Sandal films, to this degree...and the right wing media sphere gets to go "See!"

So she sees something shallow because her education immersed her in the nuts an bolts of the story to a degree that means she's seeing from her internal long studied perspective of the story which she herself did a translation of...not from the viewpoint of the casual human. and her standing there going "Well this is fluffy summer fare" just makes her look petty. Yes, please stand and look down on those of us who got something out of this Emily...Jeezus.

amphibian, on 27 July 2026 - 03:22 PM, said:

I do readily take the points about how this one didn't do a great job of exploring much beyond the often all over the place relationship Odysseus had with hospitality, connection, and getting to his end destination.

It wasn't all over the place, but then you were ready to go into this with problems before you saw it and I'm not sure I've ever seen you move from a pre-entrenched position on a movie, so that's to be expected. We disagree.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Macros, on 27 July 2026 - 08:26 AM, said:

I always found Odysseus to be a crafty fool. His hubris/ego/curiosity outweighed is genius and caused most of his grief.

Now its been a looonng time since Ive ready the Odyssey, and reading other takes on the illiad and odyssey since have definitely muddled in my head how it all went, but didnt he mock the cyclops as they left? Take your win and shut your mouth my man, the sirens is the height of stupidity.

In Nolan's film, Odysseus only inhabited a place of hubris.

Spoiler

"I don't want to take the known route home because I've spent enough time with Agamemnon", "I'm going to shoot the cyclops in the eye for no narratively-explained reason", "Let's land on every island but not learn from previous experience — we should make sure our boats are fully anchored with crew unprepared to leave on a dime", and so on. (Sure, this could actually be shame and fear masquerading as hubris, but I don't think Nolan does a good job of evincing that. The only clear nod to this is when Odysseus spells it out when talking with Penelope near the end.)

Almost none of Odysseus' onscreen actions showed that he was especially clever, or even especially curious. Even his desire to hear the sirens' song was blipped past — just an "I'm gonna do this" with no real depth of reason. People spoke to Odysseus' cleverness — especially with respect to the Trojan horse plot — but we never saw it. I mean, come on...his plan upon returning home was to string a bow only he could string (smart), shoot an arrow at a target only he could hit (smart), and then fight off 100 men (dumb)?

Honestly, the more I write about and think about this film, the angrier I am.

(Also, why is the cyclops alone? The cyclops having conversations with Odysseus and the whole "No Man" part — a perfect way to showcase Odysseus' cleverness — was lost due to that choice.)

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: Yesterday, 05:18 PM

[QuickTidal]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 27 July 2026 - 05:16 PM, said:

Macros, on 27 July 2026 - 08:26 AM, said:

I always found Odysseus to be a crafty fool. His hubris/ego/curiosity outweighed is genius and caused most of his grief.

Now its been a looonng time since Ive ready the Odyssey, and reading other takes on the illiad and odyssey since have definitely muddled in my head how it all went, but didnt he mock the cyclops as they left? Take your win and shut your mouth my man, the sirens is the height of stupidity.

In Nolan's film, Odysseus only inhabited a place of hubris.

Dude, what?

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 27 July 2026 - 05:16 PM, said:

Spoiler

"I don't want to take the known route home because I've spent enough time with Agamemnon",

Yes, but it's meant to show an explicit rejection of Agamemnon's ways. Agamemnon was Darth Vader here. The whole point of the conversation that Telemachus has in Menelaus keep was to showcase that Agamemnon's war was constructed on idiocy and avarice and not Helen at all. Odysseus (post-Troy sacking) has started to come to the realization that Agamemnon was neither a leader to fight for, to follow, OR to help in his quest. He didn't make this decision flippantly. Nevermind that ALL the routes were stymied, in different ways. Yes, Agamemnon got home sooner, but the gods got at him on land anyways.


"I'm going to shoot the cyclops in the eye for no narratively-explained reason",

While, it's explained better in the text, this is intentionally to show that Odysseus was still in the throws of who he was at that point, reckless and disrespectful to things...he was mad that their attempt to find enough sheep to feed the men resulted run being trapped in Nestor's Cave so he thumbed his nose one last time at Polphemus...could they have explained it a bit better? Maybe, but I think the point was pretty clear overall in this version of the story where this scene is less "Bilbo in Gollum's Cave", and more dammit we made a BIG mistake, and how do I get us out of this?


"Let's land on every island but not learn from previous experience —

I feel this explicitly figures into the narrative though, as they go on from location to location in their attempt at supplies Odysseus feels more and more the weight of Zeus's Law in each place and it makes him trust that "this time" they will manage to get supplies and things will be fine. It's not until the prophecy from Tiresias that he realizes they are fucked every way no matter what and THEN starts to try to gainsay/game what happens. It's not that he's not learning, it's that he starts out trying to be a better follower of the hospitality rules and failing multiple times...It's why he is cordial to the Laestrygonians only for them to attack.


we should make sure our boats are fully anchored with crew unprepared to leave on a dime", and so on. (Sure, this could actually be shame and fear masquerading as hubris, but I don't think Nolan does a good job of evincing that. The only clear nod to this is when Odysseus spells it out when talking with Penelope near the end.)

So Nolan DOES spell it out...he just narratively waits til the lesson is learned for the audience to learn what Odysseus slowly learned. I very much got a "progression" vibe each time something befell them that Odysseus went through a range of choices and emotions each time trying to do the thing that would get his men fed, and home and each time choosing incorrectly. If Nolan didn't do a god job of that then there wouldn't really be the scene where he comes clean to Penelope about what he'd learned. It was just delayed for us to look back on (which Nolan is fond of doing in his films; suggesting a rewatch being richer)

Almost none of Odysseus' onscreen actions showed that he was especially clever, or even especially curious.

The horse is absolutely this though...but our view of the horse was through his late-stage realizations as he was inside that his clever contraption resulted not just in Sinon's death, but the shitting/pissing on/drowning of multiple men at the bottom of it. We get it not through the lens of the idea, but through the lens of it having been a BAD idea, though still clever as it worked. I don't feel it would have added to the proceedings for us to see him come up with and then execute the idea.


Even his desire to hear the sirens' song was blipped past — just an "I'm gonna do this" with no real depth of reason.

“It told you that what you most want is what you can’t have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had, and lost” - I thought this was pretty clear as to depth of reason...accepting Tiresias comments on it, and yet wanting to hear it in case he was missing something aligns with Odysseus as it's presented in the movie..the guy who literally went to war leaving his wife and child at home on the premise of glory in service to a venal, grasping warlord...of course he'd want to hear it. I don't know that there needs to be more to it than that.


People spoke to Odysseus' cleverness — especially with respect to the Trojan horse plot — but we never saw it.

You did. You just saw that it was a clever but ultimately evil plan that not only tricked the city of Troy to the slaughter, but killed off his own men to make it work and succeed. Things can be clever and evil both.


I mean, come on...his plan upon returning home was to string a bow only he could string (smart), shoot an arrow at a target only he could hit (smart), and then fight off 100 men (dumb)?

108 men...Sorry, is this a complaint about the movie or The Odyssey as a narrative, because the above is all the final act of the books of the Odyssey, so issues with that are laid at the feet of Homer not Nolan. Even in the recent Ralph Fiennes/Juliette Binoche THE RETURN film hinges around this sequence. The end of the Odyssey is a suitor massacre at the hands of Odysseus.




(Also, why is the cyclops alone? The cyclops having conversations with Odysseus and the whole "No Man" part — a perfect way to showcase Odysseus' cleverness — was lost due to that choice.)

Hang on, you WANT the "nobody" comment in the story? A feature which very much paints Odysseus as wanting notoriety in the world (which is part of what pisses off Poseidon) and doing the Cyclops in just to be a dick, VS here where it's a man just angrily trying to get his men fed and pissy with the creature that ate some of them? I don't think "street cred-seeking Odysseus" is threone that fits into the narrative here which is driving at soldier PTSD and inhumanity...but YMMV. Is there a world where you could have a more accurate to book 9 conversation/wine/nobody scene between them? Sure...it's not in this almost hour movie though, and it very much does not work as well with the themes at play here.

Also alone? You mean why didn't' we see any other cyclops barring Polyphemus? I fail to see the need especially as it would again delay there pace of the narrative to have the other Cyclopes on the island Chase the men...like there's lots of untapped stuff from the 24books of the Odyssey that exist...getting them all into a single movie would be a mugs game.

[amphibian]

I'm not a mod, yet you need to stop saying things like this to me, to Azath, and to others here.

Quote

It wasn't all over the place, but then you were ready to go into this with problems before you saw it and I'm not sure I've ever seen you move from a pre-entrenched position on a movie, so that's to be expected. We disagree.

It is possible to disagree without doing a generalized crack at the entire post history or personality of the person who is responding to you. Find that way.

[QuickTidal]

You got it. No problem.

[QuickTidal]

AVATAR AANG THE LAST AIRBENDER was really good. I watched it with my daughter and she enjoyed it as well. The aged up adult versions of the characters managed to be close to their youthful versions from the TV show without feeling the need to make them not act like adults, and I'm super glad that the voice actors for the adult versions are more diverse...Eric Nam, Jessica Matten, Roman Zaragoza, Dionne Quan, and Steven Yuen as the five Team Avatar roles, and Dave Bautista comes in as a great foil as the lost ancient air nomad Tagah, Frieda Pinto does a great job as Avatar Sonam, and an unexpected but welcome Key Huy Quan cameo as the precocious Avatar Xian. The animation is STUNNING throughout. The story is a bit paint by numbers but I think it's probably intentional as it's a bridging story from ATLA to KORRA and certain things need to be set up, amongst them that the Avatar can fail and be put through hell (as Korra frequently is), but moreover that the Denied is what will clearly give way to the Equalists in Korra's time. So I think that keeping it simple was a smart move for a story that takes place between the two properties. I think it also leads to things getting REALLY interesting in the forthcoming SEVEN HAVENS show.

EDIT: I don't know what it is, but I could spend an hour looking for easter eggs in Republic City of this age VS the one of Korra's, love that it's one of the centre pieces of the movie as it's a core concept of KORRA that the nations live together largely in harmony.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Today, 11:52 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 27 July 2026 - 06:19 PM, said:

108 men...Sorry, is this a complaint about the movie or The Odyssey as a narrative, because the above is all the final act of the books of the Odyssey, so issues with that are laid at the feet of Homer not Nolan.

Thank you for giving me another excuse to quote the Odyssey. While you're right that Odysseus doesn't have much more of a plan in Homer's version, it makes much more sense there because his assault on the suitors also has the direct support and supernatural aid of Zeus and Athena, as well as three people fighting on his side. Zeus sends loud crashing lightning bolts to signal for Odysseus to attack (which the suitors also see and hear):

Ζεὺς δὲ μεγάλ᾽ ἔκτυπε σήματα φαίνων

literal word-for-word translation: Zeus then bigly crashed/resounded/thundered signs shining

https://www.perseus....21%3Acard%3D401

... and Athena, who appears in the form of Mentor: Odysseus asks for her aid, she accuses him of being cowardly and exhorts him to attack, and then flies up to sit on the roof-beams resembling a swallow. She diverts all the suitors' thrown spears, then, after Odysseus and his men have been slaughtering them for a bit, displays her mortal-destroying aegis, making the remaining suitors flee in mindless panic as Odysseus and his three men chase them down and finish them off.

According to reviews, the gods do not directly support or provide supernatural aid for Odysseus's slaughter of the suitors in Nolan's version.

As for the rest---well, as you pointed out, I haven't seen the movie, so perhaps I shouldn't comment. But I think it's worth quoting this passage from the interview with Emily Wilson that Whisperzzzzzzz posted earlier, just in case anyone here didn't read it:

Quote

The Odysseus of the Greek poem is complicated. He's very smart, very good at problem-solving, very crafty, very good at being in multiple disguises, being a different person depending on who he's talking to, coming up with clever schemes like telling the cyclops his name is "No Man," such that when the Cyclops cries out that "No Man is hurting him," the other Cyclopes will think, oh, if no man hurting you, you're fine, no problem. All of that is erased from the Nolan movie. There's no Cyclops trick. There's no comedy. Matt Damon isn't required to be scheming.

[...] When the casting was announced, it was The Talented Mr. Ripley that gave me hope in terms of where this might go with Matt Damon as Odysseus.

What Is Lost When We Make 'The Odyssey' Modern

While Nolan may have wanted to focus on his "Odysseus has PTSD" idea, did he really need to remove all the comedy? And all the sex as well?

As another reviewer put it:

Quote

The big-budget movie keeps much of the violence and spectacle but none of the nuance and wit of the classical epic.

https://www.thenatio...-katha-pollitt/

And for me, in terms of giving people who don't realize that Nolan's version isn't a faithful adaptation a mistaken impression of what the classic text is like, all this is a billion times worse than my relatively minor grouses from before. He could've easily provided some indication in the film or in the marketing that his version is very different. Then again Emily Wilson's translation has reportedly sold over a million copies this year, and Nolan has given many people an excuse to talk about what the classic version attributed to Homer is actually like, so perhaps it's not so bad that he didn't make the difference clear... that is, if Nolan really was dead-set on removing all the comedy, sex, and nuance because he felt it detracted from the focus on guilt and PTSD, or from the movie's important ethical message.

In terms of trying to consider Nolan's version on its own ethical terms, it also seems worth quoting these passages from the review which amphibian linked to:

Quote

We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point. Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern, must show the perspectives of the victims as well as the perpetrators, and the Homeric poems easily clear the bar – but Nolan doesn't. The Trojans are dehumanised by their masks; we know none of them by name or face. The hands of Odysseus and Telemachus are bloodied only by the most righteous, computer-game modes of killing, and we feel no pity or horror at the deaths of their victims, whether Trojans, giants, suitors or slaves. [...]

The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan's Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people. It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centres, aggrandises and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgment of his own guilt.

What Is Lost When We Make 'The Odyssey' Modern

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: Today, 02:41 PM

[Macros]

Aaaaaannnnddd Just to draw a line under this.


You guys will never agree on this


And its a movie

And its a 3000 year old work of fiction


And NERDS

And let's all just move along before this becomes more onerous than a mythological Greek punishment, gods forbid this debate gets passed on tk our children, its not their fault

[QuickTidal]

I already conceded up thread, and earlier said I would not be replying to Azath anymore on it.

All good.

------------------

I've not read this book, but this has a stacked cast and looks VERY good!

[amphibian]

I am quite enthusiastic for movie/TV versions that decide to do their own thing with myths or old stories.

Clueless is an all timer of a movie and that's Emma with a modern approach. O Brother Where Art Thou is also an all timer that swerves into Jim Crow and feminism in a movie that could easily not have done those things.

What I want is something interesting and I don't think vague lamentations of an era dying get there for me. There's other elements of the 2026 Odyssey movie that are much more interesting and I've highlighted them, while wishing there was more.

I also do think that there's gotta be a viewing of the movie to seriously discuss it. I was wrong to say negative things about the Joker movie for being co-opted by right wing nuts without seeing it years ago.

Edit: Didn't see the end discussion post above until now. Happily dropping this.

This post has been edited by amphibian: Today, 03:09 PM

[polishgenius]

Is peak hubris tweaking the nose of the Cyclops for no reason and telling him your name when you were away clean, or is it spending a week and several pages arguing passionately about the flaws of a film you haven't seen?

[worry]

Obsession -- You don't need me to tell you that there were a number of surprise horror hits this year, and this was chief among them. I liked it quite a lot -- everyone in it is great, but it's absolutely anchored by a beast performance from Inde Navarrette. I didn't read too much before hand but have read and watched some interview type stuff afterward, and it's interesting how some movies -- even ones that start out with good scripts -- can transform so much by the time you get the final product. It's kind of a testament to how collaborative they can be, and this one turned out even better for it.
Hokum -- another horror gem from this year, though not the senstation that Obsession (and Backrooms) were, I take it. Adam Scott plays a semi-misanthropic author who takes a trip to an Irish countryside inn, for personal reasons, and it turns out it might be haunted by something. It's a bit more traditional a story, but still very well written and acted, with lots of care put into the characters and setting.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

polishgenius, on 28 July 2026 - 06:16 PM, said:

Is peak hubris tweaking the nose of the Cyclops for no reason and telling him your name when you were away clean, or is it spending a week and several pages arguing passionately about the flaws of a film you haven't seen?

... or is it commenting on posts you never finished reading?... Granted, I probably should've included TL;DRs. My commentary was primarily about the poem and how it differs radically from descriptions of the movie, though in my last post I did also quote some reviews critiquing the movie. Of course I've also been allowing for the possibility that those descriptions of the movie are inaccurate. If QT hadn't brought up the similarity of the poem to the movie I wouldn't have posted most of that (so again---thank you, QT, I love going on about great ancient Greek poetry... for those of you who haven't learned ancient Greek I really would recommend it if you ever have the time, once you learn the basics of the grammar and reconstructed pronunciation it's very easy these days because on Perseus and some other websites you can just click on each word in the text to get a full grammatical analysis, so you can read it without having to memorize words and conjugations... you could probably learn enough to read it with Perseus in twenty minutes, or less if you're already familiar with languages that have similar cases).

Perseus - Greek and Roman Materials

In closing, it's clear from the reviews that the following got cut from the movie (along with all humor and all sex), and no matter how good the movie might be, I'm sure it would've been better if they'd included this:

Quote

You just turned all my men into pigs. You have the gall to think I would sleep with you? Of course I will. Absolutely. But don't do any weird spells.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: Today, 08:27 PM