Of course I had to go see this despite reservations about Matt Damon. How could he possibly convince as the wily Odysseus? Well, the script helped him out by ignoring “wily” and turning Odysseus into a pensive, guilt-ridden bore, a complete anachronism. Mr. Damon had no problem with that.
But there’s plenty to like. Most of Homer’s Odyssey is a flashback, and Christoper Nolan handles matters temporal very well. The Polyphemus episode, as well as those of Circe and Scylla/Charybdis were excellent. As were the Shades emerging from Hades. Cool shipwrecks too.
The Laestrygons episode might have been better had Monty Python and the Holy Grail never existed. For some reason the giants were dressed in medieval armor, which made me expect them to demand a shrubbery or say “none shall pass.” As they were chasing the Greeks off the island, I was half-expecting the Greeks to start shouting “Run away, run away!”
In a similar vein, Agamemnon resembled Darth Vader, which seemed comical to me. I was reminded of Rick Moranis in Spaceballs.
Some of the inevitable changes to Homer worked well, others not. The movie cut the island of the Lotus Eaters, instead having Calypso give Odysseus lotus flowers to keep him forgetful and happy. Excellent idea. But for some reason Helen and Clytemnestra are now twins. Why? I get changes that make a leaner movie, but that seems random. And where the hell was Laertes?
Borrowing Sinon from the Aeneid was an excellent idea, but poorly executed. Excellent as a plot connection that I won’t get into here. But completely wrong as a character. Sinon was the point man for the Trojan Horse trick, a glib con-man. But in this movie he’s an awkward innocent who utters a few words after getting mortally wounded.
The Trojan Horse episode was well-depicted despite Sinon’s botched character and Agamemnon as Darth Vader. But due to Sinon’s reduced role and the absence of horse-doubters (Laocoon and Cassandra), the Trojans’ decision to accept the horse would seem like idiocy to those unfamiliar with the story. As a majority of Americans can no longer tell you who won WWII, that likely would be most people. Granted, Laocoon makes no appearance in Homer’s version, but if you’re borrowing Sinon to add coherence, why stop there?
My biggest problem with this movie involves a spoiler, so I’m mum on that.
Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend seeing it on the big screen. Shipwrecks. Mythical Monsters. Minimal CGI. Yes, please.
I’m down. Will probably catch it on IMAX. I thought about it this weekend but had a lot going on.
I have vague notions of Homer from high school English, and from Brad Pitt is Troy.
My typical That Wasn’t In The Book Dammit complaints will not be in play. Sometimes it’s nice to just ride with whatever the filmmaker thinks is cool. I’m not above such behavior, of course, but to this point Peter Jackson and David Yates have refused to take my notes on LOTR or even Harry Potter.
The Lady Monkeystador – who has read books about Clytemnestra and other prominent characters – will probably be disappointed about something. She told me that Clytemnestra and Helen are twins, but that Helen somehow is the only one who is Zeus’s child, and as such is favored and beautiful. I tried to work that out in my head, and she gave me what I would describe as an “OMG, noob” face.
Clytemnestra likely won’t bother Mrs. Monkeystador much. Clytemnestra’s just in the movie long enough to do the act she’s most famous for.
Clytemnestra and Helen were sort of half sisters. I say sort of because they had the same mother, but Clytemnestra’s father was a mortal, and Helen’s father was Zeus. Can they be true half sisters if one is semi-divine? Seems a stretch. But the problem with their twin status in the movie is not so much that they’re twins, but that they look exactly alike, which is absolutely inane when you consider that Helen was “the face that launched a thousand ships,” and offered by Aphrodite to Paris as the world’s most beautiful woman. If there’s another woman around with the same face, then the myth becomes nonsense. For the twin thing to work you can’t have them resemble each other too much ( as many twins don’t). But the same actress plays both.
Probably depends on whose account you’re reading, but the version I know is that Clytemnestra’s twin was Pollux, and Helen’s was Castor. Zeus raped their mother Leda, who also coupled with her mortal husband (a king) on the same night. The egg inseminated by Zeus produced Helen and Castor, the other Clytemnestra and Pollux. So one set of mortal twins, another set of demigods. Would have made for some interesting Thanksgivings.
I used to be more of a stickler about movies following books. But when you consider that the Greeks and Romans themselves altered the myths over the centuries, then, well, why can’t we? Some changes make sense, but others don’t. I can enjoy these movies even though they have parts that make me want to boo and throw my popcorn box. I enjoyed Troy very much, but Briseis killing Agamemnon? And in Troy as it burns? No, no and NO.
I decided to look into this twins business. I’m teaching a mythology class for the first time this coming school year, so my ducks need to be lined up.
The half-sisters information I gave above came from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, which I re-read last month, as it’s the book I’ll use for the class. I mistakenly said that the twin pairs were Clytemnestra/Pollux and Helen/Castor, but it’s actually Clytemnestra/Castor and Helen/Pollux. Either way, Helen was semi-divine and not of the same mortal egg as Clytemnestra. But Hamilton also says that Castor and Pollux were sometimes called “sons of Zeus,” even though they were more commonly referred to as “sons of Tyndareus (their mother Leda’s mortal husband).” That leaves open the possibility that Clytemnestra and Helen were of the same egg.
So it was time to go down the rabbit hole, which meant pulling out Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths, an excellent cross-referenced and indexed source. I also had to poke around online a bit.
Here’s what I learned: Some later Roman writers state that Helen, Castor, and Pollux were the spawn of Zeus, whereas Clytemnestra was the mortal daughter of Tyndareus (a King of Sparta). Later on, the First Vatican Mythographer repeated the version above, but also contradicted himself elsewhere by writing that Helen and Clytemnestra were from the same egg. That’s the earliest source I can find that suggests that Helen and Clytemnestra were twins, and it’s from the 8th century A.D., well after the classical era.
Homer’s Odyssey and Euripides’ Helena claim that Helen alone was a daughter of Zeus, and that the other three were mortals. Pindar gives the usual version I stated above: that Clytemnestra and Castor were mortal, and Helen and Pollux semi-divine.
Pindar’s and Homer’s half-sister versions are the ones you get in standard mythology books. It makes sense that they, being great poets and actual ancient Greeks, would take precedence over a Vatican Mythographer from the medieval period. However, you can conclude whatever you want on the twins issue. Castor and Pollux are often referred to as twins. Given the messy genealogy above, if you can call them twins, you could call Helen and Clytemnestra twins as well. I had just never heard of it before I saw the movie.
But I’ll die on this hill: they can’t be identical twins without turning the Trojan War myth into an absurd muddle. So why in the hell did Nolan make them identical? It makes no sense.
Please thank Lady Monkeystador for her comment. It gave me an enjoyable rabbit hole that will make me look much smarter than I am when it comes up in class in a few weeks.
I quite enjoyed this film.
We sat relatively close. The bone-rattling IMAX drums and bass made me feel like I was at the mercy of rough seas. Super effective on those ship sequences.
Initially I was also not keen on Mr. Damon – I wanted a young Russell Crowe or maybe Billy Crudup – but I got over that immediately. As I was driving home it struck me: “Oh, I just watched “Homer’s Unforgiven.” Great dour choices.
Not knowing or remembering anything about anything served me well. I loved Agamemnon – he didn’t seem Spaceballs at all to me but perfectly dark, kingly, mysterious. The shiny Knights Who Say “Ni” were also appropriately menacing.
Thanks for the Sinon lowdown. It advances the important “drawing lots for the war campaign” storyline which if it isn’t in the real story didn’t bother me because, again: ignorance!
My overall takeaway is that what I didn’t realize but definitely need in my life is for Zendaya to appear on a hillside, and I somehow know to follow, and she ends up dispensing some fantastic wisdom or just looks at me with a meaningful expression.
The drawing of lots for service was a real thing. In the case of the Trojan War, the myth is that a group of powerful families was bound by an oath to support Menelaus if anyone ever wronged him via his wife, Helen. So when Paris abducted Helen, and Agamemnon and Menelaus decided to attack Troy, each family had to send a warrior. Families with multiple sons capable of fighting drew lots to pick one. It’s mentioned in the Iliad, but it would be a reasonable addition to the movie even if it weren’t. The Greeks drew lots to settle all sorts of things.
Sinon as brother of any suitor, let alone the smarmiest, was an invention of the movie. I had no problem with that. The return of the lot added cohesiveness to the story. And you genuinely felt sorry for Sinon, so there was some justification for Odysseus’s killing his brother beyond “you’re a dick and should die.” So yeah, good change.
Damon’s Odysseus didn’t bother me because I quickly realized that my problem would be with the script, not him. He was just doing his job, and he was fine. The writer(s) opted to make a character that a wide swathe of contemporary viewers might find compelling. I’m not of that swathe, but I’m used to that and don’t care. I could just ignore that and enjoy the parts I liked.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t opt for IMAX, because it was opening day, and I thought the IMAX theaters would be too crowded. I think Squire Renfield and I might go for a second viewing in IMAX.
While trying to remember where I parked, I remarked to my youngsters that “hey! we’re on an odyssey to find the Odyssey!”
I thought that was pretty clever but I may have been alone in that opinion.
Here’s hoping the minivan wasn’t full of suitors you had to slay in spectacular fashion.