Joe 0:00

Ancient Greeks spent centuries writing a 12,000 line poem about a guy who took 10 years to get home because he angered a sea god, only for Christopher Nolan to turn it into a $250 million movie where Matt Damon glares miserably at the ocean while loud brass music shakes your seat. Because if there's one thing ancient mythology was missing, it was giant IMAX screens and taking away everyone's cell phone on set. Oh, we could talk about our movie going experience too. Not that there was much to our movie going experience to seeing this, like except our crappy seats, but I would like to see this again from a better perspective. Sorry. Um like this? Yeah, that was yeah, that was basically my perspective. It's kind of my head to the left, up and to the left. Um, plus, you know, sitting so close with a screen so big, you have you know, you gotta move your head around to see everything. Like there's stuff going on on the side that you can't see because your peripherals are not that great. Um, plus, there's a lot going on in this movie. There is a lot of things. So I feel like I feel like a second watch would probably catch a bunch of things. I mean, there's things in here I still don't necessarily know if I totally grasp, but I guess we'll talk about it. I think we will. This is Shelf to Screen, the podcast where we discuss sci-fi and fantasy literary adaptations to the big and or in this case, even bigger screen.

Tom 1:37

Ooh, well done.

Joe 1:38

I'm Joe Dysseus.

Jen 1:40

I'm Jenope.

Tom 1:43

And I'm Tomomachus or Tomomachus, depending on where you're from.

Joe 1:52

You went for the I wasn't sure if you were gonna go for the Tomemicus, Tom, or or Antonio, Antonymus.

Tom 1:58

I was gonna go antominus, but then like when Antominus. With you with you both being Odysseus and Penelope. Yeah, I was I felt like I had to complete the family for it.

Joe 2:09

There was a lot here.

Jen 2:11

As you started saying this is shelf to screen, I was like, oh shit. Jenny, I got it so fast!

Joe 2:18

I already was like Jen Peterson Genelope. Uh Tom, I wasn't sure. I was gonna I was going with Tomomakus or Atomous.

Tom 2:25

Those are the two I was going back and forth with.

Joe 2:27

Or Tamon, maybe. Um Agamem?

Tom 2:32

Agamem. That'd be part two.

Joe 2:35

Tomeleas. Oh yeah, we just ruined all these for our second episode.

Tom 2:41

I have my I have my unless I have mine, I think, for the second one now. All right.

Joe 2:45

Join us on this podic, everybody. Ooh. There's a lot of puns in this movie. So in today's episode, we are going to be talking about the epic, uh, the original epic, I would say, potentially, right? The Odyssey written by Homer question mark. But we sure sure, but definitely adapted by Christopher Nolan um into a movie that we just all saw together. So uh this will be the first time we're doing something like this, right? Yeah.

Jen 3:16

Well, it's the first time we just saw a movie together, and now we're reviewing it. There have been movies we've seen together before this. Many, many years in the past.

Joe 3:26

Yes, that's true. That is true. Uh, this is the first time though. Yes, you're right. We just we went to the movies together to see this for the I would say partially for the podcast, but partially because we just wanted to see the movie.

Jen 3:37

Yeah.

Joe 3:37

Um, so that's cool. It's a first here. We're breaking new ground, everybody. Always. We're 30 episodes in uh 29 episodes in, and we're breaking new ground still. Gotta keep the podcast fresh. I'm gonna ask this question, which I might have forgotten to ask when we covered our last adaptation. I don't think we talked about our initial encounter or uh exposure to um the materials. So I'll start, Tom, with you. What was your original memory of the Odyssey?

Tom 4:07

Back in the days of ancient Greece. No, um, when I was a kid, I had a a novelization. Um it wasn't called Tales of Brave Ulysses, but it was something like that. It was definitely Ulysses. And it was like an anglicized novelization of the Odyssey for younger readers. So it took away some of like the the I think uh like everyone dies, but you know, the that dies in the in the in the story, but like not as like on screen-ish, I guess. So I read that and I really enjoyed it. And then I first time I actually read uh the poem was I want to say I was a sophomore in high school. I read it for school. Um and it was a rare must read this book for school, but still enjoyed reading this book experience for me.

Joe 4:57

Yeah, I believe mine is the same in that sense. I remember I think this was a summer reading. Remember when they used to do summer reading and you had to read you were assigned specific books to read over the summer? They don't do that anymore.

Jen 5:09

Um yeah, I remember your kid still has that.

Joe 5:12

Really? Mine doesn't. My kids don't have that.

Tom 5:14

My my kids have like you have to read some books.

Joe 5:17

Yeah, exactly.

Jen 5:18

This year was her first year not having a specific that she could pick her own book. But every year until now, she had to read a specific book.

Joe 5:26

Yeah, that is good. Uh this was one of those, I think, for me. Uh but in high school, I think I had to read this. And then I think I saw the um the the TV mini-series with uh Armand Desante. Nice. Which was okay. I went back, like, you know, I feel like that was probably kind of trash if I go back and watch it, but I was checking on IMDb, and both it's like I think it's two parts, and both parts got like seven plus out of ten. So people liked it. It's got a quite wild cast, too.

Tom 5:56

I was just looking at that. Vanessa Williams and Grita Sachi. I remember Grita Sachi and Isabella Rossolini. What a what a cast.

Joe 6:03

And um Cersei is Bernadette Peters.

Tom 6:07

Oh my gosh. I gotta watch it. It's a great cast. It's a great cast.

Joe 6:11

It is a good cast. Um there's a lot of people in it. It was nine, the late 90s or when was it time? 97. 97, yeah. That was probably shortly. I'm not- I don't know if I read the book first or so that first now. I don't know. Well, it doesn't matter. Jen, how about you? Your first exposure.

Jen 6:28

I have never read it until now, just a couple of weeks ago. And I ne I never saw any other adaptations. I saw Troy, so I was familiar with some of the characters. The prequel from Yeah, Troy the prequel. Um which of course is much different than which I have not read The Iliad, but I believe it is slightly different than the movie Troy, because uh there's things that happen at the end of Troy that have not happened in the Odyssey, such as Helen running away with Paris. But uh and you know. But um, yeah. So but I was familiar with Odysseus, played by Sean Bean.

Joe 7:11

That's right.

Jen 7:11

Right in that adaptation.

Joe 7:13

It was one of the best parts of that. I mean, that movie wasn't really that great.

Jen 7:15

Uh I liked it at the time. I haven't seen it in many years, but I I liked it.

Joe 7:19

It was okay. The fact that our biggest takeaway from that movie was we would just do the Brad Pitt. Oh, yeah. Take it, it's yours.

Jen 7:27

Oh, I think you were gonna say, Hector! Oh yeah, screaming for Hector.

Tom 7:32

Um the what you call it, I don't think you I don't know if you remember this, Jen, but I I remember the scene of the movie and I getting kind of like in in Troy, getting kind of excited, because the first time you see I don't know if it's the first time you see Odysseus, but I or if it's a flashback. I don't recall right now like when Odysseus is recruited to go, but he's he's sitting like on like uh a hill overlooking the ocean with his dog. Oh, yeah, when when Agamemnon comes to to tell him it's time to go. Yeah.

Joe 8:03

They got the dog right.

Tom 8:04

They got the dog right.

Joe 8:06

Dog's in the book, dog's in the movie. We got it. All right. Uh so shall we talk a little bit about the Odyssey as a as a piece of literature, and we're gonna go full spoilers, everybody. You've only had about eight to ten thousand years to read this.

Tom 8:23

So no, it's not that old. It's like three-ish thousand, right? Maybe more.

Jen 8:28

Well, I think we're alive for all of those thousands of years, Joe.

Joe 8:33

That's true. It's it's yeah, it's about two and a half to three thousand years to read this. So so let's let's get into it. All right. So Homer's Odyssey, Homer's quote unquote Odyssey, because there's some a lot of debate about this apparently, which I didn't know, uh, stands as one of the foundational narrative pillars of Western literature, composed in Homeric Greek around the 8th or 7th century BC. The epic poem, right? This is a poem. This is our first poem we're doing, everybody. That's right. Uh, was not initially conceived as written text, but rather emerged from an ancient oral tradition spanning centuries across the Aegean world. Uh, the poem details the 10-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he struggles to return home following the fall of Troy, while his wife Penelope and Telemachus defend the household against intrusive faction of suitors. Basic, that's the basic premise of this story, and there's a lot of things that go on. Um, so you know, it did go, we we did talk about how it went from kind of like uh an oral performance, oral tradition that eventually turned into a writ uh like a fixed written manuscript. Um, the the evolution of the text moved through distinct historical phases. So during the archaic period, right, the fluid oral tradition performed by regional bards. We have a bard in this movie played by uh Travis Scott. Um, by mid-sixth century BC, under the tyrant, I'm gonna try to pronounce this name, Pisatratus in Athens, the poem was institutionalized and recited at the Panathenaic Games.

Tom 10:06

Yeah, they were.

Jen 10:07

Can you imagine sitting there and listening to someone recite this whole thing? There's no way. I mean maybe it was in pieces and stuff, but like it says like thousands of lines, like 10,000 or 12,000 lines.

Tom 10:22

Yeah, I imagine that okay. Taking back to to a to a series of books that we talked a lot about in our past, right? In the wheel of time, um they would ask Yeah, it's it's a series of uh fantasy novels.

Jen 10:36

We should do that one.

Tom 10:37

Yeah, maybe one day. Um there's a character Tom Maryland, right? Who who's constantly telling he's a bard kind of a thing, right? So he's constantly telling stories from like he's not telling the entire story, he's telling pieces of stories from and I imagine it's the same thing, right? The poem is broken up into 24 books, right? Yeah, something like that.

Joe 10:57

Yeah, 24 books.

Tom 10:58

Yeah, and so it would be like when someone's narrating or orating it to to to a crowd, it's probably at best they're gonna do one of the books. They're not gonna be doing all right, everybody sit down for a couple of days. I got a story to tell you.

Jen 11:11

Maybe what else did they have to do? It well, it's so I listened to the audio book.

Joe 11:16

Nobody doing anything. I listened to the audiobook and it was about 14 hours. Right. And and Ian McKellen read pretty quickly because I I didn't have to like speed it up too much because Ian McKellen was reading pretty quickly. Um, so 14 hours it took to recite this whole thing, and that was in English. I don't know if ancient Greek would be longer or shorter. I don't know. Probably shorter would be my guess because I would think the uh ancient Greek vocabulary is probably smaller than the English vocabulary. But yeah, I imagine that each little book and each little story is kind of told, was told and told and told, and kind of you know, morphed. And I I wouldn't be surprised if some of these stories, because a lot of the things that happen in this are kind of repetitive. But um, you know, they go to an island, something bad happens, they leave the island, people die, and they leave the island. They go to another island, something bad, right? So I imagine those are kind of like iterations of the same story, maybe. Um then somebody tells it a different way, and they're like, I can see people arguing over. No, my version's better. So, like, we'll just put both of them in.

Tom 12:16

They go to an island, there's a hot magical sex switch.

Joe 12:20

Yeah.

Jen 12:20

He stayed, he Odysseus sleeps with her.

unknown 12:23

Right.

Joe 12:24

Well, not in the movie. So eventually, during the Hellenistic period in third century BC, um scholars at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, uh, including Aristarchus of Samothrace, God, these names, divided uh the epic into 24 books corresponding to the letters of the ancient Greek alphabet, which we just talked about. Um, some other milestones in the publication of English versions of this book. So in 1616, George Chapman completed the first full English translation, introducing the Homeric epic into the Renaissance literature. So that is the first English version of the story, 1616. Um, in 1871, Willem Cullen Bryant produces the first major American translation. And then in 2017, Emily Wilson publishes the first English translation by a woman reevaluating long-standing gendered phrasing and structured rhythms, which I read recently that Emily Wilson's version is kind of what um Christopher Nolan or got got his inspiration from, which I wish I would have known before I read the Fagel's translation because I would have just read the Emily Wilson translation. But it's funny because I saw something where Emily Wilson kind of criticized the movie.

Jen 13:39

Oh, really?

Joe 13:40

Yeah. Um, I don't have the quote with me because it just popped in my head now when I mentioned her name, but I was surprised about that. Um, so we talked about whether, right, the they call it the Homeric question, right? The primary mystery surrounding the Odyssey is that it's a scholar scholarly debate formalizing in the 1830s, which is pretty long time ago, over the true identity and existence of Homer. Classical analysts argue that the Odyssey was a composite work assembled by multiple editors from different folk songs, while Unitarians maintained it was the product of a single artistic mind. Do you guys have any feelings on that? Do you think it was one person or multiple people?

Jen 14:19

Probably multiple people. I mean, I don't know how at that point in time one person was gonna based on the history of everyone saying it and spreading it around and you know, boards and stuff like that. I think it was probably put together maybe put together by one person, but I don't think it originated with one person.

Tom 14:39

Yeah, and I think even if it was at one point put together by one person, I doubt that Homer when Homer put it together, it was exactly the same way as it was the way that we read it now. Um like just think about our experience with how like Don't they don't they have direct like Greek documents with this?

Joe 15:00

And there's just it's just been translated?

Tom 15:02

No, no. Anything that was written back then doesn't exist anymore. Pyrrhus Pyro degrades after like less than a hundred years. So um so there's no there's no like original document. There's some there's some very, very old versions of it, but there's there's nothing um there's nothing original. I I would just say like think of how in in in more modern times we've seen things evolve and and keep the name of the originator, right? Anything from you know anything from different versions of the Bible to Roger's Thesaurus, right? It's still named Roger or Roget, I don't know, whatever, but like it's not so right, like it's Homer's the Odyssey. And even if like when I rewrote it, I added in you know more stuff here or there, it's still Homer's The Odyssey because that's the brand.

Joe 15:57

Yeah, so I'm looking this up. So the earliest known translation of of uh the Odyssey is Livius Andronicus, third century BCE. Uh surviving only in fragments. It was one of the first Latin literary texts, but then it mentions that um, well, that's this would be later on, the Byzantine Empire is Greek text. Translations were made into Gregorian. Yeah. So I guess some of the earliest translations are Latin, and then I guess that was translated back into Greek. So I'm sure a lot gets I got a lot gets lost. But yeah, this is definitely I I would definitely be interested in reading some of the other translations of this just because there's different takes. Like if I think Tom, you you read one, you had screenshot like the first page, and uh the one I was looking at, I was like, oh, mine's different. It's definitely not the same translation, yeah.

Tom 16:49

And it's like you can tell, like, okay, they're saying generally the same things, but right, you're you're translating idioms from ancient Greece to you know whatever version of of of modern English is at the time that you're writing it, but there's lots of room for interpretation there, yeah.

Joe 17:05

You know what's really interesting about this uh story, too. I mean, I I said it kind of half jokingly, but like like the original epic you know story, which I mean this is, I would say, um, and there's so many. Well, this is like the first real movie adaptation, there's so many other adaptations of this, and not necessarily like, hey, we're doing the Odyssey, but like TV shows that like did their version of the Odyssey, like The Simpsons did an Odyssey, right? Like uh some other cartoons have done like Odyssey type episodes where they kind of mimic the story. Um, and there's what's a what's the movie? The Cohen Brothers movie, which is basically Oh Brother Where Art Thou, yeah. Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, which is just basically the Odyssey just told in a different way and you know, kind of different. Um, it had definitely had a lot of influence on more modern fantasy and Star Trek Voyager, right?

Tom 18:00

Like there's things that are just kind of like taking the the the the general concept too and just doing it in a different version. But yeah, I think I think you're right in that. I mean, obviously you're gonna um you know you can debate about that or the Iliad, which you know. Uh but yeah, I think this is this is so integral to just how like we think of storytelling or how we think of of storytelling that things that happen in here are just part of nomenclature, right? Like, you know, uh before we came down to record, I uh I mentioned to to my family, I was like, oh, you know, if you're if you're if you're looking for me, I'll be talking about uh a Cyclops and a Trojan horse. And like I had to explain that a Trojan horse actually came from a story. It wasn't just like a thing that like you know It's not a virus, a computer virus, right?

Joe 18:52

Or just yeah.

Jen 18:53

I think you said this uh when we were driving to the movie that like Tom, that like people were saying, like, oh, his his teacher, the guy that's helping him is actually called mentor, like how dumb. And you were like, that's where the word mentor came from.

Joe 19:08

Yes, right, right.

Jen 19:10

That's how old it is. Like it's created words.

Joe 19:12

Yeah. Yeah, that's so dumb.

Jen 19:16

Yeah.

Joe 19:18

Yeah, well, oh, well, we gotta get into this because there's a lot of you know, there are one thing that is similar to this in Troy is they kind of cut out a lot of the Greek gods. Um Yeah. They they I mean they we can get into that in a in a minute if you want to put a pin in that when we get into the movie.

Tom 19:35

Yeah, I think we can. I think just as a Troy really tries to make it like like a realistic story. Like there's no yeah, yeah.

Joe 19:42

Like it's a histor, it's like a historical like this is not a real like there's this is a land of magic. It says it right in the beginning of the movie. It says a land of uh what's the opening? It's a land of it's not just magic, it says like supposed magic or something like that. It opens with.

Jen 20:02

I don't know.

Joe 20:03

Um, all right, let's talk a little bit about the adaptation, right? You know, how did this movie get made, right? So Christopher Nolan's connection to the material dates back to 2003, uh, when Warner Brothers approached him to direct the aforementioned Troy. Probably would have been a lot better. Uh, but he declined. He thought at the time that we he was a little in over his head at that point of the career. Um so after winning Best Picture and Best Director for Oppenheimer uh in back in March of 2024, Nolan and his producing partner Emma Thomas gained unprecedented studio backing to pursue their next project. So Nolan began writing the screenplay in March of 2024, which was right after. Uh, by October of 2024, Universal Pictures secured distribution rights, bypassing studio bidding wars due to their successful partnership on Oppenheimer. Before Universal officially announced the project as the Odyssey in December of 2024, film media enraged in intense speculation, wrongly predicted Nolan was making a 1920s vampire horror film, a reboot of the 1983 helicopter thriller Blue Thunder, which I would love to see, um, or an adaptation of The Prisoner, I'm guessing the TV show The Prisoner, with a net production budget of $250 million. The Odyssey became the most expensive green-lit production of Nolan's career. I thought this great little note here I had to say because of the last um adaptation we did, which was also a Christopher Nolan movie. Um, Nolan's directorial approach to adaptation mirrors his work on Christopher Priest, The Prestige, which we just did stripping away theatrical fluff to focus on the psychological price of obsession, restructuring timelines to mirror the narrative's themes, and employing practical ground level illusions rather than artificial digital visual effects. Connecting it back, not on purpose. We're not purposely connecting episodes, although Jen says we might be actually doing it next week. Episode.

Jen 22:00

Not really. There's like one little reference.

Joe 22:04

Oh, okay.

Jen 22:05

That's all. But I was like, oh my God, we found it. I never thought it would be reconnecting the Odyssey with the next week's movie.

Joe 22:11

But uh this movie's a veritable who's who of cast, so much so like I hadn't really been paying attention to like this movie and who was in it. So like as we were watching it, I was like, oh.

Tom 22:23

Oh. Yeah.

Joe 22:25

Oh.

Tom 22:25

Yeah.

Joe 22:27

Um all I think the only thing I knew was Matt Damon was Odysseus. I think I remember I remember Anne Hathaway was in the movie, but didn't remember who she was playing because it took me a minute to realize that she was Penelope. I knew Tom Holland was in it as Telemachus, and I knew Zendaya was Athena. I didn't know that Charlie's Theron was Calypso. I was surprised to see her. Um and Samantha Morton too.

Tom 22:50

I did not even recognize Samantha Morton. I thought that was Emily Watson, the actress.

Joe 22:55

She does look, she does look a little like Emily Watson, but her eyes aren't as big as Emily Watson's, or it's maybe close together. One of those things. Yes, Tom, I thought so at first too. And then I was like, this looks like Emily Watson, but it doesn't. And then I and then I was picturing her with her head shaved. Yeah, there you go. In uh The Walking Dead. And in Minority Report. Minority. Oh, I wish if we would do minority report, that would be a connection. There we go.

Jen 23:22

Oh well.

Joe 23:23

And I had no idea Robert Patton was in this. Is he just like in every movie nowadays?

Jen 23:29

Yes, pretty much. So is Tom Holland and Zendaya. Zendaya's actually in every movie.

Tom 23:34

Yeah, that's her four. This will be our third of four number one films uh this year. Yeah. Uh she was in the drama earlier this year. Her and Hollander in Spider-Man that came out today.

Jen 23:48

John Burndhal.

Tom 23:49

That's right. And Burndhal, yeah.

Joe 23:51

And then uh she's in Dune three. Yes. Dune three of them.

Tom 23:55

And with Pattinson.

Joe 23:56

With Pattinson, who's in Dune three as well. That could, yeah. Robert Pattinson's just like in every movie.

Jen 24:00

She's in three, yeah. She's in three movies with Robert Pattinson, right? Because he was in the drama too, right?

Tom 24:05

Yeah, he's in the drama as well. Yeah.

Joe 24:08

I knew that Lupita Nyango was in this because everybody was up in arms about that. Um and that's probably as far as it went. I I John Leguizamo was a surprise to me.

Jen 24:20

I was he was really good.

Joe 24:21

Yeah, he was very he was very good. You forget John Leguizamo can act. Yeah, he's yeah, he's terrific. He's and he's got a pretty he's got a pretty good range, surprisingly.

Tom 24:33

Yes, this is like uh very, very dramatic role for him.

Joe 24:38

Yes. It's a pretty big role, too. Yeah. He's got a he's got a lot of screen time in this for sure.

Tom 24:44

Yeah, I mean, if you I don't I don't know, like if you want to Yes, I would say it's a very large role.

Joe 24:49

Some interesting choices in this, and some almost like I want to say there's really some really interesting and some really like brilliant choices in this, like Benny Safti as Agamemnon is just like very weird.

Tom 25:00

So weird.

Joe 25:00

It's very weird. We don't even see him. I know.

Tom 25:04

I think you see his face like you see his face in the in the mask for a little bit, and then a split second uh at one scene. You see his face.

Joe 25:13

That's so weird. Didn't know that was him. Um, and then had to look up who Benny Safti was because I was like, I know the name, but I I can't I don't know who he is. And I was like, oh yeah.

Tom 25:21

I was I I was I was talking to Jen about it on the on was it on the way home from the movie? Probably yeah. I was like, oh, he's in this. Have you seen this? Like, no. I was like, oh, he's in this thing. I haven't seen that either.

Joe 25:30

He's that he's that funny Jewish guy that works with Adam Sandler a bunch.

Tom 25:34

Does he?

Joe 25:35

Yeah, he's a director. He's he's directed a bunch of buttons. He wrote he, I think he wrote Uncut Gems and he was in the book. He was he was in Happy Gilmore 2. Yeah.

Tom 25:44

Um I think he directed with his brother, Uncut Gems and Um Good Time with Robert Pattinson. Um still haven't seen that, but I know he's in there. I have an I can't remember the his name now. Uh he's the one who wanted to make the uh H bomb. I'm blanking that the scientist's name.

Joe 26:08

I think one of the one of the most surprisingly brilliant choices, and I didn't know this was him, I think, Tom, until you told me, but uh Mr. Noodle himself playing in the Cyclops.

Jen 26:17

Yes.

Tom 26:18

Yeah, no, Brendan, I think Brendan said it.

Jen 26:20

Mr. Noodle also Olivia Benson's therapist on SVU for a time. And also the doctor on This Is Us who tells Mandy Moore that uh her husband has died.

Joe 26:35

He's in a lot of stuff. I remember him from um My Blue Heaven. Yes, great Moranis' partner.

Tom 26:43

Yeah.

Joe 26:45

And he dances a bunch.

Tom 26:46

Yeah, I think um he does guitars in Interstellar.

Joe 26:51

He's a graduate of clown school, everybody. He graduated with Mr.

Jen 26:55

Noodle.

unknown 26:56

Yeah.

Joe 26:57

But he's got a degree in clown. Clownery.

Jen 27:00

Well, I didn't think they would put a fake clown on Sesame Street.

Joe 27:03

No.

Jen 27:04

I mean, come on.

Tom 27:05

Yeah. Um I saw him on Broadway uh in Waiting for Cadell.

Jen 27:11

Oh, that's right. You said yeah.

Joe 27:13

Uh that's right. You mentioned that in Discord. So uh they started filming, Nolan started filming this in early 2025. Uh shot in a lot of locations. Uh Island off of Sicily, I think stood in for Ithaca, uh, Scotland, some places I recognize and you might, right? Uh Docla, and I believe was it Warzazat or I I think Warzazat, yeah. I think they filmed in Warzazat, Morocco, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and of course the studios in California.

Tom 27:41

Yeah.

Joe 27:43

Entirely shot in IMAX 70 millimeter. First movie ever to do that. They had to Go ahead.

Jen 27:50

I'm sorry. I didn't know that like that's a particular type of IMAX.

Joe 27:55

Well, it's film, I guess, right?

Jen 27:56

People are well, but there like there's only a certain number of 70 millimeter IMAX screens. Yeah, it's just like exist across the world.

Joe 28:06

There's like less than 50, I think, in the entire world.

Jen 28:15

I just thought we were seeing it in IMAX. I didn't understand until late. No, we did, but like we saw it in digital. See it as it was meant to be seen. Well, I guess it would have been a different experience.

Joe 28:27

Well, I heard you can kind of see the grain a bit, you know, like a film, you know, like you would see on film.

Tom 28:32

In the good one or the good one, right? So he filmed it in 70 millimeter IMAX because filming it in 70 millimeter IMAX allows it to be converted into any IMAX format that exists. Now, there is a different um there's a different uh screen ratio in regards to the 70 millimeter IMAX film. Uh it's like a square, right? It's more square, right? Yeah. Okay. So the screens different. Right. So the screen size is different, and the and but it's not like we're cutting stuff off. It's not like when you watched a movie on your television in the 80s and they just cut off the ends, right? Or black boxed it. It's just um it just condenses.

Joe 29:12

We call that we call that letterbox, Tom. Yeah.

Jen 29:14

I just want to make sure you know I'm not insulting the the movie theater that we and the tickets that you purchased by what I'm saying. I just didn't know that apparently this was like a thing, that people were like traveling the world to see it on particular screens. I don't even know what the closest one to us would have been if there is one probably in the city.

Joe 29:35

I don't know. I'm sure there's uh 70 mils in the in the city, in the city somewhere. Probably. Probably more than one. Uh Google it.

Jen 29:43

I'll come back to it.

Joe 29:43

Go for it. You let us know. We've got to tell the listeners where they can go see this. Read out every theater in the world that does 70 millimeter IMAX.

Jen 29:50

It's searching. I AMC Lincoln Square 13, located about 16 miles away from me.

Joe 29:55

What about the one next to the office, uh 34th Street AMC?

Jen 30:00

Alternative in New York, Cinemark, Tinseltown, Rochester, and IMAX.

Joe 30:04

Rochester.

Jen 30:07

So that's the next one, I guess.

Joe 30:09

There's only one in New York City?

Tom 30:10

Yeah, they yeah, there's didn't you say there's only like 50 in the world? Yeah.

Jen 30:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe 30:14

I thought there may be two or three in New York City.

Jen 30:16

Forty-one active locations worldwide. Lincoln Square, TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and the BFI IMAX in London. Yeah, so we do have one, but it's probably impossible to get tickets there right now.

Joe 30:28

Or right now. Yeah. Um so they actually had to create custom rigs for these cameras. And apparently I was I was reading or listening to something recently. They talk about how loud the cameras are. They had to build like boxes around the camera so that the sound wouldn't be like disturbing and like distracting. Apparently they're that loud.

Tom 30:49

Yeah, they're they're so so part of the reason that no film was ever made in 70 millimeter is because you couldn't film dialogue scenes. Uh because the camera itself was so loud you would hear the camera over the people talking. So the rig, I think they called it the blimp on set, muffled the sound of the camera so you could film dialogue scenes. However, the other thing that's odd about these cameras is that a 70mm IMAX camera holds slightly less than three minutes of film in a reel. So you can't film long scenes that are that are runners because you only have like two minutes and fifty some odd seconds of film to use.

Joe 31:30

And I believe there's a there's a limit. Like you can't make movies more than three hours. Like there's an IMAX limit. I don't know if that's a 70 millimeter limit or an IMAX limit about the length of a movie. It's really weird.

Jen 31:42

That's why it was like two minutes, two hours 52 minutes.

Joe 31:45

Yeah, he got just under supposedly Nolan was the one who got it up to three hours at some point, like it was shorter, it was like two and a half or two or something like that. And Nolan, I think he used his because I think he's the head of the director's guild. He is. Um, so I think he used his clout there to get them to push the uh the IMAX limits um to max the IMAX.

Tom 32:08

Well done.

Joe 32:09

I mentioned before half jokingly, but he Nolan had a strict no cell phone, no smartphone or touch screen devices were permitted near production at all. Um that's on it to preserve, I think. Yeah, yeah. He wanted to preserve the un uh the mental space necessary to manage the sprawling production. John Bernthal like uh he like publicly praised this and said that it felt like attending church, which is I thought was kind of interesting.

Tom 32:36

Also, I've heard apparently he doesn't have like uh seats, like places for people to just sit on set, like if it's not part of the set. So like he doesn't want people resting, he wants people like moving and working and stuff like that. So yeah. And it's an interesting thing. His movies consistently come in, even these huge films like this one, uh ahead of schedule and under budget.

Joe 32:59

That's that's quite a thing that uh I'm sure studios like that. Big budget movies that come in ahead of schedule and on budget or under budget.

Tom 33:07

Yeah.

Joe 33:08

Um sorry, uh joke. No, go ahead. No, you go.

Tom 33:12

Okay when you think of just the environmental factors alone that they had to reckon with in making this movie, like the fact that they came in on schedule is mind-boggling to me.

Joe 33:24

I mean, considering all the boat scenes too, usually they right, don't they say that's like the the most difficult thing in Hollywood is like filming on a boat or water scenes.

Jen 33:34

Also, they were like in the ocean.

Joe 33:36

Yeah, for some of that stuff, they were actually in the ocean.

Jen 33:39

Not in a tank, like really in the ocean.

Joe 33:41

It was like uh they built like um they built that ship, and I th or I think it came from like Norway or it was a Norwegian, an old like Norwegian like type Viking boat. Not like a an actual one from them, but that's like the the the style of the boat that they used.

Tom 33:57

Yeah. I mean since you brought that up, right? There's been a lot of like uh, I would say historians or would-be historians who are like that's not the kind of boat or armor or whatever or whatever, whatever. And I would say there's also a cyclops in the movie.

Jen 34:17

Yeah, like this isn't real. It takes place at a time that was real, but not the story's not.

Joe 34:23

Well, we don't know that the story's not true.

Tom 34:26

Oh, I mean Okay. It also doesn't take place, it takes what does it take place in the Bronze Age? That's when it takes place.

Jen 34:33

Like people who are like, Agamemnon's armor's not accurate. Shut up. That's the coolest thing in the whole movie.

Joe 34:41

He does have like a spine, right? Like a golden spine on the back.

Jen 34:45

I read people were like, his spine is outside of his body, like he has no spine, you know. That's how they're like reading it to whatever it is, it's awesome. He's doing it. I love the way Agamemnon looked. Yeah, and I love that you didn't see his face.

Joe 34:58

Like he was just like a th like a you know, it was an interesting choice to make him like uh almost like a uh a phantom of some sort.

Jen 35:08

Yeah. Like when he when the gates open, oh we gotta talk about the movie. Come on.

Joe 35:12

We're not gonna get to that far until next time. I know. This is I I gotta I gotta bring up something that has nothing to do with the movie. It's some like I was on social media recently, which I haven't really been on much, and I saw all these posts with people putting like Odyssey this, Odyssey that, and then say something stupid like Odyssey that movie again.

Jen 35:31

I haven't seen that.

Joe 35:32

Like things like that. It'll be like Odyssey this, Odyssey that, and then they say something like Odyssey something, something, something.

Jen 35:38

Okay.

Joe 35:38

And I saw like multiple posts on social media with this, and I was like, what is this? I don't like it. Stop.

Jen 35:44

And I haven't seen that at all.

Joe 35:45

Okay. Well, you've been spared then. Don't believe it.

Jen 35:49

I won't look for it.

Joe 35:50

We're gonna have to do this from memory, everybody. We saw this movie almost a week ago, forgot to take any kind of notes about this movie.

Jen 35:57

I didn't forget. I didn't want to take my phone out the theater.

Joe 36:01

I was talking about me. I was speaking for myself. Totally forgot about taking any kind of notes.

Jen 36:05

I was gonna get home and immediately read down my notes and then didn't. No, that was trying to remember today what I liked about the movie, but I think I think we'll be fine.

Joe 36:13

There's a lot going on. There's a lot happening. This movie's almost three hours long. It is. There's a lot of stuff that happens. There's a lot of scenes, there's a lot of characters. Uh typical Nolan with with like the time, right? We've got present day time, we've got flashbacks, we've got flashbacks within flashbacks, or you know. Yeah. So I think there might be a flashback within a flashback within a flashback at one point. I'm not sure. Like some of the flashbacks of Troy and young Sinon and young Antinous. I don't even I don't remember if that's a flashback within a flashback.

Tom 36:49

There are definitely times where Odysseus is telling his story, and in his story, he's thinking about a time in the past. And you see that. Yeah.

Joe 36:59

Comes on the mic, comes on the recording. Do it like this.

Tom 37:02

For you to think that I have a desk down here is impressive.

Jen 37:06

Stop tapping your knee.

Joe 37:07

Whatever you're tapping on, stop it. Because you're tapping exactly as you're talking to. So it whenever everyone listening is gonna hear doom doom doom while you're talking.

Tom 37:16

It's really important. That was I yeah, I mean, I I hope it doesn't sound bad, but I the tapping was intentional, like to emphasize my point. So I apologize.

Joe 37:27

There's no accidental tapping with you.

Tom 37:28

Not not with this guy.

Joe 37:30

Anyway, um so the movie starts with, right?

Tom 37:34

It says apparent magic apparent magic.

Joe 37:39

I don't know. I forgot that the movie started that way. Those are words on the screen? Yes.

Jen 37:44

I don't even remember that.

Joe 37:46

In a time of apparent magic. I have a lot of questions about the decision to do that. Not that I think it was a bad decision, it just seems out of nowhere. Like, why even put that there? I and I have a th I have a thought about that, and I have a question for you because I saw people debating this. Zendaya is Athena. Yes, right? Is she really Athena, or is it just Odysseus, like somebody Odysseus, like a uh a figment of Odysseus' imagination or like a coping mechanism?

Tom 38:16

Um I think it is purposefully fake as to that. I is that his spinning top?

Jen 38:24

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think there was none in this movie, and now you're making me angry.

Tom 38:29

I think if I think that is his guilt, no matter what, whether Athena is whether that is Athena or not Athena, Athena is choosing to appear like that. If she is if she if that is truly Athena, the goddess of wisdom, she's choosing to appear like that because of his yeah.

Joe 38:46

Okay, I'm now jumping into like third act, right? Because and I read this way, and I don't know if this is the way it was intended, right? And I'm sorry that we're jumping to two-thirds into the movie, but what else is new? But because we're talking about Athena, right? There's the flashback, and I guess technically this is chronologically the first one of the first things that happens in the story. Um when the when they sack Troy.

Tom 39:10

Do you wait? I was trying to say, do you actually don't do you want to wait to the end to talk about this? I just want to talk about that one part. This is the end part of the movie.

Joe 39:19

I just want to talk about this one thing with Athena. Nothing else about that about the sacking of Troy. There's the scene where they have right, the some of the Greek soldiers, right? They're sacking Troy, and they grab a woman. Well, they grab a woman and it's Zendaya, and then it like they go to like cut her head off, but then it cuts to like flashes over to like a statue of Athena's head rolling off. Yeah. Now, some people I would I was reading were taking that as that's that was a real woman who died in in the battle that he saw, and he's just using her as his uh representation for Athena. When I thought it was more of they were sm they smashed a statue of Athena.

Jen 40:02

And that's like that never happened with that girl.

Joe 40:05

No, and he's just picturing because that's how Athena appears to him, that's who he's picturing. Like that's they were just trying to show you that that that's Athena.

Tom 40:14

I think that that is a real person, and they cut off a real statue's head, and he is now in his uh in his grief and remorse tied those two events together.

Jen 40:26

Or is Athena coming to him as that girl?

Tom 40:31

Yeah, I think that's your that's your picture.

Jen 40:34

Is he picturing it like that, or is she coming or she choosing that?

Tom 40:39

I think yeah, that's your appearance. That's that's purposely vague, whether I I think either one of those things could be true. I would say this. We talked about this a little bit uh some of us did when we walked out of the theater. Like, you know, what what what parts of the book would they put in? What parts of the book would they not put in? And if I had to guess before I saw the movie about something that happens in the in the poem that wouldn't make it into this film, I would go, well, they're clearly not gonna go to the underworld, sacrifice an animal and drink and have like dead people drink blood, ghost drink blood, and talk to them. And they did. And so, like, I don't know how you see that scene and that happen and not understand that there is magic in this world. Right? So I feel like if that scene wasn't in it, and like you you had Cyclops and you had other things, you could go like I would be more inclined to say a hundred percent that's not Athena. But like the fact that there is an underworld, there is uh a Hades, there is um the dead to speak, I think opens that possibility that like that the gods are real.

Jen 41:51

I think that the forcibly turning men into pigs scene also kind of confirms the use of magic.

Tom 41:58

It does.

Jen 41:59

And and I I personally assumed it was Athena, just because it's Athena in the in the poem.

Tom 42:06

It is Athena, yeah.

Jen 42:07

So I didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be Athena in the movie. Like, that's that's a character in the poem and she's really there. So I didn't see any I do I I I think we talked about that, like Zendaya, like the girl appearing as you know, her showing herself as that girl that he saw get beheaded or whatever it is. Like that whatever, because in the book she all in the poem she's constantly appearing as different people.

Tom 42:33

She's never appears to be a few years.

Jen 42:36

Yeah. So you know, it's just I just assumed, like, oh, okay, that's the girl that she's appearing to him as, but I never thought it wasn't.

Joe 42:44

Ryan Ryan Hurst is in this movie, by the way. Another person in there. Um Alright. That that was my thought about the time of apparent magic, or one of my thoughts was you know was the whole was maybe a reference to Zendaya, but the fact that there's, you know, they go to the underworld, there's, you know, uh what's it called? A Cyclops. Uh is it apparent or yeah, it's odd. It's pretty apparent, I guess.

Tom 43:10

It's funny because I don't know. Odysseus at one point in the dialogue in the film, he expresses uh doubt in the gods being real or really intervening in their lives at all, while at the same time already seeing Athena. So it's like it's an iffy thing, but I I remember um and again I think Jen and I were talking on the way to the theater about this, before the movie was coming out, I was reading something that was about about the book, uh about the about the poem. Sorry. And I know, it keeps doing. Um and like the way they put it is that like Odysseus always lies. If he's talking, he's probably lying. And um the movie doesn't do that as much. It doesn't really make him like as much of a trickster as as I think he is in the poem, but I do think like. Like, there's definitely an undercurrent of like when he is talking to the men, a lot of the times he what he is saying is not the truth. To the point like when he does tell them the truth, nobody believes him.

Joe 44:10

Well, we've gotten as far as the first the the the the first image, the wording in the beginning of the movie. It starts off with is it and again we saw this a week ago. Yeah, it starts off. We're in Ithaca, right? The uh we're we're in the halls of Odysseus or the home of Odysseus, right? All the suitors are there, Telemachus, his son, is there, Penelope, his wife are there, and we get kind of like an introduction to all of the jerks that are in the um are in his home, like Robert Pattinson and uh Logan Marshall Green is in this movie. Didn't even recognize him.

Jen 44:48

Is that the other guy?

Tom 44:49

He Logan Marshall Green is the guy who um who always moves loudly.

Joe 44:54

Yes.

Jen 44:55

That doesn't help me.

Joe 44:56

Remember John Lagwizamos always making a comment about he's too loud?

Jen 45:00

Is he the other the other suitor that has lines? Okay. No, no.

Tom 45:04

No, no, no. He's not the other suitor. I don't know if you know if he has lines. He's the suitor.

Joe 45:08

He does he's the one that fights that Telemachus fights.

Tom 45:12

He's the one that Telemachus fights. Oh, in the room. Okay. The other shooter is the guy who like is the guy who like is like uh Pattinson's like number one guy.

Jen 45:21

Yeah, yeah. I don't know who that is.

Joe 45:24

Uh do you remember names? Do you remember his name?

Jen 45:28

Uh you're is it Eurylochus? But that's the guy. Or is that is that Odysseus's number one guy? There's two there's two guys in the in the poem that start with E R.

Joe 45:41

Eumaeus or whatever is John Laguzamo's character.

Jen 45:44

Eurylicus.

Joe 45:45

He's also referred to as the swine.

Jen 45:47

Okay. Uh that's the guy. Yeah.

Tom 45:51

It's Corey Hawkins, is the guy that we're talking about as the number two. Okay. I I don't know what his name is in the movie.

Jen 45:57

Um Corey Hawkins.

Joe 45:59

Logan Marshall Green is Melanthius.

Jen 46:01

Odyssey.

Joe 46:02

Polybiush Patel is.

Jen 46:03

Apolybus.

Joe 46:04

Apolybus.

Jen 46:05

Yeah, okay.

Joe 46:06

Okay.

Jen 46:06

Okay.

Tom 46:07

He's the guy. He's he's literally he's the other guy. Apolybus, yeah.

Joe 46:10

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom 46:11

There's a lot of he's the guy who throws the food on the floor when when Odysseus is begging. Yeah, yeah.

Joe 46:18

Yes. There's a lot of people in this movie and a lot of names that I don't remember. Um Yes. Himesh Patel is in this movie too. Who I I remember him from. He's in a lot of um Nolan movies. He's in Tenant, he's in um uh Inception.

Jen 46:34

Not tenant.

Joe 46:36

Did I say tenant?

Jen 46:37

I guess an apartment.

Joe 46:39

It's Nolan's film about uh the apartment.

Jen 46:42

I couldn't get through tenant, but that's like the only one of his only movies I've been. Which is also Robert Patton. Yeah.

Joe 46:48

Um and he's in uh Inception as well.

Tom 46:51

Yes, he is.

Jen 46:52

Who is he in Inception?

Joe 46:53

He's the right he's the guy who makes the who makes the special sleeping potion for them.

Jen 46:59

Oh, not the guy in the van that's doing like the I don't think he goes with them.

Joe 47:04

Does he go with them? I don't remember.

Jen 47:06

I don't know.

Joe 47:06

He makes that special sleeping uh potion. I'm gonna call it a potion because that's what it was. It was a sleeping potion.

Tom 47:12

In a time of apparent magic.

Jen 47:16

That's a world of apparent magic.

Joe 47:19

Uh anyway.

Jen 47:24

I like Travis Scott.

Joe 47:25

I'm just thinking of I like that opening. I really like Second Suitor. It makes me think of Mall rats with like suitor number one.

Tom 47:36

Um, but I like Second Suitor. Earlier today. You sound familiar. My wife, my wife asked me when I came home, right? Friends of the show, Michelle, has asked me when I came home, like, oh, are there any cameos in the movie? Like anybody like I was like, there's no like quote unquote cameos. And then I was thinking about it today. I'm like, I think there's like one cameo. There's a person who's in the movie.

Joe 47:57

James Remar?

Tom 47:59

No, I I I would refer to Travis Scott as like a cameo. Yeah.

Joe 48:04

I think James Remar is a cameo too.

Tom 48:06

I didn't even know James Remar is a good one.

Joe 48:08

He's Tiresias, the prop, the he's the guy in the sand, the prophet in the sand. I didn't even know James Remar.

Tom 48:13

That's awesome. Yes. Um, I wanted to look that up, but I I forgot to. But I don't know who Travis Scott is. Okay.

Jen 48:20

Like I only know him because he was also on WWE.

Tom 48:25

He's like a player. I know. I can't tell you the song that you're doing. Travis Scott exists in a in a area of pop culture that I don't know exists to the point where like you and Baldwin. It was Travis Scott as as the bard. I'm like, I don't know who like that's that's meaningless to me.

Joe 48:45

Like he's gonna he's done a lot of collaboration. I mean, he was in Tenet as well. Tenet. Oh really? Yes, he was. Oh no, he did the soundtrack. He was on the soundtrack, sorry. Uh he also was on the soundtrack of one battle after another. But he's done a bunch of like he does a lot of collaborations with other people. Okay. Sure.

Jen 49:01

Well, he was good. I like it.

Tom 49:02

Yeah, but I just I yeah I wanted to just be clear.

Jen 49:05

Yeah.

Tom 49:05

I'm not saying anything about his art. Yeah, I'm saying I'm not aware of it. Yeah, like yeah, yeah. That's that's me being old.

Joe 49:13

Um he's the first person you see in the movie. First person you see in the film.

Tom 49:17

Yeah. Yeah. I love I do like the choice of he's a bard. Of of having a bard, of having you know tenth level. Yeah, yes. Um he was doing suppressed digitation. He was trying to do it.

Jen 49:31

I feel like it gets your attention too. You're like, here we go, let's go. When he's like banging his staff on the ground when he's talking.

Joe 49:37

Yeah.

Jen 49:38

I like that. That was good.

Joe 49:39

Right. He starts to tell the stories of Odysseus, right? And then is it does a Penelope come out and say, like, shut up, we don't want to hear any more about Odysseus? Yeah. Or is that later on?

Jen 49:49

I don't remember.

Joe 49:50

Yeah.

Tom 49:50

But it's it's yeah, and it's the telling of um the Trojan horse, right? Yeah, how they won how they won.

Joe 49:57

Yeah. And I think you see Robert Pattinson in the background because I remember thinking, like, oh, that guy in the background kind of looks like Robert Pattinson. Um, and then like it's uh then you get like a close-up where he starts talking. I'm like, oh, that that is Robert Pattinson.

Tom 50:11

That is. So uh let's let's you brought him up. I I think this is an interesting uh character choice for me. Uh not Pattinson as this this uh as an Antinuus, but like Antinuous is a coward and kind of like a comedy heel in the film, for lack of a better term. There's at no point Yeah, he is a bit, he's a bit yeah, slimy and yeah, I get he's great because he has no redeeming qualities at all.

Joe 50:37

Um like you know, he's I I think he kind of keeps you on the fence during like during the there's like some time. Well, that was that's later on where he's talking about murdering Telemachus. He's like he's being a jerk, but then he's kind of like hold like kind of calming the other suitors down when they're getting out of order.

Tom 50:57

But he's doing that, like he's doing that for Penelope. There's a very Eddie Haskell quality to him. Whenever Panelope's around, he's like, you know, uh you guys.

Joe 51:08

He does a really good job, Robert Robert Pattinson, in this of being a bad actor in that sense, where like he's like you said, he's clearly a bad guy, but he's trying to act sometimes like he's a nice guy and he's like doing it badly. Yes, which I think is really hard to do as an actor.

Tom 51:26

I agree. I do think, and I I I are spot on with this, but I do love that he a hundred percent of the time, from the from the beginning to the end, sticks with his story about the fact that he wanted to go with it to with to he wanted to go Odysseus to ask him to stay.

Joe 51:47

Yeah, I was so confused about this scene because and I again I have to watch it again because I was very confused. I thought he was the one, I thought Sinon was the one who was who drew the lot, and he wanted to go in Sinon's place. No, and and Odysseus was like, no, we can't it Sinon drew the lot, Sinan has to go.

Tom 52:08

So he drew the lot, he forced Sinon to take it, and Odysseus and his father was there. So uh Odinus' dad was there, and he didn't want to embarrass the two of them. So that's why he says what he says, and he tells Sinon, he's like, You stay with me, like I'll keep eye over you. I'm not gonna like embarrass this guy in front of his father that he's a coward. So I'm just gonna make sure, like, yeah.

Joe 52:33

And that's I think it was a little confusing for me.

Tom 52:36

That's why like I think Sinon feels particularly betrayed.

Joe 52:40

Yeah.

Tom 52:40

And why he feels a particular level of guilt about doing that.

Joe 52:45

So yeah, so then if that's the case, right? And and again, this is that's technically the first that might be the first one. The earliest scene. Chronological scene.

Tom 52:57

The earliest scene is the scene.

Joe 52:59

Oh, when uh Odysseus of Penelope before Telemachus is born, right? No, he's there, he's a baby.

Tom 53:05

He's a baby, but it's when they're talking about going. That they may have to go, and she gives him the pin.

Joe 53:11

So then that makes Odysseus even more of a jerk because he says, no, come, you stay with me, you'll be okay, and then make Sinon be the one to stay with the horse. Yeah.

Jen 53:22

Listen, if Cinnon went home with him, he would have been dead anyway.

Joe 53:25

So That's true.

Jen 53:29

Nobody made it home with Odysseus. But I mean this. Yeah, I don't know why he chose to.

Joe 53:34

But this whole thing is not in the in the in the story. The No, Intinius is just uh the The drawing of the lots and that whole thing is not Sinon's not in the character.

Jen 53:46

The character created for the movie. No, I think he might be in other in another story that's like after this.

Joe 53:53

Well, Sinon might be the character that stays with the horse in in like the hit you know in the in the story in the Iliad, but they're not in the Odyssey, I don't recall. Or if Sinon's somewhere that he was Yeah, in another story, but not in the Odyssey.

Jen 54:09

I don't know.

Tom 54:09

And then yeah, Intiguous in the Odyssey is just a villain, and just like a I mean that none of the suitors are he's like a noble.

Joe 54:18

He's a noble, and he's and he's a yeah.

Tom 54:20

He's clearly the most he's clearly the most powerful of the suitors.

Joe 54:25

He also is the first one that Odysseus kills in this story. And this season he's not, but uh no, it's uh it's it's what's his face?

Tom 54:32

It's uh polypus?

Jen 54:35

Polybus. Polybus?

Joe 54:36

Yeah, polybus. Corey Hawkins. Yeah, he gets a grab in the back.

Jen 54:42

Make it make it count.

Joe 54:43

Yeah, so I mean we get the the flash that flashback scene with Sinon and Tinuus is pretty early on in the movie, too. It's one of the earlier it's in the first quarter of the movie, I feel like, but I I can't remember where everything is in this movie. But um so we stay we stay with Telemachus and Ithaca for a while in the beginning.

Tom 55:01

But the poem was like that too, right? The first five books of the poem, I think it's the five first five books or the first four, whatever. It's called the Telemachy, right? Um it's about it's about Telemachus, and it takes it up until he leaves. And after he leaves to go find Word, that's when you find out uh that's when it switches over to Odysseus. So like it's pretty much the same here.

Joe 55:23

Yeah. He goes to they cut this out, right? He goes to Nestor, right? To to King Nestor first, but they cut that whole part out. He just goes straight to Menelaus in this, in this, which makes sense. I don't think there's really anything valuable there.

Jen 55:36

That's just another situation where it's like go to one island, then go to another is like there's no way there's more god stuff, right?

Joe 55:43

So Athena is mentor at this point. Athena's mentor, and she's kind of convincing him to go to leave to go find word of Odysseus because Athena's like, and I obviously they cut all this out, but like there's a scene in the beginning of the in the the poem where it's like Athena's like kind of pleading with the gods to like let Odysseus Odysseus is with Calypso. Come on, we gotta let Odysseus, let's let him go. Um, and then like Hermes is involved, and Hermes is cut out of this. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get something with Hermes on the island with Circe, but um But yeah, Telemachus goes, and where where do we start with Odysseus? Is he is it is it on the island with Calypso? Yeah, yeah.

Jen 56:23

I think so.

Tom 56:24

Yeah. Everything with Odysseus, the entire story of Odysseus, much like in the book. In the book, it's not with uh Calypso, right? It's he's telling the story to King I can't remember who It's something like Antinaus, it's something with an A.

Joe 56:38

Uh uh Yeah, what's his name?

Jen 56:40

Alocinuus, whatever it is.

Joe 56:48

It's not Alius. No, it's not Aloysius. Oh, I have to look up his name. It's gonna drive me nuts.

Tom 56:53

Anyway, well, you guys do that, right?

Joe 56:54

Uh Alcinuous. Alcinuous.

Jen 56:58

Yeah, it's almost like to the point where I thought they were the same guy for a second. When I cut back to him, I was like, wait a minute. Am I like missing a key portion of this? That this is the same guy.

Joe 57:08

Yeah, he does like he did they're having like a game, like a uh, you know, like a sporting event, and right, he Odysseus doesn't say who he is and he participates in the sporting events like this.

Tom 57:18

Yeah, never never tells anybody who he is. Um but yeah, so it's cut that out. We don't need that. Right. The the framing device of Odysseus's story in the film is he is starting to remember who he is while he is on Calypso's Island.

Joe 57:35

Well, what happened to his men and right?

Tom 57:37

It starts off with like the Trojan War and Right, and um you get the sense that something happened that he is that he has to remember and he doesn't you don't know what it is.

Joe 57:48

Well, we get the flashbacks of the horse on the beach with Sinon, and I did not realize at first that that was the Trojan horse, because I thought it was small and it was half buried in the sand. Well, the part that was sticking out, right? It was buried in the sand and like partially underwater, which was like, why would they why would they bury it? I just came in.

Tom 58:09

Here's why, right? This is a sacrifice of the from the Greeks to Poseidon so that they will have a safe trip home. That's the cover story, right?

Joe 58:19

But I thought in the movie they say uh Athena. It's a tribute to Athena.

Tom 58:23

I don't think it is. I think it's I'm pretty sure they mentioned that in the I don't uh no, because the reason for it being there is because it's the the ocean's supposed to take it. So they're putting it at the tide line, so the ocean will will eventually take it.

Joe 58:37

Why is it a horse then?

Tom 58:38

Um I don't know. It's a horse because it's a horse. So it was a horse in the original, and that was the reason in the book, too.

Joe 58:43

I could swear in the movie they said this was a uh a peace offering uh. Oh, you're right.

Tom 58:49

No, in the movie in the movie it's different. Maybe it was the same thing, but it's not the same. Right, in the movie it's different. In the book, it's uh it's not for the Trojans. In the book, it's for the Greeks to leave to Poseidon. The Trojans take it so that they don't give the sacrifice. Right? That's the story in in the poems, but like in the you're in the movie, you're correct. This is a sacrifice, this is a peace offering from the Greeks to Athena and the Trojans say the war is over, and so they take it back in. Yeah. It looks wild.

Jen 59:20

I love how they show them pulling it the whole way.

Tom 59:25

Right.

Jen 59:26

Like I feel like the I don't remember if it was on wheels in Troy, but I felt like they wheeled it up to the gate. Yeah, like and now they're like, I'm like, oh, this makes more sense. They have like all these slaves pulling it in.

Joe 59:37

Or it was like upright and they put it on like a cart or something and wheeled it.

Jen 59:41

I mean, but think about like how heavy it is, like how many guys are in there plus the wood that they use to make it.

Joe 59:47

Thousands of pounds. There's just a lot of guys, there's more people in there than you think would fit in that horse, in that horse. And they're all like puking and one guy.

Jen 59:57

Well, they're going to the bathroom the whole time they're in there. I mean, pissing and shitting.

Joe 1:00:00

Some of them are drowning because again, because for some reason it's buried under the sand at the shoreline where water's getting into it. But um not a very good placement.

Tom 1:00:09

I don't think it was purposely buried. Like I don't think it was buried. I think like it was there for days. Yeah, and the tide came in. The tide buried it.

Joe 1:00:17

Oh no, I know that, but they shouldn't have built it so close to the shoreline.

Jen 1:00:21

Well, it had to be like they left it when they got in the boat.

Tom 1:00:23

That's exactly he did it on purpose so that there would be no doubt.

Jen 1:00:27

Yeah.

Tom 1:00:28

Like it would be it'd be insane to think that they could be anybody inside there.

Joe 1:00:32

Well, they did stab into it too, and the one guy gets gets stabbed, and they're all like grab his mouth, close his mouth up so he can't scream out. Somehow the blood didn't get on the sword.

Jen 1:00:42

Uh yeah, I was thinking about it. Yeah, he looks at the sword, yeah, yeah.

Tom 1:00:46

He wipes it and looks at it. He shouldn't look at it before he wiped it.

Jen 1:00:50

That uh Matt Damon was like, they were like shooting other scenes like around the horse or something, and he was like, Oh, how are we gonna we're gonna get inside the horse next week? Like, how are we gonna do that? And uh Christopher Nolan was like, I don't know. We'll figure it out.

Joe 1:01:06

I don't think he wants to tell them I think I think he knew where I was gonna go down and he didn't want to say it.

Tom 1:01:11

Like it's it's it's nuts. Like, so my my understanding is they're inside of I don't know if it's the same horse, but they're inside of a horse with the camera, and Nolan are in there with them. Like that's a real space. That's yeah, that's crazy.

Joe 1:01:28

And then it moves, right? Because they you know it's dragging and then they're all like and then they stand it up so everybody kind of slides while they're in the horse.

Tom 1:01:35

Luckily they were all cheering, so nobody could hear. Um and then the most unrealistic part of the movie happens when they well, that's at the end of the movie, but when they get out of the horse, the most unrealistic, it almost is realistic. Jen and I talked about this too briefly. Oh, I don't remember. So I'll just say this, right? There's a scene where they get out of the horse, obviously. And like they've been in the horse for days with an S. And they get out, they like lower a rope, and like they get out, and like they can't walk because they Odysseus gets out and like he tries to walk and he like kind of stumbles and he leans on a pole, and then Menelaus does the same thing, and then three seconds pass and they can walk again. And I was like, oh good, like they're cramped up, they're gonna have to oh no, they're fine now.

Joe 1:02:22

Yeah, well, I was surprised we got I wasn't expecting to get this long of a sacking of Troy scene. Well, yeah, and because it's not in the story, it's not in the story, so like that's another story.

Tom 1:02:33

But when we get to that point in the film, we can talk about why it's so long, because I guess it's important to the movie that they were making that it is that long.

Joe 1:02:41

Yes, it it's definitely tied very well into the movie, you know, and the story that Nolan's telling, that's for sure. Um, so Calypso. So Odysseus has been on the island with Calypso. We don't find out until later on that she says seven years, but um, but we all know it's seven years because if you've read the story, you know it's seven years. And he's been eating the lotus, which makes him forget, right? So she's like, all right, I think it's time for you to start remembering, stop eating the lotus. Um, and then I think the first the first part of the story uh that that Odysseus starts remembering is uh is the Cyclops? Is that the first place they go to after leaving Troy? I think in this story.

Jen 1:03:21

Yeah, well, they're like on the boat for a while.

Tom 1:03:24

Yeah, I mean like the first time. And he says, like, we're gonna take the southern path. I'm done following Menelaus. Uh I can make a move out there.

Joe 1:03:34

He makes a joke that he'll be back before before him, right?

Tom 1:03:37

And then yeah, they they they end up on the the Cyclops Island.

Joe 1:03:42

Um, which was uh I this might be this might have been my favorite sequence in the movie. It is great. It's so I don't know how to describe it. I can't think it was I was kind of speechless watching it because I thought it would I felt like I was there. Yeah. And I don't know if that's because it was an IMAX and like the Cyclops was so big.

Tom 1:04:04

So unbelievably big.

Jen 1:04:05

I was I don't know if it was better knowing what was gonna happen, but like when they're in there, it's like, oh my god, you know, I was like covering my face. Before he just eats them and I knew that that was gonna happen too.

Joe 1:04:21

So when he picked the guy up, I went, nope, like I'm not, and then yeah, he just casually so do you know that they created edible little figures of men, and he's actually like biting them. Yeah, like that's real that's like him biting like an edible like action figure kind of.

Tom 1:04:38

Crazy.

Jen 1:04:40

But in the in the poem, he just like so casually kills like a bunch of guys, you know, they're there for like a couple of nights, and like every night he's just like he's just gonna like snack on two guys before he goes to bed. And it's so casual, it's like nothing. I don't know if they say this in the movie or I read it somewhere else where they say like he's just like you're like ants to him. Like it's not, it's not it, it's not m evil. He literally you literally mean less than nothing to him.

Tom 1:05:05

Yeah, I think they say something like that in the film. Um right, it starts off like they get on the island, they see the one sheep. The sheep, yeah. And and and they're about to kill the sheep because they're hungry. They don't have they're eating like whatever supplies they have, salted food, and they land because they're running low on supplies. And then Odyssey's like, wait, if there's like sheep, sheep you don't see a lone sheep follow it. They're they're they're herd animals. Um everything they do is a bad idea. And so like they go in and and they immediately start, you know, oh there's cheese, I'll eat his cheese. They they they stoke the fire.

Jen 1:05:41

Goldilocks.

Tom 1:05:42

Right.

Joe 1:05:42

Bags of cheese hanging down in the uh in the kitchen.

Tom 1:05:46

And they're just they're like and they make some comment as to like, oh, it's fine because because like, you know, we're we're we're invoking Zeus's law and he'll just be you know, he'll be fine with us. being here.

Joe 1:06:02

The first mention of Zeus's right. The um the idea of hospitality which runs out which runs throughout this movie and and the book itself. Like this is like a big theme of hospitality. Like when someone comes to your house or your land, you sh you need to you know you need to be nice to them and feed them and give them some place to stay. And then I guess this is the first time we hear about it, I think.

Tom 1:06:25

Well no it's mentioned in the beginning in the beginning as to why like they talk about like they can't kill the suitors because they'll be they'll they will be killed or turned in you know or banished for for breaking exiled or banished yeah for breaking Zeus's laws. Right. Um so like I I so we went into this movie and I want to be clear I went in relatively blind. I knew some of the actors I didn't know who all of them were playing I hadn't read anything about what the like the adaptation was like or what the story was going to be or anything like that at all. But I did take note of the fact that like that's not how Zeus's law works. Zeus's law doesn't say that's what the strangers are that's what the suitors are doing. They're saying I'm taking your stuff because you're going to have to follow Zeus's law. Yeah right yeah um they were taking advantage of Zeus's law right stretching it a bit stretching it and then like later on later on after they blind him they're like oh he smoke maybe we should have spoken to him yeah he's like I think it's a little too little we're a little past that or something yeah it makes you feel bad when he bl when they blind him.

Joe 1:07:35

Well I was surprised because there was no conversation right in the book there's a lot of conversation between the Cyclops and them and Odysseus says his name is nobody and then he tells right he tells as they're leaving he tells him his real name yeah and that's what that's what really fucks him and sets off a lot of all the bad stuff that happens the rest of the story. Which he does I mean in this it's worse he doesn't tell him his name he shoots him with an arrow he's like one last shot right but also why didn't this bother me because he's blind and he's chasing them but they're like crashing through the woods as loudly as possible.

Jen 1:08:08

Just sh just quietly step off the path and hide and he won't be able to know where you are like well they've got to run to the boat Jen.

Joe 1:08:14

They've always got to run to the boat.

Tom 1:08:16

So when he goes under the water to get to get the guy and then he comes up and they're on the boats and that's when like you realize holy shit he has he doesn't even know where he is like he's just been following their screams and now they're quiet and you see him like he's just like trying to even find out where he is in the water and you feel so friggin' bad for this I know yeah and I was I was a little I was all by himself and he's blind he doesn't even have other cyclopses to help him well I was like in the phone.

Joe 1:08:47

Taken aback by the uh vertical eye too it was weird. That was weird.

Tom 1:08:54

It was odd it was too was like yeah his whole face was twisted yeah yeah yeah or poor little cyclops um but he gets his you know he crawls out giant cyclops yeah yeah I didn't hear a word he said so if he said something about Poseidon then I didn't get yeah I know he was saying words but maybe close captioning would have helped me in that this is this is one of the times where and you mentioned it a little bit I think in the intro Joe um the sound editing in all of Nolan's films but specifically in this one there are some sounds that are so unbelievably loud the theater was shaking. Yeah the chairs you thought you were like on a ride where the chairs were supposed to be when they blind the Cyclops and he screams it was literally like you feel it in your chest. Yeah. And then when he's when he's crying out the Poseidon like he's yelling so loudly and painfully like it's incoherent.

Joe 1:09:51

It's a very low tone register so it sounds mumbled or muffled.

Jen 1:09:55

Yeah to muddled it makes them it's like that's what it would have sounded like but if that's important for me as a movie watcher to understand what he's saying it probably should have been a little clearer rather than like realistic as to what that sound would be.

Joe 1:10:12

I don't know yeah I mean I guess it was more of like that's what it felt like for Odysseus and his men. That's what they heard but they said he's called out for Poseidon yeah I guess they were a little closer to it to him they didn't have there was no subwoofers in that cave uh yeah so yeah Odysseus gives like the one last shot you know in the eye which then um you know the Cyclops is the son of Poseidon dad's not happy now and this is gonna basically curse that you know Odysseus and his men's journey at home and that that's kind of like I guess the I don't want to say it's the inciting event but there's a lot of inciting events in this story. But that's the one I think that like all all this bad stuff's now gonna happen too because of that.

Tom 1:10:57

So I will say this right like the movie eventually uh posits a different reason right as to why all this happened in a yes because of what he did at Troy. Right. But like the the the book definitively yes this is it like he would have been home fine had he not just fucked himself and all his men.

Joe 1:11:15

Yeah and I think we'll uh we'll talk about all the the rest of the fucking in our next episode. Yeah wait I want to remind everyone to follow us on social media you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, join us over on Discord to continue the conversation there. We also post our episodes on YouTube, so be sure to go to our YouTube page to like and subscribe review us wherever you listen to podcasts and check out our Patreon page to support us that way. Links to all the aforementioned information are included in the show notes to this episode. Thanks everyone for listening and to hear us next time