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by izacus 1 day ago
> Were Odysseus played as written, modern audiences would have a very hard time empathizing with him. That's the real challenge to successfully adapting the Odyssey. When reading the original, you have abundant time to get into the mental space of the bronze age Achaeans. In a three hour movie that's a lot harder to do.

And this is the strongest criticism of this movie - Nolan took the easy way out of just shoving the story in 21st century America instead of doing the work of transporting us into the world of different values and beliefs. It's an easy snack for infantilised audience who isn't trusted to actually engage into something that steps out of their locally cultural space.

It's about the most damning thing about this movie.

Looks pretty though.

2 comments

> Looks pretty though.

Does it though? Somehow Nolan made the mediterranean climate and Aegean sea look like washed out coast of Scotland or something. What's with the Hollywood's attack on color lately?

They've been dune-ified.
You mean the new, worse, Dune movies. The David Lynch Dune movie was pretty colorful, right? So Dune itself was... Dunkirk-ified?
Yeah I mean the new worse ones. Now that I think about it Villeneuve probably started it with Sicario. So Sicario-ed?
>three hour movie

>transporting us into the world of different values and beliefs

I regret to inform you that Mel Gibson has been a better director

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto

Might have been (more) loyal to the original had Nolan dubbed it into Greek or went with Victorian dialogue?

Note: Emily Wilson (TFA) wrote the "modern prose" cover that Nolan adapted. Maybe she's feeling responsible..

Apocalypto was all Mayan so Gibson's job was a bit easier

A lot easier actually, writing a plot from scratch is very different from adapting an existing one.
Why would that be easier?

Have a look what happened to GoT when they ran out of original material.

Emily Watson about the movie: "I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”