Finally saw it in 70mm IMAX.
Actually wasnât sure until about the end of the sequence with the Laestrygonians (giants in plate mail). Not sure why but was just hard to really have a sense of the characters. But after that really got into it. What a fantastic film.
Three hours whizzed by.
Itâs a great book but the film is so much better.
(Obviously read the book after seeing the film a number of times.)
Hmmm I didnât even know there was a âŚ
Also haha the fucking prestige is twenty years old. Fuck this. What is even happening!?â
Havenât read the book, but feel the film is one of his weakest. Saw it for the first time recently, and I guess it might have been better in the moment, but it really suffers for him having done basically everything interesting that it does better elsewhere.
Still, if films like Tenet and Prestige are more or less your floor, youâre not doing too badly.
So yeah, to expand a bit, I felt like the opening cut back and forth a bit too much. Iâd not seen the preview bit so had no idea about inside the horse, but we have the great opening and then we donât get that story and then Iâm trying to get a bead on everyone in the Ithica, then weâre with Odysseus setting out home with his men and then itâs the cyclopsâŚand suddenly men are dying but not only do I know them, itâs not 100% clear how they feel about Odysseus.
To be fair I think this is very much intentional and ties into the end (that they all know theyâve done something very wrong and itâs making them uncomfortable
Yeah, itâs totally valid and Iâm not really sure if any way into the story would have helped much except by making it a lot longer to put more detail in, which would have been bad
Been thinking about why I disagree with this.
I think there has to be a degree of allowed subtlty. So the Trojan War is an âevenâ playing field really, both sides are committed to it and being honest about engaging in it. So by breaking the inherent âfair playâ rules by hiding within the horse instead of bravely fighting the Trojans, this is a big deceit, itâs going to mean in future more chance of subterfuge etc.
Whereas the suitors profess one thing - an honest attempt to bring order to Ithaca and remove the uncertainty caused by the assumption a man should rule - while knowingly abusing Zeusâs Law in their feasting night after night and in plotting to kill Telemachus. Thus they are already false, so while they are ostensibly protected by Zeusâs Law itâs sophistry and Odysseus is within his rights to take them on. Moreover his way is justified because they would kill him if they could.
Dog next door to my best mate at primary school was called Argos.
Naturally I wondered why they named a dog after a shop.
(This was explained to me at the time but seeing the film reminded me.)
Iâm old enough to remember the intermissions when they changed the film over. Happy to see half times restored to the pictures.
Also he exiles himself for doing it - itâs ostensibly a happy ending because he goes with Hathaway but itâs kind of an acceptance that the trick in Troy means that heâs broken society so he may as well.
well, fairly obviously I disagree with your disagreement, but I think itâs a good example of how this decision undermines the film (stressing once again that I am a Odysseus nerd and donât expect ordinary people to care about any of this). Nolan has tried to put this guilt spin on Odysseus, and simultaneously stay true to the events of the text, but those two ideas are fundamentally opposed to each other, meaning that you have to tie yourself in these kind of knots to justify their combined presence. Nolan himself admits defeat a few minutes later and has to invent a nonsense ending, because the actual ending of the poem is not compatible with his vision. The concept that the Trojan horse is so underhand as to break society is just not in the original text at all, and in fact it is completely at odds with that very society.
I still think itâs a good movie and an entertaining watch, but it simultaneously tries to pull towards Homer and push away, and that tension sometimes occasionally overwhelms it.
I mean I am not a scholar of the text. I watched the Tony Robinson telling on CBBC in the 80s and obviously exploits/bits were in various kidsâ books and then thereâs Ulysses 31 
Anyway I feel like youâre taking a thing that is true of the original story and first assuming it is true of this, so far as I can tell, hugely departing adaptation.
Thatâs why I donât see any sort of fundamental contradiction with those two events, because Nolan has taken events from The Odyssey and used them to tell a tale of a world that was once Great and is now in ruins because it left the path of honour. Which of course is huge Boomer energy but also maybe not wrong for us.
The biggest change is that he basically removes all Gods, which is obviously interesting in its self, given he leaves in the Cyclops et al which are only possible if Gods exist. But I donât hate that. I like that it feels as if the people on screen are making choices or being sacrificed to chance even if they claim the Gods are doing it.
However it makes Calypso seem completely weird. Thatâs definitely a bit where I agree that Nolan tries to use what happened to his own story and without the supernatural power it feels flat and lacking any meaning. I think unless you knew of Calypsoâs reality outside the film youâd never understand who she was.
And by turning the Cyclops into more of a silent beast I think maybe what thry do to it feels worse? Certainly that sequence should have been better for me.
i like that all the supernatural stuff (cyclops, circe, big lads) are all recounted to calypso, off his tits. did any of it happen or is it just the drugs? are they his memories or is he just repeating back her lies? the only stuff we see him remember sober is what happened at troy. good movie film imo, much to consider
By God heâs turned it into a unreliable narrator story!
That is one of Nolanâs favourite plot devices tbf
Well exactly
See that twist thinking on The Prestige
But even if you prefer the Prestige as not having any twist, Nolan still takes an openly paranormal sort of story makes it more grounded around science
Nolan likes unreliable narrators almost as much as he likes unintelligible orators!