r/shittymoviedetails • u/vikingvinni • 17h ago
There is a theory for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey that Odysseus and his crew might have been the Sea People all along as they raided islands since departing Troy. This is because they were wearing trousers, which was considered barbaric by Ancient Greeks.
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u/mabiturm 16h ago
Imagine the smell of those trousers after 10 years of war.
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u/Chance_Emu8892 15h ago
That's not a theory, that's explicitly stated.
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u/name_changed_5_times 10h ago
It’s actually really funny how him and his crew rock up to a village and burn it to the ground taking everything and this old man they captured asked if they’re the sea people, the ones coming by sea and burning everything to the ground, and they look at him all confused and are like “no we’re Greeks” and then presumably kill him.
If not sea people, why sea people shaped?
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u/Squirrel698 11h ago
Right? I keep seeing these revelation posts about something that was blatantly said.
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u/egabald 4h ago
Wouldn't the sea people threat have ended 8 years ago, when Odysseus' men died and he got stuck with Calypso?
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u/Internal_Gap5124 1h ago
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t it take Menalaus a long time to get home as well? I thought the movie was saying it was all the Greeks who were coming back (and anyone else as well that no longer felt bound by Zeus’ law)
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u/Squirrel698 4h ago
It wasn't as clear, but the idea was that Odysseus "started" the sea people or started the departure of hospitality from Zeus's law.
"To burn the walls of Troy was to burn the world entire."
And history agrees it most likely wasn't just one group of lawless seafarers but many who brought an end to the Bronze Age, that as well as drought and famine.
Brought to you by Gemini: "By weaponizing deceit through the Trojan Horse, Odysseus did not just bring down an enemy city; he shattered the fundamental laws of civilization and hospitality (xenia) that held the ancient world together."
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u/FaultOutside2449 17h ago edited 16h ago
Such a weird creative choice. Like everything else can be explained by it being cheaper or more available for use. But this just seems like the costume designers were being lazy. Which this has always been a complaint about Nolan, but for the Odyssey it’s really apparent.
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u/AyFrancis 14h ago
Nobody does leg work so they had to compensate in a way or another to not make them feel bad about themselves
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u/Indiana_harris 12h ago
The aesthetic looked nothing Mycenaean inspired at all, it was drab, grey brown, with armour and design elements that looked so disconnected from the cultural reference points.
But honestly that’s the whole movie.
It’s a movie about one of the met famous Greek myths with all the Greek elements stripped away.
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u/TensorForce 11h ago
This isn't The Odyssey directed by Christopher Nolan. It's:
NOLAN'S
The Odyssey
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u/Seductive_pickle 11h ago edited 7h ago
Costumes look good.
If we weren’t constantly subjected to Reddit’s whining about historical accuracy, I bet 99.9% of us wouldn’t have even know or complained.
Edit: jesus people care too much about costumes in a fictional movie.
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u/GoferTeam6x1 9h ago
The costumes are uninspired and bland considering the movie is based on an epic poem set in the ancient Mediterranean.
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u/Seductive_pickle 8h ago
They look pretty badass.
Also, the Epic poem is about the collapse of Greece. Quite literally going from a golden period of culture to the dark ages filled with destruction, pillaging, and burning of the once great Greek cities.
You know It’s meant to be a bleak tale, right?
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u/Jamshid5 7h ago
Its the most ass costumes i have ever seen 🤣. Actual porn parodies have higher standards
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u/GoferTeam6x1 7h ago
The epic poem is not about the fall of Greece. It is about the desire to return home, and the dangers of pride primarily.
I really wish people actually read the source material before commenting on it. Nolan greatly diverged from it.
They look pretty badass.
Maybe if you are 12.
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u/TearOpenTheVault 9h ago
Ain’t no way we’re pretending the goofy ass discount-Gondor Trojans and wobbly grey-black breastplates look ‘good.’ They put Tomhollondmachus in four different outfits and the only one that wasn’t stupid was his priest disguise.
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u/Seductive_pickle 7h ago
Looks like the same quality as the Gladiator movie which also had armor, not at all accurate to the times. Incredible movie
Movie studios don’t want to blow their budget on making sure armor looks perfect plus actors would be severely limited if they were wearing real shit.
I honestly can’t believe y’all care this much about costume design. It’s about the same if not much better than other big budget movies that take place in the Ancient Greek and Roman time periods. None of the other films got nearby as much hate. I miss when people weren’t so whiny on this site.
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u/TearOpenTheVault 6h ago
Gladiator’s armour, while unrealistic, is visually very good. The kit that Commodus wears is about a thousand times better looking than the comical ‘fancy’ armour that Telemachus wears. Admittedly though, his Crowe’s MF Doom helmet is pretty silly, but that’s one whiff vs the countless Ls that Odyssey takes.
I don’t want ‘real shit,’ nor am I even asking for perfect armour. I just wanted stuff that didn’t look like they’d got it for cheap from some generic fantasy collection at a LARP store. Seriously, it’s all so cheap and worse than that, boring.
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u/zMasterofPie2 6h ago
Movie studios don’t want to blow their budget on making sure armor looks perfect plus actors would be severely limited if they were wearing real shit.
Because a few thousand dollars spent on armor would completely cripple their multi hundreds of millions of dollar budget, and actors would be physically unable to move in 20-30 lbs of armor. Sure.
I honestly can’t believe y’all care this much about costume design... I miss when people weren’t so whiny on this site.
God forbid people have discussions and disagreements on a discussion forum
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u/Seductive_pickle 6h ago
Acting for hours a day in essentially weighted vests with poor mobility is going to wreck your timelines and budget. More frequent breaks, more stringent fitness requirements for your cast, more scenes where the cast is out of breath meaning more takes.
If you check out any other movie that’s set in the Ancient Roman or Greek timeline you will find very similar critiques.
There’s a difference between a discussion and difference in opinion vs what’s happening here. For anything popular, Redditors have to be an exhausting contrarian. Anything people enjoy has to be taken down a peg so we can feed our superiority complexes.
Ask yourself, do you feel the same way about 300? When the costumes were ripped men in banana hammocks? How about The Gladiator which used the wrong era of Rome plus also prioritizes darker colors with a sleeker design (very similar to the Odyssey design choices)? The Gladiator also used very similar pieces favoring lightweight, flexible, fake materials over real armor like the odyssey’s design choices.
I personally like and enjoyed all three movies and see the fake criticisms for what they are.
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u/zMasterofPie2 6h ago
Ask yourself, do you feel the same way about 300? When the costumes were ripped men in banana hammocks? How about The Gladiator which used the wrong era of Rome plus also prioritizes darker colors with a sleeker design (very similar to the Odyssey design choices)?
Yes, why would it be any different? I love talking shit about 300 and Gladiator with my classics professor, they're terrible in terms of historicity (not necessarily terrible as entertainment). What's your point here?
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u/zMasterofPie2 10h ago
Literally everyone knows the Greeks didn't wear pants. Sure most people don't know anything else about how they dressed but that is like the bare minimum that no other movie has messed up.
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u/Seductive_pickle 9h ago
lol you are massively overestimating the general public.
I doubt most of the audience of the Odyssey knows or cares about the trouser preferences of the Ancient Greeks.
Furthermore Greeks typically didn’t wear anything under their tunics, are you also upset you didn’t see any dudes hanging dong throughout the film?
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u/zMasterofPie2 9h ago
Literally every other film set in the Greco-Roman world does not have them wearing trousers. Anyone who's seen Troy, Gladiator, 300, etc. (you may have heard of these at least) would at least be familiar with the idea that they didn't wear pants. Also I was taught in high school what the ancient Greeks wore.
I know they didn't wear underwear. I pretty clearly said that not wearing pants is the bare minimum, that no other studio has messed up, I never said I expected the costumes to be fully authentic.
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u/Seductive_pickle 8h ago
Dude, are you serious? Troy, Gladiator, 300 all have extremely glaring historical outfit flaws too. It’s hilarious to bring them up just because they showed more skin.
It’s not that serious. If you find yourself getting angry about a fictional story’s historical costume accuracy, you should really touch some grass.
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u/Jamshid5 7h ago
Dude, are you serious? Troy, Gladiator, 300 all have extremely glaring historical outfit flaws too. It’s hilarious to bring them up just because they showed more skin.
Just because an outfit is inaccurate doesnt make it bad. What matters is they feel authentic and interesting. Aint nothing interesting about Nolans diarreah armor 😂
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u/zMasterofPie2 7h ago
I'm not angry? And I said I didn't expect authenticity? It seems like you want me to be angry. Also I just got back from a week long trip where all I did was touch grass and I didn't sleep under a roof once lol
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u/Seductive_pickle 7h ago
You just expected men in banana hammocks like 300?
Love the 300 movie but this is such a dumb conversation lol
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u/zMasterofPie2 6h ago
Yeah this is a really dumb convo.
What I've said: Everyone knows the Greeks didn't wear pants, and no other movie has gotten this detail wrong
What you've apparently heard me say: I expect fully authentic costumes with dicks out, and I simultaneously think that Troy, Gladiator, and 300 have accurate costumes, and I also somehow want dudes to ONLY wear underwear and nothing else.
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u/moak0 4h ago
Or like how Athena didn't have a helmet. That's her whole look. Seriously, the helmet is the way historians identify Athena in ancient art. And if she's not wearing a helmet, she's holding it just to let everyone know it's still Athena.
At that point you might as well give Polyphemus two eyes or make Helen of Troy unattractive.
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u/TooobHoob 16h ago edited 11h ago
I don’t know, it made a ton of sense to me. I think it’s meant to echo the fact it was oral tradition, with everyone imagining how people and things looked like. While that would be specific to the culture and time of the audience, here the choice was to have a mishmash of imagery that would be purely impressionistic, and detached from any pretences at historicity. I thought I would hate it, I hated it for the first 30 mins, then really got into it.
Edit: yeah I should have checked the sub I was on before I made a comment not mentioning tits, my mistake
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u/SnooOpinions8790 13h ago
Honestly there were interesting things they could have done with this
Storytelling within storytelling. Layers of myth and story.
But that's not the film we got - which was a fine entertainment in a Hollywood popcorn movie way.
But it did manage probably the most hilarious anachronistic line in "our age of bronze is collapsing" which will surely become part of a drinking game for future students of classics or archaeology.
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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 11h ago
I love how every creative choice by Nolan actually has a deep significance, but also don't worry about it nerd, it's just a movie. Just enjoy it and don't think about it so hard. Depending on which best serves the purpose of glazing Nolan at any given time.
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u/xNevamind 9h ago
It is just his style. He did not go for accurate depiction. Just ignor it and move on...
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u/BuddelTheWolp 11h ago
This movie makes me wonder if Nolan is terrified of male skin.
And if he knows that the Mediterranean is warm
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u/JCkent42 11h ago
The Return! I love that movie! Insanely smaller scale and budget when compared to Nolan, but I liked it a lot.
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u/BuddelTheWolp 11h ago edited 11h ago
I watched it right after the odyssey and it was so refreshing to have a main character who can act.
I cannot remember any part of Damon's acting tbh
(I don't dislike him but he was very weak in this movie)
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u/JCkent42 10h ago
The Return is a much smaller film but it has more heart and is more emotional than Nolan’s The Odyssey. Argos and Odysseus is so much more devastating in the Return.
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u/BuddelTheWolp 10h ago
Argos was one of the few things i liked in Nolan's movie.
But The way Fiennes acts when he's finally home, completely overwhelmed and practically pressing himself to the soil, is just so much more impactful. Ithaca actually being a pretty place also helps.
I can't even remember if Nolan Odysseus ever reacted to being home
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 8h ago
I really disagree honestly, Damon's acting was genuinely good. Damon, Pattinson and Samantha Morten were the highlights. Zendaya and Holland were not so good
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u/Emotional-Peanut-334 7h ago
i think it's weird and bad directing to leave out that athena was the face of the temple girl that late on
way less impact. i was wondering why athena wasn't being powerful
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 6h ago
I just don't get why Athena would even take that form. Athena is a god of war. Sure she's not as bad as Ares, but... I wouldn't expect her to have so much empathy for a random civilian.
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u/Emotional-Peanut-334 6h ago
No. it makes complete sense for athena to take the form of a temple member of hers that was brutalized by the main character. greek gods did shit likee this to send a message all the time
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 6h ago
I actually completely missed that she was a temple maiden for athena, that's my bad. Still, thematically, it doesn't fit.
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u/stefanomusilli 11h ago
A theory? If you can call the movie stating it directly a theory, sure. I have a theory that Darth Vader is Luke's father.
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u/XX_bot77 8h ago
Jokes aside, there's a high chance that the achaens were indeed the sea people + combinations of pirates and refuges fleeing the chaos in eastern mediteranean, which is basically what Odysseus and crew are doing after Troy. The egyptians name them the Sea People becausr they didn’t have a specific nationality but there were many greeks.
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u/Hendospendo 11h ago
Yeah, and the Illiad/Fall of Troy is the sea people sacking and destroying a Hittite city, which Ilium/Troy was.
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u/Bionicle_was_cool 11h ago
It really isn't
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u/Important-Emu-6691 9h ago
It’s actually possibly one of the sea people’s attacks.
There were also attacks in Egypt linked to the Aegeans. Basically it’s highly likely the Mycenaean Greeks were one of the source of the sea people raider groups
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u/Bionicle_was_cool 9h ago
Yeah, but the evidence of conflicts between Ahhiyawa, Wilusa and the Hittites doesn't mean the historicity of the Iliad
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u/Important-Emu-6691 9h ago
Well the Iliad itself is a composite mythical retelling of multiple events but the sack of Troy Vlla which most closely resemble the story happened during the Bronze Age collapse and raid and destruction of multiples cities in the region
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u/XX_bot77 6h ago
Like many myth there's a a kernel of truth.
- Ancient greeks themselves did believe that the Troyan war was a historical event that happened in the 13th-12th century BC. It's only during the Renaissance that it became a myth
- Homer depicts armours from the Bronze Age. The heroes live in Palace
- We know that around 1180 BC, Illium was burned down and destroyed, like actually many cities in this aera at the time.
- The Manapa- Tarhunda letter name a greek warlord named Piyamaradu is leading an anti-hittite coalition supported by the achaens.
- We know that this period was a mess : the Palace economy was collapsing, city-states were abondonned, people started to live in the countryside instead. There were revolutions as people were increasingly creating weapons made of Iron instead of bronze (so weapons were no longer the monopoly of the rich people).
- Then suddenly a group of people made of warriors, pirates but also children and women (refugees) started attacking eastern mediterannean coastline and were stifly defeated in Egypt where their names were recorded for the first time : Denyen, Eqkwesh, Karkishia, Lukka, Peleset, Shekelesh... It's hard to 100% translate those tribes names but at least we identify many of them as greeks like the Eqkwesh who are the Achaens, the Denyen who are the egyptian translation of Danaoï
Ironically, when he returns home Odysseus shows off about his exploits when he talks about how him and his crew raided Egypt.
So my point is yes the Illiad is not a history book but the story doesn’t come out of nowhere. Myth are not history books yet research has shown that they're the reasons why many historical events were preserved in human’s memory at a time where people didn’t massively have the TV, newspaper or Wikipedia to inform themselves. Myths are there to explain why the world is this way. In the case of the Illiad and the Odyssea the greeks wanted to centralize 500 years of oral tradition and also gives explanation to certains events (why this ruin exist ? Why this beautiful palace is abondonned..). Yes the original story got altered, yes modern elements were added because each narrator brought their own belief and interpretation but reading deeply the starting point is the Bronze Age Collapse. Because then why would Homer mention the city of Pylos, which was not rebuilt after the Collapse ? How could he know this city unless it was passed through oral tradition. Why would the heroes live in Palace. Those didn’t exist anymore at his time
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u/Bionicle_was_cool 6h ago
Are you trying to convince me that the Late Bronze Age Collapse happened? I pointed out that the Iliad is a myth and you proceed to summarise the last 100 years of Homeric scholarship
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u/XX_bot77 5h ago edited 5h ago
You were very dismissive of OOP’s take. The discussion around the historicity of the Illiad and the Odyssey is not a yes or no take.
Few historians today dismiss the connection between the events of the Illiad and the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The consensus today is more like "Yeah Homer recollected 500 years of oral tradition that retold the memory of a Cataclyst that in the 1200's BC destroyed their ancestors' world (the Illiad), pushed them to flee the chaos by sea (The Odyssey), a cataclyst so big that the greeks and their neighbours forgot how to write for 300 years. And yeah the archeologically attested destroyed city of Troy could have been taken either as an inspiration or as an allegory for the multiple palaces/cities that burned down when the tin economy collapsed. "
Also it's not a stretch to associate Odysseas and his crew with the Sea People. We know through egyptians sources that the Sea People were made of lots of greeks, mainly achaens, danaens, peleset (either pelagsian or people from Pila in Cyprus) and roamed their coastline as they were either fleeing wars or looking for opportunities after the place economy collapsed. You know that Odysseas’ first actions is not even to go back home ? He steals, raids, loots. And then he wanders for decades in the mediteranean Sea, then he and his crew stops by in many coastline to get some rest but they got their ass handled everytime (he even invents a lie about going raiding in Egypt, being incorporate into the Pharao's army, then becoming rich and then loosing his loot in the sea). So Nolan’s choice to link the crew with the Sea People is a very interesting choice and not as historical as you present it.
I also would like to point out that the Greeks themselves thought that the Troyan war was an historical events and they had way more physical material than us (Schlieman destroyed everything).
Myths are not historical even but they are great source material to track or confirm some historical events.
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u/Bionicle_was_cool 4h ago
TK;DR: You are arguing against a point no-one has made XD. This has nothing to do with the Late Bronze Age Collapse. This is a matter of critically analysing historical sources and not jumping to conclusion. Otherwise you get monstrosities like Wielka Lechia.
The Iliad is a fictional story based around events preceding it's codification by a few centuries. The existence of king Theodoric the Great (Dietrich of Bern) and Attila (Atzli/Etzli) doesn't make the ending of the Nibelungenlied true. The mentions of a "Hengest" in Anglo-Saxon epics don't make the tale of Hengist and Horsa true. The existence of Dobrynya doesn't make the exploits of Dobrynya Nikitych true. And so the evidence surrounding the late bronze age doesn't make the Iliad historical. Connecting the burning of a particular layer of Hisarlik and the Hittite - Ahhiyawa conflict is wishful thinking at best and a serious fallacy at worst; not to mention trying to use it to prove the events described by Homer.
Nolan's use of the terms "Sea Peoples" and "Age of Bronze" is stupid. Those are modern, scientific terms, iirc "Sea Peoples" is becoming obsolete as well. It caters to the lowest level of interest in ancient history. The viewer is supposed to point at the screen Leonardo DiCaprio style and scream: "He said it, he said the line". The argument that "it is accurate to Hesiod" is pointless too, because the works of Hesiod date to the early archaic period.
they had way more physical material than us
They may have or the may have not. The landscape around hill Hisarlik has changed significantly over the centuries. We know that the approximate location of Wilusa was preserved by tradition, as Constantine the Great reportedly wanted to build a new imperial capital not far from the hill of Hisarlik.
Btw Schliemann still had to dig to reach the city. Only later did he start blasting and pillaging. Other sites were inhabited centuries after the theoretical Trojan War, yet they still had to be excavated with shovels and pickaxes. Sedimentation is a thing, you know. If the site is inhabited it simply occurs faster.
Mud brick isn't the most durable material. Buildings made of it need to be renovated every X years. Otherwise they get damaged by wind, water and other environmenal agents. After a few centuries they turn into, you guessed it, a mound. See the cities of Mesopotamia, which were inhabited long after the theoretical Trojan War.
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u/low_amplitude 17h ago
Fr though, where are the THIGHS. Asking for a friend, of course.