
I bet most people don’t even know what was cut or how horribly the original story was butchered so that the moral of the story could be “I’m such a fat fucking chud. I never should’ve raided Troy”. In the original it’s his hubris, which ironically would’ve been way better to use as his downfall for the “men are bad” narrative that was behind the scenes as well
That’s why I think the actors receiving hate is kinda dumb. They did well acting out what Nolan told them to so that it could be taken in that direction. It’s just that imo, that direction is inferior to if he had just strictly followed the original plot lines. I’m all for directors taking their own spin, but I think it really fell flat in this case compared to the potential product he could’ve created with the Odyssey as his source material.
I’d also probably feel differently if there was already a good baseline modern movie adaptation of the story, but since there’s not one yet, I personally didn’t see the need to try to change things as much as he did. Especially things like the crew culling scene with the dudes with armor and swords. The original version was much cooler (the ships got destroyed by savage giants throwing rocks at his fleet, leaving only his ship left out of the original 12) and could’ve easily been adapted
I think the direction would’ve actually made even more sense if some of the cut content had been included, too. In the book, he brags about the sieging of Troy and how good his plot was. His hubris is on full display. When they interact with the cyclops, he outwits it so that his crew can escape, and thinks that he can remain one step ahead of the gods. Over time, the bad things keep happening, and he’s basically beaten into submission through all the divine punishments and ultimately cannot-
-overcome the prophecy given to him. That works MUCH better than him apparently realizing his mistake as soon as the gates of Troy were opened, then just going on the journey back kinda just as some random dude along for the ride. I think using the whole breaking the law of Zeus thing helped mitigate this, but the originally plot line was much more compelling. His interactions with the gods and mythological beings were much more integral as well. I didn’t like how they felt like a side plot
My biggest problem was that Odysseus didn’t feel like Odysseus. He never did anything to make himself different from any of the other random soldiers other than the fact that we were told that he’s their leader, well respected, and the smartest of them all. Why? We never get to see. He never once has a feat that displays or solidifies anything other than him being skilled at combat and the fact that he came up with the Trojan horse. The wax thing kinda is, but still. Not much else
The biggest slap in the face was cutting out his convo with the cyclops, especially since it was one of these instances. He gets the cyclops drunk off wine, tells it his name is “Nobody”, and when they hurt it to escape, it tells its neighbors, “Help, help! Nobody is attacking me!” The neighbors don’t help because they hear “nobody is attacking me”. That’s clever. It’s a display of Odysseus outwitting an enemy. He doesn’t do anything like that in the movie at all
He also doesn’t really ever show an instance of why his men follow him as a good leader, either. Everyone just says he’s a good leader, so we just have to believe it without seeing any examples. He lets someone die for the horse plot, he gets some of his men killed in the cyclops den through a reckless plan, he keeps information from them and it pisses them off. The only things we see are literally all reasons to dislike him and reasons for his men to distrust him, not follow or respect him
Like I’ve said in other comments, as a standalone movie, it’s a solid 6 or 7 out of 10. But as an Odyssey adaptation, it completely butchers the narrative and falls incredibly short of what it could’ve been. Nolan is lucky that both his and the Odyssey’s name recognition are able to convince people to rate the movie highly without looking into it too much. I expected much more from him considering how good of a director he is, so the product I saw on screen was honestly very underwhelming