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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12553 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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I'd love for an Iliad or Odyssey film made by Robert Eggers in the same style as the Northman. With an attention to detail on historical and mythological realism, and a healthy mix of supernatural occurrence/doubt of the supernatural mixed in.

In retrospect I think a lot of the discourse and disappointment is just people confusing Nolan's autistic focus on "realism" in the sense of shooting everything he can with practical effects for an Eggers-style autism about capturing the vibe/mentality behind historical stories.

I have to wonder if I just disappointed myself here by assuming Nolan was ever going to do something like The Northman. Where was the evidence for that?

Some scenes of the Odyssey did seem to deliberately pay homage to Northman IMO, then immediately zigged back towards the milquetoast modern stuff.

I would not care if the ghost of Roger Corman rose out of his unquiet grave to make a schlocky version of the Iliad or Odyssey, just somebody please give me a movie full of the burning Mediterranean sun and bright colours, and armour that looks like armour not "the costume department bought in a job-lot of black leather-type material from a closing down sale of fabrics manufacturer" or "soldered together a load of tin cans".

You can make the script as modern-day relevant as you like with Menelaus going to therapy over his PTSD and Clytemnestra being a Strong Independent Woman, I don't care, just no more "everybody schlubs around in unbleached fabrics and earth tones in the cloudy grey rocky nowhere". Give me colour, embroidery, jewellery, armour, brightness, dazzle, the golden world of the past in mythology!

I don't care if they cast Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, but let her appear as this Helen:

Now when they saw Helen coming upon the wall, softly they spake winged words one to another: “Small blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer woes; wondrously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon. But even so, for all that she is such an one, let her depart upon the ships, neither be left here to be a bane to us and to our children after us.”

Worst part to me was taking out the Nobody dialogue with Polyphemus. One of the big Odysseus highlights gone for no reason

So the Brad Pitt Troy, basically.

Haven't seen that one because I can't take Brad Pitt as Achilles seriously, but that at least does seem to have tried to stick to the story. I'm more interested in Hector as a lead character in the Iliad anyway, because he's not a psycho like Achilles (could be read as) and he's a decent guy caught in a trap because of his no-good younger brother.

I strongly recommend the book Song of Achilles, which focuses on the Achilles x Patroclus relationship. I found the book so compelling on an artistic level that I consider it canon.

that at least does seem to have tried to stick to the story

Not sure I'd agree. It completely cuts out any of the supernatural/divine elements, condenses the Trojan War into like two weeks (most of which is Hector's funeral), kills like half the cast in the opening engagement (IIRC Menelaus and Ajax die almost immediately), and takes sides much more overtly than the Homeric narrative. It is explicit that the war is a power play by Agamemnon, with Helen's abduction merely as an excuse, and there is not a whiff of the extensive honor culture that pervades the Iliad. Also, the dialog is terrible - apparently written by Benioff of Game of Thrones fame - and the all-star cast can't save it.

(Hilariously, Nolan was tapped at one point to direct Troy, but was passed over.)

Hector (played by Eric Bana) basically is the main character for any parts shown from the Trojan perspective. The movie isn't high art or anything, and it takes some liberties with the story, but it seems better than what Nolan just put out at least. Also Peter O'Toole is great as King Priam.

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