The Odyssey, the latest film from celebrated director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer), comes out this summer, and it has become ground zero in a new online culture battle. Per Comic Basics, the latest trailer for The Odyssey has become the most disliked of any movie in Nolan’s career on YouTube. At the moment, the trailer sits at 315k likes to 83k dislikes. About 21% of the people who responded had a negative reaction.
The Odyssey follows the plot of Homer’s epic poem, which historians believe was written in the eighth or seventh centuries BCE. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, trying to make his way home after the end of the Trojan War. Along the way, he encounters obstacles like a giant cyclops and a group of sirens who try to lure him and his crew to their doom. Meanwhile, back home in Ithaca, Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fends off suitors who think Odysseus is dead, including Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Tom Holland plays Odysseus’ son, Telemachus.
Commenters give various reasons for their dissatisfaction. Some are perplexed by what they see as armor designs out of step with the movie’s Bronze Age setting, or don’t like that the characters speak with American accents and use modern-sounding terms like “dad.” The movie has been compared unfavorably to the 2004 film Troy, an extremely loose adaptation of Homer’s other epic poem the Iliad. In that movie, also set in Ancient Greece, the characters mostly speak in British accents (except for Brad Pitt, who powers through with an American accent as Achilles), which is exactly as historically inaccurate.
One of the biggest sources of consternation about the movie is the casting choices, notably Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o in a dual role as Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra. Although Nyong’o does not appear in the trailer at issue, various commentators still object to her casting.
Nyong’o likely doesn’t appear in the trailer because neither Helen of Troy nor her sister play large roles in the plot. Helen is instead a bigger presence in the Iliad. These are supporting characters in a mythological story that also includes appearances from the goddess Athena (Zendaya) and the immortal nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), and yet conservative commentators have been competing with each other to see who can get more upset about the Oscar-winning Nyong’o getting cast in the parts. Other commentators are also upset about Elliot Page being cast as Achilles, another minor character, even though it’s far from clear that Page is even playing him.
At the moment, this newer trailer has over 23 million views, and it’s #1 on YouTube’s Movies Trending chart. It remains to be seen whether all this discourse will negatively affect the movie or if it will evaporate once people actually see it. We’ll find out when The Odyssey releases in theaters on Jul. 17. -imdb
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