It is not necessary to go see an adaption of a classic story just because it exists. I think any youtuber or grifter going to see this just so they can make content on it is part of the problem. This movie was going to be bad, we all knew it was going to be bad, and whether you like it or not depends entirely on your political affiliation. Why, exactly, would you go see this in theaters and support the declining Hollywood industry? So they can do the same thing again? Come on.
This kind of goes back into what I said during my James Gunn article, but it very much remains true even outside of the world of comic book movies: Why, exactly, are these films considered major cultural events? Nothing is stopping normies from reading classics such as the Odyssey or Lord of the Rings, and yet by default they gravitate more to the film adaptations, and then present themselves as if they are experts on the subject. Lord of the Rings is a very good example of this. A lot of people don’t seem to be aware of just how subversive the original film trilogy actually was, and these days it’s held up as a classic film trilogy ‘before the woke.’
People may not be aware of this, but this is exactly the same process that we saw with other films like Life of Brian or Star Wars. Intellectuals instantly recognized that these films were subversive and dangerous, and morally degenerate ideas onto the public. However, the people who grew up with them consider them all time cultural landmarks and will not hear a word against them. The plan, eventually, is for this to happen to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey as well.
The question now is whether that is going to happen, because I feel as if the culture has changed so radically over the past twenty years that this kind of cultural subversion isn’t really possible anymore. Critics can glaze this movie all they want, but the simple fact of the matter is that kids are not going to grow up with this movie. We already have better versions of the story out there, and we are increasingly seeing more people refuse to support projects like this.
The simple fact of the matter is that audiences are exhausted of this kind of subversive storytelling. They don’t want the Hollywood version of events- they want the real thing. A straight adaption. And it’s crazy to me to see how centuries old narratives (Like that old claim of Achilles and Patroclus being gay) completely falling apart because of the backlash of this movie. And the more people look into how these narratives got started, and why, they start to come to the same conclusion. That some one out there is actively trying to disparage our history, heritage, and culture to demoralize and destroy us.
The good news is, this isn’t working. More people, even those who aren’t familiar with Homer or the Odyssey, are beginning to see through the propaganda. As a kid I found myself shocked at the lengths that mythology professors would go to in order to try and push propaganda through these old stories, and now it’s become a mainstream talking point among people who are less familiar with the characters and themes than I am. It’s becoming less of a niche nerdy topic and becoming a real talking point about how important it is to preserve our history and culture.
Christopher Nolan’s career needs to end after this. There is no getting around this: He’s finished. But more than that, though, we need to go back through his entire catalog of work and throw it all out. This was not some sudden shift and not a radical change in direction. He was always like this. Look at the Dark Knight, in which Batman uses everyone’s cell phones to track down the Joker’s location. The movie assures us that it’s only to catch one criminal and that it’s going to be turned off afterwards. The simple truth is, that machine is never getting turned off. The Dark Knight attempted to justify a police state through its story in the hopes of eventually turning it into accepted policy. And in the end it’s not like they give the Joker the death penalty anyway.
You see? Hollywood has been warping people’s perceptions and values for decades, but as entertainment becomes more diversified, and the monoculture slowly began to erode, it is beginning to become more and more difficult to brainwash the majority of the audience. We’ve already seen a massive split between conservatives and liberals, boomers and zoomers, men and women on certain issue. But there are also weird sub cultures as well, like the divide between pro and anti Israeli conservatives.
It seems as if the complete control over the culture depended on the establishment having complete control over education, over the news, over the publishing industry, over Hollywood, over every possible way of sharing information… only for it to come crashing down with the advent of the internet. On the surface it seems like this movie is a huge hit, but in reality it’s a hugely controversial release that will only depreciate with time. As I alluded to earlier- people are only praising it for political reasons. They don’t actually enjoy the film and they certainly have no respect for the source material. Otherwise they would be a bit more willing to speak up on its behalf.
Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ is a complete trainwreck that should be avoided at all costs. Going to see it to ‘own the libs’ is only feeding into the machine. Your time would be much better suited to having discussions of the original work, without discussing the film itself at all. But these people will not do that, because it’s too easy to simply make a cheap, lazy videos making fun of it and get money for it.
It was Razorfist who addressed that ‘apathy’ to these projects was far more effective then outrage, and I find that I agree completely. If a movie gets produced, and no one goes to see it… it may as well not even exist.