Radio War Nerd EP #623 — The Odyssey in Dubai + Updates

A bit late to the party on this one, but I thought the adaptation had a lot of merit. At the core is a parable about the obligations of a host and a guest, and the ways that people destroy their own home by wrecking the homes of others. Ultimately it is the same home, because we all share the same planet. At the beginning of the Odyssey you may think you are going "out there" to battle some other, but the damage always comes home in some way. You've got to take ownership of the problem. That was my take away. Again and again characters in the story violate the sanctity of others homes often for incredibly self-serving reasons. In the end, it always comes back. What actually gets Odysseus home is the point where he is willing to abandon himself (his ego, his person, a sense of control) to the sea and accept the consequences whatever they may be. At the beginning of the film, I kind of wondered whether I was wasting my time (probably colored by some negative reviews), but once I got into the flow of the story, I thought it was engaging. Obviously Nolan used an old story for his own purposes, but as far as adaptations go, I thought it worked.

Agree on the miscasting. Odysseus should look a little shifty in my opinion, like he’s scheming. All I can think of with Nolan’s choice is “MAAAT DAAAMON”. Team America poisoned my mind 🤣

Every single outfit in the odyssey being either a dark brown or a dark grey cloak was so boring. Its just a shoot and cry movie, like the trojan war was the iraq war or something. The main motivation for odyssey to go on his adventure is that he was ptsd and was avoiding going home becausd he had trauma. You end up asking what is even the point for them to continue suffering, no glory or valor or heroicism. Just "good" people forced to go on meaningless imperialist wars and being upset at all the massacres they commit. They had the guy who plays punisher play Achilles, and he's just a traumatized to the point of constantly shaking and shouting ex-navy seal guy.

Yall should check out Ralph Finnes as Odysseus in The Return

This was the grimmest episode of the year Nolan movie out and it’s a sad play Batman 1 but with a cyclops in it The psycho stalker I had is now dead Tactical nukes - maybe? I mean damn guys

it comes back to de-baathification no? the bath party?

Mark landed some good shots on the manic Jim Goad; that was a truly epic "flame war" that seemed to leave Goad burned out.

Fantastic episode.

The Odyssey is the birth of the unconscious. Odysseus is the first "modern" man—not because he rejects the gods, but because he develops an interiority that the Greeks before him didn't need. Nietzsche said the Greeks "stopped courageously at the surface"—and before Odysseus, they did. Achilles raged, Ajax fell on his sword, the hero enacted the real directly. The surface was the depth. But Odysseus is the first to hold something back: he gives the gods their due, outwardly, ritually, on the surface, while inwardly he calculates, he gains an advantage. The gap between the outward act and the inward thought is the cut that creates the unconscious. A hidden interior, a space between what he shows the gods and what he knows—the first private symptom, the first inwardized death drive, the first modern soul. After Odysseus, the surface is no longer enough. We've been digging ever since.

The sea peoples thing did actually pay off: it's the Greeks returning from the Sack of Troy, having, through perfidy, consumed a city in an orgy of rape and murder. i.e., Anne Hathaway describing the 'sea peoples' as ignoring xenia and, in doing so, destroying civilization. The aspect of this that I did not appreciate was that, when Nolan flinched at the moment when the metaphor was nearly complete, he depicted Cassandra/Athena in the temple at the foot of the statue of Athena being decapitated, rather than what infamously occurred vis-à-vis the Rape of Cassandra by the Hero Ajax.

Sounds like the guys just wanted the Odyssey to be directed by Robert Eggers. I see the vision

Two things on Odyssey 1- Agamemnon’s armor was black, at least from the production crew, because they wanted a color of metal that would be very difficult to be acquire and produced - I think I remember one interview saying that they wanted it to look like a carbon bronze alloy? Anyway, there seems to be a bit of tongue in cheek from the crew on using black, for its rarity, but also to an extent for exaggerating Agamemnon’s arrogance - only his dumb and violent ego would think that would be right for battle. 2- on Polyphemus, I think the one big mistake of this film, which shows up most for the cyclops sequence, is how thoroughly the film was cut down. Reportedly the footage totaled 90 hours, and imo there’s probably some deleted footage with isolated scenes of Polyphemus. We only get that little moment of him praying to his father, but doesn’t the original translation include like a whole scene of him wailing to Poseidon begging for revenge, after Odysseus has left? That could’ve been fitted in, and like most of the key moments front the story that were cut (eg also Odysseus staging with Circe for a time), the audience would’ve been better served seeing a fuller more complex presentation of Odysseus

I’ll say this about the Odyssey: I think it’s neat Nolan has read something different into the story. I mean, it’s not really a mystery why a narrative about customs breaking down into smash-and-grab and exacerbating a process of civilizational collapse appeals to us at this particular moment. I don’t care that Homer’s Odysseus wouldn’t have given a shit about sacking Troy, we have our own daemons to wrestle with

Just now watched the first 12 minutes of the Clash of the Titans. The Gods in it were portrayed just like the Gods in the Telugu movies from the 50s and 60s

The one Homeric screen adaptation I thought did a good job with the gods was the recent BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City. It had other issues but I liked how they portrayed Zeus especially.

I’ll be real I’ve listened to this show for years but had no idea John had a translation of the Iliad, could not hit buy fast enough

Sorry guys. I loved the movie. And Im also a huge fan of classical literature. My take on it is that the Emily Wilson translation which the screenplay is based on really works well with Nolan’s non-linear storytelling style. The use of American accents was weird at first but then you forget to notice. And i think it made it approachable to all audiences and if that means more people will be interested in classic literature and perhaps read more - Im all for it! Epic cinema!

Next time tell us when the spoilers end ;)

You no love Israel?

This is vintage RWN, our peripatetic hero talking classics while marooned in a miserable far-off locale.

I cast a sculpture for Ray Haryhausen in the early 90's. Early highlight of my career

Well, we dont love yall for your taste in movies at least

the US is gonna occupy Iran like Joe Pesci occupied the McCallister house. we're gonna see scores of casualties from soldiers like slipping on marbles and shit. an entire company will be taken prisoner after getting glue blown on them from a hair dryer. i'm saying Iran is gonna do Home Alone to us.

Hey Mark what is the name of the illustrated Iliad you read your kids?

One thing I've wondered is if Trump actually were to break the nuclear taboo in Iran, would that cross a strong enough red line for China and Russia to get directly involved, not as belligerents but as nuclear-armed peacekeepers stepping in place Iran under their nuclear umbrella and demand immediate internationally-brokered peace talks. It seems like a plausible possibility to me, and that a move like that might get buy-in from regional actors like the GCC and Türkiye, maybe even the Europeans. This would obviously be an epochal humiliation for the US security state, and preventing that scenario would likely be enough motivation for the brass to refuse the order.

Is that illustrated kids version of the Odyssey The Wanderings of Odysseus by Rosemary Sutcliff?

I agree that the movie misses most of what makes The Odyssey one of the greatest and most enduring stories ever told, and it definitely doesn't understand Odysseus as a character. But, also, it's revealed by the end of the movie that the sea people are the Greeks, so that is kind of important. Overall the movie is super serious and not a lot of fun so it appeals to a lot of people these days.

I’m sorry a right wing provocateur named James Goad?? Surely that’s too on the nose

It’s the height of irony to complain about how obvious all the allusions to the sea people there are while missing that it’s the Achaeans who are the sea people. The Bronze Age is collapsing because they’re sacking every civilization on the way home from Troy, and Odysseus spells out that they’re doing it because of the moral apocalypse created by his trick.

My expectations for Nolan were low but gosh darn it he still managed to surpass them. He went from "can't hear shit" in his previous films to "can't see shit" in the Odyssey. Nolan is genuinely horrible at everything he does, and is surrounded by a cottage industry of yes men who are (literally, Nolan has complete creative control) unable to tell him his writing and his vision is trash. The Odyssey is such a waste of so many other people's time and ability. However credit where credit is due, I didn't actually know what the point of the Odyssey was my whole life in part due to things like jason and the argonauts fixating on setpiece moments. Unfortunately, Nolan has to sit Damon down after three hours to monologue to Hathaway for five minutes to get that point across. Robert Pattinson is delightful at playing a piece of shit though and is in it for the love of the game. I suspect he knew the script was horrible, and gives his all into being as scuzzy a suitor as possible.

I’ll be one more of the sparse commenters defending Nolan’s Odyssey in this group. I thought it was a marvelous film that was successful in all its ambitions. The main one being to bridge the Bronze Age collapse to the collapsing Silicon Age. It did not need realism to achieve this. Sergei Eisenstein did not need realism to make “Alexander Nevsky” a great 1930s film that was really about the Nazis. Both the Bronze Age and the Silicon Age are under the strain of unsustainable exploitation of peoples and nature. One being an era of deep religiosity and the other of secularism. But the silicon age is increasingly becoming one of “apparent magic” as the opening slide references. And it is through this perspective that Nolan shows us the Bronze Age. We only see magical things to the extent that they could plausibly be hallucinations from the lotus flower of natural forces. Of a man whose mind resorts to hallucinations and delusions to unpack the trauma of his wartime experiences. We hear often of the “veterans of the Trojan War” as if they are veterans of Vietnam and so on. This is addressed to a modern audience. I see no problem with that. I thought that it addressed the criticisms head on. Opening with Travis Scott pounding the drum to immediately connect it to this modern audience so emphatically that it surrenders its historical grounding immediately and intentionally. And establishing that with its origin as a loose musical form, and not a historical document, it can still be subject to creative reinterpretation. I thought it was a masterpiece on par with Alexander Nevsky and the great historical epics.

A work buddy whose roommate has a friend at the base in Jordan said at least one of the soldiers there died cause he was trying to get phone footage of the attack. Also said casualty numbers are closer to 30 than 6

Guys. Would it be possible to do a segment with annibale on our understanding of the chain of command in the US? Whatever we do know?

I'd recommend early Nolan. Memento, the Prestige, and Insomnia (Al Pacino and a dark Robin Williams!) Though I like your idea the only roles for known stars are gods

“Well, he’s dead now and that’s that so….”

I’m going to get crucified for this, but- as someone who only had a passing knowledge of The Odyssey and who acknowledges fully that there are valid critiques of every Nolan movie including this one, I liked it as a movie. In the AI and CGI age I appreciated the work that went into making something with human beings, flawed as it may be

O' brother where out thou did a better job. But i haven't seen the odyssey and I probably won't. Nolan sucks

What is the illustrated version of the Odyssey that you shared with your kids? Trying to plan for the future as my kids get older.

The U.S. military is absolutely stupid and evil enough to follow a nuke order. The only people serving are either idiots or baby killers who have no sense or decency. Meanwhile, so you’re saying Iran is driving all the U.S. forces into Israel. Hmm.

i was gonna say that zendaya is too young to play athena but then i googled her and saw that she's 30 and then i realized that i'm old

death metal Batman rules. https://youtube.com/shorts/cWFq27KP5lQ?is=FJKuAbSl3qzQ63nq

“Heh. Lot of your bronze around here; looks rather brittle. Looks like it could collapse. Take the whole civilization down with it.” “Our bronze?” “Yep. Liable to tip over.” “It’ll collapse?” “Fraid so.” “Our civilization.. it’ll go with it.” “Looks that way”

Living dangerously in Dubai

Yeah the odyssey was terminally mid. And depicting Athena as a weepy gen Z yoga instructor is just beyond offensive

John!!! Not sure what your plans are in Dubai, or how long you're there, but if you do plan on looking around a bit I would be most pleased if you checked out the Saruq al-Hadid museum: https://share.google/x1TCWax0RYGA7zW2X Wrote my PhD on the site, it's a really interesting bit of prehistoric archaeology and I contributed a fair bit to the museum. It became a bit of a nation building project, but the archaeology is still legit. Would mean more to me than the doctorate itself if you were able to make it over there, plus it's in the 'heritage' part of the city, near Sheikh Zayed's old house!