Transcript
Nate Day: Welcome to Adaptation, the Booked Movie Podcast. I'm Nate.
Chris: And I'm Chris.
Nate Day: And today we have a special guest to discuss Homer's The Odyssey with us. We have Greg, Chris's buddy, Greg.
Greg : Hi, long time listener, first time talker.
Nate Day: Hi, Greg.
Greg : Glad to be here.
Nate Day: You are not a first-time talker. Maybe first time on a mic. but
Greg : First time in years, recorded talker.
Chris: and just
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : all there
Nate Day: Okay, there were
Chris: I did tell, I told him before we started every guest, we have said, feel free to talk. You, you can't talk too much. And then I stopped and said, well, you might be the exception.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: A
Nate Day: You know what? We signed up for what we signed up for. So yeah.
Chris: hundred percent.
Nate Day: Like I said, today we're here to talk about the Odyssey as well as Christopher Nolan's latest adaptation. But before we do that, what have you been reading, Chris?
Chris: Yeah, I've been, I was just telling Greg, I've had a couple of kind of strange sleepless nights in the last two weeks where for no reason I was just up from midnight to 6am. So I have been on a tear. I actually made it through since we last recorded Naruto.
Chris: i don't know. I assume you've watched that, Greg.
Nate Day: Oh.
Greg : The show?
Chris: Yeah.
Greg : a little.
Chris: i want I want to read it before I watch it, so i got i tracked down a copy of the first one.
Greg : A little bit?
Chris: Absolutely delightful. You know, little manga.
Greg : There's like a thousand episodes, by the way.
Nate Day: Good.
Chris: Read it backwards.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Dungeon Crawler Carl, which we've talked about previously and hopefully will be adapted soon.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: That would be a really fun one to discuss.
Nate Day: be fun.
Chris: And then also, actually, I think this is an adaptation as well. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah. In fact, I have an idea for that one.
Chris: Okay, that book was, oh my gosh, 4 a.m. sitting in my boxers at my kitchen, pounding pu'er tea, reading that book.
Nate Day: Yeah. Oh, creepy.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I was like disassociating from the world. I had to go sit out on the fire escape and smoke a pipe. I was like, this is...
Greg : had to layer one more substance in one more substance, one more setting.
Chris: I had to go touch grass.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: that's the The fire escape outside my third floor window is as close as I can get to touching grass. It's Brooklyn. But yeah.
Nate Day: That's true.
Chris: So that's been fun.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I've had a real good tear of books in the last couple of weeks.
Nate Day: OK, cool. What about you, Greg? Have you been reading lately, watching movies, anything like that?
Greg : Last movie i saw was Sheep Detectives
Nate Day: Oh, that one's actually really good, and it's an adaptation.
Greg : It's good. it
Chris: Is it really?
Greg : Is it God bless.
Nate Day: Yep. it's it's i think it's I have to assume it's a children's novel, but it's a really sweet movie. Sad. Made me cry.
Greg : Yeah, it was lovely.
Nate Day: But, yeah.
Greg : i have a two-year-old daughter and she didn't watch it with me.
Nate Day: Oh.
Greg : Just two adults.
Chris: That's what I was gonna ask.
Nate Day: Oh.
Greg : Well, she was in bed. Just two adults.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Oh, okay.
Greg : Like, yeah, let's get some Huge Jacked Man and some Julia Louis- Dreyfus.
Nate Day: Yep.
Nate Day: Yeah, I did like that one a lot.
Greg : Yeah, that was lovely.
Chris: Incredible.
Nate Day: I wanted to put it on our list but for to cover this year, but I just could not make Chris read that book.
Greg : i am
Nate Day: I thought it was maybe a little stupider than it turned out to be. So laugh jokes on me, actually, you know.
Chris: That's crazy that that's where you drew the line after some of the books that you've made me read.
Nate Day: Come on, every time you end up at least liking them.
Chris: That's a good point. That's a fair point. What about you? What have you been watching?
Nate Day: I saw, well, of course, The Odyssey was the other night. And The Invite, I've seen it a couple of times now.
Chris: Ooh.
Nate Day: That movie would probably put you in a coma, Chris. I don't know if I recommend it.
Chris: The trailer gave me anxiety.
Nate Day: Yeah, I'm sure. But I know Blair's looking forward to it. So maybe that's a good like girls night one for her. But it's I think it's my favorite movie of the year, maybe with the exception, spoiler alert, of the movie we're discussing today.
Nate Day: But I loved it. I'm sort of in movie heaven right now.
Chris: Wow.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Two big statements. Okay.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I'm, huh, that's a good primer.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah, it is. it took everything in my body not to text you when I got out of the movie the other night, because I was like, you've got 48 hours, just save it, save it for the podcast.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: You know, I'm, I'm stoked though, to get into it.
Chris: Yeah. Huh. Interesting.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I assume you've seen the internet chatter.
Nate Day: Like what chatter are you talking about? The, the people mad about the casting and stuff?
Chris: the the Not the casting. the The book side of the internet is not pleased with Nolan's treatment of this text.
Nate Day: Really?
Chris: I think the one of the headlines I saw was... this protagonist is very much Christopher Nolan's character, not Homer's Odysseus.
Greg : Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: i I haven't read the book in 100 years. I read it, I think, freshman year of high school, but i that makes me sad. that I think that's so wrong.
Chris: Interesting, okay, okay.
Nate Day: I think, well, yeah, I don't want to give anything up, but
Chris: I should, maybe i should have, I should have broken my own rule and watched it this time for the comparison. I'm so curious now.
Nate Day: Yeah, yeah, I'm I am too. But why don't we dive in before we spoil too much of our own dessert here.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: And Chris, tell us about the book.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: And Greg, I know we don't have to tell you, but feel free to jump in whenever a thought arises.
Chris: That shit-eating grin.
Greg : I'm waiting.
Chris: i chuckled to myself, and this is probably only funny to myself, but I'm going to tell you guys anyway.
Chris: I was like, this is about as far from worried about spoilers as we could be. A 3,000 year old story.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Everybody knows.
Greg : If you don't know the like basic plot points by osmosis.
Nate Day: Right. Right. It's like this and the Bible.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Now, to be fair, the Epic of Gilgamesh is argued to be earlier, but a less exciting read.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: Honestly, that would also be a great adaptation, but that's neither here nor there. Okay, so the highlight reel, because this is also another hefty tome.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: I think this one was like 550.
Nate Day: All
Chris: Again, believed to be written seventh or 8th century BC, just south of 3,000 years ago, however you slice it. Attributed to Homer, I think this argument's probably not terribly exciting audio for our listeners, but obviously we do not know for certain who authored this tale.
Nate Day: and right. Isn't there theories that it's several people like worked together?
Chris: Many, yes, yes. And we'll, well, you know what, i'll just I'll just spit it all out now rather than waiting for it later.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: So we're talking, you know, early Hellenic Minoan, all of those cultures around the Aegean Sea, as happened so much in the tale, you have no fast news, right?
Chris: You have no way for information to move quickly. Almost certainly a predominantly illiterate society.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: these this would not be the form that the average Greek 2,700 years ago consumed this tale, right?
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: So it is believed this is a you know a morphing over time, predominantly oral tradition where this story would have changed and passed down. Just like the Iliad, it is composed of 24 books that make up the larger book that we now in modern translations, it's like a hundred chapters.
Chris: So Homer is who it's attributed to. We do have some historical information about his life and everything, but in no stretch of the imagination, did he just make this whole thing up and then write it down?
Chris: Absolutely not possible.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Was he the first one to write down a tale that would have been this household thing for everybody there? Sure, potentially. But that's who we attribute it to the scholarly belief at this point.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And it'll be argued about nauseum in perpetuity. But he almost certainly did not write both of what are attributed to him, the Odyssey and the Iliad
Chris: But to a certain extent, why I say not worth arguing about who cares. Right.
Nate Day: Yeah, right. Yeah. It's so long ago and this story has come to mean so many other things, you know?
Chris: Exactly, exactly. But that's what we have. This is so fast, everyone knows the plot, right? We hear the bulk of the tale from Odysseus' perspective, so we've talked about that often before.
Chris: We have this first-person narration of an may I say, suspect narrator. Is that fair? Clue.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : untrustworthy narrator.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, clearly not. You know, we have a lot of... moral pros on his side throughout the tale, but probably as many moral cons, right? So I do think it's interesting that whoever wrote this down chose to present it in this fashion.
Chris: Much of his 20-year-long quest to get home is told from his first-person view as he is sitting in the court of King Alcinius, relaying what's happened.
Chris: He's the king of Ithaca, left, went to Troy to fight with Menelaus and Agamemnon, and then takes a real long time getting home.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: Highlight reel. Trapped by the Cyclops. This was honestly probably one of the most fun parts in my mind right off the bat.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Cyclops asks what his name is.
Nate Day: Cool.
Chris: He says, nobody.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah.
Greg : And
Chris: So when they heat up a full pine tree trunk and gouge his eye out with it, his Cyclops friends come lumbering over and ask if he's okay. And he says, no, I'm not okay. I'm being attacked by nobody.
Chris: Brilliant.
Greg : they're like, all right, well, I'm going to, I guess we're good at then.
Chris: Brilliant.
Chris: 10 out of 10.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I just, I obviously like fictional, they're cyclops. So much like, why are we applying any logic? Just the idea of this happening in even a smaller microcosm of just knocking on the door.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Hey, you all right in there? No, I'm arguing with nobody.
Chris: But really fun. He's gifted a bag full of wind by Aeolius, but then his mutinous crew is jealous and want to see all of the loot that they've gotten. So within sight of Ithaca, they open the bag and the wind blows them all the way back away.
Chris: Truly incredible. Circe turns his whole crew into pigs. Hilarious. They have to get by... skilly Are we saying Scyllia or Cilia?
Chris: Six-headed rock-crag beast.
Nate Day: Oh, I thought it was Scylla.
Greg : Scylla yeah yeah.
Chris: Scylla The Sirens famously has his has his men strap him to the mast so that he can listen while he stops up all of their ears with beers wax.
Chris: Land on the island where Helios, the sun god, for some reason, has his precious herd of cattle and he tells them not to eat them, obviously.
Nate Day: Yep.
Chris: Mutinous, horrible crew, go and eat them all.
Greg : They kill him.
Chris: Get in trouble with Zeus again.
Greg : Eat him.
Greg : Here's my theory.
Chris: Yes.
Greg : wonder if that's why the book crew is pissed. What if they didn't get any sun cows?
Nate Day: oh that's not that's not why
Greg : Nate, you don't have to spoil Oh, alright. Well, then they're full of shit.
Nate Day: And they are full of shit.
Greg : Alright, well, I was trying to be charitable.
Chris: They it just choose one part and cut it.
Greg : They're full of shit. Sorry, continue. My favorite part is like the Tom Bombadil of the Odyssey.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Greg : I didn't cut it off.
Chris: Oh, runtime.
Greg : I love the sun cows.
Chris: that Well, I mean, there's a certain amount. Obviously, first and foremost, incredible text known for a good reason. But, you know, this is so formulaic, not because it was written in a formulaic way, because this is the writing, right? Like Beethoven did not write based on music theory. Modern music theory is based on how Beethoven wrote.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: This is the same thing.
Nate Day: Yeah. Right.
Chris: This is the original hero's quest.
Nate Day: Yes.
Chris: So there's a certain point where insert X, retract Y, hero, series of obstacles, right? to get home and kill a bunch of men in his house, which we'll get to, right?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : when it's like, all of these, like, these vignettes, these little chunks of story, it's like, it's a, it's an oral comic book.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Like, alright, this issue, he's killing sun cows.
Chris: that's it.
Greg : You know, this issue, he's poking a cyclops out.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Like, and I'm sure that was how it was told, based on no reason, well, Wikipedia research, but like, I'm an idiot. We know that. But it feels pretty reasonable.
Nate Day: Let's stop saying that.
Greg : It feels reasonable to be like, you know, you would, someone would show up on your island and be like, hey, I'm going to tell the, I'm going to tell a couple of Odysseus tales Friday and Saturday.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : It's like, well, shit, I could go down Friday.
Nate Day: yeah
Greg : If he's any good, I'll come back Saturday, see you the next one. And it's his chunks.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Yep. Yep. Present one, one night.
Greg : Cause I'm sorry, I'm a kind of derailing your synopsis, but like,
Chris: No, that was, I completely agree.
Greg : yeah.
Nate Day: I think it's super interesting too. Some of the criticisms are of the movie are that it feels episodic at times. And I was like, well, what?
Nate Day: Yeah, of course it feels
Greg : It should be.
Chris: It is episodic.
Greg : Yeah, it is.
Nate Day: and it's And it's not, it's also, it's like you said, you know, a lot of writing is based on this. So I'm like, I bet you the people sitting at the tavern listening to the story weren't complaining about it being episodic at the time.
Nate Day: So it seems like a silly thing to get wound up in for me.
Greg : Well, and it's...
Nate Day: the The nature of it is, that's what it is. That's how stories are told. Yeah.
Greg : It's it's one of the one of the defining features of it. There are all of these repeated epithets, right? What's the word for it?
Nate Day: Whoa.
Greg : Epithets? Where, you know storm-tossed Odysseus, wine-red sea, or wine-dark sea, or whatever. like There are all of these repeated phrases...
Chris: Did you read my show notes?
Greg : No, sod off. oh There are all these like repeated pieces.
Nate Day: Hmm.
Greg : Don't interrupt.
Nate Day: and
Greg : it Like that was how it was memorized. Because the text itself is so huge. Like, my God, you're not going to tell the whole damn thing in in a weekend or whatever.
Chris: Massive.
Nate Day: Right. No, yeah.
Greg : You're going to tell an episode. And you, yeah, you're going to.
Chris: Want one book?
Greg : you You know, two you I'm going to do 2-3 this night, 2-3 the next night. But all these repeated things are my devices at a certain point for the person telling.
Chris: Yep.
Greg : it and it just stuck around in the actual text
Chris: Yes, yes, 100%. I like to, I was picturing it. They didn't have TV. They didn't have radio, right? You're sitting around the fire. I like to imagine, like, I wonder if there would be like a village that's like, oh yeah, have you guys caught that guy? He does book six so well.
Chris: A little lacking once he gets to eight. You know, like, that's what I like to picture.
Nate Day: yeah Yeah, that's cool.
Chris: have no idea if that's realistic.
Greg : Well, there's got to be a certain amount of like, you play the hits too.
Chris: Yeah, the big exciting parts.
Greg : And, you know, and yeah, like, all right, we're going to the, we're going to the part about, you know, the boring romance part, whatever.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah.
Greg : But yeah, there's, I think there's a certain amount of that. And this, I'm getting way ahead of ourselves. I think there's a certain amount of the whole story maintains its relevance because it has so many different distinctly different
Chris: A little something for everyone.
Greg : episodes
Nate Day: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Yeah. Okay. That's, no, you did not derail.
Greg : All right, I'm done derailing.
Chris: You literally brought up the next thing in my notes. repetition of key lines and phrases. Here are a few examples. Greg actually spotted a couple of them already.
Chris: a Young Dawn with its rose-red fingers, the nymph with the lovely braids, their high-ceilinged halls on the wine-dark sea, when they put aside desire for food and drink.
Chris: And it it kept sticking out to me, which it did not the first time. Again, as you said, Nate, we all read it 100 years ago. I think it is a completely different text as an adult.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah, totally.
Chris: This repetition, yeah, for for someone speaking, imagine dude finishes one night, we all gather, we all go to work the next morning, we gather up again, he's going to start in on the next book, and here is the through line with...
Chris: you know, the monster of today swapped out. Yesterday was the Cyclops.
Nate Day: Mm-hmm.
Chris: We have all of this repeated terminology. Some of the research I was looking at compared these parts to, they they considered these repetitions the heartbeat of the story, right?
Nate Day: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Chris: So these would be the specific things in two ways. And what I think is so cool about these is this aspect in particular, I think, is really what sets this aside as an epic poem as compared to a novel, you know, something like that.
Chris: where he can point to specific ideas, specific themes, right?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: He he had a lot of information packed into that particular description of the nymphs compared to other individuals. And it on unwinds in front of you as they keep doing the ridiculous things they do to Odysseus, right?
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: And it's just such a subtle way, because a lot of this, you know, show, don't tell. No one was saying that then, right?
Nate Day: No, no, exactly.
Chris: Right?
Nate Day: That's what I'm saying. every The conventions were so different.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: You can't critique it based on today's standards.
Chris: 100% no but but in this case something that I think could be I think if done more ham fistedly think it would be annoying, where in this case it tethers you between one, as you said Greg vignette to the next right.
Chris: Yeah, no, phenomenal transition there, Greg. You beat me to it, but that's fine.
Greg : I got one more thought, actually, on the epithet thing.
Chris: no go ahead
Greg : i do also wonder if, as the audience, are these things helpful?
Greg : Man, I went down a rabbit hole about what the hell Pallas Athena
Chris: Same.
Greg : is nothing it means nothing
Chris: Oh my gosh. No, no, no, it does.
Chris: Okay, I'll take that one.
Greg : Well, it does, but it doesn't really...
Greg : No one can pinpoint. It's like, well, Pallas was her friend that she killed, and ooh, Pallas was a giant that she killed. It's like, it's just a nightmare stuck around. So, okay.
Greg : That aside, these, like, terms to kind of clue you in on who we're dealing with, I forget what it was from...
Greg : because it was you could even if you didn't remember the names you probably remembered the epithet and you probably had something to tie you to that you know whatever unwavering penelope or whatever like oh all right yeah shit that's his wife okay though yeah i haven't heard that one a year because i live on an island in the peloponnes whatever but like oh yeah unwavering penelope okay
Chris: Yes.
Greg : So I think they also help the people hearing
Chris: Yes. they They give you more information about each of those individuals.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Right. Even just that the line, you know, it was different than when they were out on the island, scrounging for food, nearly starving to death when they were comfy at home in someone's palace being treated well, it would say when they put aside desire for food and drink. Think about that sentence.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: That is totally different than I ate a packet of ramen because I was hungry and in a hurry. Right.
Chris: that is That is, we are chilling, having the good wine. This dinner is four hours. I'm not eating because I'm hungry. I'm eating because this roast pig tastes good.
Nate Day: Because I can.
Chris: Right?
Nate Day: Yep. Yeah.
Chris: Right.
Greg : Well, there's a certain amount of that. And I'm curious about the movie side of it, because that was like one of these conventions of hospitality. Which is. It's been argued, and I would agree that this like the the rules of Greek hospitality are in part why the Iliad happened, why the Odyssey happened, because there were big groutes, you know, and and that's like a really clear with the suitors.
Nate Day: A hundred percent. Yes.
Greg : to pick somebody.
Nate Day: Right.
Greg : They are clearly breaching hospitals. They are assholes. Like, obviously, they are in breach.
Nate Day: Yep.
Greg : the i'm I'm curious like how much that also came up in the movie, which, again, I'm going to keep derailing. Sorry.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : But I am curious about the movie side.
Nate Day: It's what the movie's about. they They return to this idea of Zeus's law.
Greg : Okay.
Nate Day: I don't know if that comes up in the book, but it's essentially, it's treat others as you wanna be treated.
Greg : Yeah, yeah.
Chris: often
Nate Day: in in the context of this, it is treat every person as if they may be a god in disguise because you never know.
Chris: because they, in this case, they might be.
Nate Day: And yeah, they like often are. And-
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: and
Nate Day: i mean, war breaks Zeus's law, and this is about the aftermath of war. So Odysseus had a long odyssey because he broke Zeus's law.
Chris: Uh-huh. Like a few times.
Nate Day: Yeah. Like a lot, yeah.
Chris: Well, they there's famously a big thing that I'm not going to get into about the books. I have it in my recommendations later on. But a big thing about the books is whose translation you read.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: But most of them start with the same line about Odysseus, a complicated man. And I think you could safely argue the bulk of the purpose in this tale is to present character development in the case of Telemachus and some of the kind of grittier questions of humanity, not in any philosophical depth, but more just something to make you step back real quick and go,
Nate Day: Mmm.
Chris: I don't know. Is he a good guy? I don't know.
Nate Day: I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Chris: Am I okay with that thing he did? You know what I mean?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Cause this could so easily just be a straightforward Robin hood, fun problem solve problem solve.
Nate Day: I wonder...
Chris: Right.
Nate Day: Right. And that's kind of right.
Chris: And that is not what we're presented with.
Nate Day: When you mentioned that it's a different book, reading it as an adult, I remember it being that sort of problem solved structure and thinking that Odysseus was a real hero and then watching this movie.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: And I wonder if that's why people are mad is because they have that misrepresentation in mind. And I was watching this movie and I was like, oh my God, this is fucked up. Like Odysseus is kind of a nut and like, it really sucks for his wife and son who are like rotting on Ithaca, right?
Chris: Kind of not a good dude.
Chris: moving I mean, right off the bat, the very beginning, the entire problem he has with Poseidon is because the Cyclops is Poseidon's son.
Nate Day: Yep.
Chris: blind him, escape, has correctly given him not his real name, and then his pride and ego could not handle that.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And as he escaped, he turned around to taunt the blinded Cyclops and tell him his name. You have been defeated by Odysseus.
Nate Day: Yep.
Chris: That's the start of, well, not all of his problems he had already been with Odysseus. calypso for seven years but yeah one thing after cersei turns all of his crew into pigs he goes back to save him but she offers him to join her in bed and he takes her up on it first like no you are consistently like oh man that is rough i mean literally being buffeted by the gods themselves objectively rough but you're not helping yourself dude the suitors oh go ahead greg
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Greg : the
Greg : oh yeah so i i had just started reading the the willis uh which was 2016 or 17 or whatever first time a woman's translated it go figure it's really fucking good but i was like i i got through the introduction which is like 10% the actual text
Chris: Right.
Chris: Please do.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : And usually I think introductions are stupid, and this one genuinely floored me. if And I'm not going to ask permission, I'm just going to read a chunk of it, it's too bad.
Chris: please do
Greg : In some ways, the story told in this long piece of verse is small and ordinary. It is a story, as the first word of the original Greek tells us, about a man.
Greg : he is not the man one of many men, albeit a man of extraordinary cognitive, psychological, and military power, one who can win any competition, blah blah blah blah. The poem tells us how he makes his circuitous way back home across stormy seas after many years of war.
Greg : We may expect the hero of an epic narrative to confront evil forces, perform superhuman tasks, rescue vast numbers of people, yada yada.
Greg : She doesn't say yada yada, obviously. Failing that, we might hope at least for a great quest unexpectedly achieved. Skipping ahead.
Greg : And the oddest
Greg : where he tries to turn everything back to the way it was before he went away He's some dude.
Chris: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Greg : He does suck.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Greg : like There's plenty of ways that he does suck.
Chris: yes
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : And and it's like she had another be it another beat before that part in the intro of the word epic, its actual root is just like to tell or something like that or to to to speak or to say.
Greg : It is not our current connotation of it has to be this like world changing thing, this huge thing. No, it's some dude who's like held up a half dozen or more time. No, way more than that.
Greg : Held up several dozen times on his way home. And he's not great. He's not awful. Sometimes he's a little of both.
Greg : Just some guy.
Nate Day: Yep, just a guy.
Chris: Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, I wish I had tracked down that translation. i I grabbed the first one that the library had available, so I did not get my hands on hers.
Nate Day: Yeah. I believe that's the one the the movie is based on, is her translation.
Chris: Interesting.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: i've I've heard glowing, glowing things about it.
Nate Day: So have I, just this week, but yeah.
Chris: I'm going to, that's actually all I want to say about the book for now, because I want to leave some of my thoughts for my discussion questions.
Nate Day: Okay, great. Well, then let's take a quick break, and we will be right back.
Nate Day: Welcome back to Adaptation. We are discussing the Odyssey written by Homer, quote unquote, I guess. Thank you, Chris, for the rundown of the book.
Chris: Maybe.
Nate Day: I want to talk to you guys a little bit about some adaptations. Surprisingly, very few adaptations of this. We've talked about a few texts like Frankenstein and Little Women that have had loads and loads and loads of adaptations over the years.
Nate Day: There's really only like a dozen ish adaptations of the Odyssey, I assume because of the scale of the story.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Nate Day: It's just very difficult to make this into any kind of coherent film or television series. So what I'm going to do is is talk about just a few of those 10 12 adaptations and I'm going to kind of speed through some of them so that we can talk more about this Christopher Nolan version because it's the it really is the only English language direct adaptation of the Odyssey in history well in film history I suppose
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: because the first adaptation I want to talk about, 1997, there was a two-part miniseries that aired on NBC. Each episode was an hour and a half long, so it it covered the entire story over the course of these two episodes. And it had a it was really known for having an international cast. Armand Asante, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Lee, Vanessa Williams, Eric Roberts, several more people.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: I have seen this mini series. It was a while ago now. I didn't revisit it before this. I remember it being sort of anticlimactic and i I remember watching it and being like, this is what that whole frigging book is.
Nate Day: Like, it just felt, I assume it was because it was on a TV tv budget.
Greg : need
Nate Day: I was kind of like, that's kind of lame, you know?
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: But for what it's worth, some of the, like, what do you really do with Calypso?
Chris: Right.
Nate Day: That's not a thrilling part of the book, right?
Greg : He's there like seven years.
Nate Day: Right, of basically just sex, yeah.
Chris: Yep.
Greg : What are we, yeah.
Nate Day: So I don't, you know, it's it's not easy to adapt is is kind of what I'm getting at here.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: In the year 2000, we got a movie called O Brother, Where Art Thou? Very, very famous movie. we We referenced it a little bit last week,
Nate Day: That one, written and directed by the Coen brothers, it's a very loose adaptation of the Odyssey. And actually, fun fact that I found in my research was that the Coen brothers had never actually read the Odyssey.
Nate Day: They just kind of patched it together based on plot points that they learned through, you know, like pop culture osmosis, which I think is really cool.
Nate Day: And it I did rewatch this movie ahead of seeing the Odyssey.
Chris: That's incredible.
Nate Day: And I was like, now it makes sense to me. because I remember watching it in class after reading the Odyssey and being like, most of this doesn't line up. I mean, it is not a one-to-one adaptation by any means whatsoever.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Nate Day: I mean, it's about a prisoner in the nineteen thirties s
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: traveling across the the American South, right? It's, he is trying to get home to his wife, but that's pretty much where the similarities begin and end.
Chris: That's about where it stops.
Nate Day: For the most part, there's a few other things, but, but, um,
Chris: You got the sirens. You got one-eyed John Goodman.
Nate Day: You do. And there's a lot of things that sort of cover multiple beats. I think that the sirens are similar, I think, to Circe right?
Nate Day: Because they think that they turn the guy into a toad, which is Circe deal, turning people into animals.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Nate Day: Obviously, that's not what happens if you've seen the movie, but I think it's it's a reference to Circe the very least. And maybe the lotus eaters as well, because they're kind of drugged.
Nate Day: in that sequence too. So there's a lot of sort of
Chris: Yeah, there's some connection there.
Nate Day: amalgamations, I suppose, within O Brother, Where Art Thou? Really kind of a bizarre movie. It's also almost a musical. There's so much music in that movie. It's a really weird but cool take.
Nate Day: And I think it's kind of what adaptation is all about.
Chris: you You get Dan Tominski to sign on, you lean in.
Nate Day: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Chris: That's it.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah. but And that song is great. I mean, they the movie was so successful and the soundtrack was so successful that several artists went on and a tour, and like a nationwide tour after that movie came out because the soundtrack was so popular, which is cool.
Chris: Oh.
Greg : Yeah, like an Alison Krauss and company.
Nate Day: I think that's cool.
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah, exactly.
Greg : Yeah. yeah
Nate Day: Emmylou Harris, I think, was there. Yeah, lot of cool people. In 2024, we got a movie called The Return, which is an adaptation of just the last few books. It's Odysseus returning to Ithaca and sort of reclaiming it.
Nate Day: And that's that's got Ralph Fiennes actually is Odysseus. And Juliette Binoche, a very famous French actress is is Penelope. So that's kind of an, inch I didn't get a chance to see that one, but an interesting,
Nate Day: read. From what I understand, it's very solemn and and reflective in terms of like Odysseus realizing that it was horrible of him to be away for as long as he was. And the the cast is a little bit older. So I think it's supposed to, you know, be a little bit more about lost time and that kind of thing.
Chris: Well, a lot of those last three books is really him kind of reckoning with what he's done, obviously to Penelope and Telemachus, but also to Laertes, his dad missing these years near the end of his life.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: It gets pretty reflective.
Nate Day: Yeah, yeah. So i'm I'm interested to try that one. i just I was trying to catch up on some Nolan blind spots before this, and then I didn't really want to burn myself out on actual Odyssey stuff.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Nate Day: So I just haven't got around to to that one. But it's it's on my list. i'll I'll see it at some point. And that pretty much brings us to Christopher Nolan's adaptation, his follow-up to Oppenheimer, of course, and huge, huge all-star cast. Of course, Anne Hathaway, the patron saint of the podcast this year, plays Penelope, a character that my dog is named after, in fact. Matt Damon plays Odysseus.
Nate Day: Tom Holland plays Telemachus. How did read how do you say
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: telemeus
Chris: I say telemachus for both.
Nate Day: They, yeah. And I'm going to, as we get into discussion, I'm going to have to reference lists of names. You you guys will have to bear with me because some of those names, it's like Star Wars.
Nate Day: I'm like, what the hell are you talking about?
Chris: Oh, it's crazy.
Greg : Dude, I swear there were multiple mentions of Calypso and Circe through history getting mixed up. Which, like, I get it.
Greg : There's a certain amount of, like,
Nate Day: i that's yeah.
Chris: Yep.
Greg : But yeah, genuinely, again, as I'm like just trolling through Wikipedia, there's multiple spots where they're like, well, you know, this island that is supposedly Circe's island was also confused to be Calypso.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Greg : It's like, yeah.
Nate Day: Right.
Greg : So yeah, there's this certain, like, you just don't remember.
Nate Day: Right.
Nate Day: even even in our prep for this one, i had put a poll on our Instagram asking who the best villain was, and I didn't include Circe or Calypso because I knew that one was a little less of a villain. Like ultimately Calypso I think is is lonely and and misunderstood, and i didn't I couldn't remember who was who. So I was like,
Nate Day: Well, I guess I won't put either, if I say the wrong woman, then I'm a real dick, you know? like So I just left them out and Chris responded to that story and you were like, where is Circe I guess I won't put either, if I say the wrong woman, then I'm a real dick, you know? like um So I just left him out and Chris responded to that story and you were like, where is Cersei?
Greg : That's a bummer.
Nate Day: And I was like, I don't know which one she is. So I couldn't put it.
Chris: Fair. Fair.
Nate Day: That's why I didn't have her on the story, even though so I think Circe objectively probably the best villain in the book, in the story.
Chris: Who played her in the movie?
Nate Day: A woman named Samantha Morton, very talented actress. It is probably the best part of the movie. It is insane.
Chris: Ooh.
Greg : That's too
Nate Day: Anyway, before we dive into discussion questions, This is likely to be one of the most celebrated movies of the year, if not the decade. and Currently at a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nate Day: Critic score with a 97% audience score.
Chris: Wow.
Nate Day: 89 on Metacritic, which is the one that we've talked about is a little bit better indicator of actual quality more so than Rotten Tomatoes. So huge.
Nate Day: it made a shit ton of money on Thursday night too. we're recording this for everybody's reference, the, the Saturday following the release of the movie.
Chris: I'm sure. Jeez.
Nate Day: So I don't have any, real box office information, but it it made a boatload on Thursday. it was the year's highest
Nate Day: Thursday night previews of the year.
Greg : very
Nate Day: Yeah. And it's coming in above projections too.
Chris: Jeez
Greg : Okay.
Nate Day: So this is going to be a big, big, big movie, partly because the marketing campaign, you can't escape. It's like a Barbie level event.
Chris: Yep.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: Honestly.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: And I'm glad I did. And just because there were a lot of things that there's so many characters in this. I don't know if I would have known who Athena was in this movie if I hadn't watched that recap, which is maybe a flaw of the movie that it didn't over explain some things and not others. But But it's also just such a huge story.
Nate Day: I mean, it's on such an enormous scale that we just, we don't have stories like this in any medium, really.
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: Like I said, it's this and the Bible. As far as movies go, it's this and Lawrence of Arabia, maybe Lord of the Rings as as a whole, if you could combine all three.
Greg : Thank you.
Nate Day: Ten Commandments, that kind of thing. Like we just don't see movies like this often.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: So it's it's really, really fucking cool. And I'm so glad that I loved it as much as I did. And I just, I don't want to spoil anything because there are some big changes from the book, but I think that they are done to and if I say truncate things, I don't want anybody to to wig out
Chris: Hmm.
Nate Day: because I think they were all very smart. They were very intentional.
Chris: OK.
Nate Day: Like the way Poseidon gets pissed off, there there actually is no Poseidon in the movie. his he he's
Chris: Interesting.
Nate Day: Like there is no character of Poseidon. They do make him mad and that makes the journey difficult, but there is no actor cast to play Poseidon.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Nate Day: So the the way that the Cyclops sequence ends and and we learn that Poseidon is angry is a little bit different. But I think it's probably going to end up being an easier pill to swallow than the book, which, by the way, is a religious text.
Nate Day: You know, this was a religion that people believed in at at the time that it was created.
Chris: Right, right.
Nate Day: So there's a little bit more familiarity with some of those like tertiary at best characters like Poseidon and Zeus, who I.
Chris: Yep. Oh, infinitely more familiarity.
Nate Day: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: these These would all have been cultural expectations at the time.
Chris: Yep, yep.
Nate Day: but yeah, that's kind of what I want to say about the movie. I'm happy to answer questions, but I don't want to spoil, too much if I can avoid it. So, uh, I want to kick it to Greg first.
Nate Day: Do you have, uh, discussion questions that you wanted to, to throw out there?
Greg : Well, I'm very, yeah, I'm very curious about
Greg : how the movie starts. And if there's, if it's like, if it's just going to spoil it, then tell me, don't worry about it.
Nate Day: yeah yeah
Greg : But that that feels like, Chris kind of touched on that in the book. You're just like in Meteor Res. Here's, i think you actually start with Telemachus. But like the first time you see Odysseus, it's like, we're like three quarters of the way through the church.
Chris: Yeah, you're waiting.
Nate Day: yeah correct
Greg : So like my expectation with the movie is is probably not just this linear thing. don't know if you're comfortable answering. Okay. Okay.
Nate Day: Yes, let me, bear with me here while I've stumbled through this answer. It is not told in a linear fashion. Christopher Nolan does not really do linear stories because he likes to be feel smarter than everybody watching his movies.
Greg : fair yeah
Nate Day: But it it unfolds, okay, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but did you say that a lot of the book is Odysseus recounting the Odyssey to somebody?
Chris: Yeah, so exactly what Greg said. I want to say the first, this might be exaggerating, but at least the first six books, we are just in Ithaca. We do not see Odysseus. It's just Penelope and Telemachus and the suitors. And then he is
Chris: five sixths of the way through his trials and is at the court of another king and recounts it and that's how we hear the bulk of his quest his journey yeah we're like 15 years in or something
Nate Day: Okay. Story. That's interesting. So the movie, if I'm remembering correctly, it's a three hour long movie. So asking me about the beginning is also a chore. I believe it does open with Telemachus and Penelope is sort of this cloud that hangs over things for for a a portion of the beginning in a really cool way.
Nate Day: And then we cut to Odysseus recounting the story to a different character and for a different reason that, again, does that sort of truncation that I was talking about.
Nate Day: It makes the story smoother.
Chris: movement on
Nate Day: I think it helps boost a character 2026 tender love and care.
Nate Day: tender love and care right? A character that needed a little image rehabilitation. He's talking to Calypso and telling her the story.
Chris: i
Nate Day: And I think it makes his interaction with Calypso a billion times more interesting.
Chris: OK.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: Interesting.
Chris: interests
Nate Day: I think it makes her character more interesting. I've seen a lot of people say that they don't love Charlize Theron plays Calypso. And a lot of people are saying that they didn't love her performance. And I thought it was out of this world.
Nate Day: I thought it was a really cool marriage with the material to to tell this story.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: So yes, it's it's out of order. It's bolstered by Telemachus also going on an adventure to try and find out whether his father's alive. So we learn some sort of supporting stories that that assist in our understanding of Odysseus' overall arc but yes out out of order a lot of vignettes like you were saying
Chris: Now, i've I'm actually glad you brought that up, Greg. I wrote that down to to talk about in my reflection on like very much in oral history, someone finally wrote down.
Chris: I also kind of imagine pre-writing, it was probably given like this. Each individual probably had their order that they like to say it in.
Chris: You know what I mean?
Nate Day: Oh yeah.
Greg : it.
Chris: Like if you were hearing a full telling, which again could not be possible in one sitting, but you would probably get, oh yeah, this guy talks about these parts first and then this one, this guy opens up with the suitors. You know what I mean?
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: i think that's probably canonically more accurate that Nolan did not feel beholden to exactly how the text unfolds.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: Obviously, pissing off Zeus and Poseidon is like a bad idea for anybody, like and those had to be at the beginning of the story, but what happens on Circe's island doesn't have any bearing on what happens on Calypso's island or on
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: the sun got aisle, right?
Chris: Yep.
Chris: Yeah, who cares?
Nate Day: i I thought that's what was going to be you know the the sort of centerpiece of the movie, just based on the fact that it was two
Chris: Oh.
Nate Day: dangerous situations. And it seems like they could have stretched that out.
Chris: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Nate Day: If it was like a true action movie, which this kind of isn't, that's maybe like the third or fourth genre that I would assign to this.
Chris: Interesting.
Nate Day: That probably would have been the the climax of the story, but that's not not exactly the case.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: You seem a little confuddled, Chris.
Chris: No, no, I'm... I see your point, like I very much expected Hollywood to treat this like like Troy, you know, like the coolest part is Brad Pitt fighting Legolas.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: But in my mind, again, as Greg said, if this will spoil, just say no. I don't see any way that the climax of any adaptation of this is not him stringing his bow, firing it through the axe heads and going ham.
Greg : all just clearing house.
Nate Day: Yes, I guess I meant climax of the the Odyssey home itself.
Chris: Okay, I see, I see, I see. Oh, yeah.
Nate Day: No, you're right.
Chris: how how
Nate Day: retakeking Retaking Ithaca is the crown jewel of the story.
Chris: It has to be, it has to be.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: And it is cool. And don't get me wrong, if you're listening to this and bummed that I said it's not an action movie, there are cool action scenes. It's just also, i don't even know. there's like It's like a political thriller on the Penelope side of things.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Nate Day: It's an adventure, like globetrotting story.
Greg : Thank you.
Nate Day: It's a fantasy story. It's a lot of things in addition to being an action movie. movie. Yeah.
Chris: It has to be. It has to be because the story has all of that.
Nate Day: Yep.
Chris: Okay. So this is why I didn't want to discuss the suitors too much earlier.
Chris: when When I first read this, they made no sense to me at all, right? As a, what, probably 15-year-old or something. I was like, what? that I was indignant.
Nate Day: Sure.
Chris: What the heck are these dudes doing in his house? That's his wife.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Back off. We need to pragmatically step back and say, picture right here now, the year of our Lord, 2026. Someone's spouse goes overseas to war and has been missing for 20 years. Right.
Chris: I don't think you're batting an eye if they choose to remarry.
Nate Day: No.
Chris: And so it's perhaps an unanswerable question, but I'm very curious about your takes. I think, and like they're objectively bad, it's tough to have sympathy, but I do think the situation of the suitors is nowhere near as black and white as it sounds on the surface.
Chris: How did you guys take that aspect?
Nate Day: Greg, you want take that one first?
Greg : Yeah, I mean, this kind of ties into one of the the big themes I had of... This is one of the ways that this story super is not relatable.
Chris: mmm
Greg : Her entire super not relatable.
Chris: o
Greg : But this like concept of a journey. So Odysseus probably knew he was just going to be deuces for, I don't know, three years. Let's call it three
Nate Day: A couple, yeah.
Greg : Like, alright, I gotta go to war. My my buddy Agamemnon, you know, we gotta go get somebody. Sorry, brand new baby, Telemachus, but Papa's gonna be gone for a few years see it when you're walking and talking.
Greg : Like, there's just this certain amount of... That was the expectation.
Chris: Yes.
Greg : No, I'm certain he didn't think like, oh yeah, I'll be gone and then I'll be harried around on end for 20 years. Like, no, of course not. But
Greg : For us, it's so condensed. The thought of it, like, think of a journey. chris Chris is one of the people in my life that I can be like, yep, i that dude has had journeys.
Greg : But that's like, you taught English for a year or two or whatever it was.
Nate Day: true.
Greg : Well, for for most people, yeah, that's a journey. That's a lot. you know or like you you moved around for a while before you landed in in denver like that's a journey i had maybe like journey you know always studied abroad like this concept of being away being just you off on your own somewhere else not tied to your family your home your whatever the gap is so huge it's like i was trying to think of like what would qualify as a journey nowadays like what the minimum would be and it's like
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Guys weekend and somebody, I'm picking on Chris again, someone's appendix burst, so we're going to be here for another week. Like, that's a journey.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: yeah
Greg : Modern times versus then it was like, oh, yeah, well, I'll be gone for four years minimum.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : So I do think there's a certain amount of, like, the expectations for the suitor... that's where i think we we do get into the gray area of like thoughtd he's been gone for 20 years. I'm trying to I'm the third son of whatever Dickhead, and I want my own island.
Greg : It's time to get in line here. Let's see if Penelope wants some of this. And i i don't have tons of sympathy for them. I think they suck, and I can't wait to get to my cast list, because I think you're going to know why, but there's a there's a certain amount of like
Greg : I think in that timescale, in that time, yeah, 20 years, we can move on here. That's a little much. We can move on here. if it was five years, man, all right, these guys are real assholes, you know, give it some time.
Chris: Right.
Greg : But yeah, I think that's valid that like, dude, it's been two decades. Like, but there's also these other dynamics in there of,
Chris: Yes.
Greg : forget what it was exactly but like for her to go back to her father's home, you had to like pay a bride why price or something. Sorry, there's fireworks going off in my neighborhood 18th of July.
Greg : Anyway, you know, there are these other like cultural norms that complicate it, but there's a certain dude, it's 20 years.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: Yeah, that is something I wish, I wish the movie had spent just a tiny bit more time with Penelope. And I remember feeling this way about the book too, because I i want to, I understand that there's a romance to her staying unmarried for all of those years and that she, she feels in her heart that,
Nate Day: Odysseus has not died yet, you know or she doesn't have enough proof that he has died to to move on. But I do wish that we would have explored that just a little bit more, the the political side of that, like what does it really mean to give up Ithaca?
Nate Day: There is one line where Robert Pattinson plays sort of the lead suitor. Is it like Antonius or something like that? and
Chris: I honestly deliberately did not pay attention to their names.
Chris: I was like, I don't care about you guys.
Greg : he's the only one there. And Tenius, and there's like one other one.
Nate Day: Right. He's anyway, yeah, he's, he's suitor number one.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: Right. and he makes a reference to like Telemachus will still be King unless you and I have a baby. And that's when everything sort of shifts and Penelope, uh, sort of goes beast mode.
Nate Day: and you know, so when you, I guess what I'm getting at is, is that it's complicated and I wish that we could have explored the politics a little bit more.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: just to make that a little bit richer because in the movie they are just slimy, sniveling, nasty motherfuckers. There's not a lot of dynamicism there outside of the moments where they try to be really showy.
Greg : Oh, yeah.
Nate Day: by They're witty, you know what I mean? They like to to knock Telemachus down a couple pegs when they can, but a little maybe a little bit underexplored.
Chris: Well, we need we need that device as well to show his personal growth journey when he finally starts to stand up for them and talk about, oh, you're in my house, that beggar can stay, right?
Nate Day: Yep.
Nate Day: Yeah, yes.
Chris: Like it's it's for a good reason. I just, the more I thought about it, exactly how you described it, Greg, yeah. If someone just said, I'm going on a spirit quest to Tibet, I'll see you in a year.
Chris: I'd be like, wow, I'm not gonna see them for a whole year. That's crazy. 20 years?
Nate Day: Right. That's a lot.
Chris: Come on.
Nate Day: I know, a lot a lot changes, a lot happens.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: You know, they're lucky Penelope didn't like get sick or Telemachus didn't fall off the frigging cliff or something, you know?
Greg : I sucked. Yeah.
Chris: Yup.
Greg : Child mortality rates. Are you kidding me?
Chris: Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Life expectancy in 700 BC.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : This dude could have fallen down the wrong, like like rocky slope.
Chris: What do you.
Nate Day: Yeah, they're like, right, right.
Greg : And that's that you don't have a son.
Chris: Yup.
Nate Day: That's true, funny. Okay, so i i noticed this, we we talked a little bit earlier about how we kind of see Odysseus as a more complicated guy than we did when we were 15 or whatever, when we were reading this.
Nate Day: It's crazy. this Why are there so many fireworks going off?
Greg : I'm gonna mute they're gonna keep doing this. Sorry.
Nate Day: No, that's okay. Whoa, train of thought. Okay, so what I was thinking while I was watching the movie I wondered if Chris, if you were going to be totally pissed off, were you reading this and decide that you didn't like Odysseus? Because we've talked in past episodes on this podcast that when a protagonist is sort of in the gray, those tend to not be your favorite stories or characters to follow. I was kind of curious how you felt about it in this one.
Chris: Oh, I was pissed. I rage put it down when he when he got out of the Cyclopses because I remembered the big peaks. I did not remember the details of, oh, buddy, you were home scot-free if you did not turn around and open your dumb mouth.
Nate Day: and Okay. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Oh, I was furious.
Nate Day: Uh huh.
Chris: Yeah, and I was completely blindsided by how mad I was at Odysseus. I skated straight past all of that.
Nate Day: Really? Yeah.
Chris: 20 years ago.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: And now I'm like, nah, dude, you should be doing everything you can to get home. You already spent seven years getting essentially date raped. Like, yeah, I guess nothing you can do about that.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: But come on.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: you You could have gotten on that boat and left, dude. And that I did feel for him. I think the difficulty with
Chris: appropriately setting your level of anger towards him is like when the bag of wind is opened up or when they're on Helios's island. It is also the treachery of his fellow man.
Chris: And i read into that both he's hard done by, but also i believe it was deliberate in the, you know, you become like those you surround yourself with.
Nate Day: Yes.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah.
Chris: Those are the guys he chose to go to war with.
Nate Day: Yeah, that's true.
Chris: So they turned out to be douchebags. Hey, buddy, should we take a look in the mirror? So, yeah, in this case, it bothered me far less because it wasn't like, like Caught Stealing, we had like four characters to dissect.
Nate Day: Yeah, pot kettle situation.
Nate Day: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: right In this case, there was such a sheer volume of things going on. We're still flashing back to Ithaca and checking in on what's happening there. It bothered me less, but I do think his...
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: I feel like they are they are two distinct things. Telemachus is a story of like growth and reckoning with who you are as an individual. Odysseus is more like a painting, a snapshot of a flawed man.
Chris: And that I have less trouble with.
Nate Day: Okay. okay
Greg : What about Penelope? Where does she land for you? Because for me, those those are like the three real story arcs.
Chris: For sure.
Nate Day: Oh, yes.
Chris: For sure.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : And it's like coming of age for Telemachus. don't know, dicking around for Odysseus. And Penelope, there's like, especially then, this like, how do I hold on to my dignity and my station and power?
Greg : when I am disincentivized. I'm a woman. This is not my game. Like, i don't know. I don't know how I would define hers, though.
Greg : Maybe thrillers, spy political thrillers is is what you had said earlier, i think,
Chris: too
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I mean, I picture her walking in a tightrope, right?
Nate Day: Yep.
Chris: She is surrounded by hungry wolves and every day she's got to do, I mean, it's actually a little bit unfortunate. The book paints her, I think, in a somewhat unfair light. And, you know, Athena's got her hands in there dabbling a bit much, but her agency is kind of taken away even more than you would expect.
Chris: But i I feel nothing but sympathy for her. And that's why I was so glad that it was our girl, Ms. Hathaway, because that's the girl I want to feel nothing but sympathy and love for anyway.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Right. Well, and that's kind of why I think Matt Damon was interested in casting as well, because he's sort of like America's dad. You know what I mean? He's so easy to root for that even though you're watching him just dive headfirst into his own fucking hubris, that you still are like, I just want you to go home.
Chris: Don't stop.
Nate Day: Like, I just want this to work out for you. Even though there were moments where i like I said, I was watching it and I was like, I bet you Chris hates Odysseus because
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: He's making like boneheaded mistake after boneheaded mistake.
Chris: Doing dumb stuff. But who amongst us doesn't?
Nate Day: Right. That's true too.
Greg : I would place Tom Hanks as America's dad. I would place Matt Damon as America's like, you know, he's probably your favorite uncle, but like, buddy, you really gotta stop using gay as a derogatory slur term.
Nate Day: OK.
Chris: Fair.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: We don't do that
Nate Day: Sure.
Chris: Fair, fair. I agree. can we Can we actually take that transition for our dream casting of this particular ensemble?
Greg : I'd love to.
Nate Day: Oh, sure. Yeah. Do you have, do you guys have lists?
Chris: If it were not the ones he was talking about.
Nate Day: I didn't make lists.
Greg : Oh yeah.
Chris: No, i told Greg to.
Nate Day: Okay.
Greg : I'm strapped and already.
Nate Day: I would go, i honestly, oh you wanted mine to be off the dome.
Chris: I wanted yours be off the bat.
Nate Day: Okay. Whoa. whatie Did fricking Odysseus arrive in your neighborhood or something? What's going on over there?
Chris: More like Zeus.
Nate Day: No kidding.
Chris: Dumb.
Greg : Someone else should go because they're going for it now.
Nate Day: Chris, do you have some?
Chris: Only the exact ones that you are probably already aware of and will disagree with.
Nate Day: What do you mean? Like you want Ron Perlman to play the frigging Odysseus?
Chris: I want Tim Curry as Zeus.
Nate Day: Oh, yeah. Okay, I like that.
Chris: I want John Goodman as the first suitor.
Nate Day: Oh, OK.
Chris: Just being smarmy and slinky and waddling around like it's already his palace.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Are we talking about like 1989, or you want this to be the case now? Those are two very old gentlemen.
Chris: Yeah, no, not... I'm picturing Tim Curry from Clue or Three Musketeers and John Goodman from O Brother Where Art Thou.
Nate Day: OK.
Nate Day: Okay. Got it.
Chris: I want Gisele Bundchen as Penelope and Calypso and Circe.
Nate Day: What? Because you just want to look at her for three hours? Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: would i Tom Holland feels weird for Telemachus, but I don't know.
Chris: i want I want like mid-90s Richard Gere for Telemachus.
Nate Day: Mid nineties, Richard Gere Okay.
Chris: And then who's the guy from who's the British guy from About a Boy and Love Actually? Hugh Grant.
Nate Day: Hugh Grant. Yeah.
Chris: That's who I want for Odysseus.
Nate Day: You want Hugh Grant to play Odysseus?
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: That's crazy.
Chris: Just fumbling over himself, doing silly things and making that little Muppet face he makes when he goes, hmm, yes, I suppose that was my fault.
Nate Day: Okay, so you would have a you would have a comedic take on the Odyssey.
Chris: Anyway. Yeah. Just really lean into the absurdity.
Nate Day: Okay.
Nate Day: Okay.
Greg : uh just saw my wife walking up uh back from the alley so pretty sure she was yelling at someone love you babe they're still going that's fine we're gonna run through it all right Idris Elba for agamemnon
Nate Day: Oh, hell yeah.
Nate Day: Ooh, that's cool.
Chris: Ooh.
Nate Day: I like that.
Greg : we get to have his younger brother metaleas be Colman Domingo
Nate Day: I like that a lot. Yep.
Greg : I don't really like Zendaya. I don't give a shit. I don't get it.
Nate Day: No!
Chris: That's crazy.
Nate Day: That's crazy.
Chris: Boy, I need to go.
Greg : don't get it. But I would give Athena to Carey Mulligan because every movie that lacks her is worse for her absence.
Nate Day: Oh, okay.
Greg : And I just want her to get to work on that EGOT. right
Chris: oh interesting.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : She was in The Dig. That's one that I always think of for her.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : But she's incredible. She's fantastic.
Nate Day: Yeah, she is a very good actor.
Greg : She was in Maestro.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Whatever. I'm fine with Lupita. think she's a good shot for Helen.
Nate Day: Yeah. I think so, too, and it worked really well.
Greg : Statuesque. She's a smoke show.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg : Anne Hathaway gets to stay.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : You bet I would sail 20 years when Anne Hathaway.
Chris: I'm on board with that. Yep.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: As we all would.
Greg : Mia Goth also gets to stay. Perfect balance of
Nate Day: Okay.
Greg : creepy and cute to be the like backstabbing handmaid or whatever
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Oh.
Nate Day: Her role was bizarrely small. I wonder if some of it got cut.
Greg : and
Nate Day: I was like, why did she even take this role, to be honest
Greg : she was the love interest in the most recent frankenstein with Oscar Isaacs.
Nate Day: Yep.
Greg : Who should have been Odysseus?
Nate Day: That's a good idea, yes.
Greg : Oscar Isaacs should have been Odysseus.
Chris: Ooh, that'd be a phenomenal Odysseus.
Nate Day: That would be cool.
Chris: Phenomenal Odysseus.
Greg : I'm fine with Matt Damon. like I kind of get it. It's whatever. But yeah, if you get Oscar Isaacs as Odysseus, he's like fifty s maybe 60 now, you can have Paul Mescal as Telemachus.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : And...
Chris: I don't mind that.
Nate Day: Okay. I kind of like that.
Greg : You might have to give Gracie Abrams a part, which I don't think we want, but like Paul Mezcal's, I mean, there's nothing wrong that.
Nate Day: No.
Nate Day: No.
Greg : Oh, what else? Who have I missed? Oh, the, the Cyclopses. I want it to be Matty Matheson and whatever other Cyclops that's on screen can be Action Bronson. Don't cover up any tattoos.
Nate Day: That's good.
Chris: Matty Matheson, Action Bronson, and Brad Leone.
Nate Day: yeah
Greg : Hell yeah. just Just a bunch of dipshits. I love it. get Action Bronson would get so many verses out of that. you kidding me?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: I wouldn't mind. let me let me hear. How would you guys feel about this one for a whirl? How do you think Florence Pugh would do as Penelope?
Nate Day: Well, I think at this point she's too young. She's she's like my age. But yeah, dan yeah.
Chris: Is she really?
Nate Day: or between you and i probably. But I think down the line she'd be a pretty good one.
Greg : So jumping a ahead a little.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Okay, before that, I think Lena Headey got robbed. Should have been Circe The woman who plays Circe Game of Thrones. Come on.
Chris: oh
Nate Day: and would have been It would have been cool.
Greg : So easy.
Nate Day: It would have been cool.
Greg : And she was in 300, I think, or some...
Nate Day: I think she was. Yeah. Yeah, she was actually.
Greg : But yeah, I i was kind of noodling on Florence for Calypso. I did go a different direction. I'm pretty sure Calypso is canonically thick.
Greg : So, like, I love Charlize Theron, she hasn't been sick she hasn't been thick since 2003. So, like, okay.
Nate Day: I don't know. Wait till you see the Odyssey.
Greg : Well, I can't wait.
Chris: Really?
Nate Day: All I'm saying is if I was Matt Damon, I wouldn't have made it off the island.
Greg : But, yeah, I'd have... Well, okay. Fair enough. But yeah, that for me was a jump ball between Salma Hayek and J-Lo.
Nate Day: Oh.
Chris: I was just gonna say jlo would have, yeah.
Nate Day: JLo is actually, that's kind of an interesting shout.
Greg : Easy.
Nate Day: I wonder if they could write it in a way for her. because she can turn it on sometimes. Like one out of 10 J-Lo performances is a good performance.
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: you know
Greg : Yeah, she can show up.
Chris: Made in Manhattan top 10 movies ever.
Greg : My last piece was the suitors. so Robert Pattinson, excellent villain.
Nate Day: Yeah, it was he was unbelievable.
Greg : Love him. He gets to stay.
Chris: Really?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : oh yeah. Dude, his like he's going to inherit. What the hell is his name? Luke Skywalker's actor does so much.
Chris: Uh, Hamill.
Greg : Yeah, yeah. He does so much villain voiceover. Robert Pattinson is inheriting
Chris: uh...
Greg : good voice actor for villainous like dick bags or
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : yeah, he gets to stay dickhead suitor number one. I'd also submit the following men as excellent options to fill out our other, just like the top couple, because there's like a hundred suitors.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : TJ Miller, James Franco, Armie Hammer, Danny Masterson, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto,
Nate Day: That's crazy. Ew. Oh!
Nate Day: Oh.
Greg : Johnny Depp and, and I'm not done, singer, songwriter, song stealer, Ryan Adams. I don't want 'em to get a check.
Chris: incredible on board with that
Greg : Obviously, I don't want 'em to get a check.
Nate Day: Oh, my God.
Greg : But you can do like AI Happy Valley and get close. And then we all get a watch. We get watch Kevin Spacey take one through the skull.
Nate Day: That would be kind of cool, actually.
Nate Day: You know, yeah.
Greg : We get to see our Uncle Matt Damon blasting down Me Too dickheads.
Nate Day: Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Day: yeah yeah Yeah.
Greg : And...
Nate Day: Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson could be in there.
Chris: Just sitting in the back.
Greg : Oh, yeah. You got a good age range between them.
Nate Day: Yep.
Greg : i don't know if we're going to get Bill Cosby out of jail for this one or out of house arrest, but, like...
Nate Day: Whoa. That's what AI is for. Yeah.
Greg : That's fun.
Chris: Just pops in exclusively to take a stool to the back of the dome and then he's out again.
Greg : But, yeah. You say I...
Nate Day: yeah
Greg : And like, just reserve a hundred million for your, we got sued budget. Just like, if
Chris: Just be ready for it.
Greg : just set aside a chunk of money for all these litigious pederasts.
Chris: Incredible.
Greg : all these creeps that think they're going to win a legal case
Greg : and also you
Chris: Wow.
Greg : fuck ryan adams is the other thought i don't remember if he got me too but just
Chris: Fair. Agreed.
Nate Day: That was crazy.
Greg : And I think the fireworks show is done too.
Nate Day: yeah Well, you were the finale, I think.
Chris: Nate, I want yours. I want to hear some of yours.
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: Okay, i've been I've been trying to stress think for the last two minutes because I literally saw this movie 48 hours ago, so it's going to be tough for me to think of
Greg : I want to hear some of your.
Chris: Oh, picture other people there.
Nate Day: other other people but let me just scroll through like some of the
Chris: No, that's why I didn't tell you when I told Greg, I want your like off the cuff.
Nate Day: yeah i okay well one person that did pop into my head for penelope could be zoe Saldaña i thought she's done some interesting stuff and i'd love to see or take
Chris: Oh, interesting. Yeah.
Nate Day: I wonder if, oh, Calypso could be Penelope Cruz.
Greg : Oh, easily.
Chris: Hell yeah. Yes.
Chris: A thousand times yes.
Nate Day: Let's see, maybe like, what are all the the giants called that are like warriors that beat them up really quickly?
Chris: Titans? what Which part?
Nate Day: They're like cannibal giants or something.
Chris: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Greg : Oh, there's like a candle out there.
Chris: The weird village he goes to. Yeah. No, that's that's literally what they are. i don't remember what they're called.
Nate Day: that's that's like 45 dave bautistas he plays them all
Greg : OK, yeah.
Chris: And they do no discernible changes to any of them.
Nate Day: right yeah it's all just clones oh sure yeah why not yeah pitbull what the hell and that's insane
Chris: Can one be Vin Diesel?
Chris: And one's Pitbull.
Chris: No, I'm just naming bald men.
Nate Day: let me think about this okay i actually didn't really care for tom holland's performance so i would like to see kind of like paul mescal for telemachus uh
Nate Day: maybe like josh o'connor would be cool man i don't know it's it's so hard because i can only picture the cast of this movie like
Chris: Who's that British guy?
Nate Day: Which British guy?
Chris: He did the Jackal.
Greg : Who's that?
Nate Day: Oh, Eddie Redmayne.
Chris: He did...
Nate Day: He could be an interesting suitor.
Greg : Oh, yeah.
Chris: Oh, he'd be a gray suitor.
Greg : You could throw all the Skarsgårds in there for the suitors.
Nate Day: Oh, that's actually, yeah.
Chris: It's just the whole back of him.
Nate Day: Alexander Skarsgård could be a cool Odysseus if you went a little bit younger, I think.
Greg : And
Nate Day: But yeah, I don't know. i Honestly, there was really the only performance I had any issue with was Tom Holland's for the most part, which is just a case of yeah like a 30-year-old dude acting opposite some of the greatest actors that have been working for as long as he's been alive, right?
Chris: Yeah. Yep.
Nate Day: Like it's not, really a flaw of the movie. It's just inherently he was the least talented guy on set. Yeah, that's fun, though.
Nate Day: I kind of like your goofy take, Chris.
Greg : I would have said i wouldve said Timmy Chalmett, but like five years ago.
Chris: I think that's some, oh, always.
Greg : He sucks too much now to get the part, but like, yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah, I'm so tired of seeing him.
Chris: Hmm.
Nate Day: He would have been an interesting Telemachus.
Greg : He would have been a good one.
Nate Day: He would have been too aggressive. He can't he can never look like I don't think he ever would have taken that role. I don't think he likes to get stepped on.
Chris: Right, right. you need to It needs to start out weak and timid.
Nate Day: Yeah, and he doesn't do that. Interesting. Okay, well, should we dive into recommendations and ratings?
Chris: Yes.
Nate Day: Okay.
Chris: Yep. Yep.
Nate Day: Greg, who do you recommend The Odyssey to? Or like, how would you recommend it to somebody?
Greg : if you're a sophomore in high school, you have no choice.
Nate Day: yeah
Chris: Let
Nate Day: Taking English class.
Greg : You're gonna read.
Nate Day: Yeah, that's true.
Greg : Cross your fingers to read the Willis. Uh, I forget her first name. Emily?
Nate Day: Emily? Yeah.
Greg : read the Willis translation. It's already better than the whatever old that Dick Carter actually read.
Chris: me find which one I got.
Greg : Polymer. I read Polymer. Who cares? But yeah, it's fun. And I think if you approach it as like, if you approach it with a little bit of context, which that newest translation actually gives you in the intro, it actually is probably pretty enjoyable, even if you are forced to read it for class or whatever.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. Right.
Greg : And I'm pumped to watch the movie. I haven't seen it, but I...
Nate Day: I'm so excited to hear what you guys think of it.
Chris: I can't wait.
Nate Day: Chris, who who do you recommend it to?
Chris: Actually, you you really already brought up all of the points that I have. The problem for me
Chris: It's so long. You're already familiar with all of it.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: My recommendation, I mean, if you are already super big on the epic adventure side or Greek mythology, I think you'll enjoy it. What I would say is maybe choose a book or two from it and read like multiple translations side by side.
Chris: And if one really speaks to you, then commit to that one for the full thing.
Nate Day: Oh, interesting.
Chris: I would be so hard pressed to just tell someone, Here's a copy of it. I think you'll love it because it's it's so long.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: There are so many parts that we've already heard. And I think you really need to spend some time with this text to get the reading it aspect as opposed to just seeing movie or something.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah. Interesting. I think I'm in a similar boat where I'm like, I don't know. i had a really hard time in the notes for both the recommendations and the ratings that we'll get to in a minute here.
Nate Day: because that this is so unusual for so many reasons. It's like I mentioned, we don't get movies like this often. So I think if you want to support cinema as an art form, you should go see this movie. And there's also a lot of sort of historical context around this. This is the first movie ever to be shot entirely in IMAX, which means that they had to invent cameras to shoot this movie. like It's a similar historical milestone as at to like the Avatar movies, where they're developing technology that that can benefit you know potentially the entire world if we've found the right way to apply it. But they're developing technology to create something that you've never seen and experienced before. So to not see it
Nate Day: you gotta to have like a stick up your butt to not see it at some point. But if that's the case, you probably have read this in high school. You probably know whether you're interested in seeing this movie or not between that and this marketing blitz that they're on.
Chris: Mm, fair.
Nate Day: So I guess I'm saying, figure it out for yourself.
Chris: Ha! That's such a cop-out.
Greg : Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Day: I know, but, but really,
Greg : Yeah. Great.
Chris: No, don't give him that, Greg. No.
Nate Day: But really though, I think people know whether they're interested or not.
Chris: Fair.
Nate Day: And I think if you waited to watch it at home, you'd be frigging nuts.
Chris: Yeah, I suppose.
Nate Day: But if that's the only way you're, you know, not everybody has access to theaters or premium format theaters or anything like that. So do what you can.
Chris: Okay, okay. I don't know which part to ask Greg to rate. I don't know, rate the idea of the Odyssey itself.
Nate Day: well
Chris: On whatever scale you choose.
Greg : Yeah, 10 out of 10. Four stars. and no I mean, it it depends on... if If I had the choice in high school of, all right, we're gonna you can either read it or watch it.
Greg : You fucking bet I'm going to watch it.
Nate Day: yeah
Greg : Are you kidding me? I'm going to
Greg : watch it. Like i've said, the the little bit I've read of this other translation... is great. We'll see how I feel at the end of it. But so far I'd say like a four-ish out of five.
Nate Day: Great.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Greg : But again, there's a context of I grew up loving Greek mythology and I do research for fun.
Chris: ahhuh
Greg : So like I'm a pervert. Take that nugget salt with that four-star rating.
Chris: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nate Day: Right. Yeah. Greg the pervert.
Chris: No, I think you're exactly who it's for.
Greg : I'm a research pervert. I'm here for it. looking up all these gods' names and epithets and whatever.
Nate Day: Yeah. Okay.
Chris: What did Letterboxd get, Nate? Yes.
Nate Day: Letterboxd, well, let me preface what Letterboxd got because similar to my recommendations, this is a hard movie to rate and evaluate because there is so few comparable texts, right?
Nate Day: Like I told you my favorite movie of the year is The Invite or my other favorite, which is a chamber piece with four people in one apartment. And I don't know how to reckon loving both of those movies as much as I do and thinking they're both as perfect as I think they are because they're doing such enormously different things.
Chris: just diametrically opposed.
Nate Day: And like, I hate to boil it down to this, but Christopher Nolan had a harder time making the movie than Olivia Wilde, who directed The Invite, did making hers. That's just the nature of the movies themselves.
Nate Day: But all of that being said, i i gave it a 4.5.
Chris: Yep.
Nate Day: I do think there are, and a heart, i I do think there are some minor flaws that can kind of pile up. They're all ones sort of like the Tom Holland thing that I mentioned where you're kind of like alone. It's not really worth talking about, but, but once you spot, you know, five or six, maybe of those kind of tiny ones, you're like, okay, so it's not walk on water. Perfect. But it's,
Nate Day: damn good. And i I'm just really surprised to hear that like book book internet is not happy with it because I felt overwhelmingly positive about it.
Chris: it's It's some pretty specific things. I believe, if I'm correct, the movie Calypso does not drug him, right? He just like stays there.
Nate Day: That's not how I would describe it.
Chris: Okay. Also, I believe in the movie Penelope locks up the weapons, not Telemachus, teleachus whatever.
Nate Day: I guess she gives the order, but like servants do it. I mean.
Chris: so these are So these are minor, minor things. That's why I say I think it's just BookTok doing BookTok things, being nitpicky, and trying to read into what does that do to the characters, where like end of the day, was it still a cool story, you know?
Nate Day: Okay. Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Right. And i like I said, all of the the changes that I spotted, with the exception of the the very, very end, does have a very massive change that I was like, wow, this actually does kind of recontextualize how you digest the story.
Chris: Oh.
Nate Day: But all of the little changes throughout, they they made sense to me as somebody that has read the book, knows how difficult it is to fit a massive story into a digestible movie, which could only be three hours, by the way, because IMAX projectors can only work for three hours before they like explode or whatever the hell, catch on fire.
Nate Day: So he he had a hard limit. a really hard limit.
Chris: Wow.
Nate Day: It's not like he could have made Lawrence of Arabia, which was is like a four or five hour movie. So everything makes it makes sense to me. And I think he was very deliberate.
Chris: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Nate Day: It really makes me sad that BookTok is doing that because I just I really i have a complicated relationship with Chris Nolan and I was really won over by this movie because it seemed like he'd listened to some criticisms.
Chris: Mm.
Nate Day: of particularly Oppenheimer, but his career in general. For example, he's not great with women characters. He's not a very good writer of women characters. I think that the the women in this story are very well written.
Nate Day: And I think that's because he paid attention to people saying that he's not good at writing women.
Chris: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Nate Day: Right? So it makes me really sad that he tried to correct some of these things and is still getting pooped on.
Chris: Well, that's tough because that's kind of how Penelope is in the book. And so then for him to reckon with, how do I change this image of myself when to be true to the text would be to follow that line that I've already established.
Nate Day: Right. Yeah, well, right. And that's why this seems like the perfect movie for him to adapt.
Chris: Hmm.
Nate Day: Like when it was announced that he was doing the Odyssey, I was like, of course he's doing the Odyssey. All of his movies are about tormented men trying to get home.
Chris: hmm
Chris: uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh
Nate Day: You know, that's what Interstellar is. That's what Inception is.
Greg : Yeah.
Nate Day: That's what Oppenheimer also is about reckoning with changing the world and potentially making a mistake. They're all the same movies. All of his movies are.
Nate Day: So this made sense?
Greg : Batman. It's about trying to get home.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Batman 2 about, sorry. being an asshole.
Nate Day: So interesting. i'm I'm really interested to hear what you guys think of the movie. So be sure to let me know when you do see it.
Chris: I can't wait to watch it.
Nate Day: Yeah, it's good stuff. Okay.
Chris: I need to... Well, this this leaves me with somehow the lowest rating of the squad because Goodreads does not have halves.
Nate Day: Oh yeah.
Chris: It got a three for me.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: It would very much be 3.5.
Nate Day: Whoa.
Chris: It's just... five it's just If you're not into Greek mythology specifically, I would have a hard time recommending this to you.
Nate Day: Sure.
Chris: And then outside of that part, as you already alluded to, Nate, if you're coming to the story for intrigue, for family drama, for adventuring, for a giant pissed off pantheon, or just character development, there are better examples available of each one.
Nate Day: OK.
Chris: And it is super cool and epic that this one contains them all, but it inherently therefore does not do the best at any of those things.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: OK, yeah, that makes sense. It's a jack of all trades, right?
Chris: Yes, yes. And if that's what you're here for, if you loved Anna Karenina and Pachinko and you want to sit for a long time with one text, yes, I think you'll enjoy this.
Chris: But in terms of like book club, I absolutely could not pitch this to book club. It's 550 pages. Like there's just, there's a a sort of logistical limit there.
Nate Day: Right. Yeah.
Nate Day: Oh, totally.
Chris: I was just talking to someone yesterday, oh one of my buddies, and he was like, yeah, I'm just not big on mythology, you know Norse mythology, Greek mythology, Roman, and I'm like, perfect.
Chris: I think you would hate this book.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: no So it's just a little too particular in some ways and then a little too broad in others.
Nate Day: Right.
Chris: Not a bad book. I'm not unhappy I reread it. I'm in fact quite pleased I reread it, but you know not not top five this year or anything.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Okay. Wow. It's very, very insightful. I was, I'm surprised by that, but I'm glad to hear that it was like, that makes sense. You know what I mean?
Chris: Well, modern writing has become what it is for a good reason.
Nate Day: Right. Right.
Chris: I would hope after 3000 years of practice, we've gotten a little better, right?
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : well and it's an adaption in the first place like i think the story itself is worth experiencing you know yeah you gotta read it though go watch it go yeah
Nate Day: Yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Chris: Yes.
Chris: yes
Nate Day: It is the greatest story ever told. It is. No. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Chris: You know what? if If someone put back together some weird East Village avant-garde BS where you go sit in a dimly lit basement bar full of candles and 24 nights in a row somebody performs this to me as an oration, yeah, I'm here for that.
Nate Day: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: But as as the text, yeah, exactly as you said, Greg, this is already a bastardization of how it's intended to be consumed, you know?
Nate Day: And there's a very cool tribute to that in the movie. Travis Scott, the rapper has a very, very small role in the movie as a bard who tells stories, I believe to the suitors.
Greg : Mm-mm.
Chris: Interesting.
Nate Day: He's in the, I think he's in the room entertaining the suitors.
Chris: Yep. I wrote this word down as a, oh nuts, a
Chris: rhapsody, rhapsodist is what they call them.
Nate Day: Okay. The sort of musical storytellers.
Chris: The Greek, the individuals that would go around, yeah.
Nate Day: Okay.
Greg : We use column rappers.
Nate Day: Interesting.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: That's where the word rapper comes from, from the ancient Greek rhapsodist.
Greg : it's yeah
Nate Day: it It really might.
Chris: It honestly could.
Nate Day: Well, I mean, Chris Nolan talked about, that was a weird announcement that Travis Scott, who doesn't really act all that much, was going to be in the movie.
Chris: That'd be cool. That'd be a fun animal.
Greg : yeah
Nate Day: And he, so he had to address it, Chris Nolan did. And he was like, I don't, this is a verbal story. And what is today's version of a verbal storyteller, but a rapper, you know?
Chris: Uh-huh.
Chris: Yep. Yep.
Nate Day: So yes, he's in the movie and he's good.
Chris: Oh, very interesting.
Nate Day: I mean, he he has like 60 seconds of screen time, but he's good. It makes sense. It works.
Chris: I can't wait to see it.
Nate Day: Yeah. i'm I'm really excited to hear what you guys think.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: Cool. All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us.
Chris: Very good.
Nate Day: I don't think Chris and I have actually nailed down what our next one is for sure yet. So stay tuned. But thank you for joining us for this conversation.
Chris: OK.
Nate Day: Thank you, Greg. This was so great to have you. And we look forward to having you again in the future.
Greg : Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Nate Day: Just let us know if a book or adaptation is interesting to you.
Greg : I don't know.
Nate Day: You don't know?
Greg : Someone takes a run at Beowulf again.
Nate Day: Okay.
Greg : you could just make me do all the classics.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Nate Day: Yeah.
Greg : Grendel? I would do in a heartbeat. Favorite book.
Nate Day: Okay. Great.
Greg : But yeah.
Nate Day: Good to know.
Greg : We'll see.
Nate Day: Well, we'll find some spots in the schedule for that. Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode, and please get out to the theater to see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. And thank you for listening. See you next time.
Chris: Bye.
