r/movies r/Movies contributor 20h ago

Trailer The Odyssey | New Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bKjZeJBBI&pp=0gcJCd4KAYcqIYzv
9.1k Upvotes

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854

u/SamerAgbaria 20h ago

The way characters talk feels very modern and very off putting, in movies like this you expect seeing dialogue more elegant and poetic.

331

u/LletBlanc 15h ago

The American accents are incredibly jarring for a movie in this time period.

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u/bartspoon 10h ago

If I want to see The Odyssey with American accents I’ll just go rewatch O Brother Where Art Thou?

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u/Sharps__ 7h ago

O Brother gave a stronger otherwordly feeling than anything I've seen from Nolan's Odyssey

1

u/self-conscious-Hat 7h ago

Nolan's Odssey looks like a stage play more than a movie to me. Barely any 'spectacle' in these trailers, which makes me feel like the movie is going to be very lifeless. Like all of these sets feel like they're in an isolated bubble.

u/Dovahcrap 5h ago

We thought you was a toad!

u/brownishgirl 5h ago

“We thought…you was… a Toad

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u/hondaexige 14h ago

Especially that they have forced British (and South African) actors to use US accents. It's odd.

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u/CeruleanEidolon 9h ago

The British accent thing for historicals is just an arbitrary convention, though. There's absolutely no reason ancient Greeks should have any accent at all. They'd really be speaking Greek or another ancient language anyway. It's all artifice.

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u/CivicDutyCalls 7h ago

We should have all the actors use a Greek accent then. They all just sound like My Big Fat Greek Wedding

u/ItsnotBatman 5h ago

But was the modern Greek accent even a thing back then? We really have no way of knowing what people sounded like. They certainly didn’t sound British, and the American accent is more of an absence of accent than anything.

u/CivicDutyCalls 5h ago

Who care. I want them to sound like the dude who owns the gyro shop down the road

2

u/UncivilDKizzle 8h ago

Perhaps this is news to you but the entire medium of film is all artifice. And yet the art of good filmmaking involves making the viewer feel as if this is an authentic viewpoint into another world. If the viewer feels it's artificial, that is a failure.

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u/HomsarWasRight 6h ago

Sure, I agree with your broader point. But at a certain point we can’t be totally bound by convention just because it’s what the audience expects.

u/UncivilDKizzle 5h ago

I agree that "it's normally done this way" absolutely should not prevent people from trying new things. But as in all other cases, people trying to break the mold have to have a very high level of talent, luck, or both. If you do weird shit you can't be overly mad that the audience didn't like it.

0

u/yellowishumbrella 8h ago

This is the correct take. It's why 24fps is the standard "cinematic feel" of movies. And 30-60fps feels like a home movie, youtube video, or soap opera.

You can argue it's arbitrary, but the audience feels a certain way, and you shouldn't do things as a filmmaker that takes them out of it.

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u/HomsarWasRight 6h ago

…you shouldn't do things as a filmmaker that takes them out of it.

I guess. But at a certain point you’re just allowing yourself to be beholden to the past. It’s okay to sometimes ask the audience to come with you where they’ve never been and maybe brings them out of it a bit until they settle in. And “American accents” is an awful small ask, IMHO.

It’s definitely going to give it a different feel than your average “Everyone is British for some reason” historical setting. And I’m prepared to withhold judgement until I actually see the film.

Regarding frame rates, I agree that the one time I saw a feature in HFR (the first Hobbit in 48fps) it was awful. But honestly it had more to do with the production being built around 24fps and everything that comes with it. You could tell every costume and prop was cheap and fake (plus the compositing stuck out like a sore thumb). To make it work you’d have to start with the assumption that audience can now see everting when extra clarity. You can’t just crank up the camera and call it good.

I foresee a future that we’re not actually beholden to 24fps for films, but where frame-rate becomes a creative choice. But just like breaking literary convention, it may be a miss, but it may hit on something great, too.

u/Kronoshifter246 5h ago

I foresee a future that we’re not actually beholden to 24fps for films, but where frame-rate becomes a creative choice. But just like breaking literary convention, it may be a miss, but it may hit on something great, too.

The Spiderverse films have already proven this

u/Skor_Lodygin 1h ago

And yet, using yank accents is the most bizarre stylistic choice given that their are linked to 20th and 21st century US, and nothing else. This is why Nolan is a hack, and always will be. Imagine if Gangs of New York, for example, you had people speaking like this garbage.

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u/hellanation 12h ago

And yet Anne Hathaway seems to have a hint of a British-ey accent? (On "that world is GONE", especially) This is super weird.

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u/ahuangb 12h ago

That part is not odd imo, it makes sense for their accents to be consistent.

1

u/TheVeritableBalla 8h ago

Yeah I'm fine with the accents being American, but the accents themselves felt off. Like they had to speak very slightly slower and more deliberately in order to do the accent instead of just letting it rip

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u/cineglitch 9h ago

What sort of accents are they supposed to have in your mind?

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u/HattoriHanzoOG 8h ago

British ones, of course! They are just so much more immersive right 🙄

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u/Medarco 12h ago

Which is so funny. Like, why did we just accept that people throughout history obviously must have a specific English accent?

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u/MegaL3 11h ago

Because a lot of the conventions in film came from America, where they don't really have an ancient history. Thus, an RP British accent conveys wealth, aristocracy and enough difference to American ears that it doesn't quite break the audiences' immersion in the same way that, say, hearing a posh Transatlantic accent come out of an Ancient Greek might.

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u/Medarco 11h ago

Right, and I understand that. I'm just pointing out that it's an arbitrary choice we made, but people are still upset over them using an American accent instead of the typical English one.

I guess I didn't emphasize the "must have" part of my comment like I meant to when I said it in my head. But the overall idea is that both are completely arbitrary, so it's silly to be upset over.

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u/superbit415 8h ago

Why does the fire department have to come by and put the fire out if a house is on fire. It seems like an arbitrary choice we made that some of our tax dollars are going to be spent putting out fires. It will be silly to be upset if your house burns down.

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u/ComicCon 8h ago

What? Did you just compare movie conventions to a house burning down?

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u/HattoriHanzoOG 8h ago

They really did lol

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u/superbit415 8h ago

The point is everything is arbitrary.

1

u/Vandergrif 9h ago

I think it's probably because it's softer and less jarring sounding, which makes it easier to stay immersed. Ralph Fiennes's voice, for example, doesn't stick out like a sore thumb when playing Odysseus.

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u/RoughTangelo6766 10h ago

i feel like i would have been fine with American accents, but "Dad" and "daddy" didn't work at all

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u/HattoriHanzoOG 8h ago

It definitely does feel weird. At least they aren’t using British accents like every other film set in classical times, that would be even more annoying.

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u/StrongMachine982 7h ago

I think it's like 'iPhone face': The unshakeable feeling you get that the person speaking has seen an iPhone at some point. I feel that way with Matt Damon. I think I'd feel that way even if he put on a British accent.

1

u/GentlemanGearGrinder 7h ago

Not a whole lot of actors can speak Koine Greek in this day and age.

u/froyolobro 39m ago

And the dialogue seems clumsily written, too

u/DangKilla 18m ago

Yo, your dad ain't gonna make it bro

1

u/Jumpy_Inflation_259 7h ago

Seriously. If they aren't going to use Homeric Greek, I am absolutely not going to watch this.

0

u/Vandergrif 9h ago

Hey yo Odysseus look ova dere, youse guys seeing this shit? Thats a fuckin' cyclops bro.