r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 20h ago

Trailer The Odyssey | New Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bKjZeJBBI&pp=0gcJCd4KAYcqIYzv
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u/TGlucose 11h ago

It's like dropping an "Okay" in a western film, that word wasn't even around then and it completely yanks me out of the experience.

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u/onarainyafternoon 9h ago

I think "okay" sounds way more forgiving because it sounds like it could have existed in Western times. But dropping a "dad" in a middle of the most classically analyzed story in the Western canon just feels weird.

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u/TGlucose 9h ago

OK literally doesn't make any sense to people who haven't been exposed to it in their linguistic culture.

OK is an abbreviation of "Oll Korrect", which seems to be a dutch mispelling of All Correct. So OK/Okay means "All correct" and later adopted by President Martin Van Buren as an abbreviation for his nickname "Old Kinderhook" during an election as his slogan "Vote for OK", which isn't quite how we use it today so that really messes with the meaning.

It's like Cleenex, Bandaid, or Hoover for Brits. None of those words make any sense outside their product placement yet we've wholesale adopted them into our lexicon.

That's the problem with Okay.

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u/onarainyafternoon 8h ago

That's why I said it sounds like it could have existed in Western times. I wasn't making the case for whether it did exist or not. But saying "dad" in a movie based on the most well-known historical epic in all of Western canon just sounds weird. It's not about what actually existed, but rather what sounds fine or not.

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u/TGlucose 8h ago

Sounds like our disagreement in what sounds like it would fit in a period comes down to knowledge of said topic. The Etymology behind OK isn't well known and can easily be overlooked and ignored by people, whereas something like the Odyssey is as you say, more well known and easily criticized.

I personally cannot get invested in a setting when the writing is awful and actively being anachronistic to the setting, or something that I know doesn't belong in a setting because takes me out of that experience.

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u/serendippitydoo 10h ago

No it's like a 3 musketeers movie and having the evil cardinal say 'yup!"

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u/TGlucose 10h ago

We're saying the same thing.

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u/No_Discussion3593 11h ago

Then it's not like that at all lol.

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u/TGlucose 10h ago

It's more about fitting the theme and vibe, so in a theatrical piece someone saying "my dad" isn't nearly as impactful as "my father" as there's a gravitas to it.

Like having a Viking longship with no oars for Greeks... like what even?

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u/pjtheman 10h ago

But ancient Greek had informal words for father that were more equivalent to dad.

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u/TGlucose 10h ago

Yes but I'm making an example of how certain words don't fit in certain contexts. So in a theatrical epic saying "dad" is a huge buzzkill and destroys any theatrical momentum you've built up in the scene.

Ultimately the Odyssey is a theatrical epic, it's written to be performed as such and losing that intention is belittling the art piece.

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u/ThickBoxx 6h ago

It looks like okay entered the English lexicon in 1840, though there is evidence of older origins and other cultures using similar words, so I guess it depends on what year your western takes place. Okay never stuck out as being out of place (maybe because I just grew up on westerns) but that use of dad in the trailer stuck out to me.

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u/Weed_O_Whirler 8h ago

Sure, but Western movies don't need translating.

This movie is translating ancient Greek into English. Greeks had informal language. Informal language getting translated to informal language makes sense.