Marcus Hamilton

@NolanAnalyst Ryan Hurst?

Logan Marshall-Green is not playing Achilles.

@nightwriter22 Ryan Hurst

Who is playing Achilles in The Odyssey? Christopher Nolan is famous for keeping his films—including the roles his actors are playing—top secret until the day they hit theaters. One of the actors who joined Nolan’s The Odyssey at the very last minute was Logan Marshall-Green, who replaced Cosmo Jarvis. The trailers haven’t shown Marshall-Green at all, and his images aren’t included in any of the promotional material—even if he’s playing a small role or appears on screen for only a short time. There are a lot of possibilities, so take this as a big “what-if” scenario… because it’s entirely possible that Marshall-Green could be playing Achilles.

@bilitonensis @SonOfAnchis3s That’s such dramatic language for “I keep seeing casting choices I dislike in movies.” Buffoons on X are reacting to The Odyssey like society has endured years of humanitarian catastrophe instead of mildly annoying adaptations. It’s nuts.

@hamiltonimaging @SonOfAnchis3s People are just getting a bit too tired of how predictable and reoccurring this kind of shit has become. This current incident is not isolated and the glass is already getting pretty full. It would explain the excessive reaction.

Emily Wilson’s mistranslation of polytropos has already been beaten to death but I think there is an important piece of commentary missing. Homer’s usage of polytropos — many-sided, of many turns — as the first epithet describing Odysseus is inseparable from the story in the same way that it’s vital to Père Goriot for Goriot to actually be old. Odysseus’s first singular opponent in the Odyssey is the cyclops: literally one-sided with one eye, who cannot comprehend Odysseus’s trick, who is defeated by being blinded. His one tool is neutralized and he is done, whereas Odysseus ends up, both here and ultimately, victorious. Additionally, an accurate translation is needed because it makes sense of the entire narrative. Each obstacle in the Odyssey tests a different side of Odysseus. Using “complicated” instead of “man of many devices” or even something like “devious” is an egregious inaccuracy. It takes the broad and layered “skilled in all ways of contending,” a description of Odysseus’s nature, and collapses it into a simple psychological diagnosis, both patronizing Odysseus and injuring the artistry behind the myth. Part of what makes Homer the bedrock of Western Civilization and not just a few accidentally received and easily dismissible scrolls is that the stories are coherent at the structural level — meaning narrative, allusions, symbolism, and, notably, word choice. This level of architecture is what we typically expect from more modern authors, meaning that we should treat it as something closer to translating Dante or Don Quixote, rather than as something closer to Livy or Tacitus, where the information takes precedence over the structure. Massacring the classics for a gold star in a university department or for an Oscar should be expected behavior from our intellectual and artistic betters by now. However, expectation should not permit us to condone or accept this sort of dismemberment, where Homer is treated as mere novelty, rather than as the literary and artistic giant that Western Civilization has always known him to be.

@Dave_J_Bryant @leekern13 Buffoons on X really discovered the term “gaslighting” and decided it means “someone disagrees with my interpretation of a casting choice.” Also filmmakers mixing realism and stylisation is not a shocking new invention in cinema.

@hamiltonimaging @leekern13 Yep gaslighting. However, if you think that he made merely a creative choice on casting actors that would not be remotely credible in their roles whilst demanding authenticity on armour, weapon, music, etc then I have a bridge to sell you.

The pre-emptive backlash against Christopher Nolan’s Odysseus isn’t because they’re dicks It actually shows audiences are brilliant It shows people love entertainment and they truly want IMMERSION They genuinely want to lose themselves in a story But you can’t do that when there are such palpable obvious dickish moves that deviate from authenticity so aggressively - especially when people know they’re having an agenda pushed on them that has nothing to do with the actual story Again it destroys immersion in the tale And of course people can reinterpret historical source material and give a twist to things - but the kind of woke twist we’re seeing isn’t novel, it isn’t subversive, it isn’t fresh, interesting or thought provoking - it’s just absolutely hack, tedious, passé, boring and utterly yawn inducing Just give people something real - as real as possible - so they can lose themselves Stop pulling people out of a story and trying to make them aware that you’re superior to them because of your dull cultural and political onanism

@c_vinchenzo @bernardtjoy What does this prove?

@hamiltonimaging @bernardtjoy So, no.

One disturbing thing I've heard over and again in the last few days is people saying that The Odyssey is myth, not history, and so "it didn't really happen" and therefore we can play as fast and loose with it as we wish. This shows a deep, dangerous misunderstanding of myth.

@Dave_J_Bryant @leekern13 “Occam’s razor” is not “the explanation I already emotionally prefer.” Sometimes filmmakers just make creative choices you dislike. Calling people gaslighters because they don’t share your casting outrage is nonsense behavior.

@hamiltonimaging @leekern13 Selective realism when the only thing real is the music with some characters completely unbelievable. Universal's, and Hollywood in general, recent history, rules for Oscar nominations, etc. Occam's razor. The other reply suggesting you're gaslighting is a reasonable conclusion.

@mirandamelendy @bernardtjoy There’s nothing to retell about one of the most retold stories in human history is amazing. The Odyssey has been translated, adapted, rewritten and reinterpreted for literally thousands of years. Homer is not a Marvel spoiler thread frozen in time. C’mon.

The Odyssey is an epic poem written by a real guy, Homer. Yes he drew on myth, but we have an actual text. There's nothing to "retell." There are legitimate arguments over interpretation and translation and adaptation of that text, of course. But not "retelling." It's a foundational cultural text, we should be arguing over these things.

@hamiltonimaging 10/10 for observation for you.

“Write a book,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

@KathAntonio7 @bernardtjoy You see, I can think for myself. It looks spectacular.

@hamiltonimaging @bernardtjoy It looks like shit and you know it

@c_vinchenzo @bernardtjoy We’ve gone from discussing casting choices to sounding like medieval priests guarding forbidden scripture.

@hamiltonimaging @bernardtjoy Do you even have anything sacred?

@KathAntonio7 @bernardtjoy Internet historians declaring a movie “won’t last through generations” before release is always funny. The film hasn’t even come out yet and these desperate buffoons are already writing its obituary like Victorian widows.

@hamiltonimaging @bernardtjoy This is not a version that will continue on throughout generations

@bonchieredstate The funniest part here is acting like casting choices on this movie are morally equivalent to recolonising Africa. Not every adaptation disagreement is a grand historical injustice. Buffoon.

Helen of Troy will probably be in ‘The Odyssey’ for like two minutes. It’s not going to make or break the movie. But come on. Everyone knows what the reaction would be if Nolan was doing an African mythology and cast Sydney Sweeney as a sub-Saharan princess. Let’s not be dumb.

@elonmusk @SawyerMerritt I’m replying for attention

@SawyerMerritt They will lose passengers over this

Delta claiming Amazon’s LEO offers the “fastest and most cost-effective technology available” is a wild statement considering it won’t even be available on Delta planes until 2028. They could’ve started offering Starlink - an already proven, operational technology - this year...

Admit it. You assumed that Dr. Pepper was a man. You didn’t even consider that Dr. Pepper could be a woman.

@DzintraSullivan Small Penis Man

Time to get creative. Let's hear the story.

@otokyo__ Stick a pin in his tit.

He slapped your mom, what's your next move

@BasedZillenial I’m a fat cunt.

Men, what’s preventing you from dressing like this?

@emilyjuniper_ Posted with the confidence of someone who interviewed Homer last week. Buffoon.

Helen of Troy was white. Achilles was an actual man.