{"id":118,"date":"2026-08-15T20:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/?p=118"},"modified":"2026-08-15T20:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:06:19","slug":"nobody-is-mad-at-the-odyssey-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"Nobody is Mad at the Odyssey (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Let me get this out of the way: I loved the new Odyssey movie.  I thought it was incredible how much plot the whole team managed to squeeze into a runtime of just under three hours, and I left the theater thinking that this was a very focused and coherent imagining of Homer\u2019s epic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I got on the internet and saw that this film has made both far left and far right audiences incredibly angry.  This, to me, makes the film worth defending, insofar as a film with 94% on Rotten Tomatoes (as of the time of writing) needs defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On some of the meta topics, I have but a few words: If you hated the casting, go watch a play.  If you hated that \u2018Nolan did the female characters dirty\u2019 because he\u2019s a man telling women\u2019s stories, then know that Emma Thomas (Producer), Jennifer Lame (Editor), Ruth De Jong (Production Designer), and Ellen Mirojnik (Costume Designer) were just as crucial to the making and shaping of this film as the director.  As for the Odyssey\u2019s four-day filming in Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa<\/a>, yeah.  He shouldn\u2019t have done that.  But, hopefully all the press coverage from this controversy will focus public attention on Morocco\u2019s human rights abuses in the area and lead to a just resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not what I want to bite into. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I move in circles where everyone is frothing at the mouth at the removal of the Nobody scene.\u00a0 I am convinced that people who are mad about this don\u2019t understand filmmaking or storytelling<\/a>, which is why I\u2019m going to use both of these to explain why removing \u2018Nobody\u2019 was a great idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the \u2018Nobody\u2019 scene do?  In the poem, Odysseus tricks the cyclops into believing his name is \u2018Nobody\u2019.  This prevents Polyphemus from getting help from his friends: when Polyphemus is blinded, he yells out, \u201cNobody has hurt me\u201d and all his friends are like, \u201cHuh, weird.  Sure thing, nobody\u2019s hurting you, I\u2019m going back to sleep\u201d.  In the original story, this part establishes Odysseus\u2019 cleverness, introduces the hubris that dooms his voyage, and it\u2019s funny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Nobody\u2019 scene is not necessary in Nolan\u2019s film, because he\u2019s already established what the original was designed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We already know that Odysseus is clever.  In the movie, he devises the plan for the Trojan horse, and he comes up with the plan to tie sticks to his men\u2019s backs to fool a blinded Polyphemus into thinking that they\u2019re his sheep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We get the hubris too.\u00a0 Near the end of the cyclops sequence, Odysseus shoots a blinded Polyphemus in the eye after he and his men have already<\/em> escaped the cyclops\u2019 cave and the monster is already<\/em> blinded.\u00a0 Polyphemus realizes they\u2019ve escaped and chases them down the mountainside, calling for Poseidon\u2019s help and dooming Odysseus\u2019 voyage.\u00a0 I really enjoy this addition, because we see Odysseus using his bow without twanging it\u2014Nolan sustains our focus on Odysseus\u2019 bow (and the ethics of being a hunter vs a fighter) with changes like these<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that Nolan\u2019s adaptation doesn\u2019t capture is the Nobody scene\u2019s humor.  But then again, that is literally not the kind of story that Nolan is trying to tell, particularly during the cyclops sequence.  Here, he is trying to capture terror, powerlessness, and doom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of you may still be mad.  Whatever.  Let\u2019s look now from the filmmaker\u2019s angle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would having a Nobody Scene in this movie actually <\/em>involve?  The reason the original \u2018Nobody\u2019 works is because when Polyphemus gets blinded, he yells out for his friends to help him.  For Nolan to have recreated this for the movie, he would have had to spend more money, more screentime, and sacrificed the scene\u2019s mood to establish three things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. shown that there were multiple cyclopes on the island<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. shown Odysseus realizing that there were other cyclopes that Polyphemus would call on in an emergency<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. establish Polyphemus as a yapper, willing and able to converse to humans<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s a lot of filmmaking work to do just to include this single line of dialogue.  But let\u2019s tease it out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Multiple Cyclopes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      <\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Nolan would have had to introduce the fact that this island has multiple giants, which would have massively bloated the giant puppet budget.  Additionally, having just one cyclops enhances the fear Nolan is building.  One scary thing is scary.  But if you add in multiple scary things, the situation generally becomes less frightening.  One monster is unique, but having several implies that some are disposable and therefore defeatable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Odysseus would also have had to figure out that there were other cyclopes while still inside the cave.\u00a0 But the film makes it clear that he\u2019s got other things on his mind at that point.\u00a0 To add in more would be to confuse the audience\u2014just to keep in a line for fanservice.\u00a0 No!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Polyphemus talking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A big part of the movie is the asymmetrical hunter\/prey dynamic and the guest\/host dynamic.  Odysseus twangs his bow to give his prey warning because it\u2019s fair.  What makes the cyclops scene gel so well with the rest of the movie is that now Odysseus and his men are the ones being hunted unfairly by a higher being that has no interest in communicating with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Polyphemus was not playing by \u2018Zeus\u2019 Law\u2019.  He did not treat Matt Damon and the others as guests, he did not share his delectable cave-cheese with them.  Instead, he eats people and it\u2019s super freaky!  This fits so well with the storyline of Odysseus coping with what he did to Troy.  The Greeks violated the laws of hospitality.  The sacking of Troy wasn\u2019t a fair fight, it was an ambush that went too far and became a massacre.  In the cyclops episode, like with the Laestrygonians, Odysseus is experiencing the same horror and powerlessness that his men inflicted upon the Trojans\u2014they thought they were safe, and then they were slaughtered by beings who they could not bargain with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The parallels simply would not work if Polyphemus and Odysseus could chit chat and have their whole Nobody conversation.  It would add an element of bargaining that the prey does not have with the predator, that the Trojans did not have with the Greeks.  If Polyphemus was willing to converse with Odysseus, that would highlight a functional host\/guest dynamic, not the breakdown of hospitality that is the core of Nolan\u2019s film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      But here\u2019s the kicker.  Yes, Odysseus doesn\u2019t have a chance to pretend to be \u2018Nobody\u2019.  But, he is so powerless in this scene that the audience can feel that he is<\/em> nobody.  He\u2019s literally an ant in Polyphemus\u2019 kitchen.  A fleck of protein.  Insignificant.  It\u2019s a nice reference to the scene that Nolan cut, and I like to think it\u2019s intentional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I like that Nolan removed the Nobody scene.  I think it takes guts<\/em> to omit the most well-known part of one of the world\u2019s most well-known stories.  To look at something so beloved and cut it because it doesn\u2019t serve the arc or the medium, that\u2019s good filmmaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Let me get this out of the way: I loved the new Odyssey movie.  I thought it was incredible how much plot the whole team managed to squeeze into a runtime of just under three hours, and I left the theater thinking that this was a very focused and coherent imagining of Homer\u2019s epic.  Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mouthwash.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}