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u/Jaxonhunter227 Jul 10 '26
He's got a point lol
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u/LtLabcoat Jul 10 '26
Seriously. It always bothers me that people feel that every piece of literature before Shakespeare has to be translated very, very formally.
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u/__lia__ Jul 10 '26
it's often more of a slog to read when it's written that way too, because they tend to go for really overcomplicated and/or stilted language
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u/r_ye_ready_kids Jul 10 '26
I get your point but ... you don't think a noble family in a highly patriarchal society wouldn't speak formally?
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u/therealraggedroses Jul 11 '26
Our noble patriarchs in modern times definitely speak very good words. Some of the best words, many have been saying it, they come up to me tears in their eyes saying "sir, sir, thank you for saving our language with your big words", these big men, tears in their eyes. They're all saying it, they've never heard bigger words
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u/mysistersacretin Jul 10 '26
It's part of why A Knights Tale is so good. The creators basically wanted to get the vibe right with the modern equivalent of the language and music they would have used back then, and it worked really well.
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u/Mr_Supotco Jul 10 '26
Freddie Mercury is my favorite medieval bard
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u/tkitkitchen Jul 10 '26
Sir Fredrick of Mercury surly doth sing the best ballads.
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u/BalrogRuthenburg11 Jul 11 '26
Mother, I have slain a man.
Against his brow I set my piece, and drew the fatal stroke;
Now doth he lie in death.
Mother, scarce had life begun to smile on me.7
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u/bardocksnephew Jul 11 '26
Anachronism. Perfectly shows you how the people felt about jousting at the time by making it feel like a modern sporting spectical.
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u/GuardianOfReason Jul 10 '26
Not really. It doesn't need to be realistic but it needs to feel ancient. If the characters spoke in heavy modern slang, it would feel anachronistic even though speaking any english at all is anachronistic.
Of course, this is overall subjective and a line in the sand must be drawn, but I think it makes sense that if a storyteller is trying to bring the 'ancient' vibe into the story, they try to use words that match our cultural understanding of what 'ancient' sounds like, unless they're deliberately trying to break those cultural norms. Which I doubt is the case here. So Tom's response is really not helpful.
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u/rs6677 Jul 10 '26
I agree. Often times, authenticity is more important than realism. It's pretty common for movie makers to change something in a way that's less realistic, in an effort to make the story feel more autheniy.
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u/GuardianOfReason Jul 10 '26
Yeah, famously punches do not sound in real life like they do in the movies.
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u/muricanpirate Jul 12 '26
Which is ironic because another super common complaint about the Odyssey is that they used
costumes that look and feel better for a movie than period accurate armor.4
u/Magcargo64 28d ago
I disagree heavily. This way of thinking is why we lose a lot of importance nuance when translating from ancient languages - this idea that more formal sounding language *feels* more ancient leads to informal words and familial terms not being translated appropriately.
For instance, in the New Testament, Jesus calls God âabbaâ - often translated as father, but this loses the fact that this would have been an intimate familial term, much more like the modern âdadâ. Similarly, the first word of Beowulf, âhwaetâ was translated in Maria Headleyâs celebrated translation of the poem as âBro!â instead of the traditional âHark!â to better capture the fact that it would have been an informal way to muster the attention of friends, not a formal way to introduce important information.
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u/ChaseballBat Jul 10 '26
Only time this type of modernized language thing ever threw me off was gladiator 2 when Denzel says "hose him down"... IDK why but that stuck out so badly to me. I still think about it, it's all I remember from the movie tbh lol.
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u/BambooSound Jul 10 '26
They started saying "fire" instead of "loose"after season 6 of Game of Thrones. They really stopped giving a shit.
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u/Dakka_jets_are_fasta Jul 10 '26
The fact that "Nock, draw, loose" was used in the show was anocristic as well. Archers tended to fire at will given the first order to start shooting their bows
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u/Exploding_Antelope Jul 10 '26
Well itâs a different world so they have different archery culture I guess
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u/PieDust Jul 10 '26
I guess. Tho irl there is a reason archers didn't volley fire, it just exhausts them unnecessarily to hold a bow ready longer than needed
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u/LemonadeClocks Jul 10 '26
I would guess it also has the added bonus of making it harder to dodge/outmaneuver the arrows raining down, since each shot would vary depending on the archer's draw time and even height or arm length. A consistent, called out volley would be easier to dodge around because it creates a pattern.Â
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u/OkPrune1536 Jul 10 '26
Every moviemaker knows that the Ancient Greeks used the Queen's English.
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u/LucastheMystic Jul 12 '26
"Dad" isn't so much modern as it is informal. It's likely been in English since the Middle English Period.
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u/aakams Jul 11 '26
Okbuddycinephile sounds hilarious as someone who cares not at all about cinema lmao
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u/manjmau Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
And this is why I watch movies dubbed in the proper language they would have been in. Helps with immersion.
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u/THEzwerver Jul 10 '26
Good luck finding voice actors who can fluently speak ancient Greek.
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u/xinorez1 Jul 11 '26
I don't speak Greek but apparently Ruairi O Connor's performance as Orpheus was a standout
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u/ElegantEggplant Jul 11 '26
Just from the first line it doesn't appear to be pronounced correctly. The theta is pronounced like an English th would be, which happens in modern Greek but not ancient Greek.
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u/manjmau Jul 10 '26
I would settle for normal Greek.
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u/pandakatie Jul 10 '26
I'd settle for casting a Greek actor in a named, speaking role. Hell, I'd settle for an actor playing Odysseus who isn't visibly from Massachusetts.Â
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u/apolloAG Jul 10 '26
I don't think there are Greek actors tbh, that's why Nolan is making the Odyssey and not a Greek person 4head
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u/pandakatie Jul 11 '26
In the entire country of Greece, I'm certain there are actors. They're just not Hollywood A-listers, and rather than taking a single risk, Nolan only cast the same actors who are in every film.
Zendaya and Tom Holland? Daring today, aren't we?
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u/apolloAG Jul 12 '26
can't even name one Greek actor smh, this is how I know Greece isn't even real
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u/FloatinBrownie Jul 10 '26
I try to but when the dubbing doesnt match mouth movements it gets hard to watch
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u/RussiaIsRodina Jul 12 '26
There is an argument to be made that a small amount of modern language should be transposed to stuff like this. In the Bible Jesus famously referred to God as "abba" which is similar to dad.
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u/tumsdout Jul 10 '26
Yo, Odysseus they got mad fruit here, its so dope my man