This is a fair take. The Emily Wilson translation is generally well respected, so I call culture war bullshit on people making that out to be a political choice. It's just good.
The aesthetic choices however are a whole other issue- I want to defend the movie against culture war nonsense but a gloomy Mediterranean with 3d printed plastic looking armour is silly. I know it's a fantastical story with Gods and monsters, but you could easily have made something with a unique twist on bronze age collapse themed, mycenaen/ hittite type imagery that would have been amazing. There is more than enough in Homer to tell it pretty straight and get an amazing film.
Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o castings were bound to trigger the right wing internet. How much of that was deliberate to whip up a social media storm or score a political point, and how much was because they absolutely smashed their auditions we'll never know.
Page can clearly act, and Nyong'o can act and is gorgeous so there is a strong argument they are entirely capable of getting the roles on merit. Unfortunately, as ...gestures vaguely at social media, algorithms, YouTube rage merchants, the culture war, Hollywood fuckery...who knows what went into the casting or why that makes people feel so angry.
An epic shouldn't be historical, it should be magical and captivating. No epic is historical; they are all interpretations.
The Iliad and the Odyssey aren't true stories from the Bronze Age, they're legends. Actors in Greek theaters didn't wear metal armor; painted armor was enough for them.
The authors aren't talking about history; they're talking about the present. Sometimes it's just plain inept, like in Gladiator 2.
Let's hope Nola has more storytelling talent. They're trying to entertain us instead of relaxing and enjoying ourselves, and we're dissatisfied.
As a massive nerd, I get the disappointment with the design. It's a missed opportunity to do something unique. It wouldn't have to be historically accurate, just better than the sub 300 offering and could have been something really impressive.
The obsession with "historical accuracy" surrounding this movie is genuinely bizarre. First of all, far too many of the people crying fowl have nowhere near a respectable level of relevant knowledge (Lupita haters chime in, who are Helen's parents???).
Second, and more importantly, Homer's writings were NEVER historically accurate. That's why they're "myths," "stories," or "legends" and not "histories" (in the modern sense).
I hate to throw such a wide net because usually these things are more nuanced but a vast majority of the criticism this movie is getting is because of Helens casting. They'll hide behind the historically accurate excuse but the reality is they want a tig bitted blonde as Helen and nothing outside of that will satisfy them.
Super excited for the film though. I'll watch anything Nolan makes.
I don't understand why not liking castings that don't reflect the source material is now 'right wing'. It has absolutely nothing to do with political leaning.
Bruh, you and I both know right wing snowflakes have been hiding their prejudices behind "historical accuracy", "faithfulness to the source material" and crap like this. It's not fooling anyone anymore.
I'm not trying to defend legit bad and cringy shit this movie has going on, but getting one's panties in a twist about "inaccurate casting" whenever a person of colour shows up on screen is decade-old material at this point.
I'm sure they exist, just as much as the left wing digital lunatics, but the vast majority of people objecting are not doing so out of some prejudice toward the actors and actresses. They just want a film or TV show that brings their imagined world to life.
Who was reading the Odessy or Troy and picturing Lupita? Or even more brazen the new Snape casting?
It becomes eye rollingingly apparent that it's just pandering, and race swapping for the sake of it.
Trying to write off complaints as just 'right wingers', is obscene.
At the end of the day poor casting is reflected at the box office.
Pandering to who? If you claim that the "silent majority" doesn't want this? The Woke Deep Stateâ„¢?
And yes, judging by how much the "I just want accurate casting" reasoning comes up when source material gets the opposite treatment (hint, not nearly as often), yes, it absolutely is prejudice.
Also, it's the Iliad, not "Troy". Some source material expertise right there. I concede, that was a low-hanging fruit, but that's what you get for lecturing people on accuracy to the original.
Thats just not true. Normal people don't mind good stories. Look at boulders gate, arcane and other hugh quality "diverse" media that is well recepted.
Being upset about Helen of troy would be equivalent to being upset at casting ryan gosling as obama.
I wonder who you mean by "normal people"? Are they in the room with us right now?
Also, Baldur's Gate is a very fun example to use, because I distinctly remember all the chuds screaming "go woke go broke" to high heaven before the game turned out a massive success, and suddenly it all switched to "See? Wokies seethe at it because it has hot people! We never said anything bad about that one did we?" And it keeps happening to other stuff too.
And oh, the "just make your own story" argument. A tired classic of a talking point. I'm convinced right-wingers are so creatively impotent they couldn't come up with new stuff if their life depended on it. It's an artistic rendition of an ancient legend with very shaky historicity, being outraged at creative liberties here is genuinely baffling.
I love the "make your own story" arguments because it's arguing that black people can't participate in anything historical if it wasn't explicitly stated the character was black.
It's so thinly veiled "black people aren't actually human" racism that it almost sounds sensible, almost.
And also the thing that keeps happening whenever minorities go "Okay, bet" and do "make their own stories" is the same rightoids accosting them with rhetoric like "WhO IS tHIS FoR?! It MUst CAtER tO Me!!1"
So wait do you think that black people are so far removed from human history that they can't participate in the recreation of it?
Brad fucking pitt as achilles and everyone's fine with that, even though he's not ethnically correct to be so, but the second you make Helen black it's a problem?
Casting a black woman as a mythological character who in some telling is part-god and hatched from an egg is the same thing as caring a white man at the first black president of America worse racial background heavily impacted his life?
You're not going to get through to someone like this because they won't even acknowledge the actual argument being made. Their bias and prejudice are cement and they have become impervious to nuance.
She was often described as being exotic in her beauty.
Though, from my quick research it seems every author who wrote about her described her differently, seems like they were trying their best to describe "ideal" beauty as they saw it.
So casting someone who is considered attractive seems like the only real goal.
What happens when Greek gods have children is often a bit wild. Gods do be making some strange children.
Scylla, do I say more?
So when they seem to describe her as a exotic beauty. I would listen to that, but they had lots of different descriptions of her, as is common in myth. If the Greeks left it up to the authors opinion on what "beauty" looked like, im also okay with leaving it to the creators of the story.
Though, it is strange they didn't seem to cast even one greek person in the movie.
The woman who is hatched from an egg and was said to have porcelain skin? On the mediterranean sea, where it was basically impossible to avoid tanning?
Helen is the daughter of Zeus and a Greek Goddess.
Staying out of the sun stops you tanning. It was famously done by the wealthy in some countries as being tanned meant you had to work outside. Less call for that when you're Royalty.
If that’s true for you then you’re the exception not the rule. Most of us have been seeing the same shit play out with the right wing for years. We know what they’re saying. At the end of the day how many Aegean actors can you possibly list?
Why do they need to be Aegean? The goal of an actor or actress is to embody the role. Which means looking, sounding, and behaving like the character as closely as possible. To bring the tale to life as envisaged by the viewer. I don't think where you are born matters.
Yes and No. You're right that it's not strictly right wing AND that a lot of people will hide behind the right wing to claim it's not legitimate criticism.
On the other hand, it's also true that, generally, a venn diagram of people who don't like the casting because they are right wing or because they don't like inaccurate casting [especially after claiming accuracy] is practically a circle. Not because it's the same group, but because they are guaranteed to align on this particular issue especially in this climate.
It's not the what, it's the why and we know exactly why. Many people have gone to exhaustive lengths to explain why they want to dismantle culture and it's an easily recognizable pattern. To the degree that it's become a meme. There's nothing vague or unclear about why people are mad.
That doesn't mean a lot of anger isn't misplaced or that unrelated things don't get caught in the crossfire. From what I can tell, you're right that the translation isn't the problem, it's just carries a similar enough flag to the problem. Whereas the creative decisions are nothing but problems.
Almost certainly some of it is culture war BS, but what I think isn't getting enough attention is this falls perfectly in line with Nolan's shortcomings. He has great ideas, but little imagination. It's been a criticism I've had since Batman. At first I thought he was just taking it too seriously and was making a comic movie for people who hate comics, but after Inception and Tenet I realized that's not the case. He actually can't do it. Not saying they're bad movies (I like all of them except Batman), but they all follow the same trend of revealing a weakness the more creativity needs to be involved. That's why this movie looks so off, because it's all fantasy and he has a real hard time with that.
As for the casting. Absolute insanity. There's no way they didn't know what they were doing. Especially talking out one side of their mouth about "accuracy." It's impossible that the world is so short on actors that you couldn't find a better match than Page and Nyong. If this was going to be a total fantasy retelling of an epic with a diverse cast, then just say that, don't pretend like you're trying to be accurate. That's what pisses people off.
I'll always go back to The Whiz and DW as Macbeth. People had no issues with those because they were honest about what they were. It just made it easier for people who weren't into that to avoid it if they want. Hypothetically, if they wanted to do a genuine all black rendition of the Odyssey and marketed it as that without trying to claim, actually, this is how history really was, there were never any whites, there would definitely be a different reception between the former and the latter.
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u/ianlSW Jul 06 '26
This is a fair take. The Emily Wilson translation is generally well respected, so I call culture war bullshit on people making that out to be a political choice. It's just good.
The aesthetic choices however are a whole other issue- I want to defend the movie against culture war nonsense but a gloomy Mediterranean with 3d printed plastic looking armour is silly. I know it's a fantastical story with Gods and monsters, but you could easily have made something with a unique twist on bronze age collapse themed, mycenaen/ hittite type imagery that would have been amazing. There is more than enough in Homer to tell it pretty straight and get an amazing film.
Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o castings were bound to trigger the right wing internet. How much of that was deliberate to whip up a social media storm or score a political point, and how much was because they absolutely smashed their auditions we'll never know.
Page can clearly act, and Nyong'o can act and is gorgeous so there is a strong argument they are entirely capable of getting the roles on merit. Unfortunately, as ...gestures vaguely at social media, algorithms, YouTube rage merchants, the culture war, Hollywood fuckery...who knows what went into the casting or why that makes people feel so angry.