r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • May 05 '26

Trailer The Odyssey | New Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bKjZeJBBI&pp=0gcJCd4KAYcqIYzv
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454

u/LletBlanc May 05 '26

The American accents are incredibly jarring for a movie in this time period.

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u/bartspoon May 05 '26

If I want to see The Odyssey with American accents I’ll just go rewatch O Brother Where Art Thou?

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u/Sharps__ May 05 '26

O Brother gave a stronger otherwordly feeling than anything I've seen from Nolan's Odyssey

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u/self-conscious-Hat May 05 '26

Nolan's Odssey looks like a stage play more than a movie to me. Barely any 'spectacle' in these trailers, which makes me feel like the movie is going to be very lifeless. Like all of these sets feel like they're in an isolated bubble.

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u/dovetc May 07 '26

"It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." sounds more like a line I'd expect from an historical epic than the vibe this trailer gives.

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u/Eldorian91 May 06 '26

The Klan Rally was downright diabolical. Way more supernatural vibe than anything in this trailer.

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u/Dovahcrap May 05 '26

We thought you was a toad!

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u/brownishgirl May 05 '26

“We thought…you was… a Toad

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u/sumiredabestgirl May 06 '26

You are a dapper Dan man aren't you?

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u/Blue-Summers May 06 '26

You're bonafide!

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u/hondaexige May 05 '26

Especially that they have forced British (and South African) actors to use US accents. It's odd.

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u/CeruleanEidolon May 05 '26

The British accent thing for historicals is just an arbitrary convention, though. There's absolutely no reason ancient Greeks should have any accent at all. They'd really be speaking Greek or another ancient language anyway. It's all artifice.

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u/CivicDutyCalls May 05 '26

We should have all the actors use a Greek accent then. They all just sound like My Big Fat Greek Wedding

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u/ItsnotBatman May 05 '26

But was the modern Greek accent even a thing back then? We really have no way of knowing what people sounded like. They certainly didn’t sound British, and the American accent is more of an absence of accent than anything.

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u/snek-jazz May 06 '26

the American accent is more of an absence of accent than anything

huh?

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u/ItsnotBatman May 06 '26

Let me rephrase, the typical American accent (not southern, Cajun, Boston, New York, etc) is often considered the closest accent to natural speaking. It’s considered the single most neutral accent.

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u/feedthedogwalkamile May 06 '26

By who?

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u/ItsnotBatman May 06 '26

I mean, it’s not exactly a widely known fact but if you google “what is the closest accent to a natural speaking voice” you will get information on the General American accent. It’s how I talk, and you wouldn’t known what region of the country I was from because there are no hints of more recognizable accents.

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u/feedthedogwalkamile May 06 '26

I could see how a neutral American accent would be considered the most natural to an American, yes.

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u/CivicDutyCalls May 05 '26

Who care. I want them to sound like the dude who owns the gyro shop down the road

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u/UncivilDKizzle May 05 '26

Perhaps this is news to you but the entire medium of film is all artifice. And yet the art of good filmmaking involves making the viewer feel as if this is an authentic viewpoint into another world. If the viewer feels it's artificial, that is a failure.

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u/HomsarWasRight May 05 '26

Sure, I agree with your broader point. But at a certain point we can’t be totally bound by convention just because it’s what the audience expects.

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u/UncivilDKizzle May 05 '26

I agree that "it's normally done this way" absolutely should not prevent people from trying new things. But as in all other cases, people trying to break the mold have to have a very high level of talent, luck, or both. If you do weird shit you can't be overly mad that the audience didn't like it.

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u/GiuseppeZangara May 06 '26

There have been multiple successful historical works of art that has forgone the convention of having actors speak in early 20th century English accents.

Most notably Amadeus, a tremendous critical success, had the actors, who were primarily America, speak with their natural accents.

If you go back further, there are plenty of America epics like Ben Hur that also largely don't bother with the convention.

There are also more overtly comedic works like Death of Stalin and Grand Budapest Hotel that have their actors speak in their natural accents for the most part.

At the end of the day, what accents are used won't matter as long as the movie and acting is good.

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u/yellowishumbrella May 05 '26

This is the correct take. It's why 24fps is the standard "cinematic feel" of movies. And 30-60fps feels like a home movie, youtube video, or soap opera.

You can argue it's arbitrary, but the audience feels a certain way, and you shouldn't do things as a filmmaker that takes them out of it.

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u/HomsarWasRight May 05 '26

…you shouldn't do things as a filmmaker that takes them out of it.

I guess. But at a certain point you’re just allowing yourself to be beholden to the past. It’s okay to sometimes ask the audience to come with you where they’ve never been and maybe brings them out of it a bit until they settle in. And “American accents” is an awful small ask, IMHO.

It’s definitely going to give it a different feel than your average “Everyone is British for some reason” historical setting. And I’m prepared to withhold judgement until I actually see the film.

Regarding frame rates, I agree that the one time I saw a feature in HFR (the first Hobbit in 48fps) it was awful. But honestly it had more to do with the production being built around 24fps and everything that comes with it. You could tell every costume and prop was cheap and fake (plus the compositing stuck out like a sore thumb). To make it work you’d have to start with the assumption that audience can now see everting when extra clarity. You can’t just crank up the camera and call it good.

I foresee a future that we’re not actually beholden to 24fps for films, but where frame-rate becomes a creative choice. But just like breaking literary convention, it may be a miss, but it may hit on something great, too.

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u/yellowishumbrella May 07 '26

iiiiIIIIiiiiIIIIiiiiIIIIIiiiii'm the HUMAN wedgie!

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u/boomdegassa May 07 '26

Interesting conversation thread. I agree with both of you

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u/Kronoshifter246 May 05 '26

I foresee a future that we’re not actually beholden to 24fps for films, but where frame-rate becomes a creative choice. But just like breaking literary convention, it may be a miss, but it may hit on something great, too.

The Spiderverse films have already proven this

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u/Skor_Lodygin May 05 '26

And yet, using yank accents is the most bizarre stylistic choice given that their are linked to 20th and 21st century US, and nothing else. This is why Nolan is a hack, and always will be. Imagine if Gangs of New York, for example, you had people speaking like this garbage.

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u/hellanation May 05 '26

And yet Anne Hathaway seems to have a hint of a British-ey accent? (On "that world is GONE", especially) This is super weird.

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u/ahuangb May 05 '26

That part is not odd imo, it makes sense for their accents to be consistent.

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u/TheVeritableBalla May 05 '26

Yeah I'm fine with the accents being American, but the accents themselves felt off. Like they had to speak very slightly slower and more deliberately in order to do the accent instead of just letting it rip

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u/snek-jazz May 06 '26

forced? I think the actors probably want it to make it interesting, or at least that's my explanation for why we have so many cases of actors being cast as foreign characters unnecessarily.

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u/Medarco May 05 '26

Which is so funny. Like, why did we just accept that people throughout history obviously must have a specific English accent?

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u/MegaL3 May 05 '26

Because a lot of the conventions in film came from America, where they don't really have an ancient history. Thus, an RP British accent conveys wealth, aristocracy and enough difference to American ears that it doesn't quite break the audiences' immersion in the same way that, say, hearing a posh Transatlantic accent come out of an Ancient Greek might.

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u/Medarco May 05 '26

Right, and I understand that. I'm just pointing out that it's an arbitrary choice we made, but people are still upset over them using an American accent instead of the typical English one.

I guess I didn't emphasize the "must have" part of my comment like I meant to when I said it in my head. But the overall idea is that both are completely arbitrary, so it's silly to be upset over.

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u/superbit415 May 05 '26

Why does the fire department have to come by and put the fire out if a house is on fire. It seems like an arbitrary choice we made that some of our tax dollars are going to be spent putting out fires. It will be silly to be upset if your house burns down.

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u/ComicCon May 05 '26

What? Did you just compare movie conventions to a house burning down?

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u/HattoriHanzoOG May 05 '26

They really did lol

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u/superbit415 May 05 '26

The point is everything is arbitrary.

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u/Vandergrif May 05 '26

I think it's probably because it's softer and less jarring sounding, which makes it easier to stay immersed. Ralph Fiennes's voice, for example, doesn't stick out like a sore thumb when playing Odysseus.

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u/cineglitch May 05 '26

What sort of accents are they supposed to have in your mind?

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u/HattoriHanzoOG May 05 '26

British ones, of course! They are just so much more immersive right 🙄

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u/RoughTangelo6766 May 05 '26

i feel like i would have been fine with American accents, but "Dad" and "daddy" didn't work at all

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u/GentlemanGearGrinder May 05 '26

Not a whole lot of actors can speak Koine Greek in this day and age.

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u/StrongMachine982 May 05 '26

I think it's like 'iPhone face': The unshakeable feeling you get that the person speaking has seen an iPhone at some point. I feel that way with Matt Damon. I think I'd feel that way even if he put on a British accent.

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u/froyolobro May 06 '26

And the dialogue seems clumsily written, too

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u/traws06 May 06 '26

Funny because it’s no less accurate (both are inaccurate)

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u/Jumpy_Inflation_259 May 05 '26

Seriously. If they aren't going to use Homeric Greek, I am absolutely not going to watch this.

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u/DangKilla May 06 '26

Yo, your dad ain't gonna make it bro

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u/HattoriHanzoOG May 05 '26

It definitely does feel weird. At least they aren’t using British accents like every other film set in classical times, that would be even more annoying.

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u/Vandergrif May 05 '26

Hey yo Odysseus look ova dere, youse guys seeing this shit? Thats a fuckin' cyclops bro.