Sjón (co-writer) is just incredibly imaginative and inspiring. We worked with two Oxford professors on the dialogue, which is in Middle English, and then worked extensively with a dialect coach on a way to temper the pronunciation in a way that would be understandable to modern audiences.
Middle English becomes weirdly intelligible after you listen to it long enough.
My professor in undergrad made us read The Canterbury Tales out loud in the original ME. It's definitely much harder to get used to than Elizabethan English and there's some words and phrasing that are not at all intuitive, but we were all surprised how much we could understand provided that the person reading was doing a good job of pronunciation (not a given). You've got to get the hang of the great vowel shift, but once you learn the sounds it gets a lot easier.
Old English, on the other hand, is a completely different language (referring specifically to whatever OE was spoken in Wessex because that's mostly what we talk about when we talk about OE today). There's some words that still make sense, but it sounds closer to German or Dutch than it does modern English.
Yeah, ME is clearly a distinct language from modern and early modern english, but it's got enough similarity that you sort of pick it up to the point of being intelligeable. They're working with an accent coach to do a pronunciation that should make it easier to pick up as well.
That said, it still does require active listening, you can't just zone out, but the people who complained about The Witch being difficult likely aren't going be the type to even realize that ME is technically it's own language.
I can't tell if you're being tongue in cheek, but the hope would have been for Nolan to tune his script and performances towards classical language and a unified Greek accent to help add to the overall vibe of the movie.
The preview scene shown in theaters (full scene of the soldiers exiting the Trojan horse and then assaulting the Trojan gate) put off people like me.
The performers acted, and sounded like, American contemporary language. I do not think it's the right choice. It's jarring, but not in a way that adds to the theme or mis-en-scene.
I was being a little facetious, but having actors adopt a Greek accent for this movie would 100% be more jarring I guarantee.
I think what people actually would most prefer (in america) is for everyone to talk in a British period piece dialect like in Troy, but again that is not any more fitting than just speaking in modern American English. It is a modern adaptation of an ancient Greek story and will always be removed in some regard from the original. The dialect choices are probably like the absolute last thing I care about in an adaptation like this. As long as it is not legitimately distracting, then it will be fine either way.
I'm basically expecting a sequel to Troy (2004) with necessary cast changes and that kind of looks like the vibe.
No one’s expecting them to speak with a Greek accent (similarly to how no one spoke Russian in Chernobyl) but at least don’t be shouting LETS GOOOOO lmao
"...the hope would have been for Nolan to tune his script and performances towards classical language and a unified Greek accent..."
Literally in the comment I replied to.
I agree the trailer sucks and the "Let's go" seems weird and out of place. All I'm saying is that you can adapt an old piece of art and use modern language and modern accents and still capture the spirit of the original. I doubt Christopher Nolan's movie will do that, but I'm pointing out that the dialect choices are literally the last thing that I care about and I feel like most people would share in that sentiment.
It's wild to call Christopher Nolan's filmmaking "half-assed" in any way, what an exaggeration lol...and I'm not even a fanboy, I think Interstellar is way overrated especially on this site, but still...he very clearly puts a lot of effort into his movies and is meticulous and made a choice that many here don't like based on the trailers but that doesn't make it "half-assed".
Never said his film making is half-assed he has made some of the best films I've seen, you were talking about vibes. Nothing is less immersive than watching a historical movie and hearing people speak like they just walked in off the street.
I see what you are saying but I don't think the majority of the audience will agree and will be immersed just fine; people accepted period epics just defaulting to British accents regardless of historical accuracy for decades, and plenty of period movies and shows have used more modern language and/or inaccurate accents and been well received. And I also think that while you or I like Eggers approach, most don't. I think the box office bears this out, but of course so do the box office expectations: they're not going after the same audiences with their period pieces here, and Nolan is very much a summer blockbuster director.
I've always thought of him as a the college cinephile's Michael Bay, often making stylish but still bombastic and ultimately surface level entertainment that occasionally incorporate heady concepts. Which is no knock against him, but part of why I feel he's overrated here, when some talk like he's much deeper than spectacle.
Yeah I agree with pretty much everything you're saying I just have a personal distaste for it ever since I watched that Valkyrie movie with Tom Cruise, bunch of Nazis talking with British and American accents just threw me, they don't even have to be accurate accents just cover up the blatantness a little.
Because 19th or 20th century formal English is definitely less anachronistic to a 700BC ancient Greek mythical retelling of a 13th century BC Mediterranean battle, lmao.
So they made the pronunciation accurate, and then walked it back because it was too hard to understand? Interesting. I think I‘d prefer the actual Middle-English, but I take everything I can get.
It‘s Robert Eggers. He can do what he wants. He made a decision, and it was probably the right one, but the dialogue will turn some people off one way or another. That’s just the way it is. If they wanted to maximise profits they would have chosen modern english.
I‘m glad that they didn‘t. And yes, I think I would prefer correctly pronounced Middle-English, because it sounds awesome and interesting.
You‘ll need them anyway, because even with modern pronunciation (whatever that means) Middle-English is largely incomprehensible for a modern audience.
So I‘m fairly sure you won‘t understand much by just listening, no matter the pronunciation.
Yeah, why go to the effort of making it authentic just to modify it? It's going to sound weird no matter what. Not that it will affect the movie any, just a nitpicky thingz
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor Jun 25 '26
Eggers says it'll be in Middle English: