The Odyssey

Chengdu's best IMAX theater is probably the CFG IMAX at the Global Center. I saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day there. The color and picture quality really are as good as people online say, but the ticket cost 90 yuan. And that was the Xianyu reseller price. Bought directly on Maoyan or Taopiaopiao, it would have been 120.

Before The Odyssey, I'd planned on going to the Global Center too, but starting last week, every center seat for every showing in the coming week was sold out. I figured, "If I can't get a good seat, I won't go," and as of Monday morning I had no plans to see it.

Yesterday it poured in Chengdu. In the afternoon I was tossing and turning at home, and suddenly felt I had to see The Odyssey today, so I went online to look for a good showing.

After searching around, I found that all of Chengdu's second-generation IMAX theaters were full. So I turned to third-generation IMAX. Luckily there was a decent one near my home, with exactly one core seat left at 19:30 and a price of 69 yuan, almost half what second-generation IMAX costs.

I didn't buy right away. I asked a few resellers on Xianyu. The first quoted 55 yuan, which I wasn't happy with. The second quoted 39.9, which was more like it. That's almost 50% off the original price. These days, even a regular theater for something like Welcome to the Dragon Restaurant costs thirty yuan at full price.

So I paid 39.9 yuan for a core seat in third-generation IMAX and went to see The Odyssey.

Afterward I suddenly understood something: movie tickets have diminishing marginal utility too.

This third-generation IMAX theater gave me a great experience.

In picture quality, it's not as sharp as second-generation IMAX.

But it only cost 39.9.

In color, it's not as clear and vivid as second-generation IMAX.

But it only cost 39.9.

It also has a bigger screen than second-generation IMAX and sound I could barely tell apart, for 25% of the price.

Chengdu has no 1.43:1 screen, the one best suited to The Odyssey. Given that, third-generation IMAX is a great value: pay several times more, and the improvement you get is limited.

Our senses have a ceiling for stimulation. You might think a better theater is more thrilling, but both theaters may already take you to the peak. You just paid more, so psychologically it feels better.

So if your city doesn't have a 1.43:1 screen, third-generation IMAX is completely worth choosing.

The Three Things That Moved Me Most About The Odyssey

1. A Groundbreaking Viewing Experience

After The Odyssey, I suddenly understood why Avatar made so much at the box office in 2009: the sensory experience it gave people was groundbreaking.

The Odyssey did the same for me. Ten years ago, my idea of a cinema was a big screen and a great atmosphere. Five years ago, it was a big screen and great sound, with outstanding sight and sound.

Until yesterday, when The Odyssey upgraded my understanding again. It made me forget the theater's hardware existed and sink completely into the film, and for the first time I felt like I was really there. Nolan's camera is grand and sweeping, and the score flows smoothly, steadily stirring my emotions. In the tense moments, the shaking and in-your-face shots left me breathless. In the scene where Odysseus and the last of his crew leave Athena's island and get hit by lightning at sea, I honestly felt like I was on that ship!!!

The Odyssey gave me a sight-and-sound experience like nothing before. For the first time I got it: this is what going to a movie theater is for. It's so good. It's also the loudest movie I've ever seen. At first I even found it noisy, but once I got used to it I realized the design was there to set up the sharp snap at the end when Odysseus strings and plucks his bow. Amazing!!

2. The Epiphany of Surrendering to Fate

The first moment in the film that gave me an epiphany is when Odysseus has spent seven years on Calypso's island. As he leaves, Calypso stands in the wind and says something that still rings in my ears:

"You're a man who always wants to control his own fate, but you can't. You have to submit to the storm, submit to Poseidon. Accept your punishment and stop fighting fate. Stop trying to control it, and live."

"Give up the fight, give up the control, then you begin to live."

When Odysseus set out from Troy, he had several sturdy warships and countless brave warriors, but none of it helped him get home.

In the end, he's adrift, lying on a wretched raft, just lying there, who knows what he's thinking. He lets the waves smash the raft and toss his body, lets the seawater soak his clothes and fill his nose.

The gods are the highest will in this world. Since this is the gods' punishment, he stops fighting, because the ending is already written: Poseidon can punish him but can't take his life. Odysseus will get home in the end. The price is just too great.

This part struck me hard. The gods in Greek stories are fully rounded figures, each with a distinct personality, clear loves and hates, and yet they follow rules. If Poseidon hadn't cursed Odysseus, he'd have been home long ago. The Cyclops eats only two men a day, not one more. If the last of the crew hadn't eaten Athena's sacred cattle, maybe they wouldn't have died.

But where are the gods in the real world? If the gods are something humanity's free will created, then heaven and earth, the universe itself, are the gods of the real world. It's just not as easy to understand as Zeus. It's vast and mysterious.

Odysseus drifting at sea is him following the universe's arrangement. A person can fight fate, but can't go against the will of the universe. If fate is already set, then all the suffering he goes through along the way is fated too.

3. The Epic Feel of Resisting Fate

I won't get into how Nolan understood and adapted the original here. I'll just talk about what's on screen.

Here's how Nolan builds Odysseus. He's a hunter, but whenever he sees prey, he plucks his bowstring once, to tell it "you've been marked." In his eyes, the hunt only truly starts when the prey is startled and runs.

In short, in a one-on-one, Odysseus values fairness and chivalry. Just like Ma Baoguo, the viral martial arts master, said: "Sneak attacks aren't ethical. No martial virtue. Young man, I'd advise you to watch yourself."

And yet this same Odysseus, who warns even a sheep before killing it, wins by surprise with the Trojan Horse and takes the impregnable city of Troy.

It seems to show Odysseus's cleverness, but it actually goes against the humanity Nolan gave him.

That's why a lot of people say Odysseus's punishment began the moment he slid down the horse's rope.

I think that's right. Nolan uses the character of Odysseus to say a lot of things.

Boiled down, it comes to one line: Odysseus wanted to defy the will of the gods and fate and lead his men home, but in the end he compromised, and he failed. His fate was written in one sentence: he alone would make it home.

Then, at the end of the film, after a stretch that feels a bit like a fantasy novel, Odysseus survives, and he and his wife, Penelope, sail off to the far west.

This part is epic and deeply romantic.

It closes with a stirring line as the title The Odyssey appears, and it lingers long afterward.

Those are the three things that moved me most about The Odyssey.

Three Things I Wish Had Been Different

1. Helen's Look

Before the movie, I'd heard that Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world in Greek myth, is played by a Black actress. The legend says she was famous for her beauty as a girl, and a thousand ships sailed toward her to win her.

At first I thought that sounded a bit over the top. After Snow White, there's nothing I can't accept anymore.

But when I actually saw Helen in the movie, I still nearly didn't believe my eyes. The actress's skin tone isn't the issue. The issue is why Nolan gave her that makeup.

I remember this actress played a Wakandan technician in Marvel's Black Panther. If she'd appeared like that, I could have accepted it. But this somewhat creepy makeup, I can't understand.

2. A Climax That Feels Too Much Like a Crowd-Pleaser

The film's last big scene makes The Odyssey carry the label of a crowd-pleaser, whether it likes it or not.

Penelope gathers all the suitors and has them string Odysseus's bow one by one. Whoever can string it and shoot a perfect arrow, she'll marry.

None of the three hundred suitors manages it. After they all fail, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, steps out, dusty from the road, and says: "I'd like to try."

Amid everyone's laughter, he strings the bow with ease and plucks it once. It's a message to all the suitors: the hunt has begun. And the prey is everyone in the room.

It's a classic Chinese fantasy-novel trope, playing the underdog to take down the arrogant: first everyone looks down on you, then you casually slap them in the face, then comes a Hollywood-style massacre, and finally you win.

It's a thrill to watch, but it's a bit disconnected from the rest of the film. I can't say it's bad. It just feels odd.

3. The Dropped Cyclops Scene

Last is the part of the whole film I regret most.¹ I think this scene matters, but Nolan chose to cut it. Of course, regretting it doesn't mean it had to be filmed.

In the original, before Odysseus escapes the Cyclops's cave, he plays a little trick.

After the Cyclops is blinded, the other Cyclopes come to the cave mouth and ask why he's shouting in the middle of the night. In agony, he answers: "Friends, 'Nobody' is killing me with tricks."

"Nobody" is the name Odysseus gave the Cyclops earlier.

Later, Odysseus escapes the cave by clinging to the sheep. Back on his ship, he starts taunting the Cyclops.

The crew tries to stop him: "Reckless man, why would you provoke this savage? A moment ago he hurled a boulder into the sea that nearly pushed our ship back to shore, and we thought we were dead. If he hears anyone speak again, he'll throw a rock that smashes our heads and our ship."

Facing his comrades' warning, Odysseus thinks: "They talk like this, but they couldn't persuade my proud heart."

So he turns and, full of rage, calls out to the Cyclops: "Cyclops, if any mortal ever asks who put out your eye in this shameful blindness, tell him: Odysseus, sacker of cities, blinded you,
son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca."

This act directly causes the tragedy of his years of wandering before he gets home.

Then the Cyclops prays to his father, Poseidon, god of the sea:

"Hear me, Poseidon, earth-embracer, dark-haired god!
If I am truly your son, and you claim to be my father,
grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, never reaches his home,
that son of Laertes who lives in Ithaca.
But if it is fated that he will see his friends again
and return to his sturdy house and his own country,
then let him come late, in misery,
with all his companions lost, on a stranger's ship,
and let him find trouble in his house."

In The Odyssey, this passage is crucial to shaping Odysseus. Outwitting the Cyclops shows his cleverness, and the shout across the sea makes him layered and complicated: clever, cunning, brave, proud, and hungry for recognition.

Everything he goes through afterward comes from that complexity.

In Nolan's story, Odysseus is complicated too, but the complexity comes from his thinking about civilization and war, an expression rooted in realism rather than the more classical one of the original.

I feel the loss simply because I didn't get to see the Odysseus in my head.

Conclusion

I recommend seeing The Odyssey in a theater. This is a movie made for the cinema.

Footnotes

1. Well, after seeing Helen, there's nothing I can't accept anymore. ↩