Over the weekend Christopher Nolan‘s latest highly anticipated movie The Odyssey dropped in theaters and IMAX, bringing to life the 3,000-year-old poem of the same name by Homer, chronicling war hero Odysseus’s journey to his home in Ithaca.
The movie was the first to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras, and has since gone on to make $264 million in its opening weekend around the world. And while the film is in many ways loyal to the epic poem by Homer as it sees Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his crew struggle through many challenges and obstacles on their way back from the Trojan War, there were a lot of scenes cut from the original poem too.
In fairness to Nolan, the poem has 24 books within it and over 12,000 lines, so it would be pretty difficult to get every storyline into the movie.
However, from full-on sexual relationships, to even more deaths, here are all the major plot points Christopher Nolan left out of The Odyssey.
The biggest scenes cut from The Odyssey
“Nobody is hurting me”
Odysseus and his crew evading the clutches of the Cyclops does feature in the movie; however, one very key element many fans of the original were hoping to see in the film didn’t actually make it.
In the poem, when speaking with the Cyclops known as Polyphemus (which also doesn’t happen in the movie) Odysseus says his name is “Nobody” and so later on when Odysseus goes to attack Polyphemus, the Cyclops shouts out “Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force” which means none of his Cyclops friends come to his aid. The inclusion of multiple Cyclopses is also omitted from the movie.
Nolan revealed during an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, that he had tried to make the joke work for the film, but the clever pun just fell flat on screen.
“I understand. It’s a pun. Puns in translation are tough. I tried. It was not possible to work in it,” the director explained.
The Laestrygonians
Universal
One of the challenges the crew and Odysseus have in the movie is escaping the Laestrygonians, who look like the Cybermen of Doctor Who, which given the era the movie is set in is slightly confusing. And there’s a reason for this.
These creatures don’t exist in the poem, instead they’re a race of giant cannibals who throw boulders into the sea.
Circe romance
One of the most memorable parts of The Odyssey is the sequence when the sorceress Circe (Samantha Morton) turns Odysseus’ men into pigs. This haunting scene happens in the movie; however, there was a lot of context missing.
In the poem, thanks to taking advice from the god Hermes and consuming the herb of moly, Odysseus is immune to Circe’s powers and instead she falls in love with him. He agrees to stay on her island for a year and they begin a sexual relationship, in exchange for turning his men back to their human form.
And in some translations of the poem, Circe and Odysseus go on to have a number of sons together, too. She is also the one who shared the vital information with him in how to evade his future challenges.
Odysseus’s parents
If you were watching The Odyssey and thinking “where are Odysseus’s parents in all this?” you’d be right to think that way.
In the original poem, Odysseus discovers his mother Anticlea has died when he travels to the underworld and she is one of the figures he meets there.
Laertes is Odysseus’s father who also features in the poem and whom Odysseus has a heartfelt reunion with when he returns to Ithaca.
Universal
The many people in the underworld
Speaking of the underworld, in the poem, not only does Odysseus meet his mother, but he also sees a whole host of figures, including Achilles, Hercules’ mother and wife, Leda—the mother of Helen of Troy, and many others.
Understandably fitting all of these figures into the film could have taken up a very big chunk of time and not added much to the story, apart from his mother Anticlea, which would have been a nice inclusion.
The lotus-eaters
During the scenes with Calypso (Charlize Theron), we discover she has been feeding Odysseus the lotus flowers, which keeps him in a state of confusion. However, in the epic poem, the entire group of Odysseus’s men end up on an island and eat the lotus flowers, causing them to abandon their mission.
Universal
Calypso refusing to let Odysseus go
While in the movie Calypso is somewhat encouraging of Odysseus’s desire to leave the island, and gets him to remember his story in the original poem, it’s a little different.
In the poem, Calypso doesn’t want Odysseus to go and it’s the gods who have to intervene and get her to release Odysseus, with Hermes telling Calypso it’s not Odysseus’ fate to remain with her.
Traveling to Phaeacia
Towards the end of the movie we see Odysseus travel by raft to his home in Ithaca, however, there’s a major storyline that’s actually cut from his return home.
After leaving Calypso in the poem, he travels by raft which is destroyed by Poseidon and he ends up on the island of Phaeacia. It’s on this island he ends up telling the stories of the ordeals he has gone through and they end up helping him home safely to Ithaca.
The 12 handmaids
Universal
After Odysseus and Telemachus have destroyed the majority of the suitors, they then order the 12 handmaids who betrayed the house by sleeping with the suitors to clean up their blood before hanging the 12 women. It’s a gruesome and violent scene that doesn’t make it into the movie. It’s mainly done by Telemachus (played by Tom Holland) and would be quite a departure from his character in the movie.
Instead, it appears Mia Goth’s character Melantho is a symbol for these 12 women, as she betrays Penelope (Anne Hathaway) by forming a romance with Antinous (Robert Pattinson).
The Odyssey is in theaters and IMAX now.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cosmopolitan.com ’
