Idk if this is a hot take but Christopher Nolan simply does not make good movies
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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On hexbear its a common take, in the broad public its lukewarm (3-4 years ago it was probably hot) among certain types it's burning
it used to be more controversial because Nolan put out better movies. He hasn't really put out anything of particular quality since The Prestige or The Dark Knight
Prestige/Memento were good but everything else sucks
You know what, Memento is so good that I always forget it's a Nolan movie lol
it's definitely so early in his career he had not yet flanderized, so it feels fresh. Similar flanderizations happened to Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and Tarantino
He's a technical obsessive who is much more interested in playing with the complex mechanisms of film production and display than he ever has been with more grounded narrative or character.
The only movies he's made with satisfying, interesting, memorable plots and characters - or really any heart at all - are those he co-wrote with his brother. Frankly, my hot take is that Jonathan is the more well rounded and talented creative of the two, despite his work usually recieving less accolades.
Tom Shone wrote a book about Christopher Nolan that called him the "greatest living filmmaker or the Victorian era" in reference to his firmly old school establishment upbringing and existence, as well as some of his anxieties. There was a brilliant analysis of it and Nolan's work in the LA Review of Books that lends a more critical eye to the Victorian cultural influences and imperialist traditions that underpin much of his work, which I think is spot on.
On the one hand, this is going to make the right people very angry
On the other hand, fuck Christopher Nolan
It could be very cool if it was done by someone competent, but when it's done by Nolan it just reeks of 
Yeah, Ryan Coogler could do an amazing version of The Odyssey
coen brothers could do it, as evidenced by O Brother Where Art Thou they are masterful in modern re-interpretation of classics, as well as music. You need a certain level of tongue-in-cheek to pull it off, and a certain level of sincerity to keep it grounded. Nolan has neither, he has cold and 'smart' and nerdy vibes. Which works for Batman (nerd) or movies about obsessive magicians (nerds) better than historical epics or music (cool shit).
I love O Brother Where Art Thou and I think it's a great rework, but it's firmly tongue all the way through cheek partly due to the fact that the Coen's had never actually read The Odyssey and decided to write the script based on what they'd garnered through cultural osmosis mostly.
It has sincerity in its tone, it takes the pain and dilemmas of its characters seriously. It's not a total farce.
I absolutely agree. It's chock full of pathos as well as being wonderfully silly. I think it's really interesting to remake a story - which is often considered a sort of blueprint for almost all storytelling since - that you haven't actually read but instinctively know lots of bits of thanks to it's influence.
The odyssey is a very silly story. It feels very pulpy when compared to the aeneid or the illiad. The tone should match that.
nolan def ain't it for silly
Oh yea I'm 100% aware. The best odyssey adaptation remains the campy-ass 90s miniseries.
Exactly. If this was made by a competent director with a single bone of artistic merit in their body, it would kinda work. But because it's Nolan, I expect Zack Snyder's watchmen 'hallelujah while our actors fuck and brutalize people" levels of music insert
This just seems like a bad idea. But this does actually make me think that a Peter Jackson Odyssey could actually be good. Not just the fact that Tolkien was trying to recreate Ancient and Germanic epic poems, but in the extended editions there were some of Tolkien's songs that were performed. And it really captured the fact that they were songs, but sung by drunk guys in the pub or just a guy passing time while they were nervously waiting for battle. And even professional bards would have been the guy that had a guitar/lute.
Not the stupid analogy of "back in the day this would have been a hot new track. And Homer would have been a famous performer like the currently famous hip-hop artists the youths are into"
The guy whose concerts have a death count that he accepts no responsibility for?
It's a bad sign when your Wikipedia article has a very long Legal Issues section. It's an even worse sign when each of its subheaders have their own complete articles to detail the full extent of the deaths and injuries.
He seems like a nice fella.
Same thing with Chris Brown or Israel. Why is the line for what makes someone not worth engaging with so mobile for what seems like a lot of people?
This is a decades-old bad teacher cliche. “Hey all of you tubular teens, I know Shakespeare seems pretty old and dusty today, but did you know he was a groovy/wicked/based rhyming machine just like all of your favourite cool rockers/rappers? You would say he was good-vibes/totally-radical/good-vibes! Why if he were alive today you’d all be rushing to buy/stream his latest 45/cassette/CD/mp3/vertical-video! Peace/Cowabunga/6-7!”
also reeks of 'hip' youth minister with a guitar vibes. it works on some people though
Honestly if a youth minister flipped a chair around to sit cool style and immediately sat on his balls, I'd respect him
My name is Odysseus and I'm here to say,
I'm gonna sail a boat in an Epic way.
michelle pfeiffer explaining ancients like bob dylan to teens in the 90s: this song is about a drug dealer. you like drug dealers, don't you?
also tambourine man was a 30 years old song at the time so this would be like a teacher today trying to get teens to comprehend ancient music like alanis morisette
Do you know who else let faces pass in a thousand miles? That's right, Odysseus!
lmao this will not be well received by the marble statue pfps
I had zero plans to watch it before I knew this. I still have zero plans to watch it now that I do know this.
Ewww, now I’m not sure excited anymore.
I'm really expecting this to be quite a bad film. Maybe not for the same reasons as the chuds, but still.
It's funny, taking a look at his credits I really do like most of Nolan's movies but I certainly wouldn't consider him to be one of the greats of our time. He's like a self-serious Michael Bay. He makes enjoyable if, on the whole, unremarkable blockbusters. I still haven't seen Tenet. *Oppenheimer *was fine. Interstellar, Memento, and especially The Prestige are quite good, and I'll always have a fondness for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. And I haven't seen Insomnia. So there's only three Nolan movies I actively dislike of those I have seen, Dunkirk, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.
Six out of nine isn't a great score and though on the whole I enjoy Nolan's work he's clearly not the right writer/director for an adaptation of The Odyssey.
Also, I still really need to watch the Uberto Pasolini film The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope, which I've heard is good.
Having recently read the odyssey, I'm amazed this is getting made into a movie. It's a very silly story.
It's apparently part of a 7-part story, but only the odyssey and the illiad has survived to modern day.
Nothing chat gpt can't help correct, I'm sure!
(oh god I bet someone out there actually believes this)
The Odyssey.
The Illiad.
The Idiocy (by ChatGPT).
It's also the direct sequel to the story of Troy which is kinda cool. The main character Odysseus is the guy who designs the Trojan horse.
It was funny that he tried defending Agamemnon looksmaxxing by saying that there are "a few blackened bronze daggers, and they're expensive, so a rich guy would want to show off how alien he is and create distance between him and his men".
...but then nobody is wearing historically accurate armour in the first place, so the "historically plausible" argument is meaningless! They're all in blackened armour, just mudcore style - because he's making a Serious Movie, but historical stories are actually silly, so he has to fix it and give it some goddamn gravitas.
So much weaker than Yoko Taro's "I just like it".
Agamemnons black armor would be cool if he were the only one with that style. It would say a lot about the character if he were running around like some tacticool looksmaxxing operator, while everyone else had rad as fuck colourful equipment. But that wouldn't be cool I guess
Use historically accurate armor.
Wait, this is neither The Onion nor badposting.
:yea:
he rented a minivan?
i'm too principaled to condemn this from the idea but this shit is destined to be grain after grain of dogshit culminating in a despicable heap
The idea is fine if it wasn't Travis "let a bunch of kids die at my concert" Scott and Nolan that were doing it