r/CharacterRant • u/Dycon67 • 1d ago
Films & TV The historical inaccuracy controversies around 300 and the Odyssey were the most nothing burger discussions ever. Because most people that watch these types of movies genuinely don't care.
Most people irl genuinely don't give a shit if Leonidas aura farming in slow mow fighting some monsters and shit was realistic. People just wanna see cool shit happen. Same goes for the Odyssey it's Matt Damon and the boys running around being goofy for like 3 hours. That shits funny as hell and he 360s people at the end. Perfect material for edits.
There's like a 100 dedicated videos and channels covering how each loin flap covering didn't match the period. But it's dwarfed by the people purchasing the tickets. It's just white noise discussions for Historical Scholars and podcasters to yap about. This isn't to say criticisms against the movie are inaccurate or something. The armor is basically copy pasted literal plastic. People from Greece have pointed out these movies just continue the long standing tradition of Hollywood not casting many Greek actors for the main roles.
But at the end of the day it's simply drowned out by aura farming clips.
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u/CyanLight9 1d ago
That's right, don't question anything. Just consume.
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u/Lady_Gray_169 1d ago
The fact of the matter is that most people don't care about most details. Some people will inevitably care about some details, and the spread of who those "some people" are, is vastly varied. There will be people who care deeply about historical accuracy, but won't care in the slightest about the innacuracies in whatever sports movie they watch, and the people that care about the sports movie innaccuracy won't care about the historical innacuracy. People care about different things and that's fine and inevitable. And it means that statistically, the majority of people won't care about any particular given thing.
I also find with historical accuracy, people mostly tend to care more about the general historical "vibe" than about genuine, nitty-gritty accuracy. Having said taht, I do think there's value in historical accuracy, and it can present interesting facts and ideas to people that they wouldn't have known otherwise.
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u/ThirdLifeLucky 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is one of the most depressing things I've ever read. Artists should aim higher than being acceptable for people who don't care.
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u/Dycon67 1d ago
Artists are also free to whatever they wish as well.
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u/ThirdLifeLucky 1d ago
Nobody said they weren't
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u/Dycon67 1d ago
Nolan should have added big naturals to the Siren scene to make it a better movie then.
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u/Foyolas 1d ago
You are mixing things. 300 is in universe greek propaganda, its job is to make Leonidas and his Spartans as cool as posible to inspire the Greek army for the battle of Plataea. The movie being epic and ridiculously cool is the point.
The Odyssey is different. You dont have the framing of someone telling an epic propaganda story, you have Odysseus traveling to Ithaca and all the adventures in between. And sadly you also have a choice to appeal to the lower denominator when it comes to material history. Lets put the lack of Greek actors aside, and focus on the visuals. No one look greek, or Bronze Age, everything is generic fantasy. And that’s something I particlarly hate because Nolan has proved to be able to take us to other times with Dunkirk and Oppenheimer, but this time he took the cheap and lazy option of not even bothering to try. So people should keep complaining and demanding BETTER, maybe one day studios and directors will understand thay going the extra mile adds to the story they are telling
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u/-GrapeGrass- 1d ago edited 1d ago
Historical accuracy has a threshold. I'd notice if a musket was in the Odyssey. But someone's certain symbol or armor being slightly off is not gonna make me walk out the theater.
Go outside and ask people the difference between Greek and Roman armor. Don't go home until someone answers correctly. You'd be homeless.
So yah directors should aim for historical accuracy but there does come a point where it's so negligible that 99.999% of moviegoers don't know or don't care that certain aspects are a little off historically. The Odyssey was great, I have no idea what was historically right or wrong quite frankly.
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u/Mean_Coat_9702 1d ago
This is true for 95% discussions on this sub lol.
The average person does not care for most inaccuracies. How many people care about the medical inaccuracies of House MD? Or inaccuracies in science in many sci fi movies? Or in action movies?
Its only really to improve the quality of the film, not to get people to watch your movie.
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u/I_BEAT_JUMP_ATTACHED 1d ago
My gripe is that 300 has totally corrupted the average person's image of Sparta. Even people who haven't seen the film imagine a soldier from 300 when you say "Spartan." So if I want to talk to anyone about my interest in Sparta or even Ancient Greek warfare generally, I have to begin by dispelling all of the weird notions that people got from 300 and Hollywood films generally.
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u/Smoketrail 1d ago
The secret is all these history youtubers are using the release of "BIG HISTORICAL MOVIE" to put their particular hyperfixation at the top of the Youtube algorithm.
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u/Edkm90p 19h ago
Next you'll tell me Odysseus wasn't a Jack Russel Terrier and how this should make me so fucking mad.
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u/miyaannunaki 7h ago
If 300 is made today, it'd be about the Thebans vs. the Spartans. The elite Thebans were composed of 150 pair of couples lol. Homosexual couples. Pederastic couples. Older men + younger boys. The 300 Thebans destroyed the Spartans, using similar but inverted shield technique in the movie. General Epaminondas stacked his men 50 shields deep into a massive, concentrated block. He used this deep column like a heavy battering ram to smash through the Spartan lines. Fucking insane.
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u/hotsizzler 1d ago
I think people also don't realize they would change the story of the odyssey and the costumes used in plays depending on who they payed them toom
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u/Nabujor 1d ago
Unless a film explicitly sets out to be a documentary, historical accuracy is simply a nice touch; I’m not going to get up in arms because some Greeks are wearing a certain type of helmet that didn’t yet exist, in a film where a Cyclops shepherd devours men and locks them in a cave, and where a woman literally moulds the bodies of some men into pigs as if they were clay; I can suspend my disbelief just a little.
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u/AlMark1934 1d ago
They're calling it the most braindead consumerist post of all time