The Odyssey is part of Nolan's 'trilogy made in reverse' with eerie link to Oppenheimer
The Odyssey has continued Christopher Nolan’s streak of incredible films that are universally beloved, with his adaptation of the Greek epic poem selling out cinemas all across the world.
The film, featuring an all-star celebrity cast helmed by Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland, has debuted to an astounding $264 million in just its opening weekend and is sitting at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes despite the grumblings from Elon Musk.
This continues Nolan’s recent hot streak of successful films, with Oppenheimer having made a whopping $975 million worldwide and Tenet making $376 million releasing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and being the first movie to bring fans back to cinemas.
According to some fans however, in typically mind-bending Nolan fashion, the last three films the director has released are a ‘trilogy made in reverse’.
Why fans are saying The Odyssey, Oppenheimer, and Tenet are a ‘trilogy made in reverse’
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The term was first thrown around on X by a fan praising The Odyssey, saying: “Tenet, Oppenheimer and The Odyssey feel like a trilogy made in reverse. Each a thematic prequel to the last.”
This becomes much more obvious when you look at the themes of each of them, particularly with Tenet’s mind-bending time distortion.
The Odyssey (spoilers for a nearly 3,000 year old poem) focuses heavily on Odysseus’ guilt for coming up with the idea of the Trojan horse and how them fooling the Trojan’s broke ‘Zeus’ Law’, the concept that you should always show hospitality to visiting travellers because you never know which could be gods in disguise.
If you swap in the big fake horse for an atomic bomb and the breaking of Zeus’ law for the global arms race, the link to Oppenheimer is pretty clear.
Tenet’s entire plot meanwhile hinges around John David Washington’s character ‘The Protagonist’ trying to stop a doomsday device from the future (and also the past) being triggered, with one fan saying: “Nolan's theme is always time. He's obsessed with the concept of time, and I love that.”
Speaking about this during the release of Tenet, Nolan said: “Time is the most cinematic of subjects because before the movie camera came along, human beings had no way of seeing time backwards, slowed down, sped up.
“I think that went some way to sort of explain to me why I've been interested in exploring it in movies because I think there's a really productive relationship.”
Fans spot an ‘eerie moment’ directly linking Oppenheimer and The Odyssey
Tenet and Oppenheimer have a more direct link, with Nolan even including a line about the creator of the nuclear bomb in his 2020 time-bending thriller.
Whilst Oppenheimer and The Odyssey may not have as obvious a moment as this to bind the two, there is a soon-to-be-iconic scene which fans are saying is a direct follow-up on Oppenheimer.
One fan tweeted: “The Trojan Horse (The Odyssey) and the Atomic Bomb (Oppenheimer). Two revolutionary ideas built by geniuses to end a War. Both men succeeded, only to be utterly consumed by the horrific consequences and regret of what they unleashed.”
Others pointed to a specific scene in which Odysseus tells his wife Penelope his utter regret for coming up with the idea of the Trojan horse and the subsequent sacking of Troy, with one viewer comparing the scene to one which showed Oppenheimer’s regret at the atomic bomb after it was finally dropped on Japan.
A fan called these two scenes a ‘mirror’, with another adding: “They VERY MUCH are! this is, imo, the furthest thing from an accident. Oppenheimer and Odyssey are very much in conversation with one another: "What if one decision by one man changed the course of history for worse?"
The Odyssey is available to watch in cinemas now.
Topics: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer, Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin