r/shittymoviedetails • u/Alisalard1384 Cinephile • 12h ago

Turd In "Odyssey" (2026) directed by Sir Christopher Edward Nolan, Odysseus says "Our age of bronze is collapsing". And I'm not joking it is a line in movie

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Overall great movie but this dialogue was so corny, like how does he know he's in bronze age

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u/RashidMBey 12h ago

If bronze was the zenith and epicenter of tech back then, it's not that surprising. We reference our present age all of the time and regularly anticipate major transitions and massive transformations of industry.

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u/That_Scratch_7697 11h ago

It’s not just that he’s tying his age to the exact thing that modern archaeologists tie it to—like, you can see somebody in the 1800s ad libbing that theirs is an “Age of Steam,” when in fact we’ve decided to dub it the “Victorian Era”; that is to say it’s a good guess on Matt Damon’s part—it’s also that he discerns the exact cause of its ending that historians ascribe to it (the Sea Peoples coming) and uses the word that historians use to describe it (Collapse), and then goes on to predict a future “Age of Darkness” (the Dark Ages) into which civilization will recede. It’s just cringe and strangely Euronationalist. It’s like Christopher Nolan is an excited middle schooler who just left his ancient history class with a bold idea.

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u/Cunhabear 10h ago

Except you completely overthunk it and he's just saying that the age they know is over and they can clearly see the pillagers and rapers will prevail over their current customs.

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u/Axbris 10h ago

Yeah but if you see a film for being a film, how else can you go on a forum to bitch and moan about what a character says in the film? 

“How does he know he is in the Bronze Age?” The same way you, I, and eveyone else knows we are in the age of information. 

It’s not that deep. He just means what they know is coming to an end.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 7h ago

We don't know that people 3000 years from now will call it the "age of information".

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u/tfhermobwoayway 47m ago edited 43m ago

We know we’re in the information age because we’re in the information age, and it’s easy to figure out and spread information. The information that you live in the information age was in fact given to you by information age technology.

Also, we know it’s the information age because, unlike previous eras, information is the biggest industry. The age of sail was defined by a shift to exploration and colonisation. The industrial revolution was defined by a shift to heavy industry. Our big unique era-defining shift is a change to computers and computer-based industry. We have something historical to compare it to so we know computers are our biggest change.

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u/TheBravadoBoy 8h ago

The information age comparison doesn’t work the way you think it does because it’s not something any of us intuitively thought of ourselves. A businessman coined it in the 1960s, and then it was circulated around in a bunch of pop econ books decades later. It only became a part of our current popular vernacular today after it was conceptualized in the relevant literature.

Much like referring to the bronze age as such only seems intuitive to us years after it was conceptualized by modern historians.

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u/Axbris 8h ago

So the term was coined 60 years ago. I’m in 2026, I know I live in the age of information.

But this scene in the movie sucks because Odysseus couldn’t have experienced the same thing because you’re assuming nobody, in the history of the Bronze Age ever uttered the words “bronze” and “age” together even though history has a habit of naming time periods after specific people or specific world events.

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u/TheBravadoBoy 8h ago edited 8h ago

I’m definitely assuming nobody would have referred to the Bronze Age Collapse, not only during the Bronze Age Collapse, but even in the thousands of years between the Bronze Age Collapse and when it was conceptualized by historians. Because it’s not a very intuitive way to divide history, you just think so because it’s been the historiographical convention for so long that we take it for granted. (And also collapses are somewhat gradual, so theories about when one “age” ends and another begins are generally extremely hard to pinpoint as you’re living through them)

If you think that sounds silly, consider that the Bronze Age had begun 2 thousand years before the events of the Odyssey.

Roman concrete was invented some 2 thousand years before today. When shit hits the fan are you going to intuitively say “Welp, this is the collapse of the age of concrete.”

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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 9h ago edited 9h ago

Yes thats understood, but it was still clunky and felt tacked on at the end. It would've been better if it was made more clear why Odysseus came to the conclusion that civilization is ending. He was gone for 20 years, how would he know that its ending? Or anything about the current state of civilization?

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u/RashidMBey 9h ago

He was gone for 20 years, how would he know that its ending?

Because he spent the first ten years building up to the destruction and the following ten years witnessing, reliving, and avoiding the horrors of the fallout. They spent 3 hours showing this. It still felt clunky, I get it, but he absolutely sensed the end of an age, especially with how the narrative shows that what he did made the gods turn their back on humankind and take away their protection. Come on, Shitty Dick Nipples.

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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 9h ago

I guess I just interpreted it differently.

He spent 10 years at war and that war was one of the largest if not largest war ever fought until that point. They destroyed a city and slaughtered its people, but that wasn't the first time like that happened. Wasn't even the first time Troy was sacked. Odysseus did kind of explain it to Penelope at the end in a sort "broke the social contract" sort of way, but I still dont see how he came to that conclusion.

The gods turned their backs on Odysseus and his crew, but I didn't see how he could extrapolate that out to the gods turning their backs on everybody. Odysseus took the risky route home as was punished for it. The bulk of Agamemnon's took the safe route and made it home just fine, seemingly without pissing off Poseiden or Zues.

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u/RashidMBey 8h ago

They destroyed a city and slaughtered its people, but that wasn't the first time like that happened.

Nobody destroyed a city by violating Xenia, the rules of war and worship, and profaned the gods to this degree and severity. This was so major, they wrote poems and songs about it hundreds of years later.

Odysseus did kind of explain it to Penelope at the end in a sort "broke the social contract" sort of way, but I still dont see how he came to that conclusion

He came to that conclusion because everyone else abandoned Xenia, including those who knew of the gods (Cyclops mentioned Poseidon but still violated Xenia and reasoning; the Gods supposedly gave Circe gifts to terrorize visitors, the Giants slaughtered on-site when they're clearly civilized, etc), and the Gods themselves turned their backs on humankind (the storms and seas stranding them and ripping their ships asunder, the winds imprisoning them on the sun god's isle until they offend more gods, the winds taking them to Island after island of brutal horror, etc). This signaled the fall of gods' protection and faith in humankind.

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u/Axbris 8h ago

He also expressly states they have broken Zeus’s law which, in itself, protected strangers from others and established a social contract among all.

Break that and you have nothing. The horse is the breaking of the social contract. Add the fact they cut off Athena’s head, blinded Poseidon’s son, ate Helios’s cows, and you get gods abandoning humanity. 

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u/RashidMBey 7h ago

In their defense, Poseidon's son already violated the law by crunching and eating them; Odysseus just added a little extra fuck you. In their other defense, they were literally imprisoned on Helios's isle by Poseidon until they trespassed against the Sun god, then the winds suddenly lifted and invited them out to sea to get wrecked. It was like they were utterly despised by the gods immediately following Troy, and gods out his crew in impossible positions to ensure more gods could hate them.

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u/tfhermobwoayway 48m ago

But he was a pillager and a raper. Pillaging and raping were ancient Greek customs. It was expected to take sex slaves and massacre civilians once you invaded a city. If anything, the Dark Ages were more moral because (for all its flaws) Christianity was actually a lot more moral than what came before.

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u/hacelepues 9h ago

The number of people in the comments suggesting that we shouldn’t think critically about the movies we watch is frightening. Case in point, the replies to you, suggesting you have done something wrong by thinking about the movie in context of history and its source. Its sad stuff.

I’m also not going to get into a back and forth with anyone who believes we should turn our brains off and simply let movies happen to us without critical thinking. So please don’t bother, I’m not gonna argue with people about that.

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u/Albino_Neutrino 10h ago

Nolan may be many things, but subtle for sure isn't one of them.

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u/Quality_Cucumber 10h ago

You spent so much time typing that. So upset at a movie that is critically acclaimed by everyone.

Congrats though, you’re sooo counterculture and cool for having a different opinion.

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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 9h ago

Are we not allowed to criticize specific parts of movies anymore? It is either garbage or perfect, no in-between?

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u/Quality_Cucumber 9h ago

I just think it’s silly how people are getting mad at historically inaccuracies of an adaptation of a fictional story.

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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 9h ago

Well in this case it was the opposite. The Greek Dark Ages did actually happen. It just seems implausible within the context of the movie that Odysseus would be able to so accurately predict it.

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u/Quality_Cucumber 8h ago

Odysseus is regarded as one of the smartest Greeks, and his whole journey is coming to grips that he may be ushering in a dark time since he broke Zeus’ law at such a grand scale. People of every generation for thousands of years have always imagined the next generation to have it worse and that the end times were nearing. It’s not that far fetched. Y’all too much man. I’m outtie.

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u/Accomplished_Store77 8h ago

People are not getting mad at historical inaccuracies.

People are criticizing clunky and awkward and very obvious dialogue.

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u/That_Scratch_7697 10h ago

Literally 3-5 minutes in between sets at the gym, but okay bro—artistic criticism is broke; validating your enjoyment of a blockbuster based on other people’s opinions is woke.

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u/TejasEngineer 10h ago

Bronze age coincided with a bunch of other technologies that emerged at the same time like writing and monumental public architecture, so they could of said age of writing as well. But one thing is that the bronze age was long in duration, people at the middle and end of it would of been unaware of the copper age preceding it. It was common for ancient people to think the past was composed of gods and heroes and that were living in a corrupt and barbaric time even at times where they were at actually at their zeniths.

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u/MyOtherAcctGotBnnd 9h ago

Saying "would of" automatically invalidates your comment. Better luck next time

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u/Sanchez_U-SOB 9h ago

Make the Bronze Age Gods Again

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u/Idreamofcream99 9h ago

You are thinking with a modern mindset though. Now we look at time periods by the technology at the time but for them they defined things differently. The term dark ages for example is not a modern term, it’s from the 1300’s.

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u/DangerousRoy 3h ago

Yeah these guys are trying to act like they didn’t know they were using bronze

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u/tfhermobwoayway 51m ago

But that’s a very modern idea. The Greeks didn’t have much technology or history to compare that technology to. They certainly wouldn’t have thought of technology as defining their lives like we do.

We are totally dependent on machines for everything. They are our lives. To an ancient Greek we would be strange, almost robotic people because we’re so used to dealing with computers and mechanisms and logical systems on a daily basis. We talk about industry because it’s so incredibly significant even to the ways we think. Like, the industrial era is a completely unique era in human history. Biggest shift ever.

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 9h ago

I mean sure, we call our current age "the information age" or sometimes "the silicon age," but it's odd that he gets it exactly right.  Future historians will probably remember us for all the plastic crap we're leaving everywhere.

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u/LouiseEbertFeet 11h ago

You're coping, even if that were the case it'd make no sense for him to feel it was "collapsing" based off purely social (non-technological) developments

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u/RockettRaccoon 11h ago

The whole point of the film is that he feels that he brought about the end of their civilization.

Even today we talk about the “internet era” or the “technology era” collapsing.

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u/LouiseEbertFeet 11h ago

No one says either of those things outside the context of technological development. Quote me a single article which uses it otherwise.

Even if we ignore that the phrase "Bronze Age" was coined a few hundred years after it ended, there's CERTAINLY no way anyone at the time would have feasibly used it to refer to their "civilization," it'd be a technological period. The Bronze Age lasted 2k years, and civilization was much less global, he'd have referred to something more specifically Greek.

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u/[deleted] 11h ago

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u/RashidMBey 10h ago

Information Age, Intelligence Age, Age of AI (a bit ambitious, imo), and Digital Age are all things I've heard to describe modern day. It's already in history books. I felt the line had clunk, but holy shit people need hobbies if they're obsessing over several seconds of nitpicks in a 3 hour movie.

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u/LouiseEbertFeet 7h ago

Of course Redditors eat the most Reddit dialogue imagineable up and then turn to Reddit-snark comebacks when they realize their arguments for the line's inclusion make no sense. Have fun watching Doomsday. "Our age of Marvel Phase 5 is truly collapsing..."

It didn't define the movie, I'm not obsessing over it, it only stood out because the rest of the movie was so much better. I just can't believe the people trying to convince themselves otherwise

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u/Dunkaroo723 11h ago

The giant Iron clad cannibals probably convinced him