Why is the Nolan Odyssey trailer so hated? You must understand. Every argument you will ever have was already had 2500 years ago in Athens, Greece. And no piece of art better exemplifies this than Frogs by Aristophanes. Aristophanes, working around 400 BC, is able to summarize and compare the trajectory of 5th century Greece. This is the classical period of Greece. And in this play, in particular, the plot is art is dead, tragedy is dead, and so a Dionysus that has to go into Hades to bring back the best playwrights to the living world. And this whole thing culminates in an argument between Aeschylus and Euripides. These two writers represent two entirely different aesthetic values. Aeschylus, the older the two, believes that the job of the poet is only to write about things beautiful too and noble heroes to worship heroes. As Euripides, born later, wanted to democratize art, to make it more accessible, to make it more human and everyday. So Euripides accuses Aeschylus of being sort of naive and simple in his hero worship, whereas Aeschylus accuses Euripides of the opposite. So you see people talking about the Odyssey, praising it for its subversiveness. It's Aeschylus and Euripides who sides with Aeschylus. This would have been in affront. This would have contained no artistic merit. You see this as well in the dialogue of the costuming. People complaining about the brown leather and stuff. Aeschylus is the exact same thing, accusing Euripides of casting his heroes in rags just to make them look more pathetic. And so ultimately the critique of Euripides is between hero worship and then deconstruction. And if you look at writers like Schlegel or Nietzsche, they hate Euripides for that fact. They hate that he deconstructed heroes. And that's where you see a lot of the dialogue today occurring. Tragedy gave way to philosophy. Euripides was the last to play, and Socrates was the death of Tragedy. And of course this has been the general trend, right? You know, you look at tales of like Jason and the Argonauts, or even more recently like Clash of the Titans, where there's a kitschy Kino attitude towards Greek heroes in mythology. But now, we're much more sophisticated. We're deconstructing and we're analyzing our heroes and critiquing them and making them anti-heroic, right? It's all plays out in the greater context of culture because one of Euripides' most favorite plays is Medea. And which Jason of the Argonaut is cast like a dumb womanizing brute. And Medea really gets her flowers. This play was met with much criticism upon its release and it came out the same year as the start of the Peloponnesian War. Previously, Greece had unified for the Greco-Persian War. Athens started another city state, allied to fight an external foe at the start of the 5th century. But now, near the end, Athens and Sparta are at each other's necks. There's a civil war, and Sparta uses Persia as a resource to fight the Athenians. And so, as Medea drops, you've got the proto-communists who are leveraging extra-national identity, going to work with the incumbent democracy that yet contains inklings of platonic totalitarianism, who have a sort of national hubris, evident in the Melian Dialogues. And what happens is Sparta wins. But this doesn't lead to total victory, it leads to exhaustion, and a dissolution. That is, until young Alexander the Great comes out of the backwoods of Macedonia to reunify Greece and start a new empire. This is a recurring cycle. Greco-Persian, Peloponnesian, Alexander. Gallic War, Civil War, Caesars. French spurred high after American independence, French Revolution, Napoleon. France experienced the history of Rome in 20 years, but America is yet to have its Caesar. And so, we're in the exact same spot. We're riding the high after a Trans-Maritime War, slowly dissolving in an identity. And so, if the words of Thucydides are right, we're going to see a gain in power as a democratic socialism, which doesn't lead to a grand unification but an exhaustion, until a Caesarian figure appears out of nowhere to unite the disassembled pieces. Or maybe Matt Damon would just like to have a practical effect like Oppenheimer. I don't know.
Miller answers "why is the Nolan Odyssey trailer hated?" with Aristophanes' Frogs (c. 405 BC) as a mirror for today's discourse. In 5th-century Athens, after tragedy's death Dionysus descends to Hades to bring back the best playwright, the debate between Aeschylus (hero worship — write only the beautiful/noble to worship) and Euripides (democratize — make heroes human, ragged, everyday) already staged every fight we have now: subversiveness vs. heroism, brown leather costumes, heroes in rags to look pathetic. Schlegel and Nietzsche side with Aeschylus and hate Euripides for deconstructing heroes; tragedy then gives way to philosophy — Euripides is last tragedian, Socrates kills tragedy. Miller tracks the cultural loop: early century kitchy hero worship (Jason and the Argonauts) → late-century sophisticated deconstruction (anti-heroic Medea, where Jason is a brute and Medea gets flowers) arrives the same year as Peloponnesian War, after Greco-Persian unity. Now Athens' incumbent democracy with Platonic totalitarian inklings and Melian hubris faces proto-communists leveraging extra-national identity with Persian/Spartan aid — Sparta wins but only into exhaustion/dissolution, until Alexander from backwoods Macedonia reunifies. That Greco-Persian → Peloponnesian → Alexander cycle repeats as Gallic War → Civil War → Caesar, and American Independence → French Revolution → Napoleon (France did Rome in 20 years). America, high after a trans-maritime war and dissolving in identity, awaits its Caesar — unless Thucydides' Thucydidean cycle breaks, or Matt Damon's practical effects like Oppenheimer are the real point.
Miller's elegant Frogs → Thucydides → Caesar cycle is seductive but risks historical determinism — not every Peloponnesian War leads to an Alexander, and not every American identity crisis needs a Caesar; sometimes exhaustion just stays exhaustion, or reunification comes via boring institutions, not a backwoods strongman. The Frogs itself is a comedy — Aristophanes is laughing at both Aeschylus and Euripides, not crowning one. Treating Aeschylus's hero worship as the corrective to Euripidean deconstruction just swaps one half-truth for the other; the Athenian lesson may be that art and war both need both — heroes to worship and heroes in rags — or they both die and only frogs remain.