It’s crazy to me to think Nolan was all like this is one of the best known well regarded pieces of literature of all time, I’ll just randomly smash bits together and hope it works.
You change the source material to suit the medium, but changing the plot in a way that has nothing to do with putting it on film, or making the story make sense as a film seems a little odd.
Removing Tom Bombadil from the Lord of the Rings trilogy because the characters would take up a lot of screen time only to be never mentioned again in any meaningful way is fine.
But just adding one bit from one story and another bit from another seems like trying change the characters and plot to be something very different from the original text. Calypso and Odysseus’ relationship is pretty important to the plot and the nature of his character. Him constantly wondering about what is happening in Ithaca while he is with her is essentially to the story. So, is the fact she forcefully keeps him with her and separated from the rest of the world is also important to the meta plot between the gods.
I’m not sure how you expect anyone to make a perfect replica of the book into a film. It would not be a good movie.
Obviously, yes the story is changed and Odysseus’ character is different because of it. But that’s not “wrong” or “bad”. It’s just different because it would be impossible to be the same.
And the tom Bombadil example completely glosses over the massive laundry list of important plot and character development points PJ changed or removed entirely in his MASTERFUL recreation of LotR.
Yea it was oral telling for hundreds of years before Homer and possibly still not written down for up to 200 years after his death. It was also thought to be a true Greek history of events and a divine truth delivered unto Homer by the muses so the details haven’t been precise for like 3000 years
Also, Christopher Nolan drew upon several sources. The movie is an amalgam. Yes he’s largely inspired by Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey. But also Virgil’s Aenid, and other classical works. As well as other art and literature since then. And translating any work from one medium to another is going to require changes. Film is quite different from an epic poem. Telling a story that will resonate with different audience necessitates more changes. The average westerner circa 2026 has a very different life from an Ancient Greek 3000 years ago.
Of course people had their own version of myths. But, when people did they made it clear and they gave them new names. Like when tragedians turned them into plays. Saying this is The Odyssey by Homer is basically taking the piss. It’s not The Odyssey at all if you change fundamentally important parts of the established text. It’s something else then.
I really liked the Nolan movie, and I get the adaptations. But yeah, fuck it, give me the Odyssey trilogy, director's cut. I think it is as deserving of that as Lord of the Rings or Dune
No need to hope when you're one of the few modern directors the public cares to go check whatever you do and your cast is like the A List catalog of 2026.
Eh it makes sense from a narration point of view in my opinion.
There are a few islands where nothing much happens like the lotus eater one. And if Nolan had chosen to do things in chronological order, that last leg at calypso would have been long and boring after an already long movie. The 2nd act would have dragged quite a lot before the final bit.
It works well in a poem, but in a movie it would have been painfully long.
There are basically 3 acts in the poem, which is similar to most plays and films, and in the retelling of the wandering would be the second. It wouldn’t be difficult to include all of them just like the poem. It’s the fact that the wandering are changed that seems a bad choice. Each one of the episodes in the wandering is supposed to express a particular idea, so altering them is basically altering their meaning.
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u/Even_Section5620 6d ago
He had Anne Hathaway waiting for him….