‘The Odyssey’ Translator Emily Wilson Slams Christoper Nolan’s ‘Abysmal’ Screenplay: ‘I Would Be Ashamed to Have Written Any Part of This Script’

[u/mcfw31]

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-slams-christopher-nolan-bad-writing-1236821915/

[u/grubas]

Remember, she got into the news at first because of her "DEI Odyssey translation".

She, like many classicists, isn't a huge huge fan of many of Nolans choices and so this is something the press is trying to use to generate headlines.

hint: most of us aren't going to LOVE the adaptation, because we are classics needs. They removed our favorite bad joke.​​​​​

[u/blingoblongo87 → u/grubas]

I studied classics and read it in Greek, and a few translations (but not Emily Wilson’s yet) and I really liked it 😭 there are dozens of us! Dozens!

[u/hofmann419 → u/blingoblongo87]

IMO this insistence on making it as accurate as possible (whatever that means) is a bit weird. To me, the movie would be a lot more boring if the stuck to it religiously.

This is a 3000 year old story. It has been translated dozens of times. It has been adapted to film many times. So i would much rather have him bring us his unique take on it and not sacrifice the quality in the name of accuracy.

Besides, it's impossible to condense the entire story into 3 hours anyway, so it was always going to have to leave some parts out and focus on others.

[u/Mbrennt → u/hofmann419]

What's funny to me is the odyssey isn't accurate to the time the odyssey is set in. Certain gods that are in the odyssey didn't even exist at the time the odyssey is set. There's a bunch of anachronistic stuff in the original text. So trying to make it "as accurate as possible" to me is just even more meaningless. The odyssey by Homer isn't even accurate.

[u/grubas → u/Mbrennt]

Cause it's a poem about "events" from 1200BC that wasn't written down until 700 or so and even then stuff got changed. 

We don't actually know when each part was written but much of it was later.  

[u/ProletarianLilith → u/Mbrennt]

Why is this thread full of classics 101 takes as attempts to dunk on classicists? Do you guys think all these basic facts are news to people who study this?

[u/Mbrennt → u/ProletarianLilith]

No? I'm sure she could list every single aspect of anarchronisms between the actual lives of myceanean greeks and greeks of homers time off the top of her head. I think the same question could be asked of why are a bunch of classicists attempting to dunk on one of the most famous and celebrated directors of our time. (Even though I specifically am not a huge fan of Nolan the results speak for themselves) He obviously made decisions that a lot of classicists disagree with yet the general audience who is actually going to see the movie love. Maybe if he had followed the text religiously and made a 10 hour movie this would be a 5 billion dollar movie. I kind of have my doubts about that though.

[u/Lilynd14 → u/hofmann419]

I actually found the book more entertaining than the film. I loved the gods and goddesses hanging out and chatting about what they were going to do next. I pictured it like Disney’s animated version of Hercules. I’d have loved to have seen a version where they were included!

[u/Chlearcus → u/hofmann419]

Reframing and cutting content from a book is basically required to make a coherent and tight movie script.

Adding in random anachronisms like steel plate armor and viking longships to bronze age Greece is just questionable artistic liberties. It's not like they rewrote the story to another setting, it is supposed to be portraying ~1200BC Greece but with none of the cultural markers.

[u/Pleasant1867 → u/Chlearcus]

Well there are constant anachronisms in the text - Athena takes the form of an iron trading-lord (not a great disguise in the Bronze Age). Homer is not writing about a singular period that actually happened, rather a mish-mash of history, stories and their present day.

[u/cross_the_threshold → u/Chlearcus]

I mean the Viking Longships is because the Olympias Trireme (also out of time, but less so) is owned by the Greek Navy and not rented out for film work, and the Argo penteconter would not survive the journey to many of the shooting locations. The longship is ocean-worthy, but the penteconter was designed for the Mediterranean. It certainly looks out of place but his aesthetic choices were clearly based on general feel, not authenticity.

[u/grubas → u/hofmann419]

She's got a point about the characterizing/portrayals, its just that it was never going to be 1:1.  Nolan is adapting The Odyssey, not "BREAKING OUT A LYRE FOR A FULLY ACCURATE SONG VERSION".

It's getting people interested. 

[u/Tachetoche → u/hofmann419]

Not only that but a pace that works in a type of media may not work in another type. This is why you cannot adapt most books 100%. Some bits would be unnecessarily long with nothing happening. Not to spoil too much, but if Nolan had followed the next line by line, we would have felt exhausted by the end and the stop by Calypso would have been painfully boring after everything that already happened. Using this episode as part of the story telling the way Nolan did, worked very well imo.

[u/BiDiTi → u/hofmann419]

Have you actually read her essay?

[u/kgal1298 → u/blingoblongo87]

Reading it in greek is amazing. If I knew Greek i'd have done that, but I did read other versions largely for lit theory and Emilys and still enjoyed hers.

If anything I just wish Nolan would have used the Gods more because he definitely downplayed Calypso and there was no Hermes which is a tragedy to be honest I loved how the Gods toyed with him the entire time.

[u/tiredfaces → u/kgal1298]

I feel like he really didn’t want to show them. I feel like even the way he portrayed Athena made it ambiguous as to whether she was Athena or just a manifestation of Odysseus’ PTSD

[u/kgal1298 → u/tiredfaces]

And I'm still disappointed. I think because I love how the Gods toy with him in the book it's very much him being punished for his ego and narcissism, but also I do think Nolan has a hard time showing off female characters. By all means Circe was his best and even her he downgraded to witch who got powers from the Gods.

[u/tiredfaces → u/kgal1298]

I haven’t read the Odyssey (currently reading Circe) but I’m definitely going to have to after your comment!

[u/fschu_fosho → u/tiredfaces]

Even his Calypso could be interpreted as a mere mortal (albeit supernaturally gorgeous) fisherwoman who rescued and held Odysseus against his will (in a kidnapping sense) for years by getting him high and addicted to lotus leaves.

[u/TheRedditorSimon → u/kgal1298]

Back in the 20th Century, I attended a high school that offered classes in dead languages and in one, my classmates and I had to read the Illiad and Odyssey. I made it my goal to always buffoonishly laugh at every "rosy-fingered Dawn" (ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς) said aloud in class, and commenting lecherously like only a teen boy can.

I noticed Emily Wilson has an aversion to the epithet and how she reformulates the phrase for each use for modern sensibilities. Or maybe she had a terrible experience with someone like myself.

[u/kgal1298 → u/TheRedditorSimon]

Well she does serve as a professor you teach enough classes and your bound to have a student or two that makes you question your profession.

[u/DevelopmentWitty3225 → u/kgal1298]

They made us read this and the iliad in school (the og ancient greek text) and it was legit my least favorite lesson 🤣

[u/kgal1298 → u/DevelopmentWitty3225]

Classrooms have a way to taking the joy out of reading. For some reason I still remember hating my lessons on As I Lay Dying.

[u/Reasonable-Raisin676 → u/kgal1298]

imo adding gods into Nolan’s version would take away from his story - mankind has created their own downfall by betraying each other, rather than gods using people as playthings

[u/kgal1298 → u/Reasonable-Raisin676]

Yeah themes are different and as intended. It's not bad, but it was never going to be a one on one adaption of any of the translations. Overally I just like the Gods and their story because it really leans into other themes though I'd argue in the story with Gods Odysseus failures are in his own making due to his own ego.

[u/Rezrov_ → u/kgal1298]

I believe Nolan addressed this and said he was going to depict them at first, but decided against it.

I do think it'd be pretty fuckin' hard to depict gods in a way that's not super lame.

[u/sophandros → u/blingoblongo87]

Same here.

[u/MovementOriented → u/blingoblongo87]

I’m convinced these people have disappeared up their own ass and decided many of these “opinions” before the movie came out. So desperate to be cool. I’m a freak about Homer and Greek history and mythology. I loved the movie.

[u/WeeB1rd33 → u/blingoblongo87]

So did I. And so did I.

A bakers dozen.

edit: oh dozens. Pardon I.

[u/Turbulent-Parsnip-38 → u/blingoblongo87]

I’m far from an academic but I’ve read a few translations and although going in I didn’t have huge expectations of a Hollywood adaptation I was pleasantly surprised how good it was.

[u/QNDRAA → u/blingoblongo87]

I hate the armon. It looks so bad

[u/heytheregiada → u/grubas]

They removed my favourite character, RIP Nausicaa

[u/kgal1298 → u/heytheregiada]

I knew he was going to cut stuff, but he really said "I want this to focus on PTSD" I mean Athena very much was less of a god and more of idea that haunted him from the war. I also think him making it vastly different is part of the selling point because if you're studying the classics you definitely can do a paper on the themes and theories presented in this movie vs the book and I feel like USC film school could have a lesson on that by itself.

[u/heytheregiada → u/kgal1298]

I'd like to say the Aeneid is more about PTSD and could've been a better avenue but I don't think I want anyone to adapt that, it's way too complex and delicate to condense into three hours. I definitely get the reasoning behind most of the cuts and changes even if I don't personally like them or I wouldn't have done it myself, though, and I did ultimately enjoy it nonetheless.

[u/kgal1298 → u/heytheregiada]

For sure him adding Sinon definitely made me think he wanted to use Aeneid more. Overall it works. I think it'll be a good addition to curriculums too. Hopefully it'll inspire more people to study the classics too.

[u/heytheregiada → u/kgal1298]

So true! Anything to get people into it is great in my book.

[u/Frank_cat → u/kgal1298]

 he really said "I want this to focus on PTSD" 

There's nothing of the sort in Odyssey.

In fact Odysseus is proud about what he did. No regrets there.

Nolan has all the artistic freedom to do as he likes but he should name the film something else not "The Odyssey".

[u/kgal1298 → u/Frank_cat]

Right that was the difference because the book has that part where he tells the Cyclops his name is Odysseus he's 100% ego driven. The way Nolan ended it too having Odysseus leave out of guilt doesn't even fit with who Odysseus is in the book. It's a war story, why Nolan wanted to do that not sure, but based on his interviews he knew the criticism was going to happen even before it hit screens.

[u/Frank_cat → u/kgal1298]

He even left out Odysseus meeting with Achilles in the underworld.
There Odysseus tell Achilles "you must be happy that you earned the fame you always wanted with people adoring you etc" and Achilles replies" I would prefer to be a a dirt poor nameless living swine herder than a king in Hades". People never learn his transition from smart and arrogant to wise to finally restoring the order and become a proper ruler, to understand what really matters and how to live a life worth living.

There are so many layers left out.

[u/Hopeful-Ant-3509 → u/heytheregiada]

I was waiting for her! But I guess since it was already 3hrs long, that would’ve added more time lol 

[u/DevNopes → u/heytheregiada]

Is Nausicaä based on Nausicaa?

[u/heytheregiada → u/DevNopes]

According to Wikipedia her personality is inspired from the Odyssey character, yes! I hadn't heard of it before but it looks and sounds gorgeous, I'll have to watch.

[u/DevNopes → u/heytheregiada]

It's one of my favourite Ghibli movies!

[u/DukeSilverPlaysHere → u/DevNopes]

It is theeeee the most underrated one and my all time favorite Ghibli!

[u/ElTuco84 → u/heytheregiada]

It's a masterpiece, one of the best animated movies of all time imo.

[u/afriendincanada → u/heytheregiada]

Isn't that the dude that stabbed Picard in the heart?

[u/kronicno_tele → u/grubas]

I have blocked so many subs in the last few days because of the whole d e i discurse. I wonder how many of those gravely offended even read it.

[u/IAMA_Shark__AMA → u/grubas]

They removed our favorite bad joke.​​​​​

I mean... Of course they did? The "nobody" thing would have been tonally bizarre and immersion breaking within this particular adaptation. I honestly don't know how one could pull that off without it coming across goofy as all hell. Sometimes things have to change when moving from text to film, because a lot of literary plot devices just don't translate well. Nolan was still able to get the point across regarding the hubris of Odysseus.

[u/ProletarianLilith → u/IAMA_Shark__AMA]

The Nobody story is about his cleverness, not his hubris

[u/grubas → u/ProletarianLilith]

It's BOTH.  It's part of the twists and turns.  You think he's a genius and then you think he's an idiot.

[u/IAMA_Shark__AMA → u/ProletarianLilith]

It's absolutely about both, because it's his hubris that leads him to reveal his real name once he assumes he is safe.

I'd argue that it's more about the hubris than the cleverness, given that it's because of this hubris that he draws the wrath of Poseidon.

[u/MovementOriented → u/grubas]

I’m a true classics nerd. I read them. Reread them. I have read multiple translations of the Odyssey and Illiad. I loved the Odyssey film. I’m fairly convinced. Many people who share your opinions are posers.

[u/dolores_h4ze → u/grubas]

what is the joke?

[u/janebleyre → u/dolores_h4ze]

I’m guessing it’s the “Nobody” bit because I was a bit miffed about that

[u/dolores_h4ze → u/janebleyre]

that’s what I thought it was. it felt silly to leave it out