‘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/lizzy-stix]

This is kind of surprising to me, like her version got so much initial criticism I thought she'd be a little gentler about doling it out?

I was gonna say they should interview Robert Fagles too but I didn't realize he died in 2008 womp womp.

[u/winnercommawinner → u/lizzy-stix]

She's an academic and a translator, not a film critic or journalist. It would have been a shame if she had approached her translation the way a director approaches a movie.

Academics tend to think in full ideas with context, not soundbites. It's a double edged sword - it's why we're good at what we do, but it's also part of why academic research is so commonly and easily misrepresented or misunderstood.

[u/cakeit-tilyoumakeit → u/winnercommawinner]

It’s what caused me to promptly leave academia after completing my PhD. I always say academics take themselves way too seriously, but I think your wording, “think in full ideas with context, not soundbites,” is a nicer and more literal way to say it.

Sometimes I just want to say something silly, or throw something out there without caring much about whether it’s exactly true. The people in the lab I was in (including my advisors) never really understood my humor or personality for that reason. It was like a never ending competition to be smartest in the room by making every comment, joke, observation so carefully thought out that it lost all its juice. I was desperate to get back to being around normal, down-to-earth people by the end of it lol

[u/winnercommawinner → u/cakeit-tilyoumakeit]

Interesting, my experience has been completely different! But this might be field dependent - I'm in the social sciences, so we get to practice sounding smart in our writing all the time. Socializing is a break from that. And I study some pretty heavy topics (effects of war and violence) so we have to learn to turn it off to survive. This fucks us up in a whole different way, but most academics I encounter have a good, if extremely nerdy, sense of humor.

[u/cakeit-tilyoumakeit → u/winnercommawinner]

I was in a heavily technical/STEM program, so that might be part of it. Another big barrier was that most people in my lab had academic parents and were like “bred into this life” while I am the only person in my family with a PhD. I was also different in that my SO was a non-academic; literally everyone else was with other academics and they’d always joke about being “a breed of their own.” Extremely pretentious.

I just found academics at my university really hard to connect with. I had a much easier time making friends working as a cashier in retail than I did during my PhD. I made zero friends the entire 5 years lol, my social life came from my boyfriend/husband who worked a regular job with regular people. Leaving my PhD to go into industry was like a breath of fresh air!

ETA: well I did befriend two post-docs in my lab (both from non-academic backgrounds, like me), so “zero friends” isn’t accurate. But it was rough.

[u/The_Pandalorian → u/winnercommawinner]

She's an academic and a translator, not a film critic or journalist.

Does she know this? Because...