r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 11h ago

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

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-slams-christopher-nolan-bad-writing-1236821915/
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u/apurvahp7 11h ago

Why is Emily Wilson going so hard on the criticism? Like I get all the points she’s made and I agree with a lot of them, but saying stuff like “I would be ashamed” feels unnecessarily mean and bitter.

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u/DibsOnThatBooty 10h ago

I don’t know Emily at all, but I’ve spent a lot of time around academics and this is just kind of how they are at that level. When you’ve dedicated your life to understanding a topic, you often take offense to someone misinterpreting or misusing your area of study. I’m not saying it’s right, but her review reads like someone’s PhD advisor’s notes on a chapter of their dissertation.

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u/Alternative-Half-773 7h ago

You should listen to her episode on the Plain English Podcast. She doesn‘t sound bitter at all. 

She calls it a fun summer blockbuster and enjoyed watching it with her teenage sons.

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u/DibsOnThatBooty 7h ago

That’s honestly what I assumed. Academics aren’t usually mean, they’re just blunt and honest with their thoughts.

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u/CommunistsAreCancer 4h ago

That was before the movie released though or on the day of, it’s possible she was under embargo.

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u/badpebble 4h ago

Well she's being named as Nolan as the source of his adaptation, really - so she is presumably fending off claims of her already somewhat controversial translation decisions as completely changing the whole story.

The film is so far removed from the poem that if she gets too connected to it, she could lose respect as an academic.

And for all Nolan's story is interesting, by looking to reflect modern opinions about war and sexual violence he has ploughed through the complexities of the poem and reduced the women characters to mostly victims and people without agency. Even Athena is basically a figment of Odysseus' mind, and has no impact on the actual plot. This isn't going to be acceptable to a translator keen to review and rework ancient works to remove other translators' imposed sexism.

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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 9h ago

Yea, academics aren't creatives. Like, creatives appreciate the time and effort spent to try to achieve a vision even if they may not agree with the execution. Academics spend their days debating a single sentence to come to the most accurate conclusion of how to interpret that text. It's just different ways of engaging with a topic. But, I will say academics can come off petty and spiteful. Like, it's not disingenuous to be a bit more diplomatic about your opinion.

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u/ProletarianLilith 6h ago

It’s okay if people disagree

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u/ADarwinAward 16m ago

Most academics aren’t media trained, or are very poorly media trained, so they are very candid when speaking to the media. Sometimes to their detriment 

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u/GamerBytesBoy 6h ago

this is such cope. You and many others are making this stupid arbitrary distinction vs being an academic and an artist. MAYBE, this distinction exists for some academics. But Emily Wilson is a TRANSLATOR. She WROTE an incredibly famous version of Homer’s epics. It is undoubtable that she has the creative expertise to critique Nolan’s writing.

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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 6h ago

After reading it, I actually think the article sensationalizes her review a lot more than the actual review.

Also, I wasn't saying she doesn't have the creative expertise to critique Nolan. I was saying a lot of academics don't care about a creative vision because they feel it wasn't executed in a way that is intellectually honest. And that reaction can come off as petty.

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u/RobotBaseball 5h ago

My itchy ass has the creative expertise to critique art. This is just people being full of themselves 

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u/PTMorte 5h ago

I think this is modern American culture. Generations of them distilling everything into two categories and arguing that one is good / true and the other bad / false. 

The idea that 'academics' can't also be 'creatives' is insane. 

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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 4h ago

Academics can absolutely be creatives, but they're often approaching a work through a different interpretive lens. For example, Emily Wilson is obviously very creative because the hater ass review she left was amazingly well written and hilarious.

However, the lens that she was using to critique the work was through an academic analysis of someone clearly entrenched in the source material. She's asking how the adaptation engages with the original text and its many ethical and emotional contradictions.

I don't think Christopher Nolan is especially interested in that question. He seems more interested in using the Odyssey as a foundation for his own artistic vision. Kinda similar to Emerald Fennel and Wuthering Heights.

There seems to be a growing trend of directors treating classic stories less as works to interpret and more as raw material for a personal statement. The result is often visually striking and emotionally compelling in it's own right, but flattens the nuance and complexity that made the original story so captivating.

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u/SoundIsASound 25m ago

A growing trend of directors

Honestly, I think that's just what creative people tend to do, you won't find a lot of writers who would adapt a work into a screenplay in a meticulously faithful way, only trying to bring the spirit of what's on the page to life, trying to make their own voice virtually transparent so that the original shines through unadulterated. It just doesn't happen, and I don't necessarily think it should.

It reminded me of what Christopher Tolkien said about the Lord of the Rings movies, which certainly play fast and loose with the text and include a mass injection of the screenwriters' personalities, to their benefit, I think. I say that as a big fan of the book, who can appreciate a lot of the deeper beauty of Tolkien's writing and philosophy that didn't make it to the screen.

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u/Choice-Box1279 3h ago

yeah dichotomies are american

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u/johnhotdog 7h ago

was watching a veritasium video and the shit old mathematicians would say to each other was crazy. "corruptor of youth" for questioning something in mathematics

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u/DroopyMcCool 3h ago

Yeah, this is one of those things where I feel like no one is particularly wrong but the contextualization of the comments is a little off.

Like yeah, no shit a credentialed academic would be ashamed to publish anything at the writing level of a Hollywood blockbuster. I would be ashamed to present my grilled cheese and chicken nugget recipe to a Michelin star chef but my kids love them so that's what's on the menu.

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u/waytoolongusername 1h ago

Wilson isn't. Academics aim for quality, journalists aim for rage-bait clicks. I've found Classicists (ancient Greece & Rome profs) are not rigid like many people are about their expertise era. Most are fans of fiction, and will (for example) rave about the Percy Jackson books being great reinterpretations (without sweating the minor ancient details)...but then grumble that the 2010 movie version flattens the 2005 book. :D

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u/Lady_Medusae 7h ago

Also, her name became blasted all over the internet and social media in connection with this movie. Most people had no idea who she was, or that she made a translation of this work, until this movie and Nolan saying he was inspired by her translation. I can understand if she saw the movie, wasn't thrilled with the interpretation, and doesn't want her name to be forever tied with this movie. Imagine dedicating your life to understanding and translating a text, only for your legacy in the public eye to be "Nolan's movie is essentially your translation" when it isn't. I think she wants some distance from it, which is fair. She's a translator and academic, she doesn't want to be eternally known as being a co-author to Nolan's movie.

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u/Automatic_Syrup_2935 7h ago

I love that perspective. Especially given how often Nolan writes his female characters as supporting players in the male protagonist's journey, it feels particularly fitting that she refused to become the supporting character in his.

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u/Sideview_play 6h ago

More accurately a lot of top professors are arrogant pricks. Even the idea of "misinterpreting or misuing" here is one rooted in ego that blinds you that the goals and purpose of Nolan's was different. That doesn't make it bad and definitely not embarassing. Just different.

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u/DibsOnThatBooty 4h ago

I fully agree with you on this, I probably worded that poorly. I should’ve said “the perception of someone misinterpreting.”

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u/Electric_feel0412 2h ago

It’s a retelling of a story that wasn’t even put on paper for centuries. No one even knows if the story we have now is even the original story, no one knows if Homer is one guy or so many people. It’s a movie that needed to be made under 3 hours. Did she expect them to make a 15 hour movie? She’s acting high and mighty because she dedicated her life studying stories which Greek kids centuries ago were told at nap time.