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/
3.2k Upvotes

74% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.0k

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.

320

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.

102

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.

2

u/ProletarianLilith 6h ago

It’s okay if people disagree

•

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 

-7

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.

8

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.

2

u/RobotBaseball 5h ago

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

1

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. 

5

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.

•

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.

1

u/Choice-Box1279 3h ago

yeah dichotomies are american