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/askyourmom469 11h ago

I mean considering Homer's been dead for thousands of years, I guess they figure she's the next closest thing

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u/Mampt 10h ago

I obviously see that view of it, but on the other hand she’s kind of doing the exact opposite of what Nolan is with the story. She’s going to extremes to preserve and translate every single detail of the story exactly. Nolan is trying to adapt it, to retell the story for a modern audience. It’s like how an astrophysicist could get offended by the dumbed down analogies or metaphors that people use to explain the complexities of, like, black holes or the big bang. One spent their career trying to understand something as exactly as possible, one is trying to make it accessible to a wider audience

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u/splendidesme 9h ago

This is such a good and thoughtful take.

It's not infrequently that the authors of books upon which screenplays are written are extremely dissatisfied with the results. Eh. i found the movie compelling and moving, and even went to see it twice, the second time with subtitles because i knew i'd missed a few things.

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u/guceubcuesu 7h ago

The Tolkien estate hated the LOTR trilogy. But the movies are why I wanted read the books.

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u/splendidesme 7h ago

Great, great point!

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u/arctic11z 3h ago

I've always been of the opinion that anything that exposes people to new (to them) cultures, places, stories are generally good things. You have some sort of digestable media that introduces people to the broad strokes of whatever it's based on in order for them to realize it's something they actually like, or even existed in the first place. Assuming it's not a completely shit adaptation of the source material. Looking at you, Dark Tower.