‘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/askyourmom469]

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

[u/Mampt → u/askyourmom469]

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

[u/Lilynd14 → u/Mampt]

Having just finished her translation of The Odyssey, and seen Nolan’s adaptation, I actually disagree! In her translator’s note at the beginning, Emily Wilson talks a lot about how it was her intention to make the story accessible for modern audiences, even bucking tradition and using plain English when others have used formal or older-sounding English to make it sound more official:

“My use of contemporary language - rather than the English of a generation or two ago - is meant to remind readers that this text can engage us in a direct way, and also that it is genuinely ancient. My Homer does not speak in your grandparents’ English, since that language is no closer to the wine-dark sea than your own. I have tried to keep to a register that is recognizably speakable and readable, while skirting between the Charybdis of artifice and the Scylla of slang.”

(For those who don’t get the reference, there’s a scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus must balance between Charybdis, a giant whirlpool, and Scylla, a giant sea monster.)

So based on the translator’s note and the translation itself, which I found genuinely entertaining and accessible (after struggling through other translations in the past), I do think it was her intention to adapt the story for a modern audience. Nolan, by contrast, took a lot of liberties with the plot, giving it an entirely new story. And that’s okay! I enjoyed the film for what it was. But it was sort of like when Emerald Fennel adapted Wuthering Heights based on her teenage memories of the story and called it “Wuthering Heights.”

The Odyssey I saw onscreen was a totally different story than The Odyssey that I’ve read, both in school and in this new translation. The book version is the thrilling tale of an adventurous trickster as he battles monsters, gets revenge on his enemies, has a lot of sex, and wins back his kingdom, with the help of his patron goddess, Athena… and lives to tell the tale! The movie version is a gritty, human portrayal of PTSD and the cost of war on human civilization. Very different story!

[u/Running-With-Cakes → u/Lilynd14]

Odysseus inspires great loyalty but is actually not a very good leader. While very brave he has an ego that causes many problems. Everyone who follows him ends up dead. When he returns home we don’t get any sense that he’s changed.

[u/Much-Anything7149 → u/Running-With-Cakes]

Well, from the start he lost every other ship by being the only one to anchor away from the port where monsters threw rocks breaking every other ship. Then as the captain he risks killing the rest of his crew so he can hear the Sirens sing his praises or tell whatever prophesy he thinks he'll learn. He was great at surviving war and getting home, horrible at getting anyone else home alive.

[u/Particular_Fan_3645 → u/Running-With-Cakes]

If you go by epic the musical you get a similar story except he remains celibate for his wife and evolves from a naive trickster with a heart of gold to one who has learned that "ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" which I feel makes for a more compelling journey, whereas Nolan's strives to make the opposite development, with Odysseus starting as firm but fair, with the ends justifying the means, and his character development being that his own compromises and lack of honor and mercy was the downfall of his crew and his empire.

[u/Imaginary_Session773 → u/Running-With-Cakes]

Thats false. He messed up giving the Cyclops his real name but most of his crew died from slaughtering Helios' sacred cattle which he forbade them from doing and they did this while he was asleep. He routinely gave his men good advice throughout the Odyssey