Christopher Nolan: the Wrong Director for The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is being called a masterpiece by critics and audiences alike. I think Nolan fundamentally didn't understand — or didn't value — what Homer's epic actually is. This is a full breakdown of why the character of Odysseus, the film's handling of Athena and the gods, and its rewritten ending all fail the source material, even by the standard Nolan's own defenders set. In this video I cover: – Why Matt Damon's Odysseus is unrecognizable from Homer's original character – The Cyclops scene change that reveals the film's core problem – Why the movie has less female representation than a 3,000-year-old poem – The significance of The Odyssey in every society – The case that Christopher Nolan was the wrong director for this adaptation Odysseus: A charming, cunning strategist and the seminal hero of Western literature — reduced in Nolan's version to a passive, guilt-ridden shell that never squares with his own actions 0:00 The movie is incredible 0:46 The standard 2:08 The spirit of The Odyssey 3:04 Odysseus 5:10 Spoiler warning 7:00 Acting 8:11 The greatness of Nolan's Odyssey 10:05 The underrepresentation of female characters 13:03 The casting controversies 15:57 The wrong man to adapt The Odyssey 16:56 Athena and the gods 18:29 Xenia