The following article contains spoilers for Christoper Nolan’s The Odyssey
All adaptations are bad. They simply cannot be faithful, no matter how hard they try. Even the best leave out most of the book. Words can no more become images than water can become rock. Since no adaptation can ever match the book, all adaptations are acceptable. The real question is simply: is it good on its own terms, in itself, as a movie, standalone? The best will always bear some strong relationship to their originals. But to sit there with a pencil noting the changes and “errors” is the worst sort of pedantry. No film, however faithful, however well it adheres to our notions of ancient masculinity, however woke or unwoke, can ever bring back the lost music of the Homeric epics. If it was fair game for The Simpsons to make an episode riffing on the Odyssey then Christopher Nolan may do as he wishes.
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