Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors working today who has genuinely earned the benefit of the doubt.
Over the last two decades, he’s directed some of my favourite films of all time. The Dark Knight is, in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Interstellar is spectacular. Oppenheimer proved he could make a three-hour historical drama feel gripping from beginning to end.
So when I heard Nolan was adapting Homer’s The Odyssey, I was genuinely excited.
Then I watched the first trailer.
Then I watched the interviews.
And, if I’m honest, it was the interviews that worried me far more than the trailer ever did.
Below is my video covering my thoughts on the recent Odyssey interviews.
The Phrase That Instantly Makes Me Nervous
There are certain phrases that immediately set alarm bells ringing whenever I hear them in Hollywood.
One of them is:
“We’re making it fresh for a modern audience.”
Christopher Nolan used almost those exact words when discussing The Odyssey, explaining that he wanted to make it feel fresh for modern audiences.
Now, on the surface, that probably sounds perfectly reasonable.
After all, every filmmaker wants people to enjoy their work.
But I’ve noticed a pattern over the years.
Whenever Hollywood starts talking about modernising a classic, it often ends up changing things that never needed changing in the first place.
Dialogue becomes simpler.
Characters start behaving like people from 2026 rather than the era they’re supposed to belong to.
Costumes become less distinctive.
The world loses some of the authenticity that made the original story so memorable.
That’s what worries me.
Not because modern audiences are somehow the problem.
I’m part of the modern audience.
So are you.
The problem is assuming that modern audiences need everything rewritten, simplified or updated before they’ll understand it.
I don’t think we do.
The Odyssey Has Already Stood the Test of Time
There’s something almost ironic about trying to “improve” one of the most influential stories ever written.
The Odyssey has survived for nearly three thousand years.
People still study it.
Schools still teach it.
Universities still analyse it.
Actors still perform it.
I even studied it during my acting degree.
That’s an extraordinary achievement.
Very few stories ever reach that level of cultural importance.
Which raises an obvious question.
If a story has remained relevant for three millennia…
Why does it suddenly need modernising now?
I’m not saying adaptations shouldn’t make changes.
Every adaptation has to.
Film and literature are completely different mediums.
But there’s a difference between adapting a story and trying to reinvent why people loved it in the first place.
For me, the goal shouldn’t be to improve Homer.
The goal should be to bring Homer’s story to life as brilliantly as possible.
Trust the Audience
One thing that keeps coming back in these interviews is the idea that audiences need things made easier for them.
Personally, I think Hollywood underestimates its audience far too often.
If a film uses unfamiliar language, historical references or ideas from another culture, that’s not a problem.
People are curious.
If I don’t understand something, I’ll spend thirty seconds looking it up.
We’ve all got the internet sitting in our pockets.
We don’t need every piece of dialogue translated into modern everyday language.
Some of the greatest fantasy films ever made trusted their audience enough to immerse them in another world rather than dragging that world into ours.
That’s part of what made them so memorable.
Tom Holland Completely Missed the Point
One interview in particular really summed up my concerns.
Tom Holland responded to criticism about the dialogue by saying that people wouldn’t have used the word “father” anyway because Ancient Greece would have spoken Greek.
Technically…
He’s right.
But he completely missed what people were actually saying.
Nobody expects Christopher Nolan to make the entire film in Ancient Greek.
That’s obviously not the point.
The discussion is about tone.
Words like “father” simply feel more appropriate in a historical epic than modern expressions like “dad” or “daddy.”
It’s about creating an atmosphere that helps transport the audience into another time.
Using more timeless language helps build that immersion.
Modern expressions can pull you straight back into the present.
To me, it felt like Tom Holland answered a completely different question to the one people were actually asking.
Lupita’s Arrogant Answer Left Me Scratching My Head
The interview that surprised me the most, though, came from Lupita Nyong’o.
She was asked a fascinating question.
Imagine sitting next to Homer after watching the finished film.
What would you ask him?
Honestly, what an incredible question.
You’re sitting next to one of the greatest storytellers in Western history.
A man whose work has lasted for nearly three thousand years.
Where do you even begin?
I’d want to ask about storytelling.
I’d want to know how he created Odysseus.
I’d want to know where the ideas came from.
I’d want to know whether he ever imagined people would still be reading his work thousands of years later.
Instead, Lupita’s first instinct was to ask Homer how he felt about the expanded role given to female characters compared to his original story. Basically telling a creative genius that despite his work lasting 3000 years, it was wrong because it didn’t show women enough…
Now, to be absolutely clear, this isn’t about women having more screen time.
If expanding a character genuinely improves the story, brilliant.
Go for it.
My issue was the attitude behind the answer.
It came across as though her first instinct, when meeting one of history’s greatest writers, would be to point out what she believed he got wrong.
That struck me as incredibly arrogant.
Homer wasn’t writing for audiences three thousand years in the future.
He was writing for his own world, his own culture and his own time.
Whether you agree with every aspect of that world or not is almost beside the point.
The Odyssey is one of the most enduring stories in human history precisely because generations of readers have engaged with it on its own terms.
For me, the first conversation with Homer wouldn’t be about correcting him.
It would be about learning from him.
Christopher Nolan’s Greatest Strength Has Always Been His Confidence
One thought kept coming back to me while watching these interviews.
I wonder whether Christopher Nolan has started believing his own reputation a little too much.
That probably sounds harsher than I intend it to.
He’s absolutely earned his reputation as one of the greatest directors of his generation.
But I can’t help wondering if Christopher Nolan from fifteen years ago approaches this project differently.
Back then, it feels like he would have focused entirely on adapting The Odyssey as faithfully and brilliantly as possible.
Today, I get the impression he’s trying to make his version of The Odyssey.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with putting your own stamp on a classic.
Every director does it.
But there comes a point where the adaptation risks becoming more interested in improving the original than celebrating it.
That’s where my concern lies.
Great Stories Don’t Need Reinventing
The reason people still talk about The Odyssey isn’t because every generation rewrote it.
It’s because the story itself is timeless.
The journey.
The temptation.
The perseverance.
The longing to return home.
Those ideas still resonate today because they’re fundamentally human.
That’s why the story has survived.
Not because someone constantly updated it to suit contemporary tastes.
If anything, I think modern audiences should be encouraged to step into Homer’s world rather than expecting Homer’s world to step into ours.
That’s part of the magic of historical storytelling.
Final Thoughts
I genuinely hope Christopher Nolan proves me wrong.
If anyone can pull off an ambitious adaptation of The Odyssey, it’s him.
But after watching these interviews, I’m more concerned than I was after watching the trailer.
Not because I doubt Nolan’s talent.
But because I worry the people making this film are spending too much time asking how to make The Odyssey work for a modern audience…
…instead of trusting that one of the greatest stories ever written already knows exactly how to do that.
Sometimes the best thing a filmmaker can do isn’t try to improve a classic.
It’s simply tell it well.
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