Posted on 07/24/2026 5:50:46 AM PDT by Cronos
"Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey so that he would be eligible for an Academy Award …" said Musk
Now that Nolan's film is out to rave reviews from both critics and audiences, Musk has taken to X once again to share his plans to make a more "historically accurate" version of the film.
"Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer," said Musk in a July 21 X post.
That same day, he replied "I'm down" to a tweet asking him to give Mel Gibson $100 million to film a "painstakingly accurate" Odyssey adaptation.
Gibson might have been chosen for previously directing the historical epic Braveheart — and for having a number of famous controversies centered around the actor/director's alleged antisemitism, racism and homophobia, making him an "anti-woke" pick.
"The whole controversy around the Nolan film has been a little head-scratching," said Daniel Mendelsohn, a classicist with a published translation of The Odyssey, in an interview with The Times. "There is no such thing as a historically accurate version of The Odyssey."
Mendelsohn says that The Odyssey is a hodgepodge of different eras from Greek history.
"The armor, the modes of fighting, the courtship rituals — it's a mixed bag from all different periods of civilization, and so there is nothing to be historically accurate to," he says.
Musk's announcement of a Grok-driven Odyssey adaptation was itself a quote retweet to a three-minute Grok-generated scene of The Odyssey, which Mendelsohn said also contained historical inaccuracies.
"I do wish they would stop putting these guys in sleeves," said Mendelsohn in the same interview. "The Greeks didn't have sleeves. That was a sign that you were a foreigner."
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.finance.yahoo.com ...
True.
though I would love a series that was purely and historically accurate Bronze age.
HBO’s ‘Rome’ was incredible imho because of how it showed how people THOUGHT!
And Bronze age thinking was incredibly different from ours - in the Odysseus there is a line “a son is never as good as his father” highlighting how they saw that everything was in decline from the previous golden age and how casual they were about enslaving people.
Our Christian mindset is so utterly different, these people would be like aliens from Betelgeuse to us
I’m with you on this.
Look at how many ways Robin Hood has been made into film (most of them from mediocre to bad) with so many different presentations. Even though the core characters were represented, they were often quite different.
So I haven’t seen Odessey yet but I am considering it because almost everyone who I talked to enjoyed it. So I’m not sure yet just how “woke” it really is, but to be fair, it’s almost impossible to no transpose modern cultural prejudices on any fictional representation.
Both “Braveheart” and “The Patriot” were historically inaccurate also!
IIRC, Musk said done by the end of the year.
Impossible?
They used Emily Wilson’s version,, I won’t use the word translation, for a reason.
If Musk really does make a movie, I hope he uses Alexander Pope’s translation.
That’s the one I enjoy.
Nolan could have used Pope’s translation.
But it wouldn’t have made good agitprop, would it...
Love them both. Should be epic.
Ditto, ditto.
Apocalypto always falls thru the cracks.
The Passion was accurate by the Catholic version which Mel is.
So, about the same time that fully self-driving Teslas appear?
I don’t really remember much about the Patriot - I think I was much younger when I watched it and loved the entire spectacle of the movie and never really thought about it
The Odyssey is the insightful story of the universal soldier who has fought hard and long in war. He has seen far too much killing, absurdity, suffered too many physical and psychic wounds and has had to deal with the death and suffering of comrades. The journey home is never a direct flight from Da Nang to San Francisco. That veteran is not the same person who left home to fight. Now he must cope with feelings and experiences few others have experienced. That journey “home” is often long and tortured. How he travels and copes will seem and is often bizarre. If and when he arrives home, he may find it is definitely not the home he left. IMHO Homer himself was likely to be a combat veteran and was writing for other men who had similiar experiences.
Elon Musk is a good accomplished man. So is Mel Gibson. Both of course have their faults. However neither saw combat or was a soldier. Actually if Musk wants someone to remake and direct the Odyssey, a director like Oliver Stone might do a credible job.
Musk nailed it.
We can split hairs about what is/isn't accurate about Nolan's version of The Odyssey.
AS for Helen of Troy:
"Homer described Helen of Troy primarily through epithets like 'white-armed' (indicating high status and pale skin) and 'lovely-haired,' noting that she possessed the 'terrible appearance of goddesses.'
Later classical poets, such as Hesiod, Sappho, and Euripides, added more specific traits, describing her as having fair or light-colored hair (xanthos) and dark or dark-blue eyes. While Homer focused on her divine aura and the catastrophic impact of her beauty, these later sources established the visual standard of a fair-skinned, blonde woman that influenced subsequent artistic depictions."
Yet this is what Nolan cast as "the most beautiful woman in the world," "a face that launched a thousand ships," and whose "beauty caused the Trojan War."
I disagree with that. Having to read subtitles is very inauthentic, plus modern Greek is probably quite different from the Greek of Homer.
Yep, great comments by Musk. Glad he’s out there saying these things.
Back then guys wore mini skirts. Women wore gowns. And both had very hairy legs.
Agreed.
Very.
How can you tell who’s the bride at a Mycenaean wedding?
She’s the one with braided armpit hair.
(adaptation of a modern joke)
So am I.
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