Free Republic

I am asking your help. I will only see this movie if I am convinced that it's worth my three hours of time and money. THEREFORE, I am relying on my fellow Free Republic friends, WHO HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE, to give me their unabridged opinion. 1. 1 to 4 stars, how many stars would you give the movie? 2. Do you recommend the movie? Yes or No? 3. Any comments.

Painting depicting Odysseus and his crew at their ship (Odysseus tied to the mast), while Sirens are around them. John William Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891). Did this voyage take Odysseus to America? Credit: Public Domain For centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have debated where Odysseus truly traveled during his legendary journey back to Ithaca. Among the most intriguing theories is the notion that the hero ventured beyond the Mediterranean, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and reached the shores of what is now known as America. But what evidence supports this extraordinary claim, and does it truly align with Homer’s descriptions...

"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...

In the span of about an hour, the X owner replied “I’m down” to a viral pitch asking him to hand Mel Gibson $100 million for a historically accurate adaptation in Homeric Greek. Then he pinned a post vowing that his own AI video generator will produce a feature-length version of Homer’s epic before the year is out. “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,” Musk wrote. The Pinned Pledge: A Grok-Made Odyssey By DecemberThe Grok post is the concrete one. Musk...

Nolan’s movie keeps the spectacle, but cuts the moral heart out of Homer’s timeless classic. Christopher Nolan’s audacity to gut one of the greatest stories ever told of its themes, meaning, and essence is an unforgivable sin that can only have been perpetrated by Hades or Hollywood. The only reason Nolan’s Odyssey is winning praise at the box office is that we stopped teaching the Classics a hundred years ago, and with it, education itself. Homer’s most important lessons do not even make the screen. What he replaces them with is an assault on the heroic and divine world of...

“The Odyssey” didn’t need a Trojan Horse to break into the top of Friday’s box office charts. Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” earned $51 million on Friday from 3,919 North American screens. Early estimates had the saga grossing $90 million to $100 million by Sunday, but after a stellar opening day, forecasts have the film climbing as high as $120 million. “The Odyssey” will soon become the third film in 2026 to open above $100 million after “Toy Story 5” ($159 million) and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ($131 million). “The Odyssey” carries a hefty $250 million price tag. An $120...

It isn’t exactly news that Homer’s “Odyssey” is a very, very good poem. But seeing Christopher Nolan’s screen adaptation drove this home again for me. The hotly anticipated mega-spectacle is, in the end, pretty good. But it isn’t Homer. Mr. Nolan’s shortcomings have made me love Homer more by comparison and sent me running back, agog, to his deathless masterpiece. Mr. Nolan’s “Odyssey” succeeds as well as any adaptation can. It tells the story of Odysseus’ 10-year journey home from the Trojan War with verve and affection for the source material. It isn’t the hostile woke takeover that some high-profile...

A new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has sparked a strong reaction online, with more dislikes than likes appearing on YouTube. The film, which is set to release in July and stars Matt Damon, Zendaya, and a large ensemble cast, has quickly become one of the most talked-about movies of 2026. The information comes from viewer reactions on YouTube and wider reporting on the trailer’s reception. Many viewers have focused on what they see as modern-style dialogue and casting choices that do not match expectations of historical accuracy. Some people online say the characters sound too contemporary, while others...

This is the first topic I've ever written about which probably shouldn't be written about at all. By anyone. Anywhere. Based on all indications so far, the best way to treat director Christopher Nolan's forthcoming movie, The Odyssey (starring Matt Damon as Odysseus) is simply to ignore it. Never mention it. Certainly not see it. Everyone in the entire world should simply continue living their lives as though the movie never existed at all. The reason isn't just that the trailer conveys an odd combination of overwrought and unserious. It's that the trailer, interviews, and press releases so far suggest...

Another take on ChristopherNolan's The Odyssey.

OK. So Helen’s beauty sparks a war. Athena is a strategic goddess guiding Odysseus. Penelope embodies clever loyalty. Circe turns men into pigs, which frankly is still the most realistic female character arc in literature. Calypso traps the hero on an island for seven years. Cassandra can literally see the future but nobody listens, making her the first woman in recorded history to experience a meeting. The Sirens weaponize music. Nausicaa saves Odysseus when he washes up naked and useless. Andromache gives one of the most devastating anti-war speeches in the Iliad. Hecuba is basically the emotional wreckage of empire...

The history of the Trojan horse is probably one of the most famous stories ever told. A gigantic wooden horse is loaded with Greek soldiers and presented to the Trojans as a gift. Unsuspecting, they swallow the bait and pull the horse into the city. Under cover of darkness the Greeks slip out of the horse and open the gates to their comrades. Only hours later the mighty Troy goes up in flames. But what if the myth of the horse is not true at all? New, groundbreaking findings show that one of the most famous stories of all time...

T.V. Mini-Series "Odyssey" queued at the link-click to 1 minute 41 seconds. The climactic Throne Room scene of Odysseus stringing the bow which only he could, shooting an arrow through numerous axe-rings, and slaughtering Penelope's unwanted suitors, is the central dramatic motif of all of Western Civilization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_A9XWxV0Q&t=101sStudents of ancient Greek culture, not necessarily at English universities, but more commonly centered on Greek Orthodox Church parishes, study the Homeric epic poems as the foundation of Western Civilization. It was set up in the 8th century before Christ.

Christopher Nolan made his way to Las Vegas to talk up “The Odyssey,” his historical drama based on Homer’s Greek epic... “Why ‘The Odyssey?’ ‘The Odyssey’ is a story that has fascinated generation after generation for 3,000 years,” Nolan mused. “It’s not a story. It’s the story.” Nolan treated exhibitors to an extended look at “The Odyssey,” which opened with Damon’s Odysseus, shirtless on the beach with a burly beard. He’s been gone a long time and admits to Calypso (Charlize Theron) that he “can’t remember anything before Troy.” Most of the footage revolved around “the story of the horse”...

If Helen of Troy were meant to be an African woman, Homer might have told his readers that fact in his telling of the greatest and most timeless epic poems in Western history – The Iliad and The Odyssey. Her appearance being so contrary to everyone else in the Greek world certainly would have warranted a mention. This much, at least, should be obvious to everyone. Imagining Helen’s appearance to be that of an African woman is just farcical, if one has any respect for the source material at all. It would make no sense for a high-budget production to...

AbstractThe Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710-760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate - derived from a shared ancestral word - or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate...

Elon Musk took to X on Sunday to claim two-time Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan “has lost his integrity” while debating Lupita Nyong’o’s speculated role in “The Odyssey,” Helen of Troy. On Sunday morning, one X user claimed that if Nyong’o plays Helen of Troy, it is “an insult” to the Greek poet Homer, who wrote “The Odyssey” around 700 BCE, because he originally described the fictonal character as “fair skinned, blonde, and ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’ because she was so beautiful that men started a war over her.” Musk later commented on the post, “Chris Nolan has...

To the Greeks, the Trojan War is one of the most famous events in their history, and it is also one of the most well-known stories in Greek mythology. However, the question about whether or not the Trojan War truly happened remains. The discovery of Troy in the eighteenth century seemed to vindicate Homer’s account, but the reality is much more complicated than that. Does the city of Troy prove the Trojan War really happened? For many people, the discovery of the city of Troy proves that the Trojan War really happened. According to this train of thought, such a...

The first trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s feature take of Homer’s The Odyssey is here, and yet the highly anticipated movie has already sold out 70MM Imax tickets at AMC and Regal cinemas. Matt Damon is seen here as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, leading his soldiers home after the Trojan War. There’s barely a glimpse of a monster in the trailer, but per the poem which is set around eighth century BCE, he faces Polyphemus the Cyclops, Sirens, the nymph Calypso and the witch goddess Circe in the treacherous oceans. If anything, there’s a lot of ocean and a lot of...

Classically-educated colonial Americans learned to be wary of monarchy from the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is very likely that, in July 1776, many Americans heard sermons based on the text of Psalm 143:6 -- “Put not your trust in princes….” One suspects that ministers used words even more harsh than those in the Declaration of Independence, where “the present King of Great Britain” was assailed for “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having their direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” George III had been much admired by colonials. They had erected an equestrian statue to...