The Fall of Nolan - How The Odyssey Went from his Magnum Opus to a Weak Disappointment

The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's epic of the same name, isn't even out yet, yet what we've seen shows that the acclaimed director has lost his touch

When it was announced that Christopher Nolan's next film would be an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, I, like many people around the world, was elated.

Homer's two epics, The Iliad and its sequel, The Odyssey, are some of the most influential written works in human history and are a beloved staple of Ancient Greek culture still enjoyed across the western world nearly three-thousand years after they were written.

For those that don't know, The Iliad is set toward the end of a decade-long siege of the city of Troy by a collection of Mycenaean Greek states, with particular attention paid to the legendary Greek warrior Achilles and his quarrel with King Agamemnon, as well as his rivalry with the Trojan prince Hector.

The Odyssey, set immediately following the events of the Trojan war, follows Odysseus (also known in Latin as Ulysses), the King of Ithaca, on his perilous journey home following his participation in the war.

Odysseus' homecoming takes an additional decade as all of his crewmates are killed on the insanity-inducing trip, while Ithaca is thrown into chaos as his extended absence results in him being presumed dead and leaving a power vacuum many others attempt to fill.

To this day Homer's epics are still regarded as some of the most influential and timeless stories ever written, and an adaptation by Christopher Nolan, director of such masterpieces as The Dark Knight and Interstellar, seemed a match made in heaven.

Nolan has a hard-earned reputation as being one of the most talented and dedicated directors alive and is well-known for his attention to detail, mastery of the cinematic experience, and his dedication to authenticity.

This is a man who, unlike most directors of today, insists on using practical effects when at all possible (even in creating visual representations of an atomic bomb detonating), eschewing today's over-reliance on CGI and green screens.

In an age where directors are told to reiterate the plot of their movie several times during its runtime because "viewers are likely on their phones" while watching, Nolan has shown his audiences respect and crafted experiences for those that want to be engaged in a movie's universe - which he has sometimes taken too far in movies like Tenet, where it's easy to miss something and lose track of what on earth is happening as a result.

His streak of movies from 2000-2014 is unparalled - Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar - but since that run, his affinity for epic films has waned.

2017's Dunkirk, which followed the inspirational evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers from the beaches of Northern France during World War II, while being critically acclaimed and it wasn't a bad movie, was a slow and dull affair that really doesn't come close to his previous works aside from the cinematography and score courtesy of Hans Zimmer.

Then came Tenet, which promised another scintillating sci-fi mind-bending thriller in the same vein as Nolan's beloved Inception - unfortunately, it didn't live up to those lofty aspirations and again, while it wasn't a bad movie, it was hardly the unforgettable experience Nolan's other original works like Inception, The Prestige, or Interstellar were.

Though far from a "fall from grace", some like myself wondered whether Nolan had lost his touch.

With Oppenheimer, Nolan tried his hand at a biographical film as he followed the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the famous theoretical physicist who directed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II for the Manhattan Project, which culminated with the creation of the nuclear bomb.

Despite branching out into a different type of film, Nolan pulled off the project and delivered a top-notch biography with his typical attention to detail and flair for crafting eye-catching cinematic moments.

That rekindled momentum made the early details of his next project suitably exciting, particularly for those that are fans of Ancient Greece or ancient warfare in general.

As its July 2026 release date has drawn closer however, that excitement was slowly worn down thanks to questionable casting decisions and a disappointing teaser trailer back in December - in the last few weeks however, those holding out hope that Nolan could still deliver an epic on par with his past masterpieces and do Homer's tales justice have been blindsided by a disappointing turn from the once-beloved director.

Greek Armour that is not, Mister Nolan...

The first signs of something wrong came as some of the cast was revealed - having Matt Damon star as Odysseus, a heroic Greek warrior, wasn't exactly a respected choice, but perhaps worse is Tom Holland who is playing Odysseus' son - no offense to Holland, as he is a great actor, but his frame doesn't look capable of even lifting a sword from that era let alone wielding it.

The inclusion of woke trans-activist and "former" female Elliot Page certainly wasn't a good sign, but given Nolan's track record, he was afforded plenty of leeway by most, so cautious optimism remained.

After all, The Odyssey isn't a purely historical record and is considered a myth - though, as we've discussed plenty in The Human Story series, ancient myths typically incorporate plenty of real history in its stories, and humans have a habit of still doing this today - weaving truth in with embellishment and filling in gaps with beliefs of their times or "approximations" that may or may not be accurate.

Of course ancient stories like The Odyssey took this to an extreme, with divine beings and monsters and the like being incorporated into their tales, but even many of those mythological beings can be rooted in reality - the Cyclops for instance could easily have been inspired by a real, abnormally large warrior who had previously lost an eye in battle or was otherwise disfigured, embellished and turned into something inhuman to make a more intriguing and awe-inspiring story.

Homer's epics themselves had been treated as pure myth for many centuries by "experts", with the city of Troy being dubbed pure fiction as a result - until of course the city itself was discovered in the late 19th century, lining up with not only Homer's description of the "mythical" location but that it had likely fallen in battle, rooting Homer's tale of the Trojan war in reality.

Just how much of the story and its characters are an historical account, and how much of it was pure fiction however, is something nobody todaycan accurately answer.

Given the ambiguous nature of such a story's historical accuracy, there's plenty of wiggle room for interpretation.

When the first images from the movie dropped, depicting Matt Damon as Odysseus, that wiggle room was already being stretched.

The Trojan war occurred during the bronze age, with soldiers of that time (and as described in The Iliad and The Odyssey) wearing helmets adorned with boar tusks - in Nolan's adaptation, Damon is sporting a helmet and armour of a later Greek era, with the signature red-plume of Roman Centurians.

For someone with Nolan's attention to detail, while the more-Roman style still looks cool, it's a far more generic choice and a wasted chance to show a more period-accurate version of Homer's epics.

Anyone without a deep knowledge or obsession with Ancient Greek and Roman military garb of course won't know the difference, and while Nolan's choice seems less creative than it is generic, with any film some artistic liberty is allowed - it may not be accurate, but it still looks cool and isn't going to completely break the immersion, so most gave it a pass.

And then came the first trailer.

Damon's questionable fit has absolutely nothing on Benny Safdie's costume, who plays King Agamemnon.

It's one thing to take some artistic liberty and add some creative flair - the Ancient Greeks certainly loved to add plenty of it on their own - but it's another to put something that looks completely out-of-place and impractical in while still pretending it doesn't break the setting.

Nolan's King Agamemnon looks nothing like any Ancient Greek King or soldier, and for good reason - not only does the armour and helmet look like bad plastic cosplay gear, it is completely impractical for anyone that would actually be doing any fighting, which Agamemnon certainly did.

It is comically thick (made out of metal, the helmet alone would be ludicrously heavy) and looks more like a poor AI-generated crossover between Batman and a Roman Legionnaire.

Not only has any semblance of immersion in the Ancient Greek tale gone out the window, it doesn't even look cool, making such a thing unforgivable.

For a director who is typically so attached to authenticity and has such an eye for detail, it is really bizarre to see some of the "creative" choices Nolan is making, especially when it is so immersion-breaking.

Anyone with ANY knowledge of ancient war history (ie. most males) can immediately tell that Nolan's dark, plastic-y armour is completely out of place, and that's the biggest blunder a creative decision can make - one that breaks an audience's immersion.

The Trojan Horse that Broke the Camel's Back

As bad as the armour issue may be, Nolan at least has reverence for some parts of Homer's epic, as clearly shown in the above image of the world-famous Trojan Horse.

For those that don't know, the Trojan Horse was built at the behest of Odysseus as a "peace offering" to the Trojans, a masterful ploy to trick the city of Troy into welcoming their own destruction with open arms.

The large wooden horse was engineered by Epeius, a skilled artisan in the Greek ranks, and was built by the Greek soldiers in just three days (possibly from wood gathered from the nearby Mount Ida, or from dismantled ships) and was described as having an ivory mane, bronze hooves, and of course a secret compartment inside the hollow structure to hide an elite team of Greek soldiers.

After a decade of fighting, the Greeks could not break through Troy's mighty walls, and thus Odysseus concocted his plan - to present the Trojans with a sacred offering to secure a safe journey home for the Greeks as they abandoned their siege of the city.

The Trojans would let the offering past its walls and after the Trojans celebrated their "victory", the hidden soldiers would emerge from the "sacred offering" to open the city's gates and let the Greek forces into the city once and for all.

Although the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy was detailed in The Iliad, given its significance (and repeated references throughout The Odyssey, especially given that Odysseus' deception "asked" for safe passage home and ironically, though Odysseus would topple Troy, he and his soldiers would certainly not get that safe journey home) it's likely that Nolan's movie will depict the end of the Trojan war before getting into the events of The Odyssey.

As such, it's great to see Nolan's attention to detail here - the massive warhorse is impressive in scale and looks like something that could be quickly built from what the soldiers had available to them, while still showing off Greek craftsmanship.

It also looks like a group of soldiers would not only have sufficient space to hide out inside the structure, but that it would be able to support their weight, making it a realistic interpretation of the iconic horse.

Oh wait, that image is from the awesome 2004 film Troy?

Whoops.

Well, Wolfgang Petersen did an awesome job adapting The Iliad, even if he sacrificed some historical accuracy for aesthetics (like the later-Greek-era armour, though his didn't break immersion or veer into comically ugly territory).

So what about Nolan's version of the Trojan Horse?

Oh...that's not so great.

This looks more like a chocolate animal you'd see in the post-Easter bargain bin at Walmart.

Realism is clearly out the window, not to mention that the damn thing has to hide a bunch of soldiers in it for many hours without breaking or giving them away, so having the horse standing like that is....quite a choice.

Then there's the poster they put out...apparently, in Nolan's tale they went through all that trouble to hide maybe five people inside of it, and given the smooth panels throughout the rest of the horse, didn't even bother to disguise the "secret" opening.

The reverence Nolan typically shows to source material when he's basing his stories on other works, whether it be the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the heroism displayed at Dunkirk, or even Batman's comic mythos, doesn't seem to be present anywhere in The Odyssey.

While 2004's Troy was an awesome movie and went a realistic route when it came to the depiction of the Trojan war, eschewing the more fantastical elements like those involving the Greek gods, based on the roles announced Nolan will be leaning more into the mythological elements, which if I was going into the movie blind I'd have been excited for.

Yet after seeing how Nolan has butchered the "grounded" elements of Homer's epic, that excitement has completely disintegrated.

As someone who loves Ancient Greek and Roman history and mythology, and has been a massive Christopher Nolan fan ever since I saw The Dark Knight as a kid, everything about The Odyssey has been nothing short of massive disappointment.

But it gets worse...

Christopher Nolan has Been Lost to Woke Hollywood

As if all that wasn't enough, it has been leaked that Helen of Troy, the "face that launched a thousand ships", a daughter of Zeus and said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, is being played by...Lupita Nyong'o, a black woman.

That's right, one of the most famous women (mythical or otherwise) in Ancient Greek culture and in western history in general, who was certainly white (not only by simple knowledge of the time and area in which the story takes place, but as clearly described in the source material itself), is being played by a black actress.

For years, liberals have cried about "whitewashing" when Hollywood made films based in other areas of the world or when adapting other culture's stories to American audiences by casting a white person instead of a black/Asian/other minority.

There are some cases where such a thing makes sense (though liberals almost never deal with nuance) - for instance, lifting another story or myth and adapting it to another time and place to fit with a chosen audience.

This is done by every known culture on the planet, and while some may call it "cultural appropriation", it is an homage to that original story and not a direct adaptation - for example, taking the general story and themes of the Seven Samurai and setting in it the wild west rather than feudal Japan, where a cast of Americans makes perfect sense.

You can see countless examples of this across Bollywood, Chinese cinema, and virtually every medium across every culture.

The problem occurs when a story is adapted and not given a new setting or time period, then opts to race or gender-swaps roles, as it is now attempting to redefine history and apply modern social pandering to past cultures and creators.

When it comes to historical events, such changes are not only jarring, but they can completely break immersion and even ruin the story, especially when a character's race or gender plays a prominent role in their presence (whether conscious or not), and that's not even getting into the fact that it's insulting to the original people or culture the events are based on.

If you can't see why having Lupita Nyong'o play Helen of Troy in Ancient Greece is wrong, then just imagine if say Rosa Parks was played by Sydney Sweeney in a movie.

Or if Brad Pitt played Nelson Mandela in a biopic.

Try and imagine the uproar that would cause - hell, it'd be a miracle if riots didn't break out.

When it's a minority cast in a white person's role, it's hailed by the media as "diversity". When it's a white person cast in a minority's role? Well that's "whitewashing" and racist.

In the case of The Odyssey, many are excusing it by saying it's a mythical story, so there's "no reason it can't be different" - yet that argument completely falls apart.

By that logic, people shouldn't have any problem if Chris Pratt played the Black Panther, an entirely made-up character.

Or how about a new Beverley Hills Cop, but with Channing Tatum as Axel Foley?

If liberals didn't have hypocritical values, they'd have no values at all.

Modern leftists have been actively pushing to "blackwash" white characters for years - not simply calling for "inclusion" ie. creating new characters that are black or other minorities, but taking characters that are white and having black people play them instead, which by their own logic should be seen as racist and insulting.

Not only that, but many are even seeking to "overturn" accomplishments by white people by claiming them as actually being black - just look at Netflix's retarded series on Cleopatra, which claims the real-life Egyptian queen was actually black.

With Nolan's version of The Odyssey, we have one of the worst examples of it in recent memory, as Nolan has effectively put up a massive middle finger to Greek culture and said "well actually, the most beautiful woman in the world according to Ancient Greeks, should have been a black woman".

The idea that untold thousands of Ancient Greek soldiers would call to arms and engage in a decade of battle to rescue a black woman is actually hilarious.

Even by today's standards it is ludicrous.

The argument by some is that it is adapting the story (without changing the setting or time period, thus making the argument silly) to a modern American audience - yet that too is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Americans do not agree with this sentiment.

Just look at the facts - black women are the least coveted (particularly by men) demographic of women in America (and much of the world), something that has been shown repeatedly through decades of studies and polls.

You can call it racist, but that is simply how humans are, even today.

Hell, in America, nearly half of black mothers are single and they have far higher rates of being unpartnered throughout their adult years than any other race.

Even if you set such a story in modern Greece, you'd be laughed out of the building if you suggested that the men of Greece would unite and claim a black woman as the most beautiful woman in Greece.

Again, that isn't racism, it's human nature.

This has been studied for decades across all races and cultures, and you can see it all throughout history.

Humans, sub-consciously or not, by-and-large are more attracted to and protective of "their own" - whether it be their own culture, race, language, or otherwise.

It's why when you look at ancient cultures, they worship gods who have their ethnic traits - you don't see Chinese myths worshipping black people, just as you don't see African tribes telling tales of awe-inspiring white deities, nor Indian stories telling people about a great Japanese man who created the Earth.

Is every culture "racist" because their myths and tales revolve around their own background and culture rather than those of others?

Certainly not, and liberals would all argue that their cultural and spiritual beliefs should be respected and preserved.

Yet when it comes time to talk about the cultural and spiritual beliefs of white people, such as the Ancient Greeks? All of a sudden we can change it and "only racists" would have a problem with it.

Imagine the outrage if Hollywood made a movie about western African mythology and made Oshun, their god of love, beauty, and fertility, a white woman.

There would understandably be outcry, and it would be an insult to western African culture and history.

Yet nobody is supposed to be angry that Zendaya, a half-Nigerian half-German/Scottish woman, is playing Athena, the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare.

Helen of Troy, the "face that launched a thousand ships", according to legend being the most beautiful woman in Ancient Greece, which understandably coveted Greek ideals like fair olive skin - we are to accept that it's better if she was portrayed by a black woman.

Weirdly, when famous white characters are replaced by minorities, it's always the heroic/iconic roles, never the evil characters.

For example, Disney's live-action Snow White adaptation had a half-black woman playing the role of the titular character, even though "Snow White" is named as such literally because of the colour of her skin, yet in their infinite wisdom saw fit to keep the "Evil Queen" a white woman.

In 2018, the BBC and Netflix put out their own adaptation of The Iliad with Troy: Fall of a City, and they portrayed the legendary Greek warrior Achilles as a black man, and they did the same with Zeus.

How come Netflix hasn't made a series casting black actors as Confederate generals?

Where are the WWII movies featuring black Nazis?

Defenders of these replacements, when confronted by the fact that it's the heroic roles being taken over and villainous ones aren't being "diversified", state that it would "reinforce negative stereotypes about minorities being bad".

Ironic, since I seem to recall a certain stereotype about black people taking what doesn't belong to them, yet liberals seem to have no qualms about reinforcing that stereotype...

Other cultures and races, from Mexicans to black Americans to the Chinese to Indians, are encouraged to preserve and share their culture, yet when it comes to the culture of white people, despite the fact that we live in the western world which was crafted and built by white people, we must let go of it, highlight any indiscretions instead of focusing on anything good, or pretend others played a prominent role in it when they did not.

When will people have enough of this hypocritical bullshit?

It's time to say "no more" - for decades white people have been told we "have no culture" and to say we have any pride in ourselves is "racist", yet we must respect and revere every other culture, even ones like the Aztecs who brutally tortured and sacrificed thousands of children and babies in sick rituals that weren't normal amongst any other peoples of their time.

White culture is what built western civilization, the most free and prosperous collective society in known history.

White culture is what created the technology you hold in your hands to read this very article.

White culture is what stopped slavery around most of the world (ironically, something that is still very much present today in various Arabic, Asian, and African nations).

White culture is what ushered in advances in technology that the rest of the world couldn't even dream of, and continues to take advantage of to this day.

It seems that liberalism in the west is hell-bent on recreating what happened to Rhodesia on a massive scale, and won't be happy until the advanced western civilization that we once knew (ie. Rhodesia) turns into a cesspit with failed infrastructure, a crippled economy, and horrendous crime rates (ie. Zimbabwe), because white people are "oppressors" and must be toppled.

It's time for white people to remember our heritage and what made our culture the envy of the world - and it's time for us to stop letting others desecrate our history and our ancestors, and to stop letting them replace everything we hold dear (including ourselves).

It all starts with giving a middle finger to Christopher Nolan and his shift to woke bullshit.

If it wasn't bad enough that Nolan cared so little for the Ancient Greek story through his adaptation's props and aesthetic, his turn to appease the woke crowd is an absolute insult to western audiences in its entirety, at a time when white people by-and-large are being actively replaced by leaders across the western world and having our culture torn down and shamed.

What should have been Christopher Nolan's magnum opus - an epic adaptation of Homer's legendary Odyssey that has entertained the masses for millenia - has been turned into a pathetic serving of modern slop, from half-assed props that look like they're from Temu to pretending that a black woman was the most coveted and beautiful woman in Ancient Greece.

One can only hope people vote with their wallets against such garbage, and teach Christopher Nolan that siding with woke Hollywood is no longer a good business decision.