A Few Thoughts on Nolan's Odyssey (2026)

The most interesting thing to ponder is the Odysseus and Antinous dichtomy and how it applies to modern organizational psychology. There are the people like Odysseus and his men doing the honest, hard, dangerous work that the kingdom requires to function - and then there are the suitors like Antinous who spend their time scheming, undistracted by duty in their shortcut to power. It's going out into the field, versus hanging around the throne. We see this all the time in bureaucracy. There are the engineers, or physicians, or teachers, or whoever is actually producing the thing that the organization is for. Then there are the people who spend their time in meetings around the higher-ups. This is part of the process of how eventually, everything becomes a racket. (Nolan also made Antinous the first draft dodger.)

My main complaint about this adaptation is that the Bronze Age Collapse in the background is a bit shoe-horned in. I forgive the lack of complete historical accuracy, but it takes me out of the moment as Penelope and Odysseus and Telemachus are clutching their pearls over their "civilization" collapsing. That said, I do like that the Myceneans are identified as the Sea Peoples (Goliath and the Philistines were probably Greeks.) There is also an interesting echo of the fall of man, as if the sack of Troy is the secular classical answer to tasting the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden - which does bring to mind speculation that Christopher Nolan talked with his brother Jonathan about the book the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which was named explicitly in Westworld. Also discussed explicitly in that book was the Bronze Age Collapse, as being caused by the spread of consciousness as a sort of curse of knowledge.

There are no fewer than four superheroes in this movie: Batman, Spiderman, Catwoman, and the Punisher (and one more if you count Jason Bourne.) There is a through line from ancient Greece until now: Greek hero worship cults got converted to Christian saints which got secularized to modern superheroes. This is not to draw lines between specific heroes, saints and superheroes (although one of the Avengers is actually a god), but rather it's the institution of, effectively, demigods - with origin stories, powers and weaknesses, iconography and infamous archnemeses, whether it's Lex Luthor, a pagan king, or a minotaur.



My favorite performances in decreasing order were Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, then Spiderman. The bizarre enmity I so often see for Anne Hathaway can only be explained by what an amazing performer she is. And given that we hear the siren theme at one point after Odysseus returns home, if this were a Marvel movie: plot twist, Penelope is a siren!

At first I thought Nolan had whiffed on the depiction of the Scylla vs Charybdis scene, a classic lesson in leadership where one has to choose the least bad option among many, all of which will harm someone you're responsible for. But it's saved with a theme that appears several times elsewhere - the troubled relationship between truth and authority, an early casualty in the greater war between virtue and authority.

Although Nolan kept Achilles out of the Hades scene, it's worth contrasting his line against Lucifer in Paradise Lost. Both have been vanquished from their home realms and landed in the underworld. Achilles is mournful: "I'd rather slave on earth for another man, than rule down here over all the breathless dead." The contrast with Lucifer is nearly diametric: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Is this an indomitable rebellious spirit? The ultimate sour grapes? Or knowing he has lost and wouldn't have preferred this, he's rallying himself as he rallies his men?

Nolan's avoidance of CGI means he goes to awesome places to shoot. This helps him show man with his bravery tested against the backdrop of a strange, beautiful, capricious and hostile universe. It means in his movies he lets the world be itself.

The use of poison is a strong marker for antisocial traits and psychopathy. Interesting that it appears again in a Nolan film; I say "again" loosely, because in Oppenheimer it was offstage. Robert Oppenheimer is suspected to have poisoned a tutor at whom he was angry.

The Odyssey was the Empire Strikes Back of the Iliad. To a Greek in 400BC, stories about the Trojan War in 1200BC were like fantasy fiction to us (8 centuries ago is AD 1200.) This makes me want to see a new Part 3. An attempt at reconstructing the Telegony, or something brand new. (I don't count the Aenaeid, that's Augustan propaganda.) What are you waiting for Nolan?