The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1779 - The Odyssey Looks Awful. Here’s Why.

00:00:00 When we first learned that Christopher Nolan was making an adaptation of The Odyssey, there was

00:00:04 perhaps reason for optimism, if you happen to be an optimistic sort of person. Nolan has made

00:00:11 some mistakes in his career. Tenet was one of the most convoluted films ever made. Interstellar had

00:00:16 one too many bloated Hallmark-style monologues from Anne Hathaway preaching about the universal

00:00:21 power of love or whatever, but he's still unquestionably one of the most talented living

00:00:27 filmmakers, and The Odyssey is one of the foundational works of Western literature.

00:00:31 It's a heroic epic with very obvious themes of masculinity, patriarchy, daring, discovery,

00:00:38 mortality. Nolan has proven he can tackle epic sweeping projects in the past, and because

00:00:43 Hollywood has somewhat retreated from the racial depravity of the Cultural Revolution 0.81

00:00:47 of 2020, or so we thought, it was reasonable to hope that Nolan would be faithful to Homer's 0.65

00:00:53 original story and produce a worthwhile film. Then the trailers arrived, and we'll start with

00:00:58 the one that came out several months ago. Watch. After years of war.

00:01:23 promise me you'll come back what if i can't

00:01:32 promise me you'll come back what if i can't now this might be splitting hairs but it's worrisome

00:01:42 if this is the kind of dialogue they're going to highlight in the trailer sounds like a

00:01:48 conversation you might have with the receptionist at your dentist when she's scheduling your six

00:01:52 month checkup. It's kind of flat. It's bland. It's definitely nothing like the dialogue in

00:01:59 the Odyssey. It doesn't sound like people in ancient Greece. But the more you watch this

00:02:04 trailer, the more you notice some other problems. There's the cheap looking armor in the beginning,

00:02:08 which looks like it was created with a 3D printer. Put aside the fact for now that they

00:02:14 didn't actually have armor that looked like this back in the Bronze Age. Just look at this side

00:02:18 by side comparison, you have the armor in the 2004 movie, Troy, with the armor that they're

00:02:25 using in the Odyssey. And you can see it there. It's pretty obvious downgrade, in my opinion,

00:02:31 whatever material Nolan's using, it looks noticeably cheap and fake. So that's another

00:02:35 red flag. Again, not the kind of thing that means the movie will be a disaster, but it makes you

00:02:39 wonder what's going on. Then you get into bigger issues. At the outset, I'll mention that I'm not

00:02:45 an expert on Homer, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that despite my lack of

00:02:51 expertise, there are, when you take all the factors together that we'll discuss, really only two

00:02:56 possibilities. Either I somehow know a lot more about the topic than Christopher Nolan, which

00:03:01 seems unlikely, or Christopher Nolan is deliberately bastardizing the Odyssey. First of all, the tone

00:03:09 is not right. The Iliad is supposed to be the gritty wartime epic from Homer. On the other hand,

00:03:14 The Odyssey is more of a grand, sweeping adventure story, though also, of course, dealing with

00:03:20 serious themes. But there's more flowery language. There's strange creatures and adventures.

00:03:27 People get turned into pigs. Poseidon causes the ships to wreck and so on. Now, with this trailer,

00:03:34 it looks kind of like Nolan isn't so much giving us a fantasy epic with a vibrant color palette,

00:03:40 but rather a gritty, dimly lit, self-serious action thriller.

00:03:46 Because, for one thing, every major movie made today is dimly lit

00:03:51 for reasons that no one's ever been able to explain.

00:03:54 At least no good reasons.

00:03:56 No one's sort of applying the Batman approach where it doesn't belong.

00:03:59 You half expect to see the Joker show up when you watch the trailer.

00:04:03 This is yet another Hollywood blockbuster where everything needs to be

00:04:06 dark and brooding and intense and, like I said, dark, like actually dark, lit in terms of how

00:04:15 it's lit. It would have been much more interesting if Nolan had embraced the vibe

00:04:20 of the actual epic poem, which is what the 1954 adaptation did. Take a look at this here.

00:04:29 Now, from this one photo, you can tell that they understand at least the tone that a film based on the Odyssey should have.

00:04:40 And there's actually some color.

00:04:42 Did you know you can have color in movies?

00:04:44 Modern directors don't realize this.

00:04:47 You're allowed to have color.

00:04:48 That's okay.

00:04:49 There's no law saying you're not allowed to have any kind of color or actually fully light a scene.

00:04:54 You're allowed to do that.

00:04:56 As far as I know.

00:04:57 so it feels tonally off which is which is what a lot of viewers have picked up on

00:05:02 and as the trailers kept coming the situation started to look even worse so uh here's the

00:05:09 most recent trailer that really has set off some alarm bells for a lot of uh a lot of viewers watch

00:05:15 what would he do if he came back here and find all these suitors in his house

00:05:19 You're pining for a daddy you didn't even know, like some sniffling pastor.

00:05:29 Who's looking after your wife and son?

00:05:32 Do you see?

00:05:34 My dad is coming home.

00:05:37 Bringing vengeance.

00:05:41 Bringing it all.

00:05:43 Let's go!

00:05:50 I think it's asleep.

00:05:56 Well, there's some more award-winning dialogue for you.

00:05:59 Odysseus says, let's go.

00:06:03 That's what they went with for this big, epic moment where he's leading the charge.

00:06:07 Let's go.

00:06:09 Now, again, I know it sounds like splitting hairs,

00:06:10 but this is not how people in the ancient Greek world,

00:06:14 many centuries before Christ, would have communicated.

00:06:17 I don't just mean because they're speaking English. I'll forgive that part. I don't think

00:06:24 that every director has to go full Mel Gibson and actually do the film in the language that they

00:06:30 spoke, although I certainly respect that strategy. Whether they're speaking English, fine. But the

00:06:36 English that they're speaking should capture the spirit of the time period. Now, if you're making

00:06:44 a movie where a high school quarterback runs onto the field for the big game against the

00:06:49 school's hated rival, then it makes sense to have him shout, let's go. But it doesn't work

00:06:55 for a depiction of an ancient battle based on one of the greatest works of literature of all time.

00:07:00 And there's no excuse for it because Homer's, because the Odyssey is full of beautiful dialogue

00:07:05 where he's exhorting and encouraging his men. I'm not saying Nolan needs to use those exact words,

00:07:12 but he should at least try to capture again the spirit.

00:07:15 Homer has this famous passage,

00:07:17 Friends, we are not unacquainted with evils.

00:07:19 This present evil is no greater than when the Cyclops penned us

00:07:22 in his hollow cave by force of his strong hands.

00:07:26 Yet even from there we escaped.

00:07:29 That sounds like something a person might have said back then,

00:07:32 or at least it sounds like something that a person might have said in a story back then.

00:07:38 But Nolan has boiled all that down to,

00:07:41 Let's go.

00:07:42 calling it generic would be a rather considerable understatement. And then there's the use of the

00:07:47 word daddy in the trailer, as well as the fact that the son of Odysseus says, quote,

00:07:53 my dad is coming home. Yes, my dad is coming home. Now, putting aside the fact that Tom Holland is a

00:08:00 29-year-old actor talking like he's a seven-year-old anticipating his dad's return from a two-week

00:08:04 business trip to Cleveland, again, it's dialogue that could be used in a million different movies.

00:08:11 it's generic and it rips the soul out of the odyssey and makes it much less specific and unique

00:08:17 almost as if that's the whole point for comparison here's some dialogue from the 2004 movie troy

00:08:25 which incidentally nolan was originally supposed to direct um watch the gods envy us

00:08:31 they envy us because we're mortal because any moment might be our last

00:08:39 everything's more beautiful because we're doomed you will never be lovelier than you are now

00:08:47 we will never be here again

00:08:54 now if Nolan were directing this scene Brad Pitt would just tell her let's go and then she'd go

00:09:01 and what's funny about this comparison is that at the time Troy was not a particularly special

00:09:05 film. It was a fine movie, in my opinion, a little uneven, but fun to watch. I admit I have trouble

00:09:13 with Brad Pitt playing an ancient person. He's a good actor, but ultimately he looks and sounds

00:09:18 like a guy named Brad. So if you put him in any story set before like 1960, it tends to break the

00:09:24 fourth wall. But ironically, though that film was not really trying to be a prestige drama,

00:09:31 it'll probably wind up being far more historically accurate and much better written

00:09:35 than Nolan's Oscar bait. And in 2004, when that movie came out, we didn't realize that within

00:09:41 the span of a decade, Hollywood would completely forget how to make or refuse to make good historical

00:09:47 films. In the case of The Odyssey, it's not hard to diagnose the specific problem. Nolan set out

00:09:53 to subvert a classic, to bludgeon a monumental story with flat writing and incoherent creative

00:09:58 decisions, along with the modern mandates of feminism, transgenderism, and anti-whiteism.

00:10:04 This is the approach that now defines Hollywood. 0.72

00:10:06 They're running roughshod like a Mongol horde over every classic they can get their hands on. 0.97

00:10:12 And the first sign that something would go very wrong with this particular production

00:10:16 was the revelation that Nolan would be relying on the 2017 translation of The Odyssey that was written by this woman.

00:10:24 We'll put her up on the screen.

00:10:27 Oh yeah, that's the kind of person you want translating The Odyssey.

00:10:31 Her name is Emily Wilson, and Nolan had cited her translation in several interviews.

00:10:36 And without knowing anything about her, you could tell just from the photograph that she produced an atrocious and completely unnecessary translation of the Odyssey.

00:10:44 This is the look of a Portland barista who likes to spend her weekend at a No Kings rally with her grandmother.

00:10:50 And indeed, if you read her translation, you'll quickly discover that her intent was to rewrite the poem in order to change the meaning of Homer's words in order to invert and hollow out the central themes of the Odyssey.

00:11:03 She also wanted to flatten the dialogue.

00:11:05 She took something ancient and rich and vibrant and ran it through a kind of liberal HR-approved translator to produce something bland and, you know, not problematic by modern leftist standards.

00:11:17 For what it's worth, there's another female writer who wrote The Song of Achilles, which apparently made Achilles gay.

00:11:27 First of all, before we talk about Emily Wilson, I have to make the point that a translation of The Odyssey shouldn't really be necessary for this film in the first place.

00:11:36 Christopher Nolan will easily make at least $100 million on this film, since he typically gets 20% of the gross ticket sales plus $20 million up front.

00:11:43 But it's an enormous amount of money, obviously, and for that kind of cash, he could have just read the Odyssey in the original Greek, or at least he should be able to read the key parts of it.

00:11:54 I mean, high school students do that, and they're not even paid $100 million for their trouble.

00:12:01 I spent about five minutes online, and I found plenty of resources that help you read the original poem.

00:12:06 There are guides with all the vocabulary words you need.

00:12:09 You can even get an online tutor if you want.

00:12:12 Given a few months, anyone can become familiar enough with ancient Greek to read the most important moments in the Odyssey.

00:12:20 And that's more than enough time in this context.

00:12:23 I mean, we're being told that for this film, Matt Damon spent an entire year growing out his beard,

00:12:28 which is a pretty long time to grow out a not terribly impressive beard, but whatever.

00:12:34 Christopher Nolan supposedly wanted the authenticity of real non-wigged hair on the screen.

00:12:42 So if the production could wait for real, non-wigged hair in the name of authenticity,

00:12:47 then they had the time for Nolan to read the poem in its original language.

00:12:51 If he had done that, he'd get a much better sense of the poem's tone, its themes, its characters,

00:12:55 all of which he clearly butchered in his adaptation.

00:12:58 But even if you don't mind the fact that Nolan was kind of lazy, relied on a translator,

00:13:03 the fact that he picked this particular translator is really unforgivable.

00:13:08 Emily Wilson has gone on record in multiple interviews and in the preface of her translation

00:13:12 stating that Odysseus, the hero of the poem, is, quote, problematic.

00:13:18 That's the actual word she chooses again and again.

00:13:21 Using the language of a disappointed 26-year-old gender studies grad

00:13:25 when she's scrolling through social media posts she doesn't like.

00:13:29 This hero is problematic.

00:13:31 This is how the New Yorker reported on Emily Wilson's perspective a couple of years ago.

00:13:35 quote, previous translators have called Odysseus shifty, cunning, and a hundred other things.

00:13:41 After grappling with the alternatives, Wilson chose complicated, hoping also to convey the

00:13:46 sense of problematic. Her first sentence, tell me about a complicated man, instantly makes him

00:13:52 our familiar, charismatic prince who's too impossible to live with and too desirable to

00:13:58 live without. Now, the moment Christopher Nolan saw this, he should have ensured that this woman

00:14:04 had nothing to do with the project,

00:14:06 there is a vast difference between a hero who's cunning

00:14:10 and a hero who's problematic or even complicated.

00:14:17 Someone who's cunning might, say, come up with an idea

00:14:21 of sending a wooden horse to the gates of Troy

00:14:25 and tricking them into thinking it's a gift

00:14:27 when it's really occupied by an invasion force.

00:14:31 That's a cunning hero.

00:14:34 On the other hand, a problematic hero is one who, I don't know, uses the N-word a lot with the hard R. I'm not sure if we're going to see that in this film. 1.00

00:14:46 So what Emily Wilson is doing is cheapening the language. And by extension, she's undermining the character. 0.94

00:14:53 And instead of wasting any time with Emily Wilson, Nolan could have used Robert Fitzgerald's translation, which has been around for decades.

00:15:00 It's the gold standard. And just from a glance, you could tell it's infinitely better than Wilson's.

00:15:07 So here's how Fitzgerald's translation begins. Just to give you an idea.

00:15:14 It says, sing in me, muse, and through me, tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending the wanderer,

00:15:21 harried for years on end after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.

00:15:27 He saw the townlands and learned the minds of many distant men, and weathered many bitter nights and days in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.

00:15:39 But not by will nor valor could he save them, for their recklessness destroyed them all.

00:15:44 Children and fools, they killed and feasted on the cattle of Lord Helios, the sun, and he who moves all day through heaven took from them their eyes the dawn of their return. 0.97

00:15:55 Of these, adventure, muse, daughter of Zeus, tell us in our time, lift the great song again. 0.97

00:16:03 Now, with that in mind, here's how Emily Wilson handled that same passage.

00:16:08 And as you listen to this, pay attention to the adjectives she uses and how just sort of bland everything sounds by comparison.

00:16:17 So, quote, tell me about a complicated man.

00:16:22 I mean, already we've gone off the rails.

00:16:25 Tell me about a complicated man.

00:16:27 Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy

00:16:31 and where he went and who he met, the pain he suffered on the sea,

00:16:34 and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home.

00:16:36 He failed, and for their own mistakes, they died.

00:16:39 They ate the sun god's cattle, and the god kept them from home.

00:16:43 Now God is child of Zeus.

00:16:44 Tell the old story for our modern times.

00:16:47 Find the beginning.

00:16:47 so it's a version specifically written to strip away everything sort of beautiful and flowery and

00:16:57 and and evocative uh in the language to make it sound like something that chat gpt could have

00:17:05 spit out so to recap in the fitzgerald version odysseus was skilled he plundered a stronghold

00:17:11 he weathered many bitter nights and though he tried to save his companions with valor their

00:17:16 recklessness prevented him from doing so. But in Emily Wilson's version, Odysseus was complicated

00:17:22 and lost. He suffered on sea. He failed to save his friends. It's an old story, not an adventure

00:17:27 or a great song. Now, it's not hard to see what Wilson set out to accomplish here. The only reason

00:17:33 her translation exists is to neutralize the significance of the Odyssey. She wants to destroy

00:17:37 the significance of an epic that's unapologetically masculine because in 2026, men, particularly white

00:17:42 men from Europe and their descendants, simply cannot be heroic figures. So by using Emily

00:17:48 Wilson's translation as his foundation, Christopher Nolan is doing the exact same thing. He's made

00:17:51 sure that the dialogue in his version of the Odyssey is just as generic, while also undermining

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00:19:35 But I don't want to make it sound like Nolan is only trying to emasculate the Odyssey. He's also

00:19:39 trying to remove as much of the Greek and Mediterranean influence and character as he

00:19:45 possibly can. You see, Greeks are white and white people are bad. And so this is from Time Magazine's 1.00

00:19:53 glowing new profile of Nolan. Quote, Nolan has also studied the text and made several striking

00:19:58 adaptation choices. Argos, Odysseus' loyal dog, has been promoted from a cameo to a bit player.

00:20:05 Odysseus and his son, played by Tom Holland, burdened by the legend of a father he doesn't

00:20:11 remember, are given more time together. And the reunion between Odysseus' fellow king

00:20:17 and his wife Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, blamed for starting the war after a

00:20:23 Trojan prince spirited her away, has always felt too neatly resolved in the poem. Nolan complicates

00:20:29 it, and in a twist, Lupita Nyong'o also plays Helen's sister, whose marriage to

00:20:38 Menelaus' brother is, to put it mildly, acrimonious. So Lupita Nyong'o, the actress,

00:20:46 is going to play the most beautiful woman in the world, and the face that launched a thousand

00:20:52 ships, the catalyst for the Trojan War. And in case you need a visual, we'll put it up on the

00:20:59 screen. On the left, you have Helen from the 2004 movie Troy. On the right, you have Lupita Nyong'o.

00:21:06 Now, if somebody woke up in a coma after 20 years and they wanted an update on what's happened to

00:21:11 America in those two decades, you could simply show them this side-by-side comparison. I mean,

00:21:15 they'd probably conclude that we'd been conquered by Africa somehow, which maybe isn't too far from

00:21:20 the truth. Now, Lupita Nyong'o is, as you can kind of tell, from Kenya. It makes no historical

00:21:28 sense whatsoever to cast a sub-Saharan African in this role. I mean, you might as well make Helen 1.00

00:21:38 of Troy Chinese. You might as well put her in an igloo and make her an Eskimo. It is an absurd 1.00

00:21:44 casting choice that totally breaks the immersion of the film. So why would Nolan do this? Were there

00:21:52 no white actresses available for the role? Well, he would do this because he knows that he would 1.00

00:22:02 be called racist if he gave the most beautiful woman in the world role to a white woman. It

00:22:07 really is that simple. Nolan is technically talented, but a coward. He's too afraid to do 0.99

00:22:13 anything that even slightly challenges the spirit of the age, which is why, although he's a good

00:22:18 artist, he'll never be a great one. Being a great artist requires some amount of moral courage. He

00:22:24 doesn't have any. Now, to be clear, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer describes Helen as fair-haired,

00:22:31 fair-faced, and white-armed. There's no dispute that she's a very attractive white woman, which 0.54

00:22:38 again makes sense because this is a greek poem by casting a black woman as helen once again nolan 0.70

00:22:44 is transforming a heroic epic into a farce he's going out of his way to turn a key pillar of the 0.53

00:22:49 western canon into a mockery the same reason by the way that the the recent snow white film cast

00:22:55 a south american woman in the title role because snow white is canonically of course white obviously

00:23:00 it's right there in the name and um but the the filmmakers knew that snow white is supposed to be

00:23:05 the prettiest girl in the kingdom, the fairest of them all, and so they felt compelled to give

00:23:11 the role to a brown woman. I mean, certainly they couldn't imply that a white woman is beautiful,

00:23:16 least of all the most beautiful, and that's the unofficial rule that Nolan is obeying here. 0.74

00:23:22 There are also official rules he's arguably obeying. Per Oscar policy, there needs to be

00:23:26 a certain amount of diversity in lead characters, so the theory is that Nolan added black characters

00:23:30 in order to qualify for the Oscars, but I'm not sold on that idea because if you read the

00:23:34 Oscars criteria, there's plenty of other DEI initiatives that he could have resorted to.

00:23:38 Could have hired black producers, for example, or started a training camp for black actors or,

00:23:42 you know, whatever. Now, of course, we will be told and are being told that race swapping 0.74

00:23:49 characters in the Odyssey, casting it in a way so that the demographic makeup of Greece in,

00:23:56 you know, 1200 BC looks like the demographic makeup of Brooklyn in 2026 AD. We'll be told

00:24:04 it doesn't matter because it's just a movie, right? It's pretend. But we all know that if

00:24:11 a major Hollywood studio made a film set in Africa featuring iconic African characters

00:24:18 and then cast white people in some of the key roles, none of the people defending the Odyssey

00:24:23 casting would be nearly as forgiving. In fact, they'd literally be protesting in the street.

00:24:28 And if you can imagine this, imagine if the role of the most beautiful woman in Africa was given to a white lady. 0.97

00:24:40 Okay, what if they handed that spot to, I don't know, Sidney Sweeney? 0.97

00:24:45 There would actually be riots.

00:24:47 I mean, they would show up to the movie studio with Molotov cocktails.

00:24:51 They would go full Luigi Mangione on Universal Pictures executives.

00:24:56 They would.

00:24:57 And we all know that's the case. 0.52

00:24:58 And yet, when race swaps go the other direction, we're told it's our obligation to just accept it without complaint.

00:25:08 By the way, one Hollywood actor who's been very outspoken against race swapping characters in films is John Liguizamo.

00:25:16 Liguizamo is Hispanic and has insisted publicly many times on the record that Hispanic characters in films should only be played by Hispanic actors.

00:25:26 But, you know, the good news is that he's consistent, because he also, I'll say to his credit, he spoke out about the Odyssey and said that only white people of Greek descent should be featured in the film.

00:25:39 I'm just kidding, of course. John Leguizamo is in the Odyssey playing a Greek character himself. He ain't Greek. So, rules for thee, not rules for me.

00:25:49 you know. Another clue that Nolan's goal is more to demolish the Odyssey than to interpret it is

00:25:54 that the corporate press is already running a full-on PR campaign for Nolan's film several

00:25:58 months before it comes out. Time Magazine ran this cover story glorifying Nolan. But if you

00:26:04 actually read the story, it's not hard to see that Nolan and his team have absolutely no idea

00:26:07 what they're doing. Here's one of the more remarkable parts. Quote, Nolan instructed

00:26:12 composer Ludwig Goranson not to use an orchestra on the score, if only to subvert expectations for

00:26:18 a Swords and Sandals film. It's not like the orchestra existed back then, says Gorenson. It

00:26:24 was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique. Instead, he rented 35 bronze

00:26:29 gongs of varying sizes, experimented, recorded them with synths, and began sending the director

00:26:35 songs. Nolan also put rapper Travis Scott in the film as a bard. I cast him because I wanted to

00:26:41 nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous

00:26:46 to rap. So there's a lot to think about here. First of all, he's saying they won't include

00:26:52 an orchestra in the score because the orchestra supposedly didn't exist back then. But in the

00:26:58 same breath, he says they rented 35 bronze gongs and recorded them with synths. Now, admittedly,

00:27:03 again, I'm not an expert. I didn't study ancient Greece in college. In fact, I didn't study anything

00:27:10 in college because I didn't go to college. But I'm pretty confident that if the Greeks didn't 1.00

00:27:14 have orchestras, then they also probably didn't have synths. So what exactly is the rationale for

00:27:21 having synths in the score? I'm also fairly certain that Bronze Age people didn't have 1.00

00:27:25 IMAX cameras or 3D printed armor or boom mics or any of the other technology they're using in this

00:27:30 film. So this is totally incoherent. Not to mention again, he's basing his film on a modernized

00:27:35 translation already and using modernized language and dialogue where people say things like dad

00:27:43 and let's go. But somehow Time Magazine printed this without anybody noticing that it sounded a

00:27:50 little odd. And the worst part is Nolan saying that he cast the rapper Travis Scott as a bard

00:27:56 because, quote, I wanted to nod towards the idea of the story has been handed down as oral poetry,

00:28:01 which is analogous to rap. Yes, Homer's Odyssey, because it was handed down as oral poetry,

00:28:08 is analogous to rap. Never mind the fact that unlike Homer's Odyssey, rap music is not

00:28:13 handed down through generations by many different performers. Rappers sing a song and they record

00:28:19 the finalized version of it in a studio. And then it exists in the, it's not handed down.

00:28:26 It's like, here's the recording of the song. Other than the fact that the human voice is

00:28:31 involved in both of these concepts, there's really no meaningful similarity. Like we know about old

00:28:37 rap songs because we have the original recordings. Okay. It's not like your grandmother is sitting

00:28:41 you down and reciting the oral tradition of back that ass up by juvenile. That's not how it works. 0.97

00:28:50 I mean, I don't know. Maybe you have a strange Thanksgiving tradition in your house. That's not

00:28:53 how it works in my house. Instead, you know, she could put the song on and we can enjoy and listen

00:28:56 as a family. Now, there are plenty of other important differences too, starting with the

00:29:01 fact that the lyrics to one of Travis Scott's biggest songs goes like this. Just reading the

00:29:08 lyrics now. Yeah, past the dogs a selly, sendin' texts ain't sendin' kites. Yeah, he said, keep

00:29:16 that on lock. I said, you know the s***, it's stife, it's absolute, I'm back, reboot, Lafari to 0.89

00:29:22 Jamba Juice. Now, my only point is that that doesn't exactly measure up to an ancient timeless 0.91

00:29:29 epic. You know, if this were the kind of oral tradition handed down from our ancestors, we

00:29:35 would have to assume that our ancestors were all retarded. In fact, if that qualified as timeless 0.97

00:29:41 poetry to be handed down through the generations, we would really, I don't mean to exaggerate,

00:29:45 have no choice but to collectively throw ourselves into a volcano and just put a

00:29:50 merciful end to the human race entirely. So the reasoning doesn't make any sense.

00:29:55 It makes about as much sense as casting Ellen slash Elliot Page in the film playing a man,

00:30:00 even though she's a woman.

00:30:03 It's true that they didn't have orchestras in ancient Greece,

00:30:06 but they did have orchestras for the last 400 years at least. 0.95

00:30:12 On the other hand, we've had transgenderism for like 400 seconds. 1.00

00:30:17 I'd say the latter is a lot more anachronistic than the former. 1.00

00:30:21 And there are reports online that suggest that Paige is playing

00:30:24 the legendary mythical warrior Achilles,

00:30:26 and I'm not sure if that's true or not.

00:30:28 That's what everyone's saying. I don't know if it's true.

00:30:30 If it is, that it's going to be the single worst casting choice ever made in the history

00:30:36 of Hollywood, unless Nolan is changing the story so that the Achilles heel is misgendering.

00:30:43 Unless that's the case, it won't make any sense.

00:30:44 But no matter who she plays, we can be sure that it will be a male character.

00:30:49 So we know that it's terrible casting regardless.

00:30:51 But before I beat this point any further and elaborate on my argument that Hollywood is

00:30:56 trying to intentionally subvert the classics, I did want to present this alternative theory,

00:31:00 which I find interesting.

00:31:02 It's not really an alternative theory exactly.

00:31:03 It's the theory that helps to maybe explain

00:31:05 some of what we're seeing here.

00:31:07 And in this theory, Christopher Nolan

00:31:08 isn't necessarily tanking the Odyssey on purpose.

00:31:12 I mean, after all, he's the same guy

00:31:13 who made The Dark Knight Rises

00:31:14 where the rich guy kills the socialist revolutionaries.

00:31:18 Instead, the theory is that Nolan

00:31:19 is only good at making a specific kind of movie

00:31:22 and the Odyssey is out of his depth.

00:31:25 So this is from a filmmaker named Elaine Astrick.

00:31:28 It's a really insightful point.

00:31:29 I want to read it in its entirety. And here's what he says, quote, I think I finally understand

00:31:34 what's wrong with Nolan. His universe is adverse to myth. It is made entirely of causality and

00:31:41 causality alone. Maybe the most gifted filmmaker working in big budget Hollywood today, but he's

00:31:45 going to crash on myth the way that sailors crashed on the rocks below the sirens. The tell

00:31:51 is in a detail Nolan offers with obvious pride. He found a solution to what he saw as a narrative

00:31:55 problem. Why would the Trojans believe the horse was empty and drag it inside their city? His

00:32:00 answer is to make the horse half-submerged, sinking into the sea so the Trojans would

00:32:04 rescue it rather than accept it as a gift. It's a solution to a problem that never was one

00:32:10 because it's a myth. The Trojans bring the horse inside because it's a gift and it has wheels.

00:32:16 The poet tells you something plainly impossible with the same tone he used to describe the sunrise,

00:32:20 And in doing so, he's signaling that the level of reality goes beyond mere causality and exists on other levels.

00:32:27 He's the kind of guy who would explain that Santa can fit through the chimney because he designed it wide enough from the start,

00:32:33 using proper construction methods and reliable materials.

00:32:37 Then explain how the reindeer are fed to sustain that much effort in a single night.

00:32:41 How Santa elaborated a clever logistics route to deliver the gifts on time.

00:32:47 So he has a point here, undoubtedly.

00:32:50 think about, for example, how George Lucas destroyed Star Wars. Again, not exactly a Star

00:32:57 Wars expert myself, but in the original trilogy, the Force was a mysterious, mystical power that

00:33:04 was never fully explained. It'd kind of use your imagination and fill in the blanks.

00:33:09 But in the prequels, Lucas came up with a scientific explanation for the Force.

00:33:14 and basically it's like some people had midichlorians or however they pronounce it

00:33:20 and um and the midichlorians in their cells gave them magic power so this was a disastrous change

00:33:27 because it removed all the mythology all of the intrigue behind the force the force went from

00:33:33 something ineffable and mysterious to like a biological mutation like cancer except good i

00:33:40 guess. Now, was it more rational from a technical perspective? Sort of, I guess, but it ruined one

00:33:49 of the core aspects of the original film. The Force didn't need to be rational. Like, Star Wars

00:33:55 is a story about spacemen running around and fighting each other with laser swords. We don't

00:34:01 need a rationalistic, materialistic explanation for every aspect of it. Now, modern mainstream

00:34:09 filmmakers are, for the most part, allergic to anything mystical or supernatural or mythological.

00:34:15 They have to filter everything through a materialist lens because that's the lens by

00:34:19 which they see the world. This is what makes them especially ill-suited to make movies set in

00:34:24 ancient times. You know, the whole beauty of filmmaking is that it allows the audience to

00:34:30 see the world through the eyes of its central characters. But seeing the world through the

00:34:37 eyes of ancient people means seeing a world steeped in myth and mysticism, because that is

00:34:44 the world that they perceived. The only major director working today who understands that is

00:34:50 not Christopher Nolan, but Robert Eggers. In The Northman, which is one of the only good

00:34:56 historical films of the last quarter century, Eggers tells the story from the perspective

00:35:00 of a Viking in the 10th century. That's why some people who watched the movie didn't really like

00:35:06 it. I think because they didn't quite understand what Robert Eggers was doing. Um, and the, the,

00:35:12 the movie it's, it's very, um, it's very violent and epic and it is, you know, grim in a lot of

00:35:18 ways, but it's also kind of trippy. It's like, it's in a way people weren't expecting. And why

00:35:23 is that? Well, because he's, he's telling the story from the perspective of these people who

00:35:28 lived in the 10th century. He's respecting the mysticism of the ancients, trying to capture

00:35:36 their worldview, not his own, right? Capture their worldview, theirs, not his. Now, most modern

00:35:44 filmmakers like Nolan are way too literal in their thinking. There's nothing romantic, nothing

00:35:50 mystical, nothing mythological in their view of the world. They can't handle historical epics

00:35:55 because our ancestors lived in a world that is so totally alien to the world these filmmakers

00:36:01 perceive. So arguably that's the problem here. Maybe Nolan doesn't understand how to tell the

00:36:06 story. Maybe all the race swaps and all the incoherent details are part of some ill-advised

00:36:11 larger effort to connect the dots that don't need to be connected. Now it's hard to say because the

00:36:16 movie's not out yet. There's a growing divide in higher education right now. Some schools seem

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00:38:37 ultrasound machine for a clinic serving women in need, helping to save lives for years to come.

00:38:43 Go to preborn.com slash Walsh. That's preborn.com slash Walsh. Whatever theory explains all this,

00:38:49 the fact is that many other directors and other studios are doing the same thing Nolan is doing.

00:38:54 Obviously, they're taking a hatchet to classic works of literature. They're inverting the themes

00:38:59 and ruining the characters. Animal Farm from Angel Studios is one of the most recent examples.

00:39:04 As we all know, Orwell's Animal Farm was an allegory about communism, but the Angel Studios

00:39:08 version makes capitalism into the villain. This is from Tim Poole, who saw the film, quote,

00:39:13 The new Animal Farm is about happy animals sold off after a farmer can't pay his mortgage. One

00:39:19 pig gets in credit card debt and agrees to sell the farm in a private equity deal to Elon Musk's

00:39:24 mom, who then builds a hydroelectric dam on the property. So the animals rebel and plant

00:39:29 explosives, which blow up the dam, killing all her employees. Not a single analog or comment

00:39:35 on Marxism, let alone communism. Now, to his credit, Tim turned down an offer from Angel

00:39:42 Studios to promote this film. He recognized that it's an absurd pro-communist adaptation,

00:39:47 so we called it out. Instead of making a new film with a new title, they felt they had to

00:39:53 bastardize Animal Farm. Like if you just want to make a dumb movie about barn animals, you can do 0.98

00:40:01 that, right? You could just make a movie, call it The Barn Yard or whatever. And then it would only 0.96

00:40:07 be stacked up against the pantheon of children's movies about barn animals, where it would still

00:40:11 fall well short of the classics of the genre like Babe and Charlotte's Web. But instead,

00:40:16 they are cynically using the name of one of the most important and iconic works of 20th century

00:40:21 literature. Now, in their defense, Angel Studios insists that they didn't have any creative control

00:40:26 over the film. They're just the distributor. But frankly, and I say this to someone who likes

00:40:32 Angel Studios, that is not much of a defense. I mean, it's a bit like saying, well, I didn't

00:40:35 create the crack cocaine. I just shipped it to millions of people. It's a surprising development

00:40:40 because Angel has done some really powerful and important work, most notably Sound of Freedom,

00:40:44 which was about child sex trafficking.

00:40:47 That's why it's so bewildering that in Animal Farm,

00:40:50 Seth Rogen openly mocks Sound of Freedom.

00:40:53 Watch.

00:40:55 Come on.

00:40:56 Hey, where'd this come from?

00:40:57 It's leftovers. It'll go to waste.

00:40:59 You should have this for all your hard work.

00:41:01 No, no, no, no, no. Thank you.

00:41:03 But it's supposed to be shared equally.

00:41:07 There is no supposed to anymore, okay?

00:41:09 We're free.

00:41:10 For example, I'm about to fart right now.

00:41:14 this is the sound of freedom thanks napoleon nice to be appreciated but just enjoy the milk kid

00:41:27 and also like don't worry you know it's our little secret now first of all even aside from the fact

00:41:33 that this animal farm adaptation destroys the core message of the book tears away orwell's

00:41:37 critique of communism empties the story of its meaning and wears it like a skin suit even aside

00:41:41 from all that. Again, the tone and look and feel of the film just aren't right. You know, Nolan took

00:41:50 something grand and sweeping and made it grim and dark. This movie takes something grim and dark and

00:41:54 makes it childish and crass. Like it's animated with all the artistic care and vision of a Paw

00:41:59 Patrol episode. And instead of dealing with the heady themes of Orwell's book, instead they've

00:42:05 elected to, you know, make fart jokes. And on top of that, it's openly mocking Angel Studios' top

00:42:10 film, even though Angel Studios distributes the film. Now, to clear Seth Rogen wasn't the only

00:42:16 insufferable leftist to work on this thing. Here's another. At the heart of every genocide is

00:42:22 dehumanization. That is the beginning. And I know we're talking about animals here, but when we

00:42:29 stop seeing our fellow citizens as human, then we can commit violence against them with impunity,

00:42:35 take away their rights. I think what we've seen over the past six years with trans people 1.00

00:42:40 is a really good example of that. 0.92

00:42:42 It's clear that it's never been about sports.

00:42:45 It's never been about protecting women or children.

00:42:47 If they wanted to protect women and children,

00:42:49 they would indict Epstein, people in the Epstein files.

00:42:53 We know who they are, but they're not doing that.

00:42:55 So that was all a pretext to scapegoat trans people

00:43:00 to dehumanize us and put us in an excluded category

00:43:04 so that they could take away our rights.

00:43:07 Legislative side of existence.

00:43:08 we're seeing that happen is there anyone who can seriously argue that hollywood's output has gotten

00:43:14 better ever since they began recruiting actors and directors and writers like that guy has there

00:43:20 been a single film that's been improved by shoehorning in some dei casting and overt leftist

00:43:26 political messaging certainly none of the historical epics epics have improved i mean the genre has

00:43:30 basically disappeared and the few attempts that have been made have been you know unintentionally

00:43:36 farcical. That's a big deal because the historical epic is one of the most important genres of

00:43:42 storytelling. It has been for literally thousands of years. When you watch one of those films done

00:43:50 right, you learn valuable lessons about the way the world used to work, the obstacles that great

00:43:57 men had to overcome. Uh, you, you, again, you see the world through the lens of our ancestors,

00:44:05 which is a, which is a very valuable thing, but it just doesn't exist anymore. I'd argue that the

00:44:12 last truly great historical Epic with the exception of the North man was a master and

00:44:17 commander, which came out in 2003. And that film featured great actors and filmmakers at the top

00:44:22 of their game, telling a heroic and exciting story with real moral and dramatic weight,

00:44:27 no concern at all for diverse representation, quote unquote, or DEI, you leave the film

00:44:33 feeling enthralled and also like you just received a history lesson.

00:44:39 Very few films over the past quarter century have even come close to that. Apocalypto in 2006 was

00:44:44 masterfully done. The Northman is already mentioned. And in terms of historical films

00:44:51 that were actually well-made

00:44:53 and respected the time period they portray,

00:44:56 that's pretty much it.

00:44:59 This is a massive critical void

00:45:01 in America's culture.

00:45:03 At some level, I can understand

00:45:04 why lesser-known directors

00:45:05 aren't trying to correct the problem.

00:45:07 They know their careers would be destroyed

00:45:08 if they tried.

00:45:10 But Christopher Nolan, like Angel Studios,

00:45:12 is not going to go bankrupt anytime soon.

00:45:14 He's got more money than he can possibly spend.

00:45:18 No one in the industry can take him down.

00:45:20 He has total financial and artistic freedom to make whatever he wants.

00:45:24 He could have made the first meaningful historical epic in decades.

00:45:27 One that didn't resemble every other bog-standard assembly line production from every other director.

00:45:34 Could have done that.

00:45:36 Instead, we get Zendaya. 0.98

00:45:38 We get Black Helen.

00:45:41 We get dialogue that sits comfortably at a fourth-grade reading level.

00:45:46 Was Christopher Nolan a great director?

00:45:48 Well, yes, at one point, I think he was.

00:45:52 Everyone knows that.

00:45:54 What's unclear, the question we may never get an answer to,

00:45:58 is why he decided to torch his own legacy

00:46:00 in a doomed effort to destroy Homer's.

00:46:05 That'll do it for the show today.

00:46:06 Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

00:46:07 Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:46:15 Martin Luther King Jr. is an American icon,

00:46:18 Widely considered one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

00:46:21 A man who had a vision for a colorblind society, a post-racial America. 0.53

00:46:27 He had a dream. 0.57

00:46:28 It's just not the dream you thought it was.

00:46:30 Were his true aims a colorblind society or something far more radical?

00:46:35 Who bankrolled him?

00:46:37 What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963?

00:46:41 Was civil disobedience actually peaceful?

00:46:44 We wanted to show you a clip of the I Have a Dream speech, but according to our lawyers,

00:46:50 we can't.

00:46:51 In fact, King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets.

00:46:54 They want to silence critics like us.

00:46:57 What they're doing makes it very difficult to judge Martin Luther King Jr. not by the

00:47:00 color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

00:47:04 Is America today stronger, more unified, and racially equal than before King's rise?

00:47:10 These questions demand answers, and as Americans, we are entitled to a full accounting of the

00:47:14 Civil Rights Movement and its consequences.

00:47:16 King's Movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government.

00:47:20 I speak as a citizen of the world.

00:47:24 Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases, though the cause of evil prosper.

00:47:30 First part of our two-part special on the Civil Rights Movement, a new constitution,

00:47:34 available now on Daily Wire Plus.

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The Matt Walsh Show - May 13, 2026

Ep. 1779 - The Odyssey Looks Awful. Here’s Why.

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