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No adaptation of an ancient epic like The Odyssey can satisfy everyone. Yet whether you praise or criticize it, Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s poem delivers a message more relevant than ever.
As I waited for the film, I kept asking: why did Nolan choose this story, and why now? To me, the project felt almost arbitrary for this director. Even in the first few scenes, it felt bizarre to see Travis Scott as the bard. One typically doesn’t expect to see him in costume at the start of an ancient Greek epic. However, once I left the theater, the clever intention became clear. Ancient epics like The Odyssey survived by being passed down through oral traditions, recited by bards who performed stories for live crowds. Our modern “bards” may look different today, and yes, even rappers can be considered bards, since they serve the same modern-day purpose. It was a nod to show that while our world has evolved, the way we tell stories and the way we glorify war hasn’t changed.
But this isn’t about Travis Scott. His cameo is just the opening note of the film’s central message. That realization, that human instincts haven’t changed, turns sinister once Nolan shifts his focus to the destruction of Troy. The Trojan Horse is arguably the most romanticized military tactic in history, a symbol of cunning and triumph repeated in history books and Hollywood alike. Nolan first presents the sequence with all the expected grandeur. As the Greeks slip out of the wooden horse and seize the city, I found myself swept up in the spectacle, celebrating these “heroes” and their apparent victory. But that celebration is short-lived.
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Later, Nolan forces the audience to confront the true cost of that victory. Through Odysseus’s relationship with Greek goddess Athena, the film circles back to Troy’s fall—not as a legend, but as a tragedy. We’re no longer asked to cheer. Instead, we witness terrified families fleeing burning homes, lives shattered in the name of conquest, and the city’s destruction through the eyes of its victims. This shift is jarring and deliberate. What once felt like triumph is revealed as massacre. We’re left to question why it’s so easy to celebrate devastation- whether in a myth, a headline, or a modern battlefield- when we’re convinced our side is just.
This uncomfortable, raw shift the audience experiences alongside Odysseus delivers the film’s core takeaway. Conflict makes it scarily easy to divide the world into “us” and “them,” celebrate destruction when our side is responsible for it, and recognize its horror only when we’re forced to see the humanity of the other side. Once an opponent is labeled the enemy, we strip them of that humanity, erasing their families, their grief, and their lives. This sobering realization prompts an unsettling question: what is the real difference between the humans and the supernatural monsters Odysseus encounters on his journey? While Odysseus is a victim of these monsters throughout the epic, does he not perpetrate the same destruction? Through hubris, greed, and a desire for revenge, humanity easily replicates the violence of mythical beasts.
This unsettling parallel is not an ancient lesson; it’s a warning for our own era. In a world where headlines blare about new wars and political divides grow deeper by the day, dehumanization is still our deadliest weapon. We split the world into heroes and enemies, rationalize cruelty, and forget the cost paid by the “other side.” Nolan’s Odyssey reminds us: we become monsters the moment we stop seeing others as human.
Nolan’s adaptation is neither arbitrary nor a mere exercise in nostalgia. Our world may look different from ancient Troy, but nearly 3,000 years later, the instincts that drive us to create monsters—and become them—are as powerful as ever. If Nolan’s Odyssey offers us anything, it’s a challenge: to look beyond the stories we’ve inherited, to question whom we cheer for, and to resist the urge to dehumanize. Only then can we hope to break the cycle.
