“What matters to us is, if they are making these changes, how do those changes make a good story in itself?” Swist said. “Because this is essentially how art and literature evolves. It's always responding to earlier works of art and literature and making its own creative changes in order to make it meaningful to themselves.”

Philosophy associate professor Emily Katz, who has read ”The Odyssey” countless times, said it was “neat“ to see how “a big Hollywood director“ portrayed the Cyclops or the narrow strait between Charybdis and Scylla, the many-headed monster.

To be clear, there is “no such thing as historically accurate Homer,” Swist said, because any text is a transcript recited by poets around the eighth century and has been repeated for several thousand years. 

Homer's original ”The Odyssey” takes place over 2000 years ago during the Greek Bronze Age. The tale follows Trojan War hero Odysseus and his decade-long journey through the Mediterranean Sea back home to Ithaca. The story persists in modern times because it is a “very human one," said Brandon Conley, the CAMS Program Coordinator in MSU's Romance and Classical Studies department. 

”We all encounter a lot of those same feelings and struggles, so I think it's an easy story to connect to people,” Conley said. 

Katz teaches ”The Iliad,” a predecessor to ”The Odyssey,” which tells a small part of the Trojan War story. Katz said that the backstory ”The Iliad” provides is important to “understand what Odysseus has been through, how long this war was (and) how much Odysseus did not want to be a part of it.”

“The stories are good,” Katz said. “But because the stories are so good, people have been inspired by them for a very long time in different time periods and places and have created a lot of additional stories or retellings of these stories and episodes in Homer.”

Swist, Katz and Conley acknowledged the film as Nolan’s interpretation. 

With hopes that Odysseus would be more clever and devious, Swist called Nolan’s version “intelligent,” “strategic” and more “down in the dumps.” He wished more characters were charismatic and dynamic like that of Eumaeus played by John Leguizamo.

Aspects such as costume design, set design and dialogue were seen as weaker.

As with many historical adaptations, Conley wanted the set design to closely resemble how it would've looked when the film took place by having everything look more modern. He also said the dialogue could be “a bit cheesy at times.”

Conley described the scene of Odysseus returning to his dog, Argos, as “really touching,” and something he hadn’t seen in previous retellings of the story.  

Swist said the costuming was “lazy and not well thought out,” but had a larger criticism about casting. 

“For centuries, this (has been) a central story to Greek identity and it still is today,” Swist said. “Even though other people are allowed to retell this story who aren't Greek, the fact that this film has virtually no Greeks or people of Greek heritage cast in any major roles — on its promotional tour, it did not even stop in Athens — I think was a huge slap in the face and a blatant disregard to the fact that for modern Greeks this is still an important part of their culture.” 

Still, the film's popularity — bringing in $1.1 billion to the global box office — bodes well for people's interest in Ancient Greek and the classics, Swist said.

For MSU students with a newfound interest in the subject, Swist plans on talking about the film in his upcoming classes this fall, saying it's a great “conversation starter.”

“The Odyssey” is made accessible through “acts of reception,” Swist said, including Nolan’s interpretation that falls in line with a litany of works revitalizing Homer’s original epic. The film is “not just a gateway drug to classics,” but indicative that classical study often relies solely on retellings, he said.

Conley shared a similar sentiment: “It’s always a good thing for us in the field, when things like this come out because it not only increases the interest that people have in it but it gives us a chance to talk about this stuff in a way that’s more accessible to people than we normally get to,” he said.