2:44 that's quite literally what it is tho. jorge wrote the whole thing in his college dorm FOR FUN

26:24 YES!!! You’re point here is so very true!

Ok so- I’m one of those people who never had to read the Odyssey in school and I saw Nolan’s movie first.

Since I didn’t know the story, I spent a majority of the movie COMPLETELY lost, and that took me out of the story instead of being able to enjoy it for what it was. Hell— I didn’t even know that Odysseus was supposed to be CLEVER. Like— that never became apparent.

Vs seeing/hearing Epic afterwards— and I think it’s very telling that I was only able to understand the story after experiencing the musical,
……which was after I had already seen the movie.

An interpretation I’ve heard of Nolan’s Laestrygonians is that their encounter is to make Ithacan soldiers feel like how they made the Trojans feel.

I haven't seen Nolan's Odyssey yet, but it seems to carry many of his weaknesses as a filmmaker. I think the last time a Nolan film had a strong sense of personality was when he was directing Batman, and that was almost entirely due to the people he found to play his villains. Despite being literally the biggest name in Hollywood, he feels in some ways very limited and immature as an artist, and that really comes down to his inability to see multiple sides of his characters, and to embrace that complexity fully in his direction.

53:30 in the epic version the sirens are the ones who informed Oddy on how he can get back home so I think it was necessary

I'm kinda the opposite where I'm just not really into music. Like, I like music and I listen to it all the time, but I don't really sit there and think about how the instruments interact with each other very much. Basically, give me a beat I can feel and don't hurt my ears and I'm happy.

However, I am a huge movie person. I love looking at the cinematography and care about the colors used in frame. I love hearing sounds like someone stepping on sand that makes me feel like I could reach out and touch the sand.

So one would think that I would love Nolan's The Odyssey. I know the source material fairly well and don't mind adaptational changes. Nolan is also a good director. I used to love him as a director, though as I've grown older, I've soured on him a lot. The man takes color out of everything and I think he should just focus on black and white movies, cos most of the shots in the Odyssey would have looked so much better if the color wasn't getting in the way. But overall, The Odyssey told the same story Nolan always tells and quite frankly, I find that story boring after the first time seeing it.

Epic was far more compelling to me. Again, I'm not really into music, so I can't really critique anything about the music, but the storytelling was just so much better. Rivera-Herrans is just a more dynamic storyteller than Nolan is. I don't care how much more experience Nolan has, he is still terrible at character exploration.

The Homeric Odyssey doesn't begin with those flashbacks, but with Odysseus being shipwrecked and imprisoned on Calypso's island for years, while the gods discuss in a meating what they should do with him. Then the story jumps to Telemachus who travels to the mainland to seek information about his father who has been missing for years. Then it jump back to Odysseus, who has been freed from Calypso's SA dungeon, and his raft is shipwrecked on another island, Scheria aka Corfu, where he is saved and helped by Princess Nausicaa and the king Alcinous of Phaeacians (or Phoenicians depending on the translation). The short flashback scenes to Odysseus' adventures are only given in books 9-12 of the all 24 books, although it is not certain whether he is telling the truth, exaggerating for the audience, or outright lying because he is trying to impress and entertain his hosts (although, from the lost sequel to the work, we learn that Odysseus at least visited Circe's island and they had a child whom Circe named Telegonus, but the Telegony is a whole other story and most people don't even want to talk about it). But most of the Odyssey (books 13-24) is when Odysseus returns to Ithaca and the events there. And most adaptations usually leave out this Scheria part of the story.

I think your take was very astute and well argued, and I do agree. At the end of the day, your preference on which telling of the story you prefer comes down to one’s own personal taste and predispositions. In these two particular versions, they both excel at storytelling through the mediums that they are presented. And with such a foundational text as Homer’s Odyssey, I don’t believe anything will ever be the definitive interpretation of the work. I’m just glad that both Nolan’s and EPIC are works that can coexist peacefully as brilliant adaptations of the tale, which choose to highlight different features of the tale, ultimately creating a grand picture of what the story is. Everyone has a version that will speak to them the most: my mother still swears by the 1980s French-Japanese sci-fi anime version of the story called Ulysses 31!

Love your work and analysis as always!

I'm a personal believer that O' Brother Where Art Thou is the best but the poem is incredible

2:43 that's because it wasn't. it was made by a dude in his college dorm, cast was taken from tiktok, and all visuals were made by fans with lots of free time... it was a passion project made by greek mythology nerds and musical fans. . .AND SOMEHOW STILL BETTER THEN A WHOLE ASS HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION!!!

I haven't seen these yet but.. commenting for the algorithm!

Yes. In Epic the Musical Laestrygonians act as a backing vocalist for Poseidon in the song Ruthlessness and help him destroy Odysseus' ships. Only the majority of fan-made aninatics make this omission because many don't know that Laestrygonians should be there.

looking back after the dust has settled, i think watching epic the musical first before watching nolan's odyssey really helps with rounding out whatever story-related issues i had with the musical, like telemachus becoming a rapunzel character in epic instead of him having his own screentime in the movie, or some other things that don't get covered in the musical.

it's funny how people expect everything out of a movie or musical trying to adapt the odyssey when the reality is, there's only so much you can do to fit an over 1000-word behemoth of a text into 3 hours (unless you adapt the odyssey into a long running anime that goes for a hundred episodes like hunter x hunter or one piece, that way you can literally just adapt everything page to page no matter how ridiculous it is).

the question instead becomes, what do you keep in the story? how does focusing on these things serve the themes you're trying to convey? i find myself fascinated by how epic the musical is in dialogue with what makes a moral man in ancient Greece and what makes a moral man in this world, connecting both worlds with an odysseus that goes full on anti-hero and makes the slaughter of the suitors feel amazing, and nolan's odyssey, despite feeling a bit rushed for the odyssey part of the movie, wraps itself up with the troy monologue like a retelling of his prior movie, Oppenheimer, which is pretty admirable given that he straight up used the odyssey as a trojan horse to tell yet another prometheus story.

different strokes for different folks. what I'm saying is, epic the musical is now my second favorite odyssey adaptation, ever so slightly below the spongebob movie with Hasselhoff in it because the musical is admittedly a bit same-y at times and you can feel the length (like damn, ANOTHER windbag? lemme get to ithica, man)

It's important to know epic the musical sounds exactly like the Snickers lore song https://youtu.be/1n4KJDMHkPU

1:00:38 I kind of disagree when it comes to the Circe scene. "Go back to your disguises" implies that she's basically experienced what other soldiers that visited her did to the villages they ransacked. It's one of the few times desexualizing was done to drive a further point.

3:40 They’re from Ancient Greece.  In all seriousness, despite being the ultimate Wife Guy, that version of Ody comes off as pretty gay.  With his relationship to Polities, or how clueless he acts when Circe offers to bed him.

I felt kinda dissapointed with the Odyssey by Nolan. As a story about wasting time and missing home the constant fast pace to me work against it. As good as it looks and how good some scenes were. Just having a big contrast between Home and the adventure would have help so much more. But when Odysseus got home i just ask myself was that it? And what was left at least to me was much less interesting than what before. I didn't care to Robert Pattison and i didn't felt like that was the part of the story it needed to expande.