on not watching the odyssey

Nolan's Odyssey came out on yesterday. I haven't seen it and don't really want to.

The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of my three favourite stories ever made. I'm saying that first because it's the whole reason I can't be trusted here.

I'm also not a Nolan fan. That's bias and I won't pretend otherwise. I don't like how he directs and I haven't for a long time, so when I say I don't think he'll do it justice, read that knowing I was never going to say anything else.

I like that it's being made. Something that old getting pulled in front of people who are never going to open the poem is good, and I mean that. Someone walks out of a cinema, goes looking for a translation, and that's worth a lot on its own.

Then I think about it for another second. It's the Odyssey. It's the second most famous story ever told. It has managed about three thousand years without Christopher Nolan. Acting like it needed someone to shine a light on it is dumb, and I'm the one who just called that a good thing.

What actually worries me is the chewing. Taking the biggest story there is and softening it into something easy to swallow. I don't know that that's what happened. I haven't watched it. It's just what I'm afraid of.

I've prejudged a film I haven't seen. I know that.

Maybe I'll go at some point. I already know what I'm going to say about it, and that's the part I don't like.