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When we first learned that Christopher Nolan was making an adaptation of the Odyssey, there was perhaps reason for optimism. If you happen to be an optimistic sort of person, Nolan has made some mistakes in his career. Tenet was one of the most convoluted films ever made. Interstellar had one too many bloated Hallmark style monologues from Anne Hathaway preaching about the universal power of love or whatever. But he's still unquestionably one of the most talented living filmmakers. And the Odyssey is one of the foundational works of Western literature. It's a heroic epic with very obvious themes of masculinity, patriarchy, daring, discovery, mortality. Nolan has proven he can tackle epic, sweeping projects in the past. And because Hollywood has somewhat retreated from the racial depravity of the cultural revolution of 2020 or so, we thought it was reasonable to hope that Nolan would be faithful to Homer's original story and produce a worthwhile film. Then the trailers arrived and we'll start with the one that came out several months ago. Watch.
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After years of war. Promise me you will come back. What if I can't?
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Promise me you'll come back. What if I can't? Now, this might be splitting hairs, but it's worrisome if this is the kind of dialogue they're going to highlight in the trailer. Sounds like a conversation you might have with the receptionist at your dentist when she's scheduling her six month checkup. It's kind of flat, it's bland. It's definitely nothing like the dialogue in the Odyssey. It doesn't sound like people in ancient Greece. But the more you watch this trailer, the more you notice some other problems. There's the cheap looking armor in the beginning, which looks like it was created with a 3D printer. Put aside the fact for now that they didn't actually have armor that looked like this back in the Bronze Age. Just look at this side by side comparison. You have the armor in the 2004 movie Troy with the armor that they're using in the Odyssey, and you can see it there. It's pretty obvious downgrade in my opinion. Whatever material Nolan's using, it looks noticeably cheap and fake. So that's another red flag. Again, not the kind of thing that means the movie will be a disaster, but it makes you wonder what's going on. Then you get into bigger issues at the outset, I'll mention that I'm not an expert on Homer, but I can say a high degree of certainty that despite my lack of expertise, there are. When you take all the factors Together that we'll discuss really only two possibilities. Either I somehow know a lot more about the topic than Christopher Nolan, which seems unlikely, or Christopher Nolan is deliberately bastardizing the Odyssey. First of all, the tone is not right. The Iliad is supposed to be the gritty wartime epic from Homer. On the other hand, the Odyssey is more of a grand, sweeping adventure story, though also of course dealing with serious themes. But there's more flowery language. There's, you know, strange creatures and adventures. People get turned into pigs, Poseidon causes the ships to wreck, and so on. Now with this trailer, it looks kind of like Nolan isn't so much giving us a fantasy epic with a vibrant color palette, but rather a gritty, dimly lit self serious action thriller. Because you know, for one thing, every major movie movie made today is dimly lit for reasons that no one's ever been able to explain. At least no good reasons. Nolan's sort of applying the Batman approach where it doesn't belong. You half expect to see the Joker show up when you watch the trailer. This is yet another Hollywood blockbuster where everything needs to be dark and brooding and intense and like I said, dark. Like actually dark lit in a. You know, in terms of how it's lit. It would have been much more interesting if Nolan had embraced the vibe of the actual epic poem, which is what the 1954 adaptation did. Take a look at this here. Now, from this one photo, you can tell that they understand at least the tone that a film based on the Odyssey should have. And there's actually some color. Did you know you can have color in movies? Modern directors don't realize this. You're allowed to have color. You actually, that's okay. There's no law saying you're not allowed to have any kind of color or actually fully light a scene. You're allowed to do that as far as I know. So it feels tonally off, which is. Which is what a lot of viewers have picked up on. And as the trailers kept coming, the situation started to look even worse. So here's the most recent trailer that really has set off some alarm bells for a lot of. A lot of viewers. Watch.
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What would he do if he came back here to find all these suitors in his house? They're pining for a daddy you didn't even know. Like some sniveling bastard who's looking after your wife and son. Do you see? My dad is coming home. Bringing vengeance. Bringing it all. Let's go. I think it's a Sleep.
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Well, there's some more award winning Dialogue for you, Odysseus. Odysseus says, let's go. That's what they went with for this big epic moment where he's leading the charge. Let's go. Now, again, I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but this is not how people in the ancient Greek world many centuries before Christ would have communicated. I don't just mean because of that they're speaking English. Okay, that, that I'll, I'll, I'll forgive that part. I don't think that every director has to go full Mel Gibson and actually do the film in the language that they spoke. Although I certainly respect that, that strategy, whether speaking English, fine, But the English that they're speaking should capture the spirit of, of the time period. Now, if you're making a movie where a high school quarterback runs onto the field for the big game against the school's hated rival, then it makes sense to have him shout, let's go. But it doesn't work for a depiction of an ancient battle based on one of the greatest works of literature of all time. And there's no excuse for it because Homer's. Because the Odyssey is full of beautiful dialogue where he's exhorting and encouraging his men. I'm not saying Nolan needs to use those exact words, but he should at least try to capture again the spirit. Homer has this famous passage, friends, we are not unacquainted with evils. This present evil is no greater than when the Cyclops penned us in his hollow cave by force of his strong hands. Yet even from there we escaped. Now that sounds like something a person might have said back then, or at least it sounds like something that a person might have said in a story back then. But Nolan has boiled all that down to let's go. Calling it generic would be a rather considerable understatement. And then there's the use of the word daddy in the trailer, as well as the fact that the son of Odysseus says, quote, my dad is coming home. Yes, my dad is coming home. Now, putting aside the fact that Tom Holland is a 29 year old actor talking like he's a 7 year old anticipating his dad's return from a two week business trip to Cleveland. Again, it's dialogue that, that, that could be used in a million different movies. It's generic and it rips the soul out of the Odyssey and makes it much less specific and unique, almost as if that's the whole point. For comparison, here's some dialogue from the 2004 movie Troy, which incidentally, Nolan was originally supposed to direct. Watch.
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The gods envy us. They envious because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything's more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
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Now, if Nolan were directing this scene, Brad Pitt would just tell her, let's go. And then she'd go. And what's funny about this comparison is that at the time, Troy was not a particularly special film. It was a fine movie, in my opinion. A little uneven, but fun to watch. I admit I have trouble with Brad Pitt playing an ancient person. He's a good actor, but ultimately he looks and sounds like a guy named Brad. So if you put him in any story set before, like 1960, it tends to break the fourth wall. But ironically though, that film was not really trying to be a prestige drama. It'll probably wind up being far more historically accurate and much better written than Nolan's Oscar bait. And in 2004, when that movie came out, we didn't realize that within the span of a decade, Hollywood would completely forget how to make or refuse to make good historical films. In the case of the Odyssey, it's not hard to diagnose the specific problem. Nolan set out to subvert a classic, to bludgeon a monumental story with flat writing and incot coherent creative decisions. Along with the modern mandates of feminism, transgenderism and anti white ism, this is the approach that now defines Hollywood. They're running roughshod like a mongol horde over every classic they can get their hands on. And the first sign that something would go very wrong with this particular production was the revelation that Nolan would be relying on the 2017 translation of the Odyssey that was written by this woman. We'll put her up on the screen. Oh, yeah, that's. That's the kind of person you want translating the Odyssey. Her name is Emily Wilson, and Nolan had cited her translation in several interviews. And without knowing anything about her, you can tell just from the photograph that she produced an atrocious and completely unnecessary translation of the Odyssey. This is the look of a Portland barista who likes to spend her weekend at a no Kings rally with her grandmother. 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. She also wanted to flatten the dialogue she took. 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. For what it's worth, there's another female writer who wrote Song of Achilles, who. Which apparently made Achilles gay. Now, 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. 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. So 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. I mean, high school students do that and they're not even paid a hundred million dollars for their trouble. I spent about five minutes online and I found plenty of resources that help you read the original poem. There are guides with all the vocabulary words you need. You can even get an online tutor if you want. Given a few months, anyone can become familiar enough with ancient Greek to read the most important moments in the Odyssey. And that's more than enough time in this context. I mean, we're being told that for this film, Matt Damon spent an entire year growing out his beard, which is a pretty long time to grow out a not terribly impressive beard. But whatever. Christopher Nolan supposedly wanted the authenticity of real non wigged hair on the screen. So if the production could wait for real non wigged hair in the name of authenticity, then they had the time for Nolan to read the poem in its original language. If he had done that, he'd get a much better sense of the poem's tone, its themes, its characters, all of which he clearly butchered in his adaptation. But even if you don't mind, the fact that Nolan was kind of lazy, relied on a translator. The fact that he picked this particular translator is really unforgivable. Emily Wilson has gone on record in multiple interviews and in the preface of her translation stating that Odysseus, the hero of the poem is quote, problematic. That's the actual word she chooses again and again using the language of a disappointed 26 year old gender studies grad when she's scrolling through social media posts she doesn't like, this hero is problematic. This is how the New Yorker, New Yorker reported on Emily Wilson's perspective a couple of years ago. Quote, previous translators have called Odysseus shifty, cunning and a hundred other things. After grappling with alternatives, Wilson chose complicated, hoping also to convey the Sense of problematic. Her first sentence, tell me about a complicated man, instantly makes him our familiar charismatic prince who's too impossible to live with and too desirable to live without. Now, the moment Christopher Nolan saw this, he should have ensured that this woman had nothing to do with the project. There is a vast difference between a hero who's cunning and a hero who's problematic or even complicated. You know, someone who's cunning might, say, come up with an idea of sending a wooden horse to the gates of Troy and tricking them into thinking it's a gift when it's really occupied by an invasion. Invasion force. That's a cunning hero. Right. 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 gonna see that in. In this film. So what Emily Wilson is doing is cheapening the language, and by extension, she's undermining the character. And instead of wasting any time with Emily Wilson, Nolan could have used Robert Fitzgerald's translation, which has been around for decades. It's the gold standard, and just from a glance you could tell it's infinitely better than Wilson's. So here's how Fitzgerald's translation begins, just to give you an idea. It says, sing in me, muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending. The wanderer harried for years on end after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy. 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. But not by will nor valor could he save them, for their recklessness destroyed them all. Children and fools, they killed and feasted on the cattle of Lord Helios the son. And he who moves all day through heaven took from them their eyes the dawn of their return. Of these adventure. Muse, daughter of Zeus, tell us in our time, lift the great song again. Now, with that in mind, here's how Emily Wilson handled that same passage. And as you listen to this, pay attention to the adjectives she uses and how just sort of bland everything sounds by comparison. So, quote, tell me about a complicated man. I mean, already we've gone off the rails. Tell me about a complicated man, Muse. Tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy and where he went and who he met, the pain he suffered on the sea and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed. And for their own mistakes, they died. They ate the sun's God, sun God's cattle, and the God kept them from home. Now, goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning. So it's a version specifically written to strip away everything sort of beautiful and flowery and, and. And evocative in the language, to make it sound like something that chat GPT could have spit out. So, to recap, in the Fitzgerald version, Odysseus was skilled. He plundered a stronghold. He weathered many bitter nights. And though he tried to save his companions with valor, their recklessness prevented him from doing so. But in Emily Wilson's version, Odysseus was complicated and lost. He suffered on sea. He failed to save his friends. It's an old story, not an adventure or a, you know, great song. Now, it's not hard to see what Wilson set out to accomplish here. The only reason her translation exists is to neutralize the significance of the Odyssey. She wants to destroy the significance of an epic that's unapologetically masculine. Because in 2026, men, particularly white men from Europe and their descendants, simply cannot be heroic figures. So by using Emily Wilson's translation as his foundation, Christopher Nolan is doing the exact same thing. He's made sure that the dialogue in his version of the Odyssey is just as generic, while also undermining the themes of masculinity in the original poem. Most men don't want fashion advice. They want clothes that look good, fit properly, and don't make them look ridiculous. They want a wardrobe that works. Mack Weldon makes this possible. Their Primus shirts are simple, clean and comfortable, available in all sorts of different colors and cuts like crewnecks, Henley's and V necks, the kind of shirts you can wear around the house, out to dinner on a flight, or to work without looking underdressed or over styled. And Mack Weldon has built out the rest of the wardrobe the same way. 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Argos, Odysseus's loyal dog, has been promoted from a cameo to a bit player. Odysseus and his son, played by Tom Holland, burdened by the legend of a father he doesn't remember, are given more time together. And the reunion between Odysseus, Odysseus, fellow king, and his wife, Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world blamed for starting the war after a Trojan prince spirited her away, has always felt too neatly resolved. In the poem, Nolan complicates complicates it. And in a twist, Lupita Nyong' o also plays Helen's sister, whose marriage to Menelaus's brother is, to put it mildly, acrimonious. So Lupita Nyong', o, the actress, is going to play the most beautiful woman in the world and the face that launched a thousand ships, the catalyst for the Trojan War. And in case you need a visual, we'll put it up on the screen. On the left you have Helen from the 2004 movie Troy. On the right you have Lupita Nyong'. O. Now, if somebody woke up in a coma after 20 years and they wanted an update on what's happened to America in those two decades, you could simply show them this side by side comparison. I mean, they probably conclude that we'd been conquered by Africa somehow, which maybe isn't too far from the truth. Now, Lupita Nyong' o is, as you can kind of tell from Kenya, it makes no historical sense whatsoever to cast a Sub Saharan African in this role. I mean, you might as well make Helen of Troy Chinese. You might as well put her in an igloo and make her an Eskimo. It is an absurd casting choice that totally breaks the immersion of the film. So why would Nolan do this were there no white actresses available for the role? Well, he would do this because he knows that he would be called racist if he gave the most beautiful woman in the world role to a white woman. It really is that simple. Nolan is technically talented, but a coward. He's too afraid to do anything that even slightly challenges the spirit of the age. Which is why, although he's a good artist, he'll never be a great one. Being a great artist requires some amount of moral courage. He doesn't have any. Now, to be clear, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer describes Helen as fair haired, fair faced, and white armed. There's no dispute that she's a very attractive white woman, which again, makes sense because this is a Greek poem. By casting a black woman as Helen, once again, Nolan is transforming a heroic epic into a farce. He's going out of his way to turn a key pillar of the Western canon into a mockery. The same reason, by the way, that the. The recent Snow White film cast a South American woman in the title role. Because Snow White is canonically, of course, white. Obviously, it's right there in the name. And. But the, the filmmakers knew that Snow White is supposed to be the prettiest girl in the kingdom, the fairest of them all. And so they felt compelled to give the role to a brown woman. I mean, certainly they couldn't imply that a white woman is beautiful, least of all the most beautiful. And that's the unofficial rule that Nolan is obeying here. There are also official rules he's arguably obeying. Per Oscar policy, there needs to be a certain amount of diversity in lead character. So the theory is that Nolan added black characters in order to qualify for the Oscars. But I'm not sold on that idea, because if you read the Oscars criteria, there's plenty of other DEI initiatives that he could have resorted to. Could have hired black producers, for example, or started a training camp for black actors or, you know, whatever. Now, of course, we will be told, and are being told that race swapping characters in the Odyssey, casting it in a way so that the demographic makeup of Greece in, you know, 1200 BC looks like the demographic makeup of Brooklyn in 2026 AD will be told it doesn't matter because it's just a movie, right? It's. It's pretend. But we all know that if a major Hollywood studio made a film set in Africa featuring iconic African characters and then cast white people in some of the key roles, none of the people defending the Odyssey casting would be nearly as forgiving. In fact, they'd literally be protesting in the street. And if you can imagine this, imagine if the role of the most beautiful woman in Africa was given to a white lady. Okay? What if they handed that spot to, I don't know, Sydney Sweeney? There would actually be riots. I mean, they would show up to the movie studio with Molotov cocktails. They, they would go full Luigi Mangione on Universal Pictures executives. They would. And we all know that's the case. And yet when race swaps go the other direction, we're told it's our obligation to just accept it without complaint. By the way, one Hollywood actor who's been very outspoken against race swapping characters in films is John Leguizamo. Leguizamo is Hispanic and has insisted publicly many times on the record that Hispanic characters in films should only be played by Hispanic actors. But you know, the good news is that he's consistent because he also I, I'll say for, to his credit, he spoke out about the Odyssey and said that only white people of Greek descent should be featured in the film. 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, you know. Another clue that Nolan's goal is more to demolish the Odyssey than to interpret it is that the corporate press is already running a full on PR campaign for Nolan's film. Several months before it comes out, Time magazine ran this cover story glorifying Nolan. But if you actually read the story, it's not hard to see that Nolan and his team have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Here's one of the more remarkable parts. Quote. Nolan instructed composer Ludwig Goranson not to use an orchestra in the score, if only to subvert expectations for a Swords and Sandals film. It's not like the orchestra existed back then, says Goranson. It was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique. Instead, he rented 35 bronze gongs of varying sizes, experimented recorded them with synths, and began sending the director songs. Nolan also put rapper Travis Scott in the film as a bard. I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap. So there's a lot to think about here. First of all, he's saying they won't include an orchestra in the score because the orchestra supposedly didn't exist back then. But in the same breath, he says they rented 35 bronze gongs and recorded them with synths. Now, admittedly, again, I'm not an expert. I didn't study Ancient Greece in college. In fact, I didn't study anything in college because I didn't go to college. But I'm pretty confident that if the Greeks didn't have orchestras then. They also probably didn't have synths. So what exactly is the rationale for having synths in the score? I'm also fairly certain that Bronze Age people didn't have IMAX cameras or 3D printed armor or boom mics or any of the other technology they're using in this film. So this is totally incoherent. Not to mention, again, he's basing his film on a modernized translation already than using modernized language and dialogue where people say things like, dad and let's go. But somehow Time magazine printed this without, you know, anybody noticing that it sounded a little odd. And the worst part is Nolan saying that he cast the rapper Travis Scott as a bard because, quote, I wanted to nod towards the idea the story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap. Yes. Homer's Odyssey, because it was handed down as oral poetry, is analogous to rap. Never mind the fact that unlike Homer's Odyssey, rap music is not handed down through generations by many different performers. Rappers sing a song and they record the finalized version of it in a studio. And, you know, and. And then. And then it exists in the. It's not handed down. It's like, here's the recording of the song. Other than the fact that the human voice is involved in both of these concepts, there's really no meaningful similarity. Like, we know about old rap songs because we have the original recordings. Okay? It's not like your grandmother is sitting you down and reciting the oral tradition of Back that Ass up by Juvenile. That's not how it works. I don't know, maybe you have a strange Thanksgiving tradition in your house. That's not how it works in my house. Instead, you know, she could put the song on and can enjoy and listen as a family. Now, there are plenty of other important differences, too, starting with the fact that the lyrics to one of Travis Scott's biggest songs goes like this. Just reading the lyrics now. Yeah. Past the dog, Zelli. Sending texts ain't sending kites. Yeah. He said, keep that on lock. I said, you know, the stife. It's absolute. I'm back. Reboot lafari to Jamba Juice. Now. My only point is that that doesn't exactly measure up to an ancient, timeless epic. You know, if this were the kind of oral tradition handed down from our ancestors, we would have to assume that our ancestors were all retarded. In fact, if that qualified as timeless poetry to be handed down through the generations, we would really, and I don't mean to exaggerate have no choice but to collectively throw ourselves into a volcano and just put a merciful end to the human race entirely. So the reasoning doesn't make any sense. It makes about as much sense as casting Ellen slash Elliot Page in the film playing a man even though she's a woman. You know, it's true that they didn't have orchestras in ancient Greece, but they did have orchestras, like, for the last 400 years at least. On the other hand, we've had transgenderism for like 400 seconds. I'd say the latter is a lot more anachronistic than the former. And there are reports online that suggests that Paige is playing the legendary mythical warrior Achilles. And I'm not sure if that's true or not. I don't. It's. That's what everyone's saying. I don't know if it's true. If it is, that it. It's going to be the single worst casting choice ever made in the history of Hollywood. Unless Nolan is changing the story so that the Achilles heel is misgendering. You know, unless that's the case, it won't make any sense. But no matter who she plays, we can be sure that it will be a male character. So we know that it's terrible casting regardless. But before I beat this point any further and elaborate on my argument that Hollywood is trying to intentionally subvert the classics, I did want to present this alternative theory, which I. I find interesting. It's not really alternative theory exactly. It's the theory that helps to maybe explain some of what we're saying here. And in this theory, Christopher Nolan isn't necessarily tanking the Odyssey on purpose. I mean, after all, he's the same guy who made the Dark Knight Rises where the rich guy kills the socialist revolutionaries. Instead, the theory is that Nolan is only good at making a specific kind of movie and the Odyssey is out of his depth. So this is from a filmmaker named Elaine Astrick. It's a really insightful point. So I want to read it in its entirety. And here's what he says. Quote, I think I finally understand what's wrong with Nolan. His universe is adverse to myth. It is made entirely of causality and causality alone. He may be the most gifted filmmaker working in big budget Hollywood today, but he's going to crash on myth the way that sailors crashed on the rocks below the sirens. The tell is in a detail Nolan offers with obvious pride. He found a solution to what he saw as a narrative problem. Why would the Trojans believe the horse was empty? And drag it inside their city. His answer is to make the horse half submerged, sinking into the sea so the Trojans would rescue it rather than accept it as a gift. It's a solution to a problem that never was one. Never was one. Because it's a myth. The Trojans bring the horse inside because it's a gift and it has wheels. The poet tells you something plainly impossible with the same tone he used to describe the sunrise. And in doing so, he's signaling that the level of reality goes beyond mere causality and exists on other levels. 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 using proper construction methods and reliable materials, Then explain how the reindeer are fed to sustain that much effort in a single night, how Santa elaborated a clever, clever logistics route to deliver the gifts on time. So he has a point here. Undoubtedly. Think about, for example, how George Lucas destroyed Star Wars. Again, not exactly a Star wars expert myself, but in the original trilogy, the Force was a mysterious mystical power that was never fully explained. It kind of use your imagination and, you know, fill in the blanks. But in the prequels, Lucas came up with a scientific explanation for the Force. And basically, it's like some people had midichlorians, or however they pronounce it, and. And the midichlorians in their cells gave them magic power. So this was a disastrous change because it removed all the mythology, all of the intrigue behind the Force. The Force went from something ineffable and mysterious to like a biological mutation, like cancer, except good, I guess. Now, was it more rational from a technical perspective? Sort of, I guess. But it ruined one of the core aspects of the original film. The Force didn't need to be rational, like Star wars is a story about spacemen running around and fighting each other with laser swords. We don't need a rationalistic, materialistic explanation for every aspect of it. Now, modern mainstream filmmakers are, for the most part, allergic to anything mystical or supernatural or mythological. They have to filter everything through a materialist lens because that's the lens by which they see the world. This is what makes them especially ill suited to make movies set in ancient times. You know, the whole beauty of filmmaking is that it allows the audience to see the world through the eyes of its central characters. But seeing the world through the eyes of ancient people means seeing a world steeped in myth and mysticism, because that is the world that they perceived. The only major director working today who understands that is not Christopher Nolan, but Robert Eggers. In the, in the Northman, which is one of the only good historical films of the last quarter century, Eggers tells the story from the perspective of a Viking in the 10th century. That's why some people who watched the movie didn't really like it, I think because they didn't quite understand what Robert Eggers was doing. And the, the movie, it's, it's very, it's very violent and epic and it is, you know, grim in a lot of ways, but it's also kind of trippy. It's like it's in a way people weren't expecting. And why is that? Well, because he's, he's telling the story from the perspective of these people who lived in the 10th century. He's respecting the mysticism of the ancients, trying to capture their worldview, not his own right. Capture their worldview, theirs, not his. Now, most modern filmmakers like Nolan are way too literal in their thinking. There's nothing romantic, nothing mystical, nothing mythological in their view of the world. They can't handle historical epics because our ancestors lived in a world that is so totally alien to the world these filmmakers perceive. So arguably that's the problem here. Maybe Nolan doesn't understand how to tell the story. Maybe all the race swaps and all the incoherent details are part of some ill advised larger effort to connect the dots that don't need to be connected now. It's hard to say because the movie's not out yet. There's a growing divide in higher education right now. Some schools seem focused almost entirely on prestige amenities and charging as much tuition as humanly possible. Meanwhile, students and parents are left wondering whether the degree will actually lead anywhere meaningful afterward. Grand Canyon University has taken a different approach. GCU is an affordable, private, non profit Christian university based in Phoenix, Arizona. It's built around the idea that education should prepare students for real life. That means academically rigorous programs connected to actual careers and a university experience that won't leave students stuck with debt or directionless. 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This is one of the most direct ways that you can help both mothers and their children. And if you're a business owner, consider making a larger tax deductible donation. A gift of $1,000, 2,000, 10,000, even 15,000 can help sponsor an ultrasound machine for a clinic serving women in need, helping to save lives for years to come. Go to preborn.comwalsh that's preborn.comwalsh whatever theory explains all this, the fact is that many other directors and other studios are doing the same thing Nolan is doing. Obviously, they're taking a hatchet to classic works of literature. They're inverting the themes and ruining the characters. Animal Farm from Angel Studios is one of the most recent examples. As we all know, Orwell's Animal Farm was an allegory about communism, but the Angel Studios version makes capitalism into the villain. This is from Tim Poole, who saw the film, quote the new Animal Farm is about happy animals sold off after a farmer can't pay his mortgage. One pig gets some credit card debt and agrees to sell the farm in a private equity deal to Elon Musk's mom, who then builds a hydroelectric dam on the property. So the animals rebel and plant explosives which blow up the dam, killing all her employees. Not a single analog or comment on Marxism, let alone communism. Now, to his credit, Tim turned down an offer from Angel Studios to promote this film. He recognized that it's an absurd, pro communist adaptation, so he called it out. Instead of making a new film with a new title, they felt they had to bastardize Animal Farm. Like, if you just want to make a dumb movie about barn animals, you can do that, right? You could just make a movie, call it the Barnyard or whatever, and then it would only be stacked up against the pantheon of children's movies about barn animals, where it would still fall well short of the classics of the genre, like Babe and Charlotte's Web. But instead, they are cynically using the name of one of the most important and iconic works of 20th century literature. Now, in their defense, Angel Studios insists that they didn't have any creative control over the film. They're just the distributor. But frankly, and I. And I say this is someone who likes Angel Studios, that is not much of a defense. I mean, it's a bit like saying, well, I didn't create the crack cocaine. I just shipped it to millions of people. It's a surprising development because angel has done some really powerful and important work, most notably Sound of Freedom, which was about child sex trafficking. That's why it's so bewildering that in Animal Farm, Seth Rogen openly mocks Sound of Freedom. Watch. Come on.
- [40:27]
B
Hey, where'd this come from?
- [40:28]
A
It's leftovers. It'll go to waste. You should have this for all your hard work.
- [40:32]
B
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
- [40:33]
A
Thank you.
- [40:33]
B
But it's supposed to be shared equally.
- [40:37]
A
There is no supposed to anymore. Okay? We're free. For example, I'm about to fart right now. This is the Sound of Freedom. Thanks, Napoleon. Nice to be appreciated, but just enjoy the milk, kid. And also, like, don't worry, you know, it's our little secret. Now, first of all, even aside from the fact that this Animal Farm adaptation destroys the core message of the book, tears away Orwell's critique of communism, empties the story of its meaning, and wears it like a skin suit. Even aside from all that, again, the tone and look and feel of the film just aren't right. You know, Nolan took something grand and sweeping and made it grim and dark. This movie takes something grim and dark and makes it childish and crass. Like, it's animated with all the artistic care and vision of a Paw Patrol episode. And instead of dealing with the heady themes of Orwell's book, instead they've elected to, you know, make fart jokes. On top of that, it's openly mocking Angel Studios Top film, even though Angel Studios distributes the film. Now, to be clear, Seth Rogen wasn't the only insufferable leftist to work on this thing. Here's another.
- [41:50]
C
At the heart of every genocide is dehumanization. That is the beginning when we begin, and I know we're talking about animals here, but when we stop seeing our fellow citizens as human, then we can commit violence against them with impunity, take away their rights. I think what we've seen over the past six years with trans people is a really good example of that. It's clear that it's never been about sports. It's never been about protecting women or children. If they wanted to protect women and children, they would indict the Epstein people in the Epstein Files. We know who they are, but they're not doing that. So that was all a pretext to scapegoat trans people, to dehumanize us and put us in an excluded cast category so that we can take away. So they could take away our rights, legislate us out of existence. We're seeing that happen.
- [42:41]
A
Is there anyone who can seriously argue that Hollywood's output has gotten better ever since they began recruiting actors and directors and writers like that guy? Has there been a single film that's been improved by shoehorning in some DEI casting and overt leftist political messaging? Certainly none of the historical epics have improved. I mean, the genre has basically disappeared. And the few attempts that have been made have been, you know, unintentionally farcical. That's a big deal, because the historical epic is one of the most important genres of storytelling. It has been for literally thousands of years. When you watch one of those films done right, you learn valuable lessons about the way the world used to work, the obstacles that great men had to overcome. You. You again, you see the world through the lens of our ancestors, which is a. Which is a very valuable thing, but it just doesn't exist anymore. I'd argue the last truly great historical epic, with the exception of the Northman was Master and Commander, which came out in 2003. And that film featured great actors and filmmakers at the top of their game, telling a heroic and exciting story with real moral and dramatic weight. No concern at all for diverse representation, quote, unquote, or dei. You leave the film feeling enthralled. Enthralled and also like you just received a history lesson. Very few films over the past quarter century have even come close to that. Apocalypto in 2006 was, you know, masterfully done. The Northman has already mentioned. And in terms of historical films that were actually well made and respected, the time period they portrayed, that's pretty much it. This is a massive critical void in America's culture. At some level I can understand why lesser known directors aren't trying to correct the problem. They know their careers would be destroyed if they tried. But Christopher Nolan, like Angel Studios, is not going to go bankrupt anytime soon. He's got more money than he can possibly spend. No one in the industry can take him down. He's, you know, has total financial artistic freedom to make whatever he wants. He could have made the first meaningful historical epic in decades. One that didn't resemble every other bog standard assembly line production from every other director could have done that. Instead we get Z, we get black Helen, we get dialogue that sits comfortably at a fourth grade reading level. Was Christopher Nolan a great director? Well, yes, at one point I think he was. Everyone knows that. What's unclear, the question we may never get an answer to, is why he decided to torch his own legacy in a doomed effort to destroy Homer's. That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godsp. Martin Luther King Jr. Is an American icon widely considered one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. A man who had a vision for a colorblind society, a post racial America. He had a dream. It's just not the dream you thought it was. Were his true aims a colorblind society or something far more radical? Who bankrolled him? What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 was civil disobedience actually peaceful? We wanted to show you a clip of the I have a Dream speech, but according to our lawyers, we can't. In fact, King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets. They want to silence critics like us. What they're doing makes it very difficult to judge Martin Luther King Jr. Not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. Is America today stronger, more unified and racially equal than before King's rise. These questions demand answers. And as Americans, we are entitled to a full accounting of the civil rights movement and its consequences. King's movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government.
- [46:51]
B
I speak as a citizen of the world. Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases, though the cause of evil prospers.
- [47:00]
A
The first part of our two part special on the civil rights movement, a new Constitution, available now on Daily Wire. Plus.