Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Deacon Harrison Garlick delivers an unapologetically curmudgeonly critique of Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey.

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23 Raw Thoughts on the New Odyssey Movie https://www.patreon.com/greatbooks/posts/23-quick-on-164190324

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Fresh off a twelve-week deep dive into Homer’s epic with thousands of listeners, Deacon argues that the movie is no mere adaptation but a modern ideological rewriting that flattens Homer’s rich characters, mutes the divine, and replaces sacred myth with progressive lessons about shame, war, race, and power.

From Odysseus reduced to a guilt-racked figure who “defies the gods,” to the deliberate recasting and reframing of Helen, Menelaus, Circe, Athena, and even guest-friendship itself, Deacon contends that Nolan’s version marries cultural illiteracy with calculated compromise—and that both the film and the culture’s eager defense of it reveal far more about us than about Homer.

Yet this is more than a film review. Deacon uses the movie as a lens to examine how stories shape a civilization’s soul, why myths matter more than mere fiction, and why Christians and lovers of the Western tradition must resist the slow leftward drift of endless compromise.

SCHEDULE

July 28, 2026 - Holy Eros: An exploration of eros in Plato, the Bible, and Christian thought

August 4, 2026 - Plato's Hipparchus

August 11, 2026 - Plato's Lovers

August 18, 2026 - Plato's Hippias Minor

August 25, 2026 - Plato's Ion

September 1, 2026 - Enduring Chill by Flannery O’Connor

September 8, 2026 - Red Shadows by Robert E. Howard

September 15, 2026 - Chivalry by Neil Gaiman

CHAPTERS (Updated)

00:00 — Intro: why this review matters

01:00 — Piety toward Homer and the problem with the film

03:05 — Why the movie is not a “conservative Trojan horse”

05:05 — The danger of relativism and compromise

07:10 — Myth vs. fiction: why adaptation matters

10:10 — Odysseus as a shame-filled hero

12:50 — Menelaus, Helen, and the film’s cultural messaging

15:30 — How Nolan flattens characters and tension

18:05 — Penelope and the loss of the rooted-bed scene

21:10 — Casting, modern language, and suspension of disbelief

23:55 — Calypso and the removal of Odysseus’s moral triumph

26:25 — Athena as shame and post-traumatic projection

29:55 — Nolan’s treatment of the Trojan War

32:55 — The Lystragonians and armor/costume criticism

35:05 — The cult of Nolan vs. the cult of Homer

37:00 — Gods, superstition, and the muted divine

39:15 — The slaughter of the suitors

41:10 — Guest-friendship, Xenia, and Christian themes

43:00 — Circe, the deer, and the soul of the crew

44:55 — Pacing, emotional investment, and the bard

KEYWORDS

Christopher Nolan Odyssey movie review, Homer Odyssey film adaptation critique, Ascend the Great Books Podcast, Deacon Harrison Garlick, cultural illiteracy in modern cinema, myth versus fiction in storytelling, Odysseus shame and guilt, Nolan casting controversies Helen Menelaus, Circe Athena Penelope Telemachus character changes, xenia guest friendship Golden Rule, Trojan War regret in film, Defy the Gods tagline analysis, classical education and Great Books, piety toward Homer, liberalism compromise in culture, upcoming Plato Republic study, Holy Eros episode, short Platonic dialogues Hipparchus Lovers Hippias Minor Ion, Short Story September Flannery O’Connor Robert E. Howard Neil Gaiman Melville, and Western civilization sacred myths.