Sex, beds and grisly executions: what Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey changed, invented – and left out

From missing scenes and characters to a brand new ending, the director has taken some artistic liberties with Homer’s epic poem Peter Bradshaw’s five-star review and a less enthused classicist’s take Will women also enjoy Nolan’s Odyssey? Christopher Nolan interviewed Why shooting on occupied land feels like a betrayal Turning a 12,000-line poem that takes a day to read aloud into a three-hour film was always going to require some pruning. So it has proved with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which dispenses with a number of scenes and characters from Homer’s ancient Greek epic. The director has also changed the emphasis in some of the story’s most famous episodes and made a few of his own additions. Here we run down the most significant alterations. The godsHomer’s Odyssey opens with a discussion between Zeus and Athena on Olympus; with Zeus’s blessing, Athena plays an active role in guiding Odysseus home, supporting him in vanquishing the suitors and offering encouragement to his son, Telemachus, while adopting multiple disguises. Meanwhile, Poseidon frustrates Odysseus’s progress and Hermes is sent on a couple of key missions. The only god Nolan depicts is A