
No, really:
Elon Musk has said his AI platform Grok Imagine will make a “historically accurate” adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, after the success of Christopher Nolan’s blockbusting treatment which the SpaceX founder has regularly criticised over its casting.
In a post on X, Musk said: “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.” Musk also linked to a post containing a three-minute clip of footage that the user said had been generated from Grok Imagine, showing a scene between Odysseus and the nymph Calypso.
Musk has been attempting to stoke a culture war around Nolan’s film, which stars Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, and was released on Friday to near-universal acclaim and achieved impressive box office results. Before the film was released, Musk reposted abusive messages aimed at Nolan’s casting of Black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and trans actor Elliot Page as Sinon, adding that “[Nolan] wants the awards” and that “[he] has lost his integrity”.
However, Musk’s efforts appear to have had little effect, with The Odyssey taking US$264m (£196m, A$378m) at the global box office in its opening weekend and a 97% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Yeah, I don’t think this film was ever going to seriously struggle at the box office even with shitheads like Edolf bearing down on it, and, funnily enough, even some of those shitheads have actually come out in favour of it: astonishingly, none other than Ben Shapiro declared it a masterpiece, and though he still found Elliot Page’s presence off-putting he was impressed enough that he didn’t even deadname him. Though Malsh Walsh was having none of it:

I suspect Walsh considers the original text a heathen blasphemy cos it’s full of gods that pre-date his own, and consequently has never actually read it; unfortunately for him, the film was obviously going to be too much of a cultural phenomenon to avoid, so this represents his revenge upon it, I suppose… and possibly also a subtle hint to Shapiro—his boss at the Daily Wire, lest we forget—that THIS is how he should’ve responded to the film himself…
But, to give him the little credit he deserves, at least Walsh isn’t so desperate for attention that’s he’s making his own version of the story without black or trans people. That’s what Edolf’s doing, and it’s what makes him even more pathetic. No one needs or even wants an AI version of the Odyssey apart from him. He’s probably going to have to release it himself over Twitter, cos I can’t see any actual distributor taking it on (I mean, surely even Tubi have some standards); hardly anyone is going to watch it, and I imagine the majority of those who do will be doing so for hatewatching purposes to shred it.And, let’s face it, his film will either be true to history or to Homer, but it will not be both because it CAN’T be both. It’s a work of mythology from 2700-odd years ago, what we might now call an epic fantasy or some such. But at least none of the “performers” will be black or trans, and that’s the whole point; however much of a racist divorced dad this whole affair makes him look, he’ll be happy with it. It’s not for anyone else, after all.
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