Jon Stewart Gives Chris Nolan ‘One Note’ on The Odyssey Amid Massive Conservative Backlash

 

Jon Stewart provided filmmaker Christopher Nolan with one note on his new epic The Odyssey as the director is facing a wave of criticism over the movie, mainly from conservatives.

Nolan joined The Daily Show on Monday to promote his adaptation of Homer’s poem. The director has faced backlash over the film’s use of modern dialect, as well as his casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as the character Sinon.

Elon Musk and others have slammed the movie as “woke” ahead of its release.

While interviewing Nolan, Stewart offered up another criticism from one of the writers, expressed after a screening of the film.

“When we walked out, I walked out with someone who is actually studied those texts in Greek and I was looking at him like — because for me, I was utterly absorbed and transformed by the powerful storytelling and the epic nature of it and all of those things, but this is a person that, to be frank, would probably be a bit of a pain in the a*s to watch The Odyssey with. Loved it,” Stewart said.

“Oh, great,” Nolan responded.

“One note,” Stewart added.

“Okay. It’s a little late. What time is it?” Nolan joked.

“Apparently there is a joke that Odysseus makes with the Cyclops… He was very upset that was not in the movie,” Stewart said.

The “joke” in question is between Odysseus (played by Matt Damon in the movie) and a Cyclops he encounters in a cave. In the poem, Odysseus tells the Cyclops his name is “Nobody” and after other Cyclopses come to help after Odysseys stabs the Cyclops’s eye, the one-eyed giant tells them “nobody” attacked him, leading to confusion and for help to ultimately abandon him.

Nolan called the “joke” a pun and said he understood the criticism.

“I tired. It was not possible to work it in,” he explained.

Watch above via Comedy Central.

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Zachary Leeman covered pop culture and politics at outlets such as Breitbart, LifeZette, BizPac Review, HollywoodinToto, and others. He is the author of the novel Nigh. He joined Mediaite in 2022.