Elon Musk’s attempt to deliver a supposedly superior version of The Odyssey faced a brutal reception after its first footage debuted online. The AI-generated project followed months of Musk criticizing Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation, making the backlash an especially awkward plot twist.
The first seven minutes of Musk’s Grok-powered retelling arrived over the weekend, promising a more historically accurate interpretation of Homer’s epic. Instead, viewers questioned its emotional depth, character consistency and reliance on artificial intelligence.
Elon Musk’s AI-generated The Odyssey faces harsh criticism after his attacks on Christopher Nolan’s film
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project was created with AI specialists Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker. A critic at The Telegraph delivered a particularly savage verdict, describing the footage as unsettling and its characters as having a “zombie-like quality.” The review also criticized Penelope’s changing appearance between scenes, although it praised the battle sequences for recalling the epic scale of Zack Snyder’s 300.
Viewers on X were similarly unimpressed. The most-upvoted comment beneath the official post read, “Holy f–k, this is absolute shit … as expected.” Another dismissed the footage as “Just soulless slop with no thought or anything…”
Others argued that impressive visuals could not compensate for weak storytelling. One viewer criticized the characters’ limited emotional expression, while another wrote, “No matter how pretty you make something look, there has to be substance.”
Not everyone rejected the experiment outright. One commenter praised its overall achievement despite noticing details that felt artificial, adding that they looked forward to more episodes. The footage had accumulated 6.8 million impressions by Monday, although impressions did not necessarily mean viewers watched it in full.
The criticism also highlighted how quickly audiences’ expectations of AI-generated entertainment had changed. Footage that might have seemed remarkable a year earlier was now facing sharper scrutiny over its creative limitations.
Musk had repeatedly attacked Nolan’s adaptation earlier in the year. In January, he declared, “Nolan has lost his integrity,” after reports emerged about Lupita Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy. In May, he endorsed a conservative commentator’s description of Nolan as a “coward” and promoted a theory linking diverse casting to Academy Awards inclusion requirements.
Despite the controversy, Nolan’s film grossed more than $1.78 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing movie of his career. Musk’s AI alternative, meanwhile, had yet to win over audiences.
