Three months after Elon Musk declared that Grok would release a full-length, “historically accurate” movie version of “The Odyssey,” Grok has published a whole seven minutes — what the company is now calling “Episode 1 of our Odyssey series.”
Musk had previously lashed out at Christopher Nolan’s version of “The Odyssey” because Nolan cast nonwhite and transgender actors. And Nolan is, in many ways, a perfect foil for Musk — while SpaceX and Tesla CEO hypes up data centers in space and posts an unending stream of AI-generated content, Nolan has described himself as “a techno-skeptic ” and said that before AI, he’d never seen a technology “so completely rejected by the public.”
And while Nolan’s version of “The Odyssey” certainly used plenty of visual effects, it’s primarily a feat of practical filmmaking , with a shoot spanning six countries and a cast and crew of thousands. After its release in July, the film became an extraordinary box office success , selling out Imax screenings for months and becoming the likely front-runner at the next Academy Awards .
As for the Grok version of “The Odyssey” (created in collaboration with Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker), well, you can watch for yourself.
Watch Episode 1 of our Odyssey series made with Grok Imagine. Let us know in the comments if you'd like a full breakdown of how it was done! Creative collaboration with @WonderStudiosX and director Dev Walker @glumlot_ pic.twitter.com/xpgpkqSCpq
I’ll admit it’s not as spectacularly ugly as I’d expected, and certainly more impressive than other videos that Musk has posted recently. If I didn’t know better, there were moments when I might have thought these were real actors sailing across a real sea. And while I can’t speak to Grok’s historical accuracy, it does seem that all the characters come in a Musk-approved skin color, while the narrator uses a British accent that will sound familiar to anyone who’s played a fantasy video game or watched a generic Hollywood epic from the past 25 years.
What the footage really lacks is any sense of artistry, inspiration, or human interest. The backstory — delivered via the aforementioned voiceover — seems to go on forever, finally giving way to one bearded face after another, each shouting stilted lines that make Nolan’s dialogue sound like Shakespeare.
While a few individual shots might provide a reasonable simulacrum of reality, the whole thing feels completely airless, offering viewers no sense of momentum, no reason to care about anyone or anything on-screen. And where I had no trouble paying attention for the nearly three-hour runtime of Nolan’s “Odyssey,” I was listlessly checking how much I had left before the Grok version was even halfway through.
It’s hard to imagine being interested in another seven minutes of this, much less a full movie’s worth.
