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The first installment of Elon Musk’s AI-generated adaptation of “The Odyssey” has arrived, drawing swift ridicule for the medium Musk claimed would challenge Hollywood and offering an awkward AI-generated entry into the woke wars.
Back in July, the world’s richest man promised in an X post that by the end of the year, he would release a full-length, “historically accurate” version of “The Odyssey,” the roughly 2,800-year-old Homer epic adapted into a Christopher Nolan film that was released this summer. The promise came after he ranted about Nolan’s version several times on X prior to its release. At the heart of Musk’s criticism was the idea that Nolan’s version was too woke, particularly for the famed director’s decision to cast actress Lupita Nyong’o, who is Black, as Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra.
Nolan’s film, championed for its sweeping practical effects and real-world locations, has grossed $1.79 billion worldwide since its summer debut.
Yet the rollout of Musk’s seven-minute opening episode highlights the stubborn chasm between Silicon Valley bravado and narrative craft. Rather than a triumph of independent, automated mythmaking over studio orthodoxy—or an opening shot in Musk’s litigation of the culture wars—the short was met with immediate ridicule online for jarring scene transitions, plastic character models, and modern English dialogue that undercut Musk’s claims of authenticity.
In reply to an X post announcing the project, users criticized the video quality, saying it’s still clear the video was made with AI. Others said the film could have been improved if it was done the old-fashioned way (Nolan is known for his preference for real filming locations over studio work and his use of practical effects.)
One user said the film’s hard cuts, a type of transition between scenes that uses no visual effects, made it more obvious where different prompts were used. Another poked fun at Musk’s claim from July that his film based on the thousands of years old work of fiction set in the Mediterranean was going to be “historically accurate.”
“It supposed to be historically correct. Why are they talking in English?” the user wrote.
SpaceXAI and Wonder Studios did not respond to Fortune‘s requests for comment.
To be sure, some users also said the project was a good step forward for the category of AI-generated video, despite its shortcomings.
“There’s a lot of room for growth, but the good news is there will be growth,” wrote one X user.
The seven-minute-long feature is just the first episode of the AI-created work, according to a post announcing the project on X. The post did not say how many episodes would be released in total.
Musk’s “Odyssey” was created with Grok Imagine, SpaceXAI’s AI image and video generation tool that was released publicly in 2025 and released its latest update in July. The tool uses text prompts to make both images and videos and can create videos up to 1080p quality. Unlike other popular AI video tools like Runway or Google Veo, Grok Imagine also includes a “spicy mode” to create NSFW content, which previously sparked some criticism. The feature is still available to users with paid Grok subscriptions.
The film was created in collaboration with director Dev Walker, a filmmaker specializing in AI, and Wonder Studios, a studio founded in 2025 by filmmaker Justin Hackney and entrepreneur Xavier Collins with the mission of becoming the A24 of AI production, according to Deadline. The studio has raised more than $15 million from investors including unnamed angel investors from AI companies like OpenAI and Google Deepmind, according to its website.
“As production costs collapse and distribution fragments, filmmakers are becoming founders and the next era of entertainment belongs to them,” the company’s website reads.
Despite the improvements in AI image and video generation over the years, which is perhaps best exemplified by the viral video of Will Smith eating spaghetti, there have been few fully AI generated feature films. Some early examples of partly-AI generated projects include “Where the Robots Grow” an 87-minute long animated science fiction film from AiMation Studios released in 2024. The production was created with just nine people at a cost of just $8,000 per minute—less than the low-budget television animation sourced overseas at between $10,000 and $20,000 per minute, according to Forbes.
Contrary to Musk’s attacks, Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has been popular with audiences and is the second-highest grossing film of the year to-date.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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