A fan of the 1997 television miniseries The Odyssey has given it a perfect 10/10 score, declaring it a "more faithful retelling of the Odyssey" than Christopher Nolan's newly released blockbuster.
The two-part miniseries, which aired on NBC in May 1997, dramatises Homer's epic poem and follows Odysseus' decade-long journey back to his island kingdom of Ithaca after the Trojan War. Armand Assante stars as the wily warrior king, with Greta Scacchi as his wife Penelope, and Josh Maguire and Alan Stenson as his son Telemachus. The cast also includes Irene Papas, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeroen Krabbé, Vanessa Williams, and the late Christopher Lee.
Fan Praise for the 1997 Adaptation
On IMDb, one fan wrote: "After watching Christopher Nolan's Odyssey with its terrible dialogue and story telling I can safely say that this is at this point the best interpretation of the Odyssey to date." They added: "It actually tries to tell a story and hits on every point in the poem, it doesn't diminish Odysseus status of his heroism or his need for glory like Nolan's film, for this it deserves 10 stars."
Another fan described it as "pure excellence" and "a wonderfully authentic adaptation", praising the colour and filmmaking as "fantastic for a tv miniseries" and noting it is "respectful to the source material".
Nolan's Film and the Miniseries' Legacy
Nolan's adaptation, starring Matt Damon, took in $264.1 million in opening weekend ticket sales alone, according to Reuters. However, fans argue the 1997 miniseries, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, who also wrote the screenplay, is superior in its fidelity to the source material.
One fan, writing in 2020, said: "It's simply impossible to make a better film version of Homer's eternal masterpiece of the first novel in history, and Homer himself would surely have smiled in contentment if he saw this."
The miniseries is currently streaming for free with ads on the Popcornflix YouTube channel and is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.
