A new Christoper Nolan film is typically heralded with the same fervor as Christ’s second coming — but something has been decidedly off about his latest. The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s long-gestating adaptation of an epic, ancient poem, a swords-and-sandals actioner that’s been quietly percolating within the director for 20 years. Naturally, that means he’s had a lot of time to think about what his version of the classic Greek adventure would look like; in a recent interview with Time, he offers up detailed explanations for everything from the surprisingly Batman-like armor that adorns Benny Safdie’s Agamemnon to the baffling casting of rapper Travis Scott as a bard. Reading Nolan’s insights would have been quaint, even intriguing, in a vacuum. Unfortunately, they reached me just as the backlash towards the famously private director seemed to reach its zenith. If you frequent X — formerly known as Twitter — with even half the frequency I do, you’ll have seen the rising tide of dissent threatening to capsise Nolan’s Odyssey before it’s even gotten out to sea. We all read Homer’s epic in school, of course, but suddenly everybody’s an expert in ancient Greek customs and Bronze Age culture. None of Nolan’s choices are safe from a breathless kind of scrutiny. Lupita Nyon’go is Helen of Troy? Sacrilege, according to, y’know... racists. Robert Pattinson’s use of the word “daddy” in the latest trailer also ruffled some feathers. Not even the idea that Anne Hathaway’s version of Penelope — the calm, clever wife of the lost Odysseus (Matt Damon) — is actually “full of fury” went down with much grace. It seems the entire world is crashing out before the movie even comes out. But we need to chill out. I need to chill out.Nolan’s vision for The Odyssey has met with a wave of scrutiny. Is it justified? | Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesNo matter what Nolan reveals, few seem to have any faith in his adaptation of The Odyssey. Even riding the fence — as I’ve been trying to do for months now — comes with an outsized portion of doubt. I rolled my eyes when tickets for select IMAX showings went on sale — and sold out within hours — a full year before the film was set to hit theaters. As Nolan has unveiled his vision in bits and pieces, I’ve found myself agreeing with some of the criticism. Scott joining the cast to personify the connection between oral poetry and rap, for instance, is a little laughable to me. (Okay, very laughable.) Admittedly, I also cringed just a bit at The Odyssey’s fast-and-loose approach to the text, like the more modern syntax deployed in the trailer. I’m a sucker for stuffy “period piece” language, sue me! But perhaps that’s the issue — one of a few — at the root of all this backlash. I keep thinking about what I would do had I been tapped to adapt The Odyssey, what I prefer to see in my sword-and-sandals pieces, what I expect from the subgenre. Nolan clearly has his own vision... a very, very unique one... for Homer’s epic. Crucially, though, he’s the one with hundreds of millions at his disposal, the one with a tested track record of blockbuster filmmaking. He can adapt this story however he likes, and we can accept or reject whatever we like — just not before Nolan presents the finished product in all its big-screen glory.Nolan’s one of the few modern directors who can whip fans into a frenzy with little more than a title card and a dream. He’s beloved for good reason, but the bigger he gets, the louder his dissenters seem to become. The idea that his venerated, Oscar-winning reputation could finally be undone by a bad costume drama is downright intoxicating for some pundits, even those who won’t admit it. Plug that into a zeitgeist that seems to demand 24/7 discourse as tribute, and it feels like everyone has already made their minds up about The Odyssey. But what we’ve seen of the film can only be a tenth of his true vision, especially for a story filmed entirely with IMAX cameras and designed to be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible. It’s never completely fair to pick a film to shreds, but that goes double for a film that’s not even premiered. With The Odyssey gearing up for its theatrical release, it’s time to stand down and trust the process. | Universal PicturesClassists are already defensive about the translation Nolan plans to use in the film, but his interview with Time implies a healthy interest in three disparate translations from Emily Wilson, E.V. Rieu, and Robert Fagles. Even choices that some deemed apocryphal, like the shining silver armor of the Laestrygonian army, as seen in The Odyssey’s latest trailer, have likely been justified in Nolan’s head. There’s a chance it won’t all make sense to us, but the director is willing to risk it. “Hopefully they’ll enjoy the film, even if they don’t agree with everything,” he told Time of the fan response. “We had a lot of scientists complain about Interstellar. But you just don’t want people to think that you took it on frivolously.”There’s no telling what audiences will think once The Odyssey sails onto screens, but at least by then it will officially be out of Nolan’s hands. Until now, however, we’d probably all feel a lot better just chilling out and letting the director steer the ship for a little while longer.The Odyssey hits theaters on July 17.