For months, Elon Musk and right-wing cranks on X have been in a tizzy over Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of The Odyssey. They claim the movie is historically inaccurate because of minor casting choices and cultural sensitivities.

Their manufactured outrage has failed to dent the film’s massive success at the box office. Despite their predictions, The Odyssey opened with $264 million, a figure that could still rise as word-of-mouth spreads. This outcome has left them floundering for ways to cope with reality.

One anonymous X user even claimed that theaters were buying up seats to artificially inflate ticket sales—a claim so baseless it’s laughable. Critics’ reviews are published in unison, and Musk’s own idea of a historically accurate Odyssey is as old-fashioned as a 1970s film adaptation.

What we see here is not just a failure of taste but an inability to understand what audiences truly want. Nolan’s masterful blend of Greek myth and cutting-edge filmmaking has resonated, while Musk’s attempts at historical accuracy are more laughable than useful.