“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of a man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.” (p. 813 ll. 1-5). This is the beginning of one of the greatest epic poems that originated from ancient Greece. The Odyssey, written by Homer in ancient Greece, is an epic poem that has become popular enough to have its own film. The book and the film are required to be shown in schools, because it is such a good example of an epic poem. In this paper I will be comparing the book version of The Odyssey and the film version. My first point of comparison is in the book. There is a scene where the sailors go on their voyage after visiting Calypso’s island and face all of the dangers ahead of them. In the movie, the difference is monumentally large. First off, none of the crew ever made it to Calypso’s island. Only Odysseus made it to her island. Another thing is that the dangers they faced were not all in the film. For example, the Sirens were a pretty big threat to the ship and it wasn’t even shown in the movie. Another good example is the fact that the dangers that the crew faced were all before Calypso’s island in the movie. They fought the Scylla in a cave rather than the high perch as was stated in the book. Instead of creeping close to the Scylla’s high perch so you would need to avoid the Charybdis, you get dumped out of the cave through a waterfall, which causes a major flaw in the book and movie. The flaw is, there is no way to survive in the movie, as to where the book is very much more survivable. Looking over all these reasons, it is clear that the threats, and Calypso’s island are very different in the book and movie. Another difference is at the witch, Circe’s, house the time spent in the book was a year. Rather than the much longer five years spent in the movie. Also at Circe’s house, were the animals. The witch turns the men into pigs in the book, while in the movie, they are turned into panthers, monkeys, lions, and pigs. The last thing to happen at the witches house is after she tells him how long he’s been there, the boat is able to sail in the book, yet
