Grok released the opening episode of its AI-generated Odyssey on 23 October, after Elon Musk pledged to make a full-length adaptation of Homer’s poem by the end of 2026. Musk shared the episode on X, Mashable reported. Made with Grok Imagine, the AI video generator from Musk’s company xAI, the instalment runs a little over seven minutes and begins with the Greeks’ arrival at Troy.
Key points
- Grok has released an opening episode, rather than the full-length film Musk promised.
- Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker collaborated on the project.
- Reviews describe occasional convincing images alongside difficulty following the characters and story.
Grok Imagine’s opening episode reaches Troy
Grok called the release “Episode 1 of our Odyssey series”, TechCrunch reported. The project credits Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker, who specialise in generative AI filmmaking. Grok released an episode of a series after Musk had promised a full-length film.
The opening relies heavily on narrated backstory before moving to exchanges between men on screen, according to TechCrunch’s account of the footage. Its reviewer, Anthony Ha, found some shots convincing enough that the people and sea might briefly pass for real, but described the dialogue as stilted and the sequence as lacking momentum. That distinction matters for an adaptation: a single image can be persuasive even when a succession of scenes is difficult to follow.
Mashable described faces with unusually uniform teeth, hair that appeared weightless and skin whose shading looked smudged. It also compared changes in background detail to “texture pop-in” in a video game, when a less detailed surface is replaced by a sharper one as it loads. Across a moving scene, such changes draw attention to the making of the image rather than the action it is meant to depict. Mashable found the characters hard to distinguish and identified Odysseus as the only one named in the episode.
Watching a story unfold would put those qualities together: a convincing view of the sea could make a scene inviting, while similar-looking faces and a long stretch of backstory could make its events harder to follow.
Ha’s assessment was harsher on the episode as drama than on its individual images. He wrote that it lacked “any sense of artistry, inspiration, or human interest”, and said he found himself checking its remaining running time before reaching the halfway point. Those are a reviewer’s judgements of the released instalment, rather than measurements of the video generator’s performance.
Musk’s July promise was for a film
Musk said in July that Grok Imagine would make a full-length version of The Odyssey before the end of 2026. He described the intended film as “historically accurate and true to the art of Homer”. The released episode is one instalment of a series, a change in presentation from the feature-length film he described when making the pledge.
His announcement followed months of objections to Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation, including its casting. Musk criticised the inclusion of nonwhite and transgender actors, according to TechCrunch. Mashable reported that he had objected specifically to the casting of Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page. Every character in the Grok episode is white, Mashable wrote.
The question of historical accuracy had also been raised over costumes in an early trailer for Nolan’s film. Homer’s story, however, includes figures from Greek mythology, and historians debate whether a war resembling the one at Troy took place. In the released Grok instalment, the choice of who appears on screen is more readily visible than any claim about fidelity to ancient history.
Nolan’s Odyssey reached $1.7 billion worldwide
Nolan’s adaptation provides a conspicuous point of comparison because it was the film Musk was answering. It used visual effects alongside a shoot across six countries with thousands of cast and crew. Nolan has described himself as sceptical of AI and rejected the idea that it could replace human creativity.
The films also met different audiences in different forms: Nolan’s was released in cinemas in July, while Grok’s opening chapter appeared as a short online episode. Mashable reported that Nolan’s film opened to $124.5 million and, as of 24 October, had grossed over $1.7 billion worldwide.
Nolan’s The Odyssey is set for digital release on 17 November.
