Remembering ‘Ulysses 31’, the ’80s cartoon that transported ‘The Odyssey’ to outer area

It is not recognized whether or not “Ulysses 31” was on Christopher Nolan’s radar in his teenage years, nevertheless it’s intriguing to suppose it may have influenced the director’s determination to tackle Homer’s “The Odyssey”.

This animated area opera, a French/Japanese co-production, delivered a crash course in Greek mythology to a era of children who grew up within the ’80s. And, though it seems to be extra like “Star Wars” than Homer’s authentic story, it had a good stab at transferring the Classics to the thirty first century (the clue actually was within the title), years earlier than the Coen brothers took “The Odyssey” to the Deep South in “O Brother, The place Artwork Thou?”

The cartoon’s core premise could be acquainted to any Greek scholar, despite the fact that purists would certainly bristle on the hero going beneath his Roman pseudonym, Ulysses, fairly than the unique Greek Odysseus.

At coronary heart, it is that previous story of a ship’s captain racing to get residence from Troy (on this case, a starbase) earlier than his spouse, Penelope, marries one other man. That voyage is quickly waylaid, nevertheless, when Ulysses’ son, Telemachus, is kidnapped to change into a sacrifice to an enormous robotic Cyclops.