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Elon Musk Says Christopher Nolan Lost His Integrity. Here's What Actually Happened · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Elon Musk is upset about a casting choice.
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  Specifically, he's upset that Christopher Nolan cast Lupita
• 0:05
  and Yango as Helen of Troy is upcoming adaptation of The
• 0:09
  Odyssey. And according to Elon Musk, this
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  means Nolan has lost his integrity.
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  Now here's the thing though. Helen of Troy in Greek
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  mythology, was born from an egg. Her mother was seduced by Zeus,
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  who had transformed himself into a swan, and the woman then laid
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  an egg and Helen hatch from it. So when we're talking about
• 0:30
  where accuracy breaks down in this story, I have some thoughts
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  about where that line actually sits.
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  This whole thing exploded this week after Musk amplified a post
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  on X arguing that Helen was traditionally depicted as fair
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  skinned and blonde. And look, I get that app
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  taptation spark debate. They always have.
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  There's a bigger question underneath all of this.
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  What does integrity actually mean when you're adapting
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  mythology? What are you supposed to be
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  faithful to? What we're going to be digging
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  into is the absurd origin story of Helen.
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  Talk about what Nolan is actually building with this
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  film, and ask whether visual tradition or thematic truth is
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  what really matters here. We're going to get right into
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  that over this very short break. So let's start with the
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  mythology, because honestly, it's too good to not start with
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  it. The story of Helen's birth is
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  one of the stranger tales in Greek mythology.
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  In Zeus, the king of all the gods had a thing for mortal
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  women. This is well documented.
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  But he also had a habit of turning himself into animals to
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  pursue them. In this case, he became a swan.
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  He seduced, or, depending on the version, assaulted a woman named
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  Lita. She was the queen of Sparta, and
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  after this encounter with the divine bird, Lita laid an egg.
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  Now Helen of Troy hatch from that egg.
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  That's the canonical origin story.
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  Now it's all Homer. This is classical Greek
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  literature. The most beautiful woman in the
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  world, the face that launched 1000 ships, came out of an egg
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  after her mother had an encounter with a swan God.
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  So when someone tells me that casting Lupita Nyong'o breaks
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  the realism of the story, you have to ask which part of it was
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  realistic to begin with. The swan?
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  The egg? The hatching?
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  I don't know. So here's what happened this
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  week. A user on X posted criticism of
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  the casting, arguing that Helen has traditionally been depicted
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  as fair skinned and blonde and that changing that makes the
• 2:31
  premise incoherent. The post called it an insult to
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  the author. Musk, who owns X and has an
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  audience larger than most countries, amplified that signal
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  and that post and added his own verdict.
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  He said Chris Nolan has lost his integrity and suddenly a casting
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  rumor became a full blown culture war debate.
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  The pushback was immediate, and honestly, it was pretty funny.
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  People pointed out that there's no historical evidence that
• 2:59
  Helen of Troy ever even existed. She's a mythological figure.
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  Others went straight to the egg thing.
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  One users put it pretty bluntly. If you're fine with an immortal
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  God turning into a bird, sleeping with a human, and
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  producing an egg that hatches into the most beautiful woman in
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  the world, then the pita skin tone probably isn't where
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  realism breaks down. Now that was a lot of the
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  responses. Everyone's exhausted with this.
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  Nobody. Like who cares if you're a good
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  actor? You're a good actor.
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  And that's what people thought on X.
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  They took Elon to task for this one.
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  And I want to ask you a question.
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  I know 39% of you are subscribers to the show and 61%
• 3:42
  of you are not yet, but you've been listening to the show or
• 3:45
  have listened to the show in the past.
• 3:47
  You just haven't hit the follow or subscribe button.
• 3:50
  And I've given you about 7 years of my life with this project,
• 3:54
  and I'm going to continue for the next 10.
• 3:56
  And all I ask from you is just one second of your time to hit
• 3:59
  the subscribe or follow button on whatever platform you're on
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  right now. Thank you so much.
• 4:03
  I'm extremely grateful and eternally blessed to have you in
• 4:06
  this community. So let's get back to this wild
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  stuff that's going on with Elon. What does integrity actually
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  mean in Elon Musk's criticism? He never defined it.
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  And I think that's worth sitting with for a second because
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  integrity is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence,
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  and it could mean several different things.
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  For some people, integrity means visual continuity.
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  Helen has been portrayed a certain way in Western art, in
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  cinema for centuries, painting, sculptures, films.
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  There's an established look and changing that feels to some
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  viewers like bending the story to fit modern politics.
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  I understand that perspective. Familiar imagery, grace,
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  expectability is about honoring the spirit of the myth rather
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  than its most familiar imagery. The Odyssey isn't really about
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  what Helen looks like. It's about beauty as a
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  destructive force. It's about desire and
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  consequence. It's about what happens after
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  the war, when Odysseus is trying to get home and the gods keep
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  throwing obstacles in his way. Those are the themes.
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  Hair color, skin color, they don't care.
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  And here's the other thing. Christopher Nolan has never been
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  a strict literalist. His films routinely reshape
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  history, reinterpret genres, and twist reality in service of the
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  story. Oppenheimer compressed and
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  rearranged timelines for emotional impact.
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  It's a movie. The Dark Knight turned a comic
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  book character into a meditation on chaos and order.
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  Inception and Tenet been to physics and time in ways that
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  require multiple viewings to actually understand what's going
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  on. Expecting his Odyssey to
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  function like a museum exhibit was probably unrealistic from
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  the start. So let's talk about what Nolan
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  is actually building here, because this film is shaping up
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  to be one of the most ambitious projects ever.
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  The Odyssey reportedly carries a $250 million budget that makes
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  it his most expensive film ever. It's also the first feature shot
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  entirely with IMAX cameras, including newly developed
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  lightweight inquired models that allowed for more flexibility on
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  set. Production reportedly burned
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  through more than 2,000,000 feet of IMAX 70 mil film.
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  That's very Nolan the man. He loves the film.
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  Physical, tangible, deteriorating film.
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  He loves it 70 mil, but 2,000,000 feet?
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  That's ridiculous. This cast is super stacked.
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  Matt Damon plays Odysseus, Anne Hathaway's Penelope, Tom
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  Holland, Robert Patterson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron.
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  They're all in it. And there's one surprise catch.
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  Travis Scott is making his acting debut as a Bard.
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  That's interesting, right? Bards?
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  Where the storytellers of the ancient world, the people who
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  preserved and performed their epics.
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  A Casting a modern musician in that role feels intentional.
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  It suggests that Nolan think about how stories get told and
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  retold across time. The film is set to release on
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  July 17th, 2026. And whatever you think about the
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  casting debate, this is clearly going to be an event.
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  Nolan doesn't make small films. It's got to be huge.
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  He makes movies that demand to be seen on the biggest screen
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  imaginable. A shooting entirely an IMAX 70
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  mil means this one will be built for that experience in a way
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  nothing has been seen before. So where does this leave us with
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  this whole controversy? And I've been thinking about it
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  for a while, and I keep coming back to this tension.
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  There's visual tradition on one side, how something has been
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  depicted for decades and centuries, and there's thematic
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  integrity on the other, what a story is actually about.
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  At its core, Helen of Troy has been painted and sculpted and
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  filmed thousands of times. Most of those depictions that we
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  know of is shown up with pale skin and light hair.
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  That's the tradition, the visual tradition.
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  But the myth itself doesn't require that.
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  The myth is about beauty so powerful it caused a war.
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  It's about the destruction that follows desire.
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  It's about consequence. Note that depends on any
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  particular appearance. Nolan isn't making a documentary
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  here, he's making a film. It can be abstract.
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  He can do whatever he wants. He's adapting A myth, a story
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  that has been told and retold for thousands of years in
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  countless of forms, countless looks by countless storytellers.
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  Even him will be bringing something new like they did.
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  That's how the mythology actually works and never is
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  static. It keeps evolving over time.
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  Things change. The stories go from one person
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  to the next, and that has changed it.
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  Now, whether the PITA is the right choice for Helen is
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  something we'll find out in July when the film comes out.
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  But the idea that our casting on its own means Nolan lost his
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  integrity, I don't think that holds up.
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  Elan now, when the source material includes swan gods and
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  magic eggs, a 10 year war over a kidnapped queen.
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  The story's always been stranger than fiction, and one person
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  cannot change that story.