ODYSSEY movie as you can it is 3 hours long but the beginning covers the Trojan War and the Cyclops and Circe scenes are well done.

In an essay of 6-8 pages (double-spaced), answer the following:
How are the Iliad and the Odyssey related? Describe the wanderings of Odysseus in as much detail as you can. The Odyssey is filled with monsters and journeys into the unknown. Two of the more famous “monsters” the hero meets are the Cyclops and Circe. What kind of threats do these figures represent for the Greek hero? Be sure to describe each encounter in detail. The trip to Hades is important for several reasons. Why? Who does Odysseus meet there? Describe at least 2 conversations he has. (He meets Achilles! What do they say to each other?) Quote from the ODYSSEY at least 6 (SIX) times! Use the MLA method of citation. Books of the Odyssey to read: I, IX-XIII, and XXII

The Quest Myth and the Odyssey
The title of Homer’s second great epic poem comes from the ancient Greek word Odusseia which means “the story of Odysseus.” The word “Odyssey” means just that in English, a word created by the most famous “wanderings” in Western literature. The story given in the Odyssey is remarkable in its contrast to the “epic” scale of the Iliad: the war poem gave us a cast of heroes, from the great Achilles to the Trojan Prince Hector, from Agamemnon to Odysseus. But the Odyssey is much smaller in scope for its focus on its single hero, the wily Odysseus, king of Ithaca and sacker of Troy. It took the Greek forces ten years to take the city and they only succeeded in doing so after Odysseus came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. We hear nothing of the Trojan Horse in the Iliad because the poem ends not with the end of the war, but with the death of Hector and his burial. For a description of the famous Trojan Horse we must jump centuries ahead to the Roman epic, the Aeneid, to hear about the horse from the great Trojan hero and father of Rome, Aeneas.
The focus on a single hero focuses the poem and has had many readers remark that in its form the Odyssey is similar to that of a modern novel. And Odysseus himself has become a kind of “modern” hero: unlike heroes like the great Achilles, Odysseus is not-semi divine and his kingdom of “rocky” Ithaca is not the richest of the Greek cities. But it is Odysseus’ strategic mind which made him one of the favorites of the Greek heroes. He won the war for the Greeks but spends ten years trying to get home. It is this simple quest which has had an enormous impact on Western culture.
The comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell calls the journey and quest of Odysseus one of the essential or “archetypical” myths. The Iliad was always more popular during the pre-modern era; Alexander the Great used to travel with a copy of the war poem and once he actually copied Achilles’ savage treatment of Hector on one of his enemies. But the Odyssey has had a profound effect on modern culture. In 1922, the Irish writer James Joyce published a book that has often been called the greatest novel of the twentieth century: Ulysses. (Ulysses is the Roman name for Odysseus.) Joyce’s novel is a modernist masterpiece: the entire long novel takes place in one day—June 16, 1904—and is closely based on the Odyssey. It is a “modern” version of the epic quest with a modern Ulysses/Odysseus in the form of mild-mannered advertising man named Leopold Bloom. His wife, Molly Bloom, is based on Penelope and a young man he meets on June 16th, Stephen Dedalus, stands in for the hero’s son, Telemachus.
The poet T. S. Eliot said that the power of Joyce’s novel comes from what he called the “mythical method,” or a way of comparing modern experience with ancient myth. What is also interesting about Joyce’s novel is that when it was first published it was considered obscene and was only legal for sale in the United States after a lengthy obscenity trail in 1933.
As we have already noted, the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) is a comic version of the Odyssey set in the Depression-era South. Joseph Campbell would say that it is no accident that Homer’s poem has influenced the film and Joyce’s novel; for Campbell the story of Odysseus’ quest to get home is one of the more powerful stories in the Western consciousness. It is a story 2,700 years old that has modern importance. For Campbell, the Quest Myth is one of the essential myths for human beings in general and can be seen throughout the world’s mythologies. In Western culture, the original Quest Myth comes from Homer in an epic poem filled with gods and monsters, magic and adventure, and the greatest of all journeys: the voyage to the Land of the Dead.