Zach Wilson--Outside Reading 3

I am a fan of recasting classic stories into film.  The first time I read the Odyssey was during my freshman year of high school, and I enjoyed the classic epic.  However, I had visions of a dog as the hero, because I grew up watching the television show Wishbone as a kid.  The television show brilliantly retold classic stories with the main character, Wishbone, the Jack Russell, as the hero.  In the episode, Homer Sweet Homer, the dog plays the role of Odysseus.  I had that vision tattooed on my mind when reading the Odyssey, even in the ninth grade.  The story of the Odyssey  was further evolved in my mind when I saw the film O Brother Where Art Thou, a recasting of the story in the Southern United States.  Although a looser adaptation than that of Wishbone, it still took the story and developed the characters, adding depth that I had not considered by reading or viewing Wishbone.  This is the beauty of the medium of film, and the retelling of stories.  A plot can be seen as the baseline, which can then be elaborated, developed, accentuated, or adapted to an audience and make the story more relevant or appealing to an audience.  As a freshman English student, I was bored at Homer's confusing word choice and language, having to read a translation of the original Greek.  However, remembering the Wishbone episode of my childhood, I immediately was drawn to the plot, understood it, and could process the details of Homer's original myth.