Castaway was released in 2000. It was produced by Robert Zemeckis. Castaway is a very prestigious film, and has won numerous awards. Some of the following recognizes include the 2001 Oscar Nomination, 2001 Golden Globe award, and the Bogey Awards in Germany. It also received an outstanding rating of 7.5 on the IMDb critics board. Leading actors include Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and Paul Sanchez. Castaway is not only well made and loved by millions of people across the world, but is it also a prime example of the many issues in the world today. Castaway is not directly based off of The Odyssey, but it follows the same concept of a series of events in which the main character learns life lessons. Castaway starts with the main actor (Tom Hanks) on an international flight. His job as a FedEx Executive forces him into an obsessive compulsive urge to constantly be on time, no matter what the situation. His flight crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, and he ends up stranded on an island. He is announced dead to the public world, and is erased from existence. He then faces the feat of surviving the wild, and forgetting everything he ever knew; including is compulsive urge to be on time.
Castaway is a prime example of the issues of the current world because it expresses what human nature is, and what it should be. His compulsive urge to be on time is something that we have all adapted, and it is changing humans as a whole. When he is marooned on the island, he must loose that urge in order to survive, and in return it changes him as a being. He is rescued at the end of the movie, and when he returns to society, he is a completely different person. He learns what life really is, and that his job as a FedEx Executive is not the only thing that matters in life. This is related to The Odyssey because it projects Tom Hanks as going through a series of events that change his mindset, for better or worse.
The aforementioned thesis was that Castaway was an indirect homage to The Odyssey, but in different ways. This is similar to what Odysseus went through with his trip home to Ithaca. There is one difference though; The Odyssey is a physical trip through Homeric Greece, and Castaway was a physiological trip through the mind of Tom Hanks.
