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In the movie Mission: Impossible - Fallout Ethan Hunt gets the mission details in Homer's Odyssey.

Why no other book?

Is there any significance to using that specific book?

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  • I haven't seen Fallout yet, and I'm sure there is probably additional context for the reference and I would agree that the last two films have been more of Christopher McQuarrie's baby than MI:III or GP, but Bad Robot is still a co-producer and The Odyssey is popular reoccurring reference in Bad Robot works most notably on LOST lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Odyssey
    – Darth Locke
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 15:22
  • I imagine there are intended parallels between the plots and the book is meant to foreshadow Ethan's journey.
    – sanpaco
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 15:22
  • If I remember right Person of Interest referenced The Iliad in the form of code in episode, All In. POI had a lot of references to Greek Literature and there could be some kind of parallel here since POI is closer in subject matter: technology and espionage.
    – Darth Locke
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 15:34

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Homer's Odyssey is the story of Homer's long struggle to return home after the Trojan war.

In Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Hunt is being hunted and he is far away from home. This is just a simple throwback to MI:5 by Christopher McQuarrie.

Tom Cruise says to the Telegraph

“At the beginning of the film, the book The Odyssey was chosen for a very specific reason. The journey my character, Ethan Hunt, and his team go through is an odyssey inspired by and reflective of that story. It’s an epic personal tale, and there are enormous emotional stakes for the characters.”

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  • I'm not sure your 2nd paragraph is actually relevant. Hunt is home already at the end of Rogue Nation and accepted by the CIA.
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 15:52
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From the Featurette "Behind the Fallout", Tom Cruise has this to say:

The book The Odyssey was chosen for a very specific reason. The Journey that Ethan Hunt and his team go through, it is an Odyssey and definitely reflective of that story as an epic tale. It's a personal tale and there's incredibly huge stakes.

An imgur link for snapshots of Tom Cruise saying this...

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  • Adding the featurette as an additional source in all honours, but...this says about exactly the same as his quote from another interview referenced in another answer already.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 13:45
  • Yeah checked it out right now. Shall I delete his answer and merge the featurette screenshots to the existing answer?
    – Nikhil Eshvar
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 14:04

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