Although it was actually a long poem, Homer’s Odyssey is sometimes called the original sci-fi novel. As a chronicle of the “hero’s journey” it is such an archetype that many have had an irresistible urge to create modern versions. This must have been what tempted UCLA’s Ray Bolger Musical Theatre Program to launch its production of the new musical Homer In Cyberspace.

Sad to report, then, that although much work has gone into this musical adaptation of The Odyssey, the result is more odd than Odyssey and the journey is less heroic than the kind of trip that has your kid repeating “Are we there yet?” in the back of the car.

In Homer In Cyberspace, the familiar story of the returning war hero Odysseus, who ends up a wanderer due to a god’s curse, and his wife Penelope, who is plagued with suitors in her husband’s absence but remains faithful, is very loosely updated to modern high-tech times. Penelope (Grace Ann Wall, who has a lovely singing voice but has to do her best with an underdeveloped character) wards off her suitors but finally settles on marrying an admiral who promptly starts exploiting the local landscape for uranium mining. Son Telly (Tony Silva) holes up in his room downloading Internet porn, but when he happens upon the Goddess Athena (Kaitlyn Daley, in an exuberant performance that steals the show), she promises to help him find his long-lost father “O”(Kevin Thyme, playing Odysseus more bewildered than wily).

“O” begins his journey home, but runs afoul of “Sy Klops,” a giant eye projected on the stage back wall. Sy Klops is not the humorously simple giant of the original; instead he’s a computer brain who swallows up other brains. “O” incapacitates Sy, his parents “Bernie and La Belle Klops,” and the “I-Gods,“ whatever they are, take revenge, and “O” finds himself cursed to wander in “cyberspace.” This nebulous region involves Sirens of both genders, the inhabitants of Hades, the abduction of Persephone by Hades (a guest appearance by another myth), the I-Gods and their mother, and so many cross-dressing jokes that the show threatens to become the Rocky Horror Odyssey.

This sort of freewheeling silliness in the service of a classic can be very funny in the hands of the right people (like LA’s Troubadour Theatre Company). But as written by Mel Shapiro and Daniel Keleher, the book of Homer in Cyberspace is overly long and often tedious in pace. The songs (with computer-composed music by Roger Bourland) vary in quality and slow down the action. The digital-age inside jokes don’t really work with the Odyssey scenario. We are supposed to understand that the “I-Gods” have replaced the more beautiful pantheon of classical Greek myth; that pantheon struggles to return. But how this fits into the Odyssey’s story line of marital fidelity, father-son bonding, and personal identity is never made very clear.

There is much about the production that one can admire. The scenery, costumes, and much of Nicholas Gunn’s choreography are right-on, and the media effects by students from UCLA’s film, television, digital media, and computer science departments are executed with incredible precision. There is also a poignancy to the musical’s final scene, in which an elderly Odysseus and Penelope try to rediscover their love.

It may be that those who are less familiar with ancient Greece and The Odyssey may find Homer In Cyberspace amusing. For a musical rendition of The Odyssey that gets the whole story done in less than five minutes, try Cream’s song “Tales of Brave Ulysses” instead.