While it's true that there were no round-the-world chases in exploding robots piloted by naked sea nymphs in the earlier works of Sophocles, they did figure more prominently in his later plays. Scholars remain divided as to whether this was a direct or an indirect cause of the neon helicopter gunships that became a popular and recurring device in the oeuvre of Euripides.

Of course, very few of these "innovations" stand up to any real scrutiny. Close readings of the Odyssey and the Iliad will reveal that, more often than not, Homer did it first.