N E O - 23 March 2007 01:41 PM

It was an excellent movie, if you can watch a movie purely for the enjoyment of it.  If you are anal about historical accuracy, you probably shouldn’t watch anything hollywood puts out.

Yeah but there’s historical inaccuracy and historical inaccuracy…
including fantasy monsters in an otherwise historical battle
it’s almost as if hollywood is saying this didn’t really happen
the whole thing is just a myth.
it’s as if they’re pissing on the graves of those who fought and died
there.

Sharruma - 23 March 2007 05:12 PM

N E O - 23 March 2007 01:41 PM

It was an excellent movie, if you can watch a movie purely for the enjoyment of it.  If you are anal about historical accuracy, you probably shouldn’t watch anything hollywood puts out.

Yeah but there’s historical inaccuracy and historical inaccuracy…
including fantasy monsters in an otherwise historical battle
it’s almost as if hollywood is saying this didn’t really happen
the whole thing is just a myth.
it’s as if they’re pissing on the graves of those who fought and died
there.

No I don’t think so…........ they have become legends and like all legends they are now Larger-Than-Life, all deeds and actions magnified.  But then, that is what such good stories are meant to do in the end.  It’s human to ‘need’ heroes, and it’s our need to view the values of those heroes to be larger as well because that’s what gives us hope.

N E O is right, this is a movie to be enjoyed primarily for entertainment and fullfillment of the senses, for it’s fabulous artistry.  Nearly the entire movie was acted in front of a green screen. 

If it’s a list of history facts you want though, read the data provided in history books, all the dates and mapped places rather than the thrill of a rollercoaster ride . 

In 1962 a film was made based on more fact called The 300 Spartans:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055719/
scroll down the page for the synopsis

Richard Egan   ...    King Leonidas
  Ralph Richardson   ...    Themistocles of Athens (as Sir Ralph Richardson)
  Diane Baker   ...    Ellas
  Barry Coe   ...    Phylon
  David Farrar   ...    Xerxes
  Donald Houston   ...    Hydarnes
  Anna Synodinou   ...    Gorgo
  Kieron Moore   ...    Ephialtes
  John Crawford   ...    Agathon the Spartan Spy
  Robert Brown   ...    Pentheus
  Laurence Naismith   ...    First Delegate
  Anne Wakefield   ...    Artemisa
  Ivan Triesault   ...    Demaratus
  Charles Fawcett   ...    Megistias
  Michalis Nikolinakos   ...    Myron

Well if you’re going to blame someone, blame Frank Miller, not Hollywood. He’s the one who wrote it, long before it was ever considered for a film. Personally, I’d rather blame Hollywood as I’m no fan of the “movie machine” out there, but in this instance it really has nothing to do with “them”.

I believe the term used to describe 300 in an interview back in 1998 was “historically inspired”, not “based on”, but I have no idea where to find that article now. I think it was in Wizard magazine, but I’m really not sure. In other words, it was meant to be a fantasy, because Frank Miller writes comic books. I don’t think the intent was to piss on any graves.

In that regards though, any realistic based-on-actual-fact war movie could be construed as pissing on someone‘s grave, depending on whose perspective the story was done from.

I just don’t understand the furor over this particular film. It was written as a fantasy and is obviously depicted as a fantasy as well. If it wasn’t so obviously a work of fiction, I could understand the controversy a bit more since the Persians were portrayed quite beastly, but the addition of the mythical factors should serve to separate the film from any type of comparison against reality.

If Vietnam came out with a movie called 77, inspired by Khe Sanh, and it had giant orangutangs and other mythical beasts, I really don’t think I’d be offended and I had actual relatives that died there.

The History channel has a special: The Last Stand of the 300 (or something very close to that).

I recorded on my DVR the night before the movie came out but haven’t yet had time to watch it.  Looking forward to having the two hours to sit in front of the TV to watch it, though.*

* Though I have had two hours to sit in front of the TV and play Zelda I currently do not have two hours to sit in front of the TV and watch that show.

Okay, so I am back from the cinema where I just have seen it.

Go see it!

Really, I have been highly entertained. Of course this is not historically accurate, but that it must not be taken so is clear from the very first minutes. This is pure entertainment.

And the movie must have it from its swift action and the overwhelming graphics. I found the acting not particularly good, but in terms of cinematographic technique, this is a great movie. I loved every minute of it. It was not as good as Sin City (another Frank Miller comic-to-screen adaption), but worth every penny of the ticket nevertheless.

Did anyone mention yet that Xerxes is depicted as sort of a Drag Queen in it? 

I don’t really have any desire to go see it.  I tend to like movies with massive amounts of character development or dark humour over plot and effects.  Oh, or good music.  I just think I’ll be bored.  My mind always wanders during fight scenes, so if there are too many in one film I get lost.  Seriously, I actually tried watching my first James Bond film the other day (I think it was tomorrow never dies).  I honestly could not follow it.  I kept having to ask the people around me “Who is that?,” “Wait…where are they?,”  or “I don’t get it, what are they doing now??”  I’m telling you, my brain just shuts down during the fight scenes.  I don’t think 300 would be a good movie for me.

Anyways, has anyone heard about the big hurrah that Iran is making about this?  What do you guys think?

Iran isn’t likely to like it, after all that is Persia

Oh, I’m sure that the movie is quite technically and visually impressive, and I may enjoy it for those points.  But it would sort of be like watching a movie about the American Revolution, in which George Washington was a little Polish shoemaker and the British troops all looked like Zulus freshly marched over from Isandlwana.  Or a film about Antarctic explorers, where the hero spends half the film hacking his way through palm trees and jungle.  No matter how good the spectacle is, some part of your mind just keeps saying, “Wait a minute!  Something’s wrong with this!”  When you’ve spent a long, long time involved in study and experience in a certain field, and then you see a movie that is supposedly based on some part of that field but has everything all wrong, you can’t help but take note of that.

And yes, apparently the Iranians (who were once the Persians) are rather irked over the depiction of their ancestors in the movie.  It seems that they are portrayed as evil inhuman brutes or something like that, and the Iranians see that as a slight against their culture.

Razela - 24 March 2007 12:58 AM

I don’t really have any desire to go see it.  I tend to like movies with massive amounts of character development or dark humour over plot and effects.  Oh, or good music.  I just think I’ll be bored.  My mind always wanders during fight scenes, so if there are too many in one film I get lost.  Seriously, I actually tried watching my first James Bond film the other day (I think it was tomorrow never dies).  I honestly could not follow it.  I kept having to ask the people around me “Who is that?,” “Wait…where are they?,”  or “I don’t get it, what are they doing now??”  I’m telling you, my brain just shuts down during the fight scenes.  I don’t think 300 would be a good movie for me.

Anyways, has anyone heard about the big hurrah that Iran is making about this?  What do you guys think?

I never liked the James Bond movies…...they were mostly idiot cliches. 

Yes, I’ve also heard that the Iranians are not happy with their ancient portrayal (immortals), but even these could never be mistaken for Iranians we know today.  They were also kind of a mythological group in the movie. 

I find it amusing that few people really go beyond the harsh view of Americans who have been viewed as the Ugly American, the idiot Americans (in recent mid east films where they are cross-eyed fools), barbarians, Zionists etc.  This portrayal can actually be seen in quite a few films made in other countries today (here too) such as the new Korean horror film The Host (just saw a private screening a few nights ago) yet I haven’t known an American to do much other than laugh at some of these filmed characters, OR AGREE with the portrayal.

Accipiter - 24 March 2007 09:03 AM

  No matter how good the spectacle is, some part of your mind just keeps saying, “Wait a minute!  Something’s wrong with this!”  When you’ve spent a long, long time involved in study and experience in a certain field, and then you see a movie that is supposedly based on some part of that field but has everything all wrong, you can’t help but take note of that.

Yup, but it need not detract when it is obviously not meant to be a true depiction. For example, I have always been highly entertained by the Indiana Jones movies, even though it has very little to do with how a real archaeologist’s live and activities look like…

I was much more disturbed by the recent Apocalypto movie about the Maya. It was much less easy to discern that much of that was plain false imagery as well. With “300” it’s immediately apparent, from the whole way things are visualized.

Mind you while we are talking of “historical correctness” here: there is of course all reason to question whether the Classic accounts we have of Thermopylae are really correctly describing what happened there…