"300" - The Movie

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I'm pretty sure that it wasn't Hollywood that butchered it, it was Frank Miller. ;)


This movie is NOT based on the Battle of Thermopylae, it is based on a wild comic book adaptation of it.
 
I have doubts about how "300" soldiers can fight an army of 400,000
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By using natural obstacles to cannalize the enemy.

Yes, the army was about 7,000, still insurmountable odds. The reason the Spartans get the credit is because they chose to stay when the situation was clearly untennable providing time for the majority of those 7,000 to retreat. It was "The 300" plus a smattering of volunteers who stayed until the end.

Molon Labe probably isn't in it, but my second favorite quote attributed to that battle is, where the Persians say they have enough archers to fill the sky with arrows and block out the sun. The reply is good we'll fight in the shade. :cool:

It looks like the movie will be thoroughly enjoyable, and bitterly disappointing at the same time.
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Yep, good clairvoyant advanced review. Have to see it anyway...if it ends up better than we think, it will be a pleasant surprise.
 
I'll probably go and see it or at least rent it, despite historical inaccuracies. Besides, I don't go to action movies, whether "based on a true story" or not, to learn something-I go to be entertained. If I want knowledge I go to well researched, well written books authored by people who've spent years looking into their subject of choice.

I thought Dawn of the Dead was pretty damn entertaining, so I'll give this one a chance.
 
But the "DotD" remake was pretty old school. Very little CGI work at all. This one looks to have about a dozen real actors and everything else done on computers. It looks like garbage as a result. Did you see the trailer? The "wolf" is a joke. The battles are cartoon nonsense.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/
 
From the "Gates of Fire":

"In 480 BC the forces of the Persian Empire under King Xerxes, numbering according to Herodotus two million men, bridged the Hellespoint and marched in their myrids to invade and enslave Greece...

...The Spartans and their Thespian allies died to the last man, but the standard of valor they set by their sacrifice inspired the Greeks to rally and, in that fall and spring, defeat the Persians at Salamis and Plataea and preserve the beginnings of Western democracy and freedom from perishing in the cradle..."

Before the battle of Thermopyle, Ptammitechus (an Egyptian Marine) shows a map to a group of Spartans at Rhodes. Pointing out how large the Persian empire is and how small Greece is in comparison. "...Listen to me brothers. The race of Egyptians is an ancient one...We have ruled and been ruled. Even now we are technically a conquered people, we serve the Persians. Yet regard my station friends. Do I look poor? Is my demeanor dishonored? Peer here within my purse. WIth all respect, brothers, I could buy and sell you and all you own with only that which I bear upon my person....His Majesty will honor you Spartans no less than us Egyptians, or any other great warrior people, should you see wisdom and enlist yourselves voluntarily beneath his banner. In the East we have learned that which you Greeks have not. The wheel turns, and man must turn with it. To resist is not mere folly, but madness."

"You have never tasted freedom, friend," Dienekes (a Spartan) spoke, "or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel...And as for the wheel you speak of, like every other, it turns both ways."

Seems to me that the Spartans understood freedom. Probably better than most of us.
 
While I stress everyone to have their own opinion on the movie...

Please understand that this movie is not intending to be a documentary, it is a stylized action movie based on a comic book based on the Battle of Thermopylae. The things arent necessarily meant to look real; they are meant to look comicbook-y (rhino's anyone?)

Personally, when I want historical accuracy, I will read a book on the subject. Or watch the history channel.

That said, I go to the movies to be entertained, and this movie looks damn entertaining (to me, of course).:D

I think it comes out in early march.
 
Yeah, that's the problem in a nutshell. It looks like a comic book. But as you say maybe that's appealing to people who like graphic novels and the like. I've never been able to see the appeal in them. Hopefully they can do a version of Gates of Fire that won't be so full of preening and screaming comic book fantasies.
 
I guess it all comes down to whether you think the "popular tastes" of the graphic novels are worth anything. It will be interesting to see how the film does. "Sin City" did well, but had a lot of big name actors on the ticket. "300" has a production cost $20 MORE than the low budget Sin City, but no big name actors at all. Heavily CGI reliant films can and have fallen flat.
 
Begining the Texas Revolution the town of Gonzales raised a flag with "Come And Take It" when Mexican troops came to take their small cannon. The Mexicans did not succeed.
 
"300" is going to be a line-for-line, frame-for-frame film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel.

The CGI effects seen in the trailer are supposed to mimic the look of the comic book. They aren't 'cheap', they look exactly like they are supposed to for this particular work.

If you're expecting historical accuracy, petition the theaters to do "Gates of Fire", the rest of us are expecting a comic book, and it's going to be good :)
 
I read the link and found something interesting...

Even today we remember the power of the Spartans’ defiance. “Come and take them,” they tell the Persian emissaries who demand their arms. “Then we will fight in the shade,” the Spartans boast when warned that the horde of Persian arrows will soon blot out the very sunlight. “Go tell the Spartans that here we lie obedient to their commands” the tombstone of their dead reads.
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The article linked is adapted from an intro to accompany a book to go along with the movie (if i'm reading things right). Because of this, I think we will see all of the things above in the movie. I know for a fact that they say "Then we will fight in the shade", as its in the movie trailer.

If this is true, then it looks like we will get a "Come and take them" somewhere in the film. Like I said, the director comes off as very pro-gun and I would think it would mean something to him to include that in the film.
 
I'll watch it, but the trailer is trying to make it too sexy, and too loud. The Spartans were known for their reluctance to speak. They would not have hollered every word they spoke. The lengthy Persian demand that they lay down their weapons was met with the simple Spartan reply of "Come and take them."
 
Funny thing is, that none of the actors look like ancient Greeks, and less like Spartens. Sparten society was based on Homosexuality, where both sexes practiced it. It was more than a way of life for them, it was a way to create lasting loving friendships. I wonder if that will be in the movie.
 
Saw the trailer - :eek:

Oh great - looks like they got Jet Li for the stunt coordinator. :uhoh:

Why can't somebody try to do an historical epic showing historical tactics? This looked like something out of a Spiderman comic book. :barf:
 
Oh great - looks like they got Jet Li for the stunt coordinator. :uhoh:

Why can't somebody try to do an historical epic showing historical tactics? This looked like something out of a Spiderman comic book. :barf:
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You say that like Spiderman isn't historically tactical?
 
Funny thing is, that none of the actors look like ancient Greeks, and less like Spartens. Sparten society was based on Homosexuality, where both sexes practiced it. It was more than a way of life for them, it was a way to create lasting loving friendships. I wonder if that will be in the movie.
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Their society may have had homoseuality, but it certainly wasn't based off it. And practiced by both sexes? :scrutiny:

CR
 
Why can't somebody try to do an historical epic showing historical tactics?
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Well, because as has already been noted a half dozen times, this is a movie based off the graphic novel, not Herodotus.

Also, while some specifics of various Greek fighting styles are known, little is recorded about the specifics of Spartan tactics. Lots of rumors, but nothing in the way of a "Spartan Manual of Arms".

Relax folks. Even if they only stay as faithful to the graphic novel as they did with Sin City, this is gonna be a heck of a movie. Those looking for the N'th degree of historical accuracy should really just get over it.:banghead:
 
I don't demand total historical accuracy. I loved "the 13th Warrior" even though almost nothing about it was historically accurate. They had 17th century Spanish armor! But it was still a great movie with great fight scenes. This "300" looks to be a lot of overblown screaming with tons of goofy cartoonish CGI. I guess that appeals to the people who read these graphic novels, but it annoys me.
 
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