300 - What did everyone think?

[taira1180]

Hum, since my wife is parsi, it's better that i don't see that movie with her; i will have probably have to see it secretly in my computer
By the way, i think that the portrait of the persians in the play "The persians" of Aeschylus is quite human. Even Xerxes is not a bad guy.

[Caius Fabius]

Actually the different reviews here were helpful to me. I would have been really unhappy to go and see this 'cold', without knowing that it is a comic adaptation of a graphic novel. Even though I did have a free ticket, I would have felt cheated. But, knowing in advance a little of what to expect, it was a fun film.

I went with a bunch of veterans, and we enjoyed the Hooah and the attempt to portray the difference between soldiers and other folks in the film. I can't wait for the DVD!

[Comerus Gallus]

...

[James B.]

Having just read this thread I will say "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

I think you guys are reading too much into this ultra violent comic book tale. Did anyone think the priest in Sin City was a political statement about the church? I didn't.



I loved the comic when I came out and have been saying for years this would make a great movie, and it did. Sure the history sucked but I went to see epic fights and ultra violence and this movie delivers.

[Arthes]

I had downloaded 5 min scene, when, they fought the Inmortals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMrvflveFjw

damnit....it finished..... I was wondering where Leonidas had gone to after that axe nearly beheaded him....!
I can't wait until this time next week...i'll be cheering the Spartans in the cinema ...!

[Comerus Gallus]

...

[A_Volpe]

I agree with Magnus...Sometimes it's good to get away from life and to leave your political and social griveances at the box office and enjoy a movie.

Some people spend way too much of thier time "reading" into [movies]. Some People will always search hard enough for the most ridiculous excuses to whine and complain and poo-poo something to death, and usually completely missing the point of whatever it is they're whining about.

Are you not entertained?

Oh wait, wrong movie :twisted:

[Magnus]

HAHHAHAHAHAH

Laudes point for you Andy!

[Lepidina]

Well I finally got to see it last night and man, way freakin' cool.

Is it historically accurate? Eh, no. Does it contain history? Yes. A surprising amount of history mind you.

But I think anyone watching this type of movie has to turn off their "inner Matt Amt" and take it for what it is - a movie.

Frank Miller is not going for a documentary. He's creating an experience - the experience of 300 Spartans fending off a massive hoard of Persians. To do this, he exaggerates, exhances, augments, and invents situations, characters, personas, and events. Like someone mentioned, the Spartans turn into superhuman gods. The Persians are even more exotic than they would have been back in the time to the extent they are nearly alien. Xerxes towers over Leonidas by a good 3 feet. This exaggerates their differences and creates that epic feel.

A simple telling of history would not get you into the heads of 300 Spartans. It wouldn't portray the overwhelming odds they faced nor the terrible price of defeat. No one is going to pay $10 to go and see a Discovery Channel documentary.

300 is closer to an opera than a movie. It doesn't have the singing but it does have the grand scenery, the larger than life characters and focuses on mood and interaction rather than history and details. I recently saw a production of Das Rhinegold where a large black man played Alberich, the dwarf. Did he look like a dwarf? Certainly not but he successfully portrayed the character of a jealous, scheming, backstabbing, grumpy little dwarf.

My only regret was that the Spartans didn't wear just a cloak and a smile like the graphic novel.

[Narukami]

Greetings Lepidina,

I agree with you, this film is like opera, or as I would characterize it -- like kabuki theatre, and indeed one enjoys such extravaganzas best when they turn off their "inner historian" and just enjoy the spectacle.

However...

That is difficult to do when the director, in an interview on MTV, says the following:

The film's director Zack Snyder claims that "The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy. A lot of people are like, 'You're debauching history!' I'm like, 'Have you read it?' I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is" He dismisses arguments of historical inaccuracy by stating that the film is "an opera, not a documentary".[73].

90% accurate...?

Perhaps that is mostly young director hubris more than anything else but it does offer further confirmation, as if any were needed, that Kubrick was right when he responded to questions about his film 2001 (I'm paraphrasing) That if he has to explain his film then he has not done his job as a film maker.

I do realize this interview is but one small part of the media/marketing frenzy that surrounds most Hollywood films today, but perhaps the director would have been better served to have left his comment about 300 being opera and not history at that rather than making claims about accuracy.

:wink:

Narukami

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

a film director only hears what he wants to hear. But, Frank Miller used historical facts from Herodotes for his comic. So the movie also has some history in it. I think it is safer to say that the movie/ comic book was inspired by history.

The movie is aired this week in NL, i'm certainly am going to watch it.

[Avatar]

I for one can't wait to see it. Then again, I view it as entertainment, and couldn't care less about any percieved propaganda. Also, the director has denied any propaganda in the movie.

So I couldn't care less.

[Lepidina]

The film's director Zack Snyder claims that "The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy. A lot of people are like, 'You're debauching history!' I'm like, 'Have you read it?' I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is" He dismisses arguments of historical inaccuracy by stating that the film is "an opera, not a documentary".[73].

Whoa, I was like channeling the director when I posted the movie was like an opera.

But I think he's basically correct. The *events*, mind you, not the visuals. It's certainly more accurate than a Shakesperean history or a Mel Gibson movie.

When you boil it down, the movie pretty much follows the historical account:

Historical facts in the movie

- Spartan society with children being exposed at birth, the agoge system, all males serving in the military
- Huge army from Persia coming to invade Greece
- Messengers demanding "earth and water"
- Messengers getting chucked into a well
- Leonidas consulting the oracle
- The Greeks being not fighting during the festival to muster
- Leonidas choosing 300 men with living sons to hold the Persians at the "hot gates"
- "With your shield or on it"
- Random other Greeks coming with them so it just wasn't the 300 Spartans
- "Lay down your weapons" "Come and take them"
- "Our arrows will blot out the sun." "Then we will fight in the shade."
- rebuilding the wall
- Spartans beating the snot out of the immortals
- Spartans holding out for 3 days
- Spartans betrayed by a Greek that showed the Persians the goat path behind them so they could be outflanked
- The last Spartans dying in a hail of arrows
- "Messenger, go tell the Spartans that we lie here, obedient to their laws."
- One Spartan lost an eye and was sent back before the final battle

Changes or additions to the movie:

- The oracle's prophecy was different
- Queen Gorgol played a bigger role
- The whole Theron sub-plot (as an aside, my dad's name is Theron but he isn't Greek.)
- There were no elephants, rhinos or cave trolls in Xerxes' army
- Xerxes probably stayed behind in Persia instead of coming out with the army
- Sparta was asked to hold off the Persians instead of Leonidas taking it upon himself to go
- The Spartans held off the Persians long enough for the Athenian navy to come in and stop them

So the historical facts pretty much outweight the additions in the movie making it one of the more accurate historical dramas out there.

[Avatar]

No one is going to pay $10 to go and see a Discovery Channel documentary.

I would. :p

[spyros]

Ok, so finally I managed to convince my wife to go and see 300. Guess what? Bad idea, now I’ll have to go and watch Tornatore new movie with here.

First of all the film is wrongly named, it should be King’s Leo 300 go-go boys vs the hordes of Mordor.

Secondly, they butchered the comic. And yes I do enjoy that comic very much. I didn’t expect to see a historic movie; I went to the theatre to watch an as good adaptation of a comic as “Sin Cityâ€