# 300 seconds of the movie 300



## Mistwell (Mar 4, 2007)

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?name=movies&id=1553704&vid=136403

MTV's exclusive 300 seconds of the movie 300.  

Do not watch it if you don't want any war giant spoilers.

And again, this movie is not supposed to be an accurate historical recreation of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C..  It is instead a somewhat fanciful interpretation of Frank Miller's graphic novel based on that battle.  Do not look for realism here, as it is not intended as such.


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## Hopping Vampire (Mar 4, 2007)

awesomeness.


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## Joker (Mar 4, 2007)

I stopped about halfway through.

This deserves to be seen on the big screen.


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## Wombat (Mar 4, 2007)

Thanks for the preview!

Now I know another movie to avoid...

Yeah, I know, it's based on the graphic novel, not the history, but this looks worse than 1950s version.


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## Meloncov (Mar 4, 2007)

That just about killed my anticipation for the movie. The battles looked like video game cuts, not brutal combat.


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## Pseudonym (Mar 4, 2007)

Meh.

I'm going to see it in IMAX.


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## Mark (Mar 4, 2007)

Pseudonym said:
			
		

> I'm going to see it in IMAX.





I do not see how I could avoid seeing in just that way.


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## Celtavian (Mar 5, 2007)

*re*

Looks cool. Definitely a mythical telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. Makes for a good fantasy movie, but definitely not a historical epic. Should be fun to watch.


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## David Howery (Mar 5, 2007)

I found a copy of "300" in the local B&N, and looked through it... looks like the movie copied some of the costumes and scenes pretty closely...

yeah, definitely not high on historical accuracy... might be fun to watch though...

but I'll never forgive them for having a war rhino....


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## The Grumpy Celt (Mar 5, 2007)

David Howery said:
			
		

> ...but I'll never forgive them for having a war rhino....




What is wrong with a war rhino? I like war rhinos.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 5, 2007)

Looks good, although I am disappointed not to see the Spartans fighting in a phalanx. 

If they aren't fighting in a phalanx, well... they can't really stand against the Persians. That's kind of the point of the battle's historical and military significance.

Aw, I'm sure we'll see it elsewhere in the movie. 

Anybody jazzed about this movie, I highly recommend _Gates of Fire_ by Steven Pressfield. An awesome novelization.


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## Thad Enouf (Mar 5, 2007)

Mistwell said:
			
		

> And again, this movie is not supposed to be an accurate historical recreation of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C..  It is instead a somewhat fanciful interpretation of Frank Miller's graphic novel based on that battle.  Do not look for realism here, as it is not intended as such.




That's too bad.  From what I recall, the actual battle doesn't really need any embellishing.  I suppose someone will get the girl in the end or some other nonsense.

Maybe I'll add it to my collection of awful historically-based movies (Troy, Alexander, etc.)


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## Sir Brennen (Mar 5, 2007)

Thad Enouf said:
			
		

> I suppose someone will get the girl in the end or some other nonsense.



From what I understand and have read sofar, the romance is primarily in the blood-letting, not the other kind


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## shilsen (Mar 6, 2007)

Thad Enouf said:
			
		

> That's too bad.  From what I recall, the actual battle doesn't really need any embellishing.  I suppose someone will get the girl in the end or some other nonsense.




So I'm told about the Battle of Agincourt. But that doesn't stop me from really enjoying old Bill's "Henry V." Even though he does murder the history and Henry does get the girl in the end.

Different strokes, I guess.


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## Frostmarrow (Mar 6, 2007)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> Looks good, although I am disappointed not to see the Spartans fighting in a phalanx.
> 
> If they aren't fighting in a phalanx, well... they can't really stand against the Persians. That's kind of the point of the battle's historical and military significance.
> 
> ...




Yup. I think this must be the very end. There is only like twelve of them left. I guees phalanx works better with 300.


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## Storm Raven (Mar 6, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> So I'm told about the Battle of Agincourt. But that doesn't stop me from really enjoying old Bill's "Henry V." Even though he does murder the history and Henry does get the girl in the end.
> 
> Different strokes, I guess.




Well, the real Henry got the girl in the end too, so he doesn't murder the history too much. Shakespeare just truncates the events following the 1417 campaign into the 1415 campaign.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 6, 2007)

Frostmarrow said:
			
		

> Yup. I think this must be the very end. There is only like twelve of them left. I guees phalanx works better with 300.




Well, in the _very_ end, Xerxes orders his troops to finish off the Spartans with arrows. He refused to risk any more men in close combat.

By that time, not only were the Spartans lacking enough men for a phalanx, they were also (according to Herodotus) without weapons or shields and reduced to fighting with their bare hands and teeth.

And still... arrows were deemed safest.


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## Thad Enouf (Mar 6, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> So I'm told about the Battle of Agincourt. But that doesn't stop me from really enjoying old Bill's "Henry V." Even though he does murder the history and Henry does get the girl in the end.
> 
> Different strokes, I guess.




Please tell me you are not comparing Shakespeare to modern Hollywood, for whatever reason.

EDIT: Forgive my tone.  I have been a student of ancient history for several years and of the opinion that certain events do not need embellishing.  The circumstances surrounding the Persian War (and later, the Peloponnesian war) are about as dramatic as things can get.


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## Mistwell (Mar 7, 2007)

Thad Enouf said:
			
		

> Please tell me you are not comparing Shakespeare to modern Hollywood, for whatever reason.
> 
> EDIT: Forgive my tone.  I have been a student of ancient history for several years and of the opinion that certain events do not need embellishing.  The circumstances surrounding the Persian War (and later, the Peloponnesian war) are about as dramatic as things can get.




As a student of entertainment however, you wouldn't agree with that sentiment.  Not everyone is a student of history, or appreciative of that field.  Moviemakers make movies for everyone, and not just those who have a pre-existing appreciation for historical events.

In this case, it is an artists iterpretation of a historical event.  Artists, throughout history, have always interpreted historical events and embellished on them.  Indeed, your own sources for that history are probably inaccurate on some level due to the embellishment of the writers reporting on those events.

Frank Miller is an artist and writer, and he has ALWAYS embellished on the thing his art and writing is based on, because that is his style.  Maybe you don't like his style, but he is being true to his style, just as Herodotus embellished certain stories to emphasize what he believed were significant differences between Greece and Egypt, because that was his style.

And now we have a director embellishing Frank Miller's work, based on that director's style.

I think you should take a step back and let people do their thing, and appreciate interpretations for what they are (all of them, including ancient and modern interpretations of real events).


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## shilsen (Mar 7, 2007)

Thad Enouf said:
			
		

> Please tell me you are not comparing Shakespeare to modern Hollywood, for whatever reason.




Yes, I am, and I often do. I've been teaching Shakespeare long enough to know that his plays, in their role and position in Renaissance England, are very nicely analogous to Hollywood movies in the current USA.



> EDIT: Forgive my tone.  I have been a student of ancient history for several years and of the opinion that certain events do not need embellishing.  The circumstances surrounding the Persian War (and later, the Peloponnesian war) are about as dramatic as things can get.




No problem. While it's not my primary discipline I've been studying ancient history for a long time, and I choose to disagree. I don't think there's anything wrong with reworking history, and frankly, I agree with Mistwell's post above that every author and historian embellishes, just as Herodotus or Thucydides or the rest did. Frank Miller doing it and the movie doing it isn't unusual at all. It's one thing to not like the movie. That's your prerogative. But to say it shouldn't is a little presumptuous, IMO.


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## Storm Raven (Mar 7, 2007)

Well, having now been able to look at the entire clip, my opinion of the movie has not changed. It looks like it was written and produced by a moron that only the WWF could love. Leaving aside the wildly stupid reinterpretation of history (Spartans with no armor, not fighting as a phalanx, using tactics that are dumber than even movie level military strategy; or, in other words, ignoring everything that made the actual Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae able to hold off the Persians), the fight choreography looks like something that a professional wrestler would be embarrased to perform. The costumes are laughable, the acting is painfully bad, and the "ogre" is simply ridiculous.

I might someday watch this schlockfest on DVD, just to make fun of its inanity, but spending money on seeing this in the theatre looks to me to be the equivalent of buying mud.


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## D.Shaffer (Mar 7, 2007)

300  was never meant to be seen as a realitic portrayal of the battle.  It's an artistic stylization that uses the Battle of Thermopylae as its basis.  If you go into it expecting an historically accurate retelling, you're going to be dissapointed

From what I understand, it was meant to be seen more as a 'heroic' look of the thing.  An attempt to portray the myth more then the reality.  They way they're portrated in the movie/graphic novel is similar to the way the ancient Greeks portrayed their mythological figures...an emphasis on an idealized male body.


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## David Howery (Mar 7, 2007)

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> What is wrong with a war rhino? I like war rhinos.



I could forgive it in a fantasy movie.  But this is supposed to be about an actual real battle with people who were really there.  Yeah, I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy in historical films... but... a war rhino is pure fantasy.. they aren't domesticable, and they wouldn't really survive a battle, as they are actually fairly fragile and don't have much stamina...

We've been talking about this movie on another board I hang out on, and I said on there, putting a war rhino in this movie would be like giving the Hurons war grizzlies in "Last of the Mohicans"....


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## Storm Raven (Mar 7, 2007)

D.Shaffer said:
			
		

> 300  was never meant to be seen as a realitic portrayal of the battle.  It's an artistic stylization that uses the Battle of Thermopylae as its basis.  If you go into it expecting an historically accurate retelling, you're going to be dissapointed




As I said, I'm not even really complaining about the lack of historical accuracy, although that is glaring and makes the whole movie pointless. The fight choreography, such as it is, is laughably bad, the costuming is silly, and what little dialogue we see would be embarrassing for a WWF script writer.



> _From what I understand, it was meant to be seen more as a 'heroic' look of the thing.  An attempt to portray the myth more then the reality.  They way they're portrated in the movie/graphic novel is similar to the way the ancient Greeks portrayed their mythological figures...an emphasis on an idealized male body._




I suppose that might be a worthwhile argument, if the characters didn't look like rejects from a Mexican wrestling side show. This movie is what _Nacho Libre_ would have looked like if it didn't know it was a comedy.


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## Mistwell (Mar 7, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Well, having now been able to look at the entire clip, my opinion of the movie has not changed. It looks like it was written and produced by a moron that only the WWF could love. Leaving aside the wildly stupid reinterpretation of history (Spartans with no armor, not fighting as a phalanx, using tactics that are dumber than even movie level military strategy; or, in other words, ignoring everything that made the actual Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae able to hold off the Persians),





Stop.  They fight as a phalanx for MOST of the movie.  They use great tactics for most of the movie.  You are not seeing most of the movie, or why the phalanx was broken in that scene.  While the armor part is true, and the movie is embellished, the actual tactics are for the most part true in the movie.



> the fight choreography looks like something that a professional wrestler would be embarrased to perform. The costumes are laughable, the acting is painfully bad, and the "ogre" is simply ridiculous.




It's not an ogre, and the acting is actually quite good in the movie.  You have not seen much of the acting.



> I might someday watch this schlockfest on DVD, just to make fun of its inanity, but spending money on seeing this in the theatre looks to me to be the equivalent of buying mud.




Fair enough, it's not for you.  I think you will find you are standing nearly alone in a sea of people who disagree, however, fairly soon.


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## Mistwell (Mar 7, 2007)

David Howery said:
			
		

> I could forgive it in a fantasy movie.  But this is supposed to be about an actual real battle with people who were really there.  Yeah, I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy in historical films... but... a war rhino is pure fantasy.. they aren't domesticable, and they wouldn't really survive a battle, as they are actually fairly fragile and don't have much stamina...
> 
> We've been talking about this movie on another board I hang out on, and I said on there, putting a war rhino in this movie would be like giving the Hurons war grizzlies in "Last of the Mohicans"....




I don't get it.  They are NOT domesticated in this movie, they do not survive the battle in this movie, they do end up being fairly fragile in this movie, and they don't have much stamina in this movie.  The persians use it just as a shock weapon.  That's it.  It seems to mesh well with what you think should happen if someone were to try that.


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## Sir Brennen (Mar 7, 2007)

From what I can gather, the film is intentioned to be _*mythic*_ in its storytelling, not historical. It's the legend, not a military journal entry. It's like a wonderfully poetic grandfather were telling the story to a small but rapt group around a campfire at night.

Miller purposefully had the Spartans dressed in "iconic" elements of their warrior culture, not full-blown historically accurate armor. The inclusion of rhinos, elephants and freakish giants lends emphasis to the exotic and decadent nature of the opposing armor, as well as their vast resources to be able to indulge in such unique weapons. (Almost the opposite of the modern definition of the adjective "spartan".) All of these were stylistic choices by the author and filmmaker to set a tone for the movie, and based on the reviews, it seems to work well. I can't wait to find out for myself.

It's a stylish, artistic representation, not a documentary.


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## D.Shaffer (Mar 7, 2007)

David Howery said:
			
		

> I could forgive it in a fantasy movie.  But this is supposed to be about an actual real battle with people who were really there...



That's sort of the point. It's NOT really about the historical battle.  It's loosely based around it, yes, but in the same way that the Illiad is based around the actual siege of Troy.  It's the Spartans as legend, not as historical fact.



			
				Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I suppose that might be a worthwhile argument, if the characters didn't look like rejects from a Mexican wrestling side show.



They cant be a proper Luchedor without a mask. In any case, again, look at Greek art.  What do you see?  Naked/Nearly naked, well muscled men with idealised bodies, doing some sort of athletic activity. Greek art at the time idealised the male form. The movie is more or less taking that aesthetic and filming it.  It even imitates the Greek 'Black on Red' style in many shots.  

Going back to the wrestling comment, you might consider that it echos this for the same reason, it also has its roots in Greek culture. (Professional wrestling is derived from GRECO-Roman wrestling, after all, although how close that system matched what the Greek's actually used is debateable.)


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## Pbartender (Mar 7, 2007)

Sir Brennen said:
			
		

> It's a stylish, artistic representation, not a documentary.




In other words, 300 is to the Battle of Thermopylae, as A Knight's Tale was to Chauncer's Canterbury Tales...  It's not necessarily meant to be a "good" movie dramatically-speaking, but it can be an theatrically entertaining movie.  

I haven't yet seen 300, but in A Knight's Tale, the bits that were meant to be historically accurate (like the sets and the extras' costumes) were painstakingly so, but the parts that weren't (like the principals' costumes, mannerisms and dialogue) were obviously and purposefully so.  That bothers me much less than a movie that tries really hard to be historically accurate, and fails.

As others have said, this very well may be the way ancient Greeks would have imagined the idealized battle as some poet recited the epic legend for an evening's entertainment.


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## Barendd Nobeard (Mar 7, 2007)

David Howery said:
			
		

> ...putting a war rhino in this movie would be like giving the Hurons war grizzlies in "Last of the Mohicans"....




Oh, man, that would so kick butt!  I'd pay IMAX prices to see that on screen!

Especially if the grizzlies fly, and shoot laser beams out of their eyes....


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## Mistwell (Mar 7, 2007)

Sir Brennen said:
			
		

> From what I can gather, the film is intentioned to be _*mythic*_ in its storytelling, not historical. It's the legend, not a military journal entry. It's like a wonderfully poetic grandfather were telling the story to a small but rapt group around a campfire at night.




The entire story is told from the eyes of a wounded solider who survived the battle, apparently a while after the battle took place.  When watching it, I assumed the exagerations which just what you said, the embellishments of this old soldier retelling the story, and he didn't know what an elephant, rhino, really tall person, and other elements were precisely.  He describes them in an entertaining manner, and that is how myths are created.


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## hexgrid (Mar 7, 2007)

D.Shaffer said:
			
		

> ...an emphasis on an idealized male body.




Yeah... the "fighting in their underwear" aspect sort of ruins it for me.


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## Felon (Mar 7, 2007)

David Howery said:
			
		

> I could forgive it in a fantasy movie.  But this is supposed to be about an actual real battle with people who were really there.




*No, it isn't.* Think of it in mythical terms. You people griping about historical accuracy have been told at the start of this very thread that this a heavily-fictionalized movie, based only loosely on the events of that battle. So that's at least once, for all the good it did. In the movies, you can expect knights to be chivalrous, and you can expect the Wild West to be a hell of a lot more wild than it was. The point here is here to entertain the masses, not to satisfy aficionados.


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## Mistwell (Mar 8, 2007)

Felon said:
			
		

> *No, it isn't.* Think of it in mythical terms. You people griping about historical accuracy have been told at the start of this very thread that this a heavily-fictionalized movie, based only loosely on the events of that battle. So that's at least once, for all the good it did. In the movies, you can expect knights to be chivalrous, and you can expect the Wild West to be a hell of a lot more wild than it was. The point here is here to entertain the masses, not to satisfy aficionados.




I feel like I posted about a movie about pop tarts, and got a ton of replies by people saying they will not see this horrible movie because it's not about monkey's throwing spam at zebras.   

I changed the text at the top of the thread to red, and a larger size.  It won't help much, but maybe someone will see that and not get all bent out of shape that this movie is not the movie they would have made had they been in charge of making this movie.


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## shilsen (Mar 8, 2007)

Mistwell said:
			
		

> I changed the text at the top of the thread to red, and a larger size.  It won't help much, but maybe someone will see that and not get all bent out of shape that this movie is not the movie they would have made had they been in charge of making this movie.




I'm pretty sure you're right - it won't help much


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## Sir Brennen (Mar 8, 2007)

Felon said:
			
		

> The point here is here to entertain the masses, not to satisfy aficionados.



Hey, I consider my self somewhat of an afficionado of film... whatya tryin' to say?    



			
				Mistwell said:
			
		

> monkey's throwing spam at zebras.



I would stand in line for this.


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## HeavenShallBurn (Mar 8, 2007)

Mistwell said:
			
		

> they will not see this horrible movie ... it's not about monkey's throwing spam at zebras.




Now if it were zebras slathered in spam and gravy being attacked by lions in an arena whose floor was covered in chained monkeys...



			
				Sir Brennan said:
			
		

> I would stand in line for this


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## Storm Raven (Mar 8, 2007)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> In other words, 300 is to the Battle of Thermopylae, as A Knight's Tale was to Chauncer's Canterbury Tales...  It's not necessarily meant to be a "good" movie dramatically-speaking, but it can be an theatrically entertaining movie.




Oh well, if it's like _A Knight's Tale_, then all sins are forgiven.

Wait, no, that just confirms my earlier analysis. _A Knight's Tale_ was a giant pile of crap. If this movie is anything like that, then paying for tickets to see it is worse than buying mud. It's like buying used mud.


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## trancejeremy (Mar 8, 2007)

I don't think it can be compared to A Knights Tale. That had a lot of modern day anachronisms and wasn't really based on real knights or any specific event, or even how knights were portrayed in romances of the times. And of course, that was a comedy.

This, on the other hand, is pretty much a mythic presentation of a real event. No, it's not real historically, but it's perhaps real as the Spartans themselves would have told it.  The Greeks as a whole had a way of building myth from history, and this apparently uses a lot of diagloue from some Greek accounts of it.  Yeah, some elements are out of place, but the same can be said for the Illiad and the Odyssey.

And seriously, if you have ever seen ancient Greek art, it's pretty much entirely scantily clad athletic men, including their battle scenes that they painted (on vases and such). So that's hardly out of character.

And lastly, the Spartans were a fairly unique culture, and this movie apparently captures them quite well, for better or for worse.  That might not stack up to modern sensibilities, but eh, I'm sure they would be happy with the portrayal.  (The Thespians probably aren't too happy, though. The Greeks, not the actors)


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## shilsen (Mar 8, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Oh well, if it's like _A Knight's Tale_, then all sins are forgiven.
> 
> Wait, no, that just confirms my earlier analysis. _A Knight's Tale_ was a giant pile of crap. If this movie is anything like that, then paying for tickets to see it is worse than buying mud. It's like buying used mud.



 For you. For people who enjoyed A Knight's Tale, and for people who'll enjoy 300, not so much.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Mar 8, 2007)

This movie looks absolutely, unmitigatedly AWESOME. I've already got plans to see it at least twice. Every preview has just made me want to watch it a whole lot more     

Also, anyone who told any of y'all that this was a historical movie was a filthy, filthy liar, and probably a Commie. This is a comic book movie about half-naked Greeks fighting off hordes of monsters and warriors, and it looks absolutely fantastic*.

*to me, to appease shilsen ^^


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## Aries_Omega (Mar 8, 2007)

The wall of bodies from what I remember was accurate. Mind you it was a VERY narrow mountain road they were defending. The Spartans killed a bunch of Persian troops...stacked them up like bricks and used them as cover. This movie looks like pure awesomeness. Count me in to see it.


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## D.Shaffer (Mar 8, 2007)

hexgrid said:
			
		

> Yeah... the "fighting in their underwear" aspect sort of ruins it for me.



While hordes of scantily clad, well muscled men dont really do anything for me, I'm sure it wont hurt the sales to women. 

I'm in it for the glorious amounts of carnage.


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## Sir Brennen (Mar 8, 2007)

Just a quote from the director in an ABC News web article on the movie: 



			
				Zack Snyder said:
			
		

> Snyder freely admits that the film isn't a by-the-numbers historical representation. In ads and scenes for the movie, you see loin-cloth-wearing, bare-chested men with weapons and only a shield for protection. In reality, the Spartans wore heavy body armor.
> 
> Snyder brushes off criticism of this aspect. "It's funny because, you know, I had been criticized by people that said, '[In] the real battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans had chest plates and they had armor on and that's what the Spartans really look like and in your movie they're depicted bare-chested.' Victor David Hansen, this historian I showed the movie to, said, 'In some ways, what you've done is similar to the way a Greek vase painter paints a hoplite naked.' That is sort of the Greek ideal of what a warrior would be," Snyder said.


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## Berandor (Mar 8, 2007)

Am I allowed to critisize the clip based on the – to me (heya shilsen ) – use of slow motion in nearly the full 10 minutes? I didn't like the green-screen/slowmo-played-at-full-speed look of that at all.


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## hexgrid (Mar 8, 2007)

Sir Brennen said:
			
		

> Just a quote from the director in an ABC News web article on the movie:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




It's not the historical inaccuracy of the outfits that bother me. It's that the end result looks more He-Man than classical greek.


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## Storm Raven (Mar 8, 2007)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> This, on the other hand, is pretty much a mythic presentation of a real event. No, it's not real historically, but it's perhaps real as the Spartans themselves would have told it.  The Greeks as a whole had a way of building myth from history, and this apparently uses a lot of diagloue from some Greek accounts of it.  Yeah, some elements are out of place, but the same can be said for the Illiad and the Odyssey.




I don't think anyone is actually paying attention. I am not criticizing the clip for being historically inaccurate - I pointedly said, in my first post, that even leaving aside the historical silliness, this looks like a terrible movie. Why? Because the acting that has been shown in the clips is horribly bad, the "action" is laughable (and most of it is in painful slow motion sequences to boot), and the costuming is ridiculously silly (not just the silly Greek "look at my groin" costumes, but the supervillain-henchman-like Persian outfits too).

Now, none of these criticisms come from the lame reimagining of history - the Spartans don't actual look or behave like Spartans in any of the clips - but from the quality of the movie itself. On its own merits, as a "mythic interpretation of the Thermopylae story", the movie looks lame. The WWF would be embarrased by what passes for dialogue and action in the sequences we have been shown, and if they are trying to sell the movie based on these clips, then they are probably what the producers think is the best part of the movie.

So stop trying to make some sort of point about how the movie doesn't need to be historically accurate to be good as if that rebuts some point I have made. I get that. I pointed that out in my first post in this thread. _A Knight's Tale_ wasn't awful because of the anachronisms and bad history. It was awful because of the lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing. From what the clips have shown of _300_, it shares those characteristics with _A Knight's Tale_.


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## Pbartender (Mar 8, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> It was awful because of the lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing.




...and a lot of people might disagree with you there.

That aside, just because a movie has bad writing, acting and/or directing, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it for the sake of pure entertainment.



For heaven's sake, Star Wars -- and I'm talking about the very first original one, here -- honestly had pretty "lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing"...  But that doesn't stop fans (including myself) from having fun watching it.


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## Mistwell (Mar 8, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Oh well, if it's like _A Knight's Tale_, then all sins are forgiven.
> 
> Wait, no, that just confirms my earlier analysis. _A Knight's Tale_ was a giant pile of crap. If this movie is anything like that, then paying for tickets to see it is worse than buying mud. It's like buying used mud.




For what it is worth, I hated Knights Tale, and loved 300.  I know a lot of folks liked Knights Tale.  I'm just not one of them.  I love queen music, I hated it in that movie, and that is just one of the things that bugged me about that movie.

Anyway, the acting in this movie is in my opinion quite good.  I don't think a single scene in the previews highlights any acting really, so I am not surprised you got the impression that the acting is poor.  But in the scenes where people are not fighting Persians, the acting is consistently good from my perspective.

It's also not all slow motion, and they do use smart tactics to fight.  There are some amazing phalanx scenes.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Mar 8, 2007)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> I don't think it can be compared to A Knights Tale. That had a lot of modern day anachronisms and wasn't really based on real knights or any specific event, or even how knights were portrayed in romances of the times. And of course, that was a comedy.
> 
> This, on the other hand, is pretty much a mythic presentation of a real event. No, it's not real historically, but it's perhaps real as the Spartans themselves would have told it.  The Greeks as a whole had a way of building myth from history, and this apparently uses a lot of diagloue from some Greek accounts of it.  Yeah, some elements are out of place, but the same can be said for the Illiad and the Odyssey.
> 
> And seriously, if you have ever seen ancient Greek art, it's pretty much entirely scantily clad athletic men, including their battle scenes that they painted (on vases and such). So that's hardly out of character.










this kind of stuff?  This isn't ancient art though, merely 1800's.


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## shilsen (Mar 8, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> So stop trying to make some sort of point about how the movie doesn't need to be historically accurate to be good as if that rebuts some point I have made. I get that. I pointed that out in my first post in this thread. _A Knight's Tale_ wasn't awful because of the anachronisms and bad history. It was awful because of the lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing. From what the clips have shown of _300_, it shares those characteristics with _A Knight's Tale_.




Not everybody here is defending the movie (which it doesn't need, IMNSHO) from your criticism on the basis of historical accuracy. Some people, such as myself, were pointing out that you've been phrasing your criticism as if it's objective and unarguable, when it's just an opinion based on a bunch of clips. IMNSHO, your posts need an "IMNSHO" 

One thing which I also find curious is the habit that some people, such as yourself in this case, have of dropping into a thread which is about a particular subject that others are getting enthused about, to say nothing more than that they hate it. Maybe it's just me, but if there's something that I dislike or have no interest in, I don't see how throwing that opinion into a forum where people who like the subject are discussing it is at all productive or helpful in any way. But, as I said, maybe that's just me.


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## Mistwell (Mar 8, 2007)

This kind of stuff:


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## Pbartender (Mar 8, 2007)

Mistwell said:
			
		

> For what it is worth, I hated Knights Tale, and loved 300.  I know a lot of folks liked Knights Tale.  I'm just not one of them.  I love queen music, I hated it in that movie, and that is just one of the things that bugged me about that movie.




Yeah...  It's one of those things about making such a distinctively stylistic movie -- _Knight's Tale_ and _300_ aren't the only ones out there, but are two excellent examples.  If the style grabs you, you'll love it, but if it doesn't, at best you don't care for it and at worst you hate it.


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## Berandor (Mar 8, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> One thing which I also find curious is the habit that some people, such as yourself in this case, have of dropping into a thread which is about a particular subject that others are getting enthused about, to say nothing more than that they hate it. Maybe it's just me, but if there's something that I dislike or have no interest in, I don't see how throwing that opinion into a forum where people who like the subject are discussing it is at all productive or helpful in any way. But, as I said, maybe that's just me.



Well, the topic of this thread is not "300 rocks my socks off" but "300 seconds of the movie 300", i.e. a discussion about the clip and, by extension, the movie. So negative opinions have just as much place here as positive ones.

In my not so humble opinion.


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## Storm Raven (Mar 8, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> Not everybody here is defending the movie (which it doesn't need, IMNSHO) from your criticism on the basis of historical accuracy. Some people, such as myself, were pointing out that you've been phrasing your criticism as if it's objective and unarguable, when it's just an opinion based on a bunch of clips. IMNSHO, your posts need an "IMNSHO"




I would think that most opinion pieces are obviously such, mine included. If you go back, you might note the many times in my comments in which I said "my opinion" or "looks to me like" and similar statements. I don't think I need to use the cute acronym if I have already  conveyed the same sentiment using actual text. And I have said that my opinion is based on a collection of clips, clips that include more than just combat scenes by the way, and even when they aren't in combat the dialogue in the movie looks like Humogous yelling at the inhabitants of the gas fortress. (Of course, to harp a _little_ on the historical silliness, having a Spartan talking about defending "a new era of freedom" is absurdly silly). The acting that has been in the clips has been such over the top examples of scenery chewing that it makes the films look inspid and embarrasing. And this is what the producers chose as the "best foot forward" for their work. Color me unimpressed.



> _One thing which I also find curious is the habit that some people, such as yourself in this case, have of dropping into a thread which is about a particular subject that others are getting enthused about, to say nothing more than that they hate it. Maybe it's just me, but if there's something that I dislike or have no interest in, I don't see how throwing that opinion into a forum where people who like the subject are discussing it is at all productive or helpful in any way. But, as I said, maybe that's just me._




I'm sorry, I didn't see the "only people jazzed about the movie should post here" tag. I thought this was a discussion thread that was based upon the clips that have been presented. And, you know, discussion usually means that you might have varying viewpoints. Including viewpoints that review the material being talked about and say "yuck".


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## Wormwood (Mar 8, 2007)

Miller's 300 is one of my all-time favorite graphic novels---and I had grave reservations that a faithful adaptation could *ever* be produced in today's Hollywood. I am *happily *mistaken, if the clip I saw is any indication.

Snyder appears to have taken the artistic risk of treating Miller's comic book panels essentially as storyboards (a technique which paid off beautifully in *Sin City*).

The risk paid off, IMNSHO.


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## Pbartender (Mar 8, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, I didn't see the "only people jazzed about the movie should post here" tag. I thought this was a discussion thread that was based upon the clips that have been presented. And, you know, discussion usually means that you might have varying viewpoints. Including viewpoints that review the material being talked about and say "yuck".




As someone who's looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend, I've got to agree with you here, Storm Raven.

In all honesty, I was far more impressed by the clips shown in the other trailers and previews than this one.  While I don't think it's a particularly bad battle scene, I just didn't see anything especially impressive about it.


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## shilsen (Mar 8, 2007)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Well, the topic of this thread is not "300 rocks my socks off" but "300 seconds of the movie 300", i.e. a discussion about the clip and, by extension, the movie. So negative opinions have just as much place here as positive ones.
> 
> In my not so humble opinion.



 I probably wasn't clear enough there. I wasn't saying Storm Raven, or anyone else, shouldn't be posting negative comments if they want to. I was just making a comment that I very rarely, if ever, feel impelled to post in a thread purely to be negative about the subject, and I find it interesting that many people do.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Mar 9, 2007)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Snyder appears to have taken the artistic risk of treating Miller's comic book panels essentially as storyboards (a technique which paid off beautifully in *Sin City*).
> 
> The risk paid off, IMNSHO.




Freakin' amen!


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## replicant2 (Mar 9, 2007)

Not to upset anyone's apple cart, but--a giant? An 8 or 9 foot tall man whom the Persians have to keep in chains so he doesn't kill their own, then "turn him loose" on the enemy? 

I understand the movie is not even pretending at historic realism, but this was a bit much. It smacks too much of the cave troll scene in the Mines of Moria, methinks, as though the director had LOTR in his eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still see it. I guess I'm in the camp of, I'd go in with a perfectly open mind and a smiling face if _300_ were named something else--"Blood of heroes," for instance--and had no designs of retelling or even reinterpreting history. Were this the case there'd be no discussion from me. I'd eat it up. 

But the fact that it is based, however loosely, on a historic event, inevitably causes people to compare the film to the real event. Whether or not it's the filmmakers' intent, it's an inevitable byproduct of making a film about something that really happened. Hence my slightly jaundiced, though still interested, eye.


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## MoogleEmpMog (Mar 9, 2007)

replicant2 said:
			
		

> Not to upset anyone's apple cart, but--a giant? An 8 or 9 foot tall man whom the Persians have to keep in chains so he doesn't kill their own, then "turn him loose" on the enemy?
> 
> I understand the movie is not even pretending at historic realism, but this was a bit much. It smacks too much of the cave troll scene in the Mines of Moria, methinks, as though the director had LOTR in his eyes.




Or as though he had an eyeful of, I don't know... the comic book that predated the LotR films?

What with it being, like Sin City, a close to shot for shot version of the comic it's based on, I'd say that's a safer bet.

For that matter, I'd say 'dangerous giant/wild man chained up by the evil forces and unleashed on the heroes' predates both Frank Miller's comic book 300 and the LotR movies.  No specific scene leaps to mind, but I certainly recall seeing and reading similar setups in dozens of comics, pulpy stories and novels, video games and movies.


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## David Howery (Mar 9, 2007)

Felon said:
			
		

> *No, it isn't.* Think of it in mythical terms. You people griping about historical accuracy have been told at the start of this very thread that this a heavily-fictionalized movie, based only loosely on the events of that battle. So that's at least once, for all the good it did. In the movies, you can expect knights to be chivalrous, and you can expect the Wild West to be a hell of a lot more wild than it was. The point here is here to entertain the masses, not to satisfy aficionados.



uh, did you read my post?  I'm not complaining about the historical accuracy in general... I'm not a stickler for such... it's just the specific example of the war rhino that makes me groan... I'll probably see this movie and buy the DVD, as I like historical movies in general... I'll just fast forward through the war rhino scene...


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## jonathan swift (Mar 9, 2007)

Saw it at the midnight showing. Simply amazing and beautiful movie. And if you're complaining about the war rhino, seriously, don't. Spoilers below.

[sblock]The rhino charges the Spartans, killing a couple of Persians that get in the way. Then one of the Spartans puts a spear through it's eye at range and it dies. That's it.[/sblock]


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 9, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> One thing which I also find curious is the habit that some people, such as yourself in this case, have of dropping into a thread which is about a particular subject that others are getting enthused about, to say nothing more than that they hate it. Maybe it's just me, but if there's something that I dislike or have no interest in, I don't see how throwing that opinion into a forum where people who like the subject are discussing it is at all productive or helpful in any way. But, as I said, maybe that's just me.




Nope, it's not just you. 

Sometimes people just feel the need to crap all over something that they think that they won't like. It's like walking down the street and telling that guy with the bad hair cut "Hey your haircut SUCKS!!!" 

Except it's the internet and you can do it in anonymity (sp?).

and there's no chance of said person getting punched in the face for being obnoxious.

Welcome to the INTERNERD!

Edit: although what crapping has gone on here has been tame compared to some of the other game related threads on EN World.


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## Sir Brennen (Mar 9, 2007)

MoogleEmpMog said:
			
		

> For that matter, I'd say 'dangerous giant/wild man chained up by the evil forces and unleashed on the heroes' predates both Frank Miller's comic book 300 and the LotR movies.  No specific scene leaps to mind, but I certainly recall seeing and reading similar setups in dozens of comics, pulpy stories and novels, video games and movies.



And depicting enemies as giants is also common in the telling of "historical" events, such as the guy David took out with a sling, and the spies of Moses reported that Canaan was full of giants. Again, 300 is in the style of these legends, where the event is seem through a tall-tale lens to make the heroes larger-than-life, where conveying ideals is more important to the storyteller than facts.

But I think it's becoming obvious that this sort of film has to work against more modern and realistic depictions of war, such as "Saving Private Ryan" and its ilk. In addition, the film depicts the myth as told by a Spartan warrior, whose sensibilities aren't neccessarily the same as our own. Even the director said that there are scenes included to remind the viewer "Hey, these are the heroes, but they aren't us. We don't throw babies off of cliffs if we don't think they'll grow up to be good warriors." There's also the irony that here is a group of warriors battling for freedom when their own existence as a warrior culture is based entirely upon their heavy reliance on slaves. 

As for those that don't like the intercut slo-mo/fast-mo... that's definitely a personal taste thing. I think it works well to convey the "Dance of Death" ideal, reinforcing the Spartan warriors' belief that battle is art, like an incredibly violent ballet, complete with it's own rythms and beats.

Maybe this whole film technique will be more palatable for the nay-sayers if it were used for a non-historical movie like the upcoming new Conan instead.

Hmmm...


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## grimslade (Mar 9, 2007)

*300*



			
				shilsen said:
			
		

> One thing which I also find curious is the habit that some people, such as yourself in this case, have of dropping into a thread which is about a particular subject that others are getting enthused about, to say nothing more than that they hate it. Maybe it's just me, but if there's something that I dislike or have no interest in, I don't see how throwing that opinion into a forum where people who like the subject are discussing it is at all productive or helpful in any way. But, as I said, maybe that's just me.




Posting you dislike something and pointing out reasons why is very valid and beneficial to a true discussion. 
Posting six times in a thread and arguing why people who would like to go see it are buying used mud or heathen WWF monkeys is a bit much.

I am a little leery after seeing the trailer and hearing early reviews. 
I'll buy the whole 'mythic retelling" of Thermopylae. It is very stylistic. The subject matter is fantastic. It is a comic book movie that stays firmly grounded to the source material.
I am worried that it is one long battle scene with little plot or character. It seems a little video gamey "Oooh we're at the War Rhino level". I realize that any battle sequence with waves of combatants will seem that way. 
All in all, I will wait for Netflix for this one. Maybe its sour grapes for not being "Gates of Fire".


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## Mistwell (Mar 10, 2007)

Just saw the movie for the second time (last one was over 6 months ago).  Still love it.


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## trancejeremy (Mar 10, 2007)

replicant2 said:
			
		

> But the fact that it is based, however loosely, on a historic event, inevitably causes people to compare the film to the real event. Whether or not it's the filmmakers' intent, it's an inevitable byproduct of making a film about something that really happened. Hence my slightly jaundiced, though still interested, eye.




I dunno, though.  I mean, we've had a spate of historical epics over the last 4-5 years - Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, Alexander, King Arthur, Gladiator, the Last Samurai, etc. And before that, things like Braveheart.  None of them were particularly accurate historically.

I just think that a supposed "realistic" style is in vogue these days (almost Sergio Leonesque, everything is dirty and grimy and ugly and sweaty) for historical movies, not to mention, in some cases modern day political messages get thrown in as well.  This on the other hand, is in its own style (other than perhaps Sin City), as well as being completely apolitical (while some have tried to insert all sorts of political stuff into it, that wasn't the intention - according to the makers, it's just being told from the point of view of the Spartans, which is somewhat alien to today's thinking).

Plus, really, while it was a historical battle, it's just on the edge of where myth becomes history, sort of a mirror image of the Trojan War (which would be on the myth side).  The movie *Troy* sucked out all the mythological aspects of the Illiad, this pretty just does the opposite. 

And even then, it still seems like it sticks to the basic story pretty well.  Sure, they missed out on the other Greeks there, most notably the Thespians who also stayed and fought and died just as bravely, and it added some stuff like rhinos and giants, but other than that, it's pretty close (including how the story was told by a survivor - there actually was one who was ordered to leave due to an injury), and indeed, like stuff a Spartan version of Homer might come up with. 

Indeed, that's sort of what Herodotus was doing when he wrote his Histories (on which this is based), sort of doing to the conflict between the Greeks and Persians what Homer did between the conflict between the Trojans and Achaeans. A little more historical, but that's probably because Homer didn't write it down, while Herodotus did.


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## death tribble (Mar 20, 2007)

I had to see the trailer on YouTube. MTV wouldn't let me see it as I was outside the continental US.
But the trailer was good and I look forward to seeing the film as it opens in Britain on the 22nd March.

One nitpick to StormRaven. WWF became WWE some years back. WWF is now World Wildlife Fund. They had the acronym a long time before Vince MacMahon did and they won the court case to use it.


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