Posted on 03/10/2007 2:23:40 PM PST by aft_lizard
I just saw 300 and I could see why the libs would be up in arms over it. From quips such as "freedom is not free" and them "boy loving Athenians(in a derogatory term)", you could also see that this was set as a clash of civilizations, freedom versus slavery. The movie overall is very gory and is not for the feint of heart but it is well worth your time if you like Frank Miller's work and you want to see history retold, although not 100% accurate.
Two of my sons saw it and loved it....
Wells says it's homo-erotic.
Ha ha!! The liberal NAMBLA supporters had to HATE that line about boy loving Athenians. And FREEDOM IS NOT FREE! Has them squirming like the worms they are!
All the liberal males see the warriors in "300" and faint from passion. I bet if Edwards sees the movie he'll pee in his panties.
Just saw it, loved it.
Very good movie.
Altho knowing that the Spartans actually enslaved all their neighbors themselves, the "freedom" talk kinda sounds to me more like propaganda than eternal truth! The Spartans even in the movie weren't exactly what we'd call "good" people . . .
But it was a good war movie about men who lay down their lives for that which they love. Great fighting, excellent special effects, cool fantasy elements, amazing look and feel.
I enjoyed it.
Sounds to be a fairly accurate rendition of the graphic novel, then.
Hmmm. As I recall, it wasn't the Athenians who encouraged homosexuality in their military; that was a Spartan thing. From what I have read about them, I don't think I would have wanted to be a Spartan and I don't think I would have wanted to live there in any capacity.
Sounds like a Democrat.
The 300 Spartans 1962 was one such film. I took History of Ancient Greece as a part of my History Degree and this earlier version and the new 300 say alot about Courage in the line of duty to preserve your Country and Culture.
Sound Familiar???
Correct. At one point it was referred to as "his war." It was similar last night when Alan Colmes was talking about the war and saying "George Bush and his henchmen."
Not even 60% accurate.
The movie totally ignores the contribution of Themistocles and the fleet, neglects to mention most of the other 6,700 hundred Greeks at the Pass, and totally ignores the fact Sparta had two kings [besides trashing the Ephors]rchy.
Well the movie was about the 300 and not the fleet which was a different battle far away, it mentions the greeks and shows them joining up on the way to the pass and the movie was about Leonidas and his 300 men. Historically accurate not wholly, but then again historically accurate movies are historically bad anyways.
Gerard Butler ping (sigh)
Molon labe
(mo-lone lah-veh)
Two little words. With these two words, two concepts were verbalized that have lived for nearly two and a half Millennia. They signify and characterize both the heart of the Warrior, and the indomitable spirit of mankind. From the ancient Greek, they are the reply of the Spartan General-King Leonidas to Xerxes, the Persian Emperor who came with 600,000 of the fiercest fighting troops in the world to conquer and invade little Greece, then the center and birthplace of civilization as we know it. When Xerxes offered to spare the lives of Leonidas, his 300 personal bodyguards and a handful of Thebans and others who volunteered to defend their country, if they would lay down their arms, Leonidas shouted these two words back.
Molon Labe! (mo-lone lah-veh)
They mean, “Come and get them!” They live on today as the most notable quote in military history. And so began the classic example of courage and valor in its dismissal of overwhelming superiority of numbers, wherein the heart and spirit of brave men overcame insuperable odds. Today, there lies a plaque dedicated to these heroes all at the site. It reads: “Go tell the Spartans, travelers passing by, that here, obedient to their laws we lie.”
We have adopted this defiant utterance as a battle cry in our war against oppression because it says so clearly and simply towards those who would take our arms.
It signifies our determination to not strike the first blow, but also to not stand mute and allow our loved ones, and all that we believe in and stand for, to be trampled by men who would deprive us of our God-given – or natural, if you will – rights to suit their own ends.
Ha!
If it's nekkid women,
the movie's for guys.
If it's nekkid MEN,
the dang movie is STILL supposed to be for guys
(According to the guys)
Well,
most of the women I know, say it's for girls (just like all those other 'homoerotic' movies that guys fuss about).
Think about it fellas, movies like that help get your wife in the mood when you can't.
I think you should read this by Victor Davis Hanson, perhaps it can help you to actually enjoy the movie instead of nitpicking it:
http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2007/03/07/post_11.php
From NRO: Last Night at the 300
I went to the Hollywood Premier of the “300” last night, and talked a bit with Director Zack Snyder, screenwriter Kurt Johnstad, and graphic novelist Frank Miller. There will be lots of controversy about this film-well aside from erroneous allegations that it is pro- or anti-Bush, when the movie has nothing to do with Iraq or contemporary events, at least in the direct sense. (Miller’s graphic novel was written well before the “war against terror” commenced under President Bush).
I wrote an introduction for the accompanying book about the film when Kurt Johnstad came down to Selma to show me a CD advanced unedited version last October, but some additional reflections follow from last night.
There are four key things to remember about the film: it is not intended to be Herodotus Book 7.209-236, but rather is an adaptation from Frank Miller’s graphic novel, which itself is an adaptation from secondary work on Thermopylai. Purists should remember that when they see elephants and a rhinoceros or scant mention of the role of those wonderful Thespians who died in greater numbers than the Spartans at Thermopylai.
Second, in an eerie way, the film captures the spirit of Greek fictive arts themselves. Snyder and Johnstad and Miller are Hellenic in this sense: red-figure vase painting especially idealized Greek hoplites through “heroic nudity”. Such iconographic stylization meant sometimes that armor was not included in order to emphasize the male physique.
So too the 300 fight in the film bare-chested. In that sense, their oversized torsos resemble not only comic heroes, but something of the way that Greeks themselves saw their own warriors in pictures. And even the loose adaptation of events reminds me of Greek tragedy, in which an Electra, Iphigeneia or Helen in the hands of a Euripides is portrayed sometimes almost surrealistically, or at least far differently from the main narrative of the Trojan War, followed by the more standard Aeschylus, Sophocles and others.
Third, Snyder, Johnstad, and Miller have created a strange convention of digital backlot and computer animation, reminiscent of the comic book mix of Sin City. That too is sort of like the conventions of Attic tragedy in which myths were presented only through elaborate protocols that came at the expense of realism (three male actors on the stage, masks, dialogue in iambs, with elaborate choral meters, violence off stage, 1000-1600 lines long, etc.).
There is irony here. Oliver Stone’s mega-production Alexander spent tens of millions in an effort to recapture the actual career of Alexander the Great, with top actors like Collin Farrel, Antony Hopkins, and Angelina Joilie. But because this was a realist endeavor, we immediately were bothered by the Transylvanian accent of Olympias, Stone’s predictable brushing aside of facts, along with the distortions, and the inordinate attention given to Alexander’s supposed proclivities. But the “300” dispenses with realism at the very beginning, and thus shoulders no such burdens. If characters sometimes sound black-and-white as cut-out superheroes, it is not because they are badly-scripted Greeks, as was true in Stone’s film, but because they reflect the parameters of the convention of graphic novels, comic books, and surrealistic cinematography. Also I liked the idea that Snyder et al. were more outsiders than Stone, and pulled something off far better with far less resources and connections. The acting proved excellent-again, ironic when the players are not marquee stars.
.
Fourth, but what was not conventionalized was the martial spirit of Sparta that comes through the film. Many of the most famous lines in the film come directly either from Herodotus or Plutarch’s Moralia, and they capture well, in the historical sense, the collective Spartan martial ethic, honor, glory, and ancestor reverence (I say that as an admirer of democratic Thebes and its destruction of Sparta’s system of Messenian helotage in 369 BC).
Why-beside the blood-spattering violence and often one-dimensional characterizations-will some critics not like this, despite the above caveats?
Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary ‘who are the good guys’ in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that unambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.
The Spartans, in reality, were pederasts. They valued procreation and family, but there was a lot of homosexuality going on.
bump
It isn't exactly an epic. Gladiator (2000) and Sin City (2005) were better films. The visuals were great, but it was missing something that would improve it. The dialog also could have been better.
300 Spartans, now discounted down to 299 Spartans.
I like history and I like heroic drama. I can enjoy both for what they are. I'm going to see this one.
I intended to see it - until I watched the trailers. I would love to see a period movie with a military theme that actually showed the tactics used at the time.
Guess I’m a purist snob.
Well said.
Yes, Gerard Butler is babilicious!!!
But it is indeed almost 100% accurate to the graphic novel upon which it's based. No one ever claimed you'd get accurate history in a movie theater.
If VDH can stand it, so can I.
We're taking a bunch of people tomorrow.
Cannot wait for this one!
Molon Labe!
No one asked you to.
But had the Spartans (and Greeks generally) not sacrificed back then whether at Salamis or Thermopylae you might be be a Persian boy toy today.
It could have been homo-erotic but it turns out to be very politically incorrect about that. There are many beautiful images, such as the boy Leonidas confronting the wolf and realizing his true male nature. The film glorifies masculinity, which as a woman, I wholeheartedly applaud.
Molon Labe Greek ping!
Whatever, don't go see it.No hair off anybodies back who just wants to enjoy a movie without historical purists pissing all over themselves to prove oh how wrong it is to make that doesnt 100% fit there version of history.
Go see it. I like my "reality", too, but the movie was enjoyable for what it is: a movie.
I already saw it. And since you didn't seem to know where Themistocles and the fleet were during the battle, I wouldn't expect you to concern yourself with historical purity. And it wasn't "[my] version of history". It was the commonly accpeted Greek version.
Do you mean to tell me that orcs didn't really fight in the Persian army?
Puts a whole new slant on the word Laconic
I don't think so. But apparently large trolls did.
If you want entertainment go to a movie (and hope it is entertaining). This one was. And it celebrates freedom, the warrior ethic, and self-sacrifice. It vilifies traitors and those who would not fight to protect their homes and families. True to history or not I'll take that message anytime especially now.
Persian: "Spartans! Lay down your weapons!"
Leonidas: "Persians! Come and get them..."
For that alone, I would have forgiven them anything shy of including Barney, Jar-jar Binks, or Ewoks...
Leave this one for the Frank Miller fans...
I took my thirteen-year-old son to see it this afternoon. He watched it with his mouth open (not so much at the bare breasts but at the compelling battle scenes). Afterwards we spent the evening discussing the history of the battle and its period. We looked online at pictures of the area. I could see that the concepts of honor and self-sacrifice filled him. He was exhausted afterward and decided to go to bed early. I hope he is never called to make a sacrifice for his country, but as he hopes to become a Marine, it is possible.
MOLON LABE!
It's filmed as it was drawn in the graphic novel. Some might rate it 'D'. For 'Dudity.'
That's a good summary. It does go to '11', so to speak, in many places, but the battle scenes are good.
...And the characters are refreshingly free of "angst", "inner conflict", or in need of "discovering their true selves." All that Hollywood clap-trap that pretty much neutered Aragorn's character in The Two Towers.
No, all the characters know who they are, what they're doing, (even revel in it, )and live or die by it.
No. But it was still better than The Two Towers! :-D
Oh, god, yes, no kidding! I *hate* that.
I did have one thought tho -- if Leonidas took 300 hand-picked Spartans . . . shouldn't the movie be titled '301'?
I have this terrible debilitating anomaly. I pick apart history theme movies. It was my late wife’s pet peeve, but I did learn to watch a movie with her without commenting on it.
If the movie was presented as a work of fiction with no connection to the battle of Thermopylae I would be able to enjoy it. I enjoyed Gibson’s “Braveheart” - until the battle of Stirling Bridge. No Bridge!
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