posted
Oh, I thought you were joking; yeah, now that I listen to it again I think you're right. I had always assumed that hell was the sort of place where you'd get sent to bed without dinner.
posted
The complete line is actually something like: "Spartans! Make ready your breakfast and eat hearty, for tonight! We dine! IN HELL!"
Something like that.
I know this because I saw the movie tonight, just now. Not much of a history lesson -- but it's not really being marketed as such. It's being marketed as a bunch of hyper-stylized, gloriously violent insanity, full of bearded men screaming impossibly macho-sounding things at each other in the heat of battle....
So if that's what you're expecting to see, get your tickets now, because this thing delivers all the insane, violent, bearded, macho impossibilities you can handle.
I loved it. I kept laughing out loud because the violence was so thrilling. I think my recommendation on this would be: If you're the kind of person who has ever laughed out loud like a little kid in a movie theater because you were being thrilled by violence, go see this.
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posted
I am going to see the movie, love it, and then I am going to be treated to a million people complaining about it on Hatrack because it wasn't historically accurate.
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posted
I am SO excited. There's a free showing on campus tonight (Tuesday's got canceled due to "technical difficulties"), so I'll be there. We're also planning on seeing it on the IMAX screen this weekend.
posted
I am excited to see it, and I HATE violent movies. I am actually not sure I'll enjoy this, but I think the capes and the armor and all of that make it less real and more cartoonish for me. I hide more from guns than from, say, ninjas.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: I am going to see the movie, love it, and then I am going to be treated to a million people complaining about it on Hatrack because it wasn't historically accurate.
::gets in line to complain about historical inaccuracies::
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I am excited to see it, and I HATE violent movies. I am actually not sure I'll enjoy this, but I think the capes and the armor and all of that make it less real and more cartoonish for me. I hide more from guns than from, say, ninjas.
And on the note of historical inaccuracies, THE SPARTANS AREN'T WEARING ANY ARMOR! GYAH!!! They did wear capes though.
Oh well, I won't complain about it when I get home afterwards. I already know that this isn't meant to be realistic in even the slightest degree, and that it's just another movie that rapes and pillages history for the kernel of good stuff so they can totally warp it and Hollywoodize it.
I expect a popcorn flick with tons of sweet action that uses the most memorable lines and scenes from Herodotus and makes up the rest. Knowing that, I won't have much to complain about.
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: I am SO excited. There's a free showing on campus tonight (Tuesday's got canceled due to "technical difficulties"), so I'll be there. We're also planning on seeing it on the IMAX screen this weekend.
Glorious, glorious violence EIGHT STORIES HIGH.
Love it.
I want to have your babies.
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quote:I hide more from guns than from, say, ninjas.
That's because the dealiness of guns increases as you add more of them. On the other hand, the law of inverse ninjas states that the danger presented by ninjas is inversely proportional to the number of ninjas.
One ninja could take out an entire army. A hundred could be beaten by my grandmom.
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posted
I already snagged my ticket off Fandago. It better be good. Violence makes me dizzy and yet I love Sin City and Kill Bill.
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quote:I hide more from guns than from, say, ninjas.
That's because the dealiness of guns increases as you add more of them. On the other hand, the law of inverse ninjas states that the danger presented by ninjas is inversely proportional to the number of ninjas.
One ninja could take out an entire army. A hundred could be beaten by my grandmom.
By Joe, I do believe this man speaks the truth!
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: I am SO excited. There's a free showing on campus tonight (Tuesday's got canceled due to "technical difficulties"), so I'll be there. We're also planning on seeing it on the IMAX screen this weekend.
Glorious, glorious violence EIGHT STORIES HIGH.
Love it.
I want to have your babies.
If you can figure the mechanics out, I will permit this.
Saw it. LOVED it. If you get squeamish by the thought of limbs lopped off, blood spurting everywhere and amazingly choreographed stylized violence - or if you don't want to come out of a movie cussing like a sailor and hoping to seriously lay some smack down on a Persian - this movie is not for you.
If, however, you're down with some hardcore butt-kicking with some seriously smoking hot men... sign up. Now.
This will be SO much better on the IMAX.
I think my problem with people who cry "This is historically inaccurate!" is that this battlecry overshadows the intention of the movie, most of the time. And seriously - Herodotus is your primary "historical" source? Give me a break. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Storm Saxon: [qb] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Carrie: [qb]
I think my problem with people who cry "This is historically inaccurate!" is that this battlecry overshadows the intention of the movie, most of the time. And seriously - Herodotus is your primary "historical" source? Give me a break.
Well, the movie makers certainly didn't have a problem taking the most movie makable lines and action from Herodotus and leaving the rest in the dust, and making the rest up. But there's a lot of other information on the Spartans we get from others like Plutarch. For example, one could learn that Spartans were heavily armored, and did not in fact go into battle mostly naked, which is probably my biggest personal pet peeve about the trailers, to say nothing of the weird mutants and such.
But it doesn't really bother me a lot, because I know this isn't supposed to be anywhere near the realm that's next to the neighborhood inside the land known as realistic. It's the movies that pretend to be realistic but ignore even the easy stuff that annoy the hell out of me. At least make the effort.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: But it doesn't really bother me a lot, because I know this isn't supposed to be anywhere near the realm that's next to the neighborhood inside the land known as realistic. It's the movies that pretend to be realistic but ignore even the easy stuff that annoy the hell out of me. At least make the effort.
As long as you know it's not meant to be realistic, I won't hit you too much.
As Roeper said...
quote:Snyder directs "300" as the tallest of tall tales -- a vivid dream. You want realism and devotion to the hard facts, watch the History Channel. You want to experience the Battle of Thermopylae as a nonstop thrill ride, here's your ticket.
posted
I almost dread looking at Rotten Tomatoes. A low rating will screw with my enjoyment of the movie.
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posted
Interesting (and scathing) Slate review. Brings up many of the issues we were worried about (at least Adam was, IIRC) when watching the trailers.
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That Slate review was ridiculous. So no one is allowed to make a movie about war without protesting the current one?
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posted
OK, well first of all, from a Western perspective*, the Persians were the bad guys in that particular conflict.
Second, that review seemed pretty darned silly to me for that very reason. They were making an epic battle movie in which the good* guys face off against an overwhelming force of the bad* guys, and the story is written by a comic book author. Naturally it is going to include some mystical elements, and naturally in such a story, the bad* guys are going to get some of the monsterizing treatment.
Third, we're not at war with Persians. That's as stupid as saying that, in the Revolutionary War, we were at war with Northwestern European white people.
That review smacked of someone flexing their political and social sensitivity muscles to me.
*In every treatment of the Spartans vs. Persians I've ever read, it was either a mostly neutral recounting of the battle, or the Spartans were the good guys, or at least the better-than-those guys.
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posted
I particularly enjoyed the New York Post's review:
quote:Keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule -- never compare anything to Hitler -- it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a 300 screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again.
There's a huge discrepancy between the critic & user reviews on RT; 61% from critics, 91% from users.
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posted
Moral of the story is that if your society practices eugenics, you inevitably become so badass that wars with you are like fighting every heavy metal video from the past 30 years.
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Technically he's wrong. Ethnically, the only Persians we're potentially fighting would be Iranians. Just because the people who ruled over all of Arabia and beyond were Persian and it was called the Persian Empire doesn't make that the same thing today. It's a good attempt to link them together, but it doesn't really work when you read more about ancient history.
Also the part about the Spartans casting the messengers of Xerxes down the well is true, or at least it's backed up by historical accounts. His messengers were sent to all the poleis of Greece demanding dirt and water, which is basically a sign of capitulation. In response the Athenians mobbed them I think, and the Spartans cast them into a well (which was a waste of a perfectly good well if you ask me). Later the Spartans repented and sent them two men to act as sacrifices, but the Persians refused to kill them. They also refused to sent other envoys, knowing full well that when they got there, both cities would be torched (only ended up battle .500 on that one).
Spartan "eugenics" also only applied to Spartans actually living in Sparta, or at least Laconia. Ephialtes was from the foothills around Thermopylae.
Seems like his only real problems are with the stuff that actually happened (or has historical backing), and the rest he's trying really really hard to paint in a bad light without much substance. Though I think I'll probably end up agreeing with him on the monsters and such. Besides, like Rakeesh said, the Persians really were the bad guys in this one. Spartans were the underdogs (though it wasn't really just 300, they had a little bit of backup).
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posted
This thing is going to be a monster hit. I was expecting to sell out my 7 o'clock show tonight -- instead we sold out every show all day long.
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I have to admit, I'm a bit more reluctant to see the film after reading this. But then I haven't read the comic either, so maybe I'll just read it instead.
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quote:Brings up many of the issues we were worried about (at least Adam was, IIRC) when watching the trailers.
Those issues I was referring to were the inevitable inaccuracies of the film (which can be given substantial leeway considering it's a comic adaptation), the possibility that the action-packed pacing would walk all over the plot or give us a headache, and the over-done but stylistic vilification of the Persians (even in a comic, Persians as orcs...).
I do realise that the Spartans actually cast a messenger down a well. So I'm not going to defend Stevens' background knowledge; especially considering his not-easily-overlooked error of implying that Ephialtes was a Spartan. Mr. Stevens would do well to get acquainted with his basic ancient history (or at least wikipedia).
He did say "or at least denizens of that vast swath of land once occupied by the Persian empire" when he referred to the Persians. But I agree with Adam that he shouldn't have written "with actual Persians" if he was going to contradict himself in parentheses right afterwards.
I didn't bring this article up because I agreed with its political assessment of the film. 300 certainly isn't a deliberate allegory for today's war, but by raping this episode of history once again, it's providing one of the most crudely Orientalist (I'm using the word in the traditional sense) depictions of the Battle of Thermopylae to date. Stevens is also correct that the movie is a "mythic ode to righteous bellicosity"; so it's not just "a movie about war," it's a belligerent pro-war movie (judging by other reviews; its not out in Australia yet) which has some not-altogether-superficial parallels with the war in Iraq.
To be clear: I don't think this is a pro-Iraq War movie, or that it is somehow irresponsible to make a film about the Battle of Thermopylae while there is a war in the Middle East.
I do think that the continued propagation of the Orientalist view of this aspect of history is regrettable, as is any glorification of war.
I'm still going to see it when it comes out. How could this not be fun?
Definitely saner (and better informed). I liked these bits especially:
quote:A shameless recruiter would spend this weekend trolling the multiplexes.
...
For all that I found repulsive about it I enjoyed it on some lizard-brain level, even if I felt guilty about it even as it unspooled. It looks like nothing else, the action unfolds at a breathless pace, and its clear moral universe is pretty seductive, even if it exists only in the space between when the lights go down and when they come up again.
posted
There's another thing I don't get about these reviewers' reactions — all of a sudden, a movie that glorifies soldiers == Nazi propaganda? Everyone seems to be saying, "Hitler's boys would have LOVED this film!" Which is very similar to saying, "Child molesters LOVE watching Barney the Dinosaur!" Does that mean that Barney promotes child molestation, or that 300 promotes fascism? No. Neither. Insinuating that "bad people like a certain movie" is a great way to try and shame people into not watching it ... if you're, you know, intellectually dishonest.
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posted
And I think there really ought to be a difference between being "pro-war" (as in advancing the cause of aggressive war and imperialism), versus being "pro-war" (as in not capitulating to an invading force that intends to enslave your people). People who call this movie "pro-war" in a pejorative way ... are they seriously suggesting that Leonidas should have bent the knee to Xerxes, rather than fight back? Or that we shouldn't honor characters who willingly, and without equivocation, march off to fight a terrible enemy, to protect their wives, children, and countrymen? For these critics, was Theron the tragic hero of the story?
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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There's another thing I don't get about these reviewers' reactions — all of a sudden, a movie that glorifies soldiers == Nazi propaganda?
I think it has more to do with glorifying Spartiates and their militaristic way of life, rather than soldiers in general. Which would also help to explain the pejorative use of "pro-war."
The movie's reception would also depend on how much the various themes in the movie were played up. If Spartan glorification (or the glorification of militarism in general) is the central theme of the movie, there are grounds for calling it pro-war despite the self-defence justification.
I can't comment in any detail until early April.
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posted
There is also a difference between "anti-war" (as in war is so bad you should always either flee or bend the knee) and "anti-war" (as in war is always a horrible, evil thing, yet sometimes it is a necessary horrible, evil thing). You can honor characters who go to war to protect their countrymen, and portray such a war as a necessary thing without being "pro-war". (For example, I've understood both Flags of Fathers and Letters from Iwo-Jima were anti-war films.)
I got the picture that at least the A.V. Club reviewer did not so much object to the idea of them standing up against the foe, but to the fact that he felt the movie took away all the complexity of war and made it into an easily digestible good versus evil tale. Which is of course something that can be said of most war films, I guess. And again, I haven't seen either the movie or read the graphic novel.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
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First, I find the movie decidedly pro-Spartan (and pro-war in the "not capitulating" sense. Puppy said it better, but I entirely agree). If 300 is pro-Spartan, it had better be anti-Persian. And it is. Highly.
Second, the Greeks (and Spartans included) actually saw the Persians as effeminate oddballs bent on domination. For Zeus' sake, they wore pants! And had oily smelly hair (or scalps)!
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
Bad, terrible, horrible movie that never should have been made. At least it shouldn't have been made the way it was. This wasn't even good for a comic book movie - it was all around a fine example of how not to make ANY film, EVER.
DO NOT SEE THIS FILM IF YOU ARE EXPECTING AN ACCURATE HISTORICAL PORTRAYAL OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE...OR HUMANITY...OR ANYTHING AT ALL. Ten-foot-tall supergay Xerxes who moves about on a silver platform roughly the size of an apartment complex, and which is carried by about fifty dudes...not historically accurate. Lack of all Thespians and Athenians at Thermopylae. Lack of all chest hair. So very not historically accurate.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
Even allowing for the comic book origins, it is just far too much to ask your audience to suspend disbelief and accept that Xerxes has an executioner who's just some really huge fat dude with big blades for arms. That's just stupid. And when you present it with no exposition at all, it's just jarring and weird. What was with the goat-headed guy playing the harp? What the crud was that all about? How did the Ethos get food up on their FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE? Was all of Sparta really just a bunch of rocky, barren precipices? Why was it necessary to cast Ephialtis as the Hunchback of Notre Dame? I know he's all weird and deformed in the comic book, so okay, I'll make that one allowance. But SHEESH!
This movie was also full of military stupidity. To wit: Choose a very narrow canyon where men can stand but four abreast as your point of defense. Sound strategy, and if I recall, that's how Thermopylae was actually fought. Then after one skirmish in the canyon, just run out of it and start throwing your shields at the bad guys. Brilliant. Also, jabbering on and on about how the phalanx is the strength of the Spartan army is great, but then you probably don't want to have all the fight scenes thereafter be A BUNCH OF SPARTANS JUMPING AROUND BY THEMSELVES WITHOUT ANY BUDDIES TO GUARD THEM AND DEFINITELY NOT IN A PHALANX. Duh.
My final gripe with this movie (aside from the goofy Persian orcs): Approximately 75% of it was shot in artsy-fartsy slow-motion. It was sickeningly boring after about the first twenty minutes of it.
Also, you could turn it into a drinking game. Every time somebody says the words "Sparta" or "Spartans," take a drink. You'd be three sheets to the wind in about ten minutes. And it just keeps going like that for the entirety of the movie. It made me want to throw a spear at the screen.
Bad, terrible, horrible, awful movie. I love bad movies, but this one needs some time to find a little place in my heart next to Ultraviolet and Rock And Roll Nightmare. This was beyond bad - this was actively loathesome.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: I am going to see the movie, love it, and then I am going to be treated to a million people complaining about it on Hatrack because it wasn't historically accurate.
In fairness, most of my complaints were because the characters just did incredibly dumb things.
*MORE SPOILERS BELOW*
Edit for more clarity about my complaints: I really don't care that the movie was historically accurate. You don't expect historical accuracy to come from most comic-book sources. It's just that it was filmed so poorly (in my opinion) and all the characters with whom we were supposed to identify and root for just *insisted* on doing *the stupidest possible thing they could choose to do* at every given opportunity.
The only thing anybody did that made any sense was when Gorgo stabbed Theron (did you know that was the Queen's name? I had to watch the credits to find out what her name was). THAT actually was a choice I could see a character in that situation making, especially after almost two straight hours of nonstop reminders that ***We're Spartans! We're warriors who don't take crap from anybody! Don't mess with us, or we'll STAB YA!*** Abandoning the phalanx and ditching the awesome canyon - not so much. That was nothing short of the dumbest thing they could have done EVER.
quote:Then after one skirmish in the canyon, just run out of it and start throwing your shields at the bad guys.
... But that's how they actually died. They let go the phalanx once they realized they were surrounded and tore through whatever small part of the Persian army they could and died not in the canyon. As regards the first foray out of the canyon, well, I attribute that to the "heat of battle." No, it's not the smartest idea ever; it's also absurd to think that even the most trained warrior can hold back forever.
quote:Was all of Sparta really just a bunch of rocky, barren precipices?
Have you ever been to Sparta? It is fairly rocky and mountainous. There were cults to tree/forest deities (Helen notably springs to mind, but since she's the topic of my thesis that's not particularly surprising), but Sparta isn't exactly the most welcoming environment; even today it's hot, dry, dusty and (quite frankly) miserable.
quote:DO NOT SEE THIS FILM IF YOU ARE EXPECTING AN ACCURATE HISTORICAL PORTRAYAL OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE...OR HUMANITY...OR ANYTHING AT ALL.
Honestly, it's not supposed to be a historical movie and anyone who walks into it expecting more than a blood-soaked gorefest is stupid.
---
Still love it. And I'm going to see it in all its IMAX glory in about four and a half hours.
posted
Well Sparta wasn't THAT bad physically. It had forests, and it had large stretches of farmland, though not necessarily in Sparta proper, but in Laconia for sure. Northeast of Sparta where the battle was fought was entirely mountainous and rocky, so that I'd buy.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
What's with all the protests about historical accuracy? Are you joking? Trying to parody your own position? This isn't a movie about the historical battle of Thermopylae. This is a mythical story of Leonidas's stand as told by one of his men — someone who, for instance:
* Has never seen an elephant or a rhinoceros before. * Has known Xerxes only from the tales of an exalted god-king. * Thinks Persians are effeminate and immoral. * Has a strong interest in making his story sound as powerful and epic as possible to its intended audience.
This film is intentionally outlandish and mythological in its presentation. This is a Spartan glorifying one of his greatest heroes, with more Spartans as his audience. It's actually a perfect frame story for the kind of film they wanted to make — I wish more films would be made this way.
Seriously, though, when someone, someday, makes a movie about the historical battle of Thermopylae, I hope you enjoy it. But why in the world did you go to see this one, if that's what you wanted? And when you realized it wasn't historical, why the inability to change gears, and understand its actual intent?
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Actually, what I think is hilarious is the fact that I believe a lot of the same people who hated Troy for intentionally creating an "historical" version of the Iliad, with no mythological elements, are also hating on 300 for using a lot of mythological elements, and intentionally straying from the history
The same source culture, the same general subject ... and the same lack of ability to enjoy a film within its own context, rather than imposing your own.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Watched it on IMAX too. Don't care too much about the historical inaccuracies, this movie doesn't even pretend to be historical, so whatever...staying out of that conversation.
The annoying thing is that halfway through the movie, I couldn't stop smiling because Xerxes is a Goa'uld! Seriously, the voice, the "kneel before your god" stuff, the creepy gay vibe (in the sense of "creepy gay", not gay IS creepy), and I could even have sworn that at one point his eyes were glowing.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I just got back from seeing this movie. And I thought it was quite good. Very powerful. I really enjoyed it.
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