300 Spartans !!!

[YAKOBU]

Hi everyone

I've not been on the forum for a long while as I took the drastic step of getting rid of my Total War games. My social life has picked up but I do miss the game every now and then.

Anyway back to my point of visiting. I went to see Hot Fuzz tonight at the cinema and was pleasantly surprised to see a trailer for the 300 Spartans. The trailer looked very good but I think it will be very far removed from what I expect as it looked very fantasy based with what looked like monsters/ogres or the like in it.

Anyone else have any views?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Anyone else have any views?

YOU GOT RID OF YOUR TOTAL WAR GAMES!!!!!

[Decker]

Anyway back to my point of visiting. I went to see Hot Fuzz tonight at the cinema and was pleasantly surprised to see a trailer for the 300 Spartans. The trailer looked very good but I think it will be very far removed from what I expect as it looked very fantasy based with what looked like monsters/ogres or the like in it.

Anyone else have any views?

It is based on a graphic novel so that answers the fantasy part. I think it look freakin awesome and totally kickass. I dunno about you but Im definitely gonna see it. BTW how was Hot Fuzz? I dunno when it comes out here but Im gonna see that too.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

there was a good topic on the movie in the Entrance Hall. worth looking at.

wasn't it actually 3,000,000 Persians against 700 Thebans and 300 Spartans?
dont like the fantasy..

[Mooks]

3 million persians? That number was unthinkable as a capable army back then. No way that many. Though there was very many persians.

The Movie is fantasy, I saw some people riding rhino's on the previes . And theres probaly some sex scenes and whatnot. Should be a great (Though unrealistic) action scenes though.

[ShadeHonestus]

Just wait...coming soon to a history classroom near you, youths arguing history from the viewpoint of 300.

Where are the homosexual Spartans with long hair? I mean come on, even history makes a good pop culture movie in this instance.

[Mooks]

Just wait...coming soon to a history classroom near you, youths arguing history from the viewpoint of 300.

Where are the homosexual Spartans with long hair? I mean come on, even history makes a good pop culture movie in this instance.

What are you talking about?

[Marshal Murat]

While the Spartans had long hair, they weren't all homosexual.
Theban Sacred Band is different.

I'm glad this isn't dissolving into a historical accuracy slugfest.
Because it's a graphic novel-movie.

It's like watching bloody football.

[naut]

homosexual ... football.

I assume your talking about American football there.

[ShadeHonestus]

What are you talking about?

While the Spartans had long hair, they weren't all homosexual.

Yes, they weren't all homosexuals, in fact the majority were bisexual. Homosexuality was encouraged for many reasons by the state, namely military comraderie ie. fighting for your lover, and marriage was of course likewise encouraged for procreation.


Even though this doesn't reflect my personal persuasion as a hetero, it is history and well documented.

[edit-missed this one]

I assume your talking about American football there.

Of course, the sport where a bunch of men are running around in shorts and knee high stockings jumping on top of each other after scoring...oh wait.

[Decker]

Of course, the sport where a bunch of men are running around in shorts and knee high stockings jumping on top of each other after scoring...oh wait.

Yes, definitely NOT American Football

[ajaxfetish]

Yeah, in good old American Football they just where tight pants and slap each other on the bum.

Ajax

[ShadeHonestus]

Yeah, in good old American Football they just where tight pants and slap each other on the bum.

That could possibly be placed in the realm of rechanneling, but its not blatant overt acts as in Futbol. I'm pretty sure I read an article which rated the top names for soccer players girlfriends/wives.

#1. Victoria
#2. Pedro
#3. Phillipe


There wasn't a number 4 and since I only know of one famous Victoria related to soccer....well it pretty much sums up the rest.

[English assassin]

300 was the graphic novel that did it for me for graphic novels.

Any genre that can take a tale as gripping as the Persian invasion of Greece, and make it quite as childish and tedious as 300 did, deseves to be expunged from the culture. There was more depth in a Commando war comic. Heck, there was more depth in me and my mates playing wargames in the school playground in the 70s.

I'll save anyone the bother of reading 300 by summarising the entire book here: "Spartans !!! Dems well 'ard, innit."

Still, given that the book was the pits, we may have a first, a film adaptation of a graphic novel that is actually an improvement.

[Martok]

After having seen the trailer for 300, I nearly wept -- and not with joy, either.

I'm not upset so much with the adaptation in and of itself (which I'm sure will translate from the comic book as well as anything), but that they chose to adapt it from the comic book in the first place. It would've been much much happier if they'd adapted say, Steven Pressfield's book Gates of Fire. He's a master of historical fiction, particularly with respect to ancient Greek culture.

Of course, in all fairness, I should probably direct my anger towards Universal Studios. They're the ones that hold the movie option on Pressfield's book, but have not yet bothered tried turning it into a movie.

In any case, I digress. Given that this looks to be a "fantasized" version of the battle of Thermopylae, I have no intention of seeing it. I would just end up saying ever 5 minutes, "Oh come on! That's not what happened!"

[dacdac]

Who cares what actually happened? IT LOOKS COOL!!!! Any movie with Sparta, cyclop things, and rhinos kick butt, okay?! Dont dis the movie.
On a side note, does anyone remeber seeing the previews for Pathfinder? It was about the Vikings and that looked cool too but i never remember it coming out in theaters for some reason.

[Marshal Murat]

It's a testosterone filled, gory, bloody, violent, horror-filled, with a hint of passion.

I would have liked to watch Gates of Fire, but again, every historian (yes, you) will start criticizing the movie from the first image. Like, 'O come on, not all Spartans had Corinthian Helmets' or 'They didn't kill like that, they moved the spear in a way I don't really know about, but it wasn't that way'.

I'd rather be entertained by the gore and violence, not the historical aspects.

[English assassin]

Who cares what actually happened? IT LOOKS COOL!!!! Any movie with Sparta, cyclop things, and rhinos kick butt, okay?! Dont dis the movie.

You're missing the point. I don't care about whether they make the spartans wear red cloaks (ironically, that sort of detail they will probably get right). I care about the fact that what actually happened, together with a bit of legitimate filling in of gaps from imagination, is a FAR more exciting story than Leonidas as some sort of Iron Age Batman going toe to toe with Xerxes done up as every cartoon baddie you ever saw. Boring. Seen it before. Its not the historical failure that's the problem, its the dramatic failure.

For god's sake, this was a king, bound up in a rigid honour code, going to his death far from his land, in large part for the benefit of a city he at best disliked. His eventual death is (as the story goes anyway) the result of a betrayal. How can you NOT make a great story out of that? I don't know, but Frank Miller sure does.

If they want to make a fantasy movie with spartans, rhinos and cyclops as well, that is fine by me.

Incidently, if you are at all interested, or you just want a very interesting and very exciting read, get Persian fire by Tom Holland. Its not a novel, its history. But if you don't finish it in one sitting once the persian armies start marching on greece then you have no soul.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I won't be going to see it; it looks childish, and inaccurate

As EA said, the real story is far more gripping.

[R'as al Ghul]

Here's a post by Pindar which may give a new perspective to those interested:

This is a piece written by the Classist Victor David Hanson on the upcoming film and the proper perspective when it comes to historicity and narrative.

"The phrase “300 Spartans” evokes not only the ancient battle of Thermopylae, but also the larger idea of fighting for freedom against all odds — a notion subsequently to be enshrined through some 2500 years of Western civilization.

Even today we remember the power of the Spartans’ defiance. “Come and take them,” they tell the Persian emissaries who demand their arms. “Then we will fight in the shade,” the Spartans boast when warned that the horde of Persian arrows will soon blot out the very sunlight. “Go tell the Spartans that here we lie obedient to their commands” the tombstone of their dead reads.

In 480, an enormous force of more than a quarter-million Persians under their King Xerxes invaded Greece, both to enslave the free city-states, and to avenge the Persian defeat a decade earlier at Marathon. The huge force of ships and soldiers proved unstoppable on its way west and southward until it reached the narrow pass at Thermopylae (“The Warm Gates”) in northern Greece. There a collection of 7,000 Greeks had blocked the way. They hoped to stop Xerxes’ horde outright — or at least allow enough time for their fellow countrymen to their rear to mobilize a sufficient defense of the homeland.

Among the many Greek contingents was a special elite force of 300 Spartans under their King Leonidas — a spearhead that offered the other Greeks at Thermopylae some promise that they could still bar the advance of the vastly superior invader. And that hope proved real for two days of hard fighting. The vastly outnumbered, but heavily-armed Greek infantrymen in their phalanx — taking advantage of the narrow terrain and their massed tactics — savagely beat back wave after wave of advancing Persian foot soldiers and cavalry.

But on the third day of battle, Leonidas’s Greeks were betrayed by a local shepherd Ephialtes, who showed the Persians an alternate route over the mountains that led to the rear of the Greek position. When he realized that he was nearly surrounded, Leonidas nevertheless made a critical decision to stay and fight, while ordering most of the other various allies to flee the encirclement to organize the growing Greek resistance to the south.

Meanwhile the King and his doomed 300 Spartans, together with other small groups of surrounded Thespians and Thebans, would indeed battle to buy the Greeks time. They ranged further out from the pass on this third and last day of battle — at first with spears and swords, finally with teeth and nails —killing scores more of Persians. The last few Spartan survivors were buried under a sea of Persian arrows. The body of Leonidas was found among the corpses, his head soon impaled on a stick as a macabre reminder of the wages of resistance to the Great King of Persia.

The Greeks took encouragement from the unprecedented sacrifice of a Spartan King and his royal guard on their behalf. And so a few weeks later at the sea battle of Salamis near Athens — and then again the next year at the great infantry collision on the plains of Plataea — the Greeks defeated, and eventually destroyed, the Persian invaders. The rallying cry of the victors was Thermopylae, the noble sacrifice of the final stand of the outnumbered Greeks, and especially the courage of the fallen Three Hundred Spartans under King Leonidas.

So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy — freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.

Greek writers and poets such as Simonides and Herodotus were fascinated by the Greek sacrifice against Xerxes, and especially the heroism of Leonidas and his men. And subsequently throughout Western literature poets as diverse as Lord Byron and A.E. Houseman have likewise paid homage to the Spartan last stand — and this universal idea of Western soldiers willing to die as free men rather than to submit to tyranny. Steven Pressfield’s novel Gates of Fire and the earlier Hollywood movie The 300 Spartans both were based on the Greek defense of the pass at Thermopylae.

Recently, a variety of Hollywood films — from Troy to Alexander the Great — has treated a variety of themes from classical Greek literature and theater. But 300 is unique, a sui generis in both spirit and methodology. The script is not an attempt in typical Hollywood fashion to recreate the past as a costume drama. Instead it is based on Frank Miller’s (of Sin City fame) comic book graphics and captions. Miller’s illustrated novelette of the battle adapts themes loosely from the well-known story of the Greek defense, but with deference made to the tastes of contemporary popular culture.

So the film is indeed inspired by the comic book; and in some sense its muscular warriors, virtual reality sets, and computer-generated landscapes recall the look and feel of Robert Rodriquez’s screen version of Sin City. Yet the collaboration of Director Zack Snyder and screenwriters Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon is much more of a hybrid, since the script, dialogue, cinematography, and acting all recall scenes of the battle right from Herodotus’s account.

300, of course, makes plenty of allowance for popular tastes, changing and expanding the story to meet the protocols of the comic book genre. The film was not shot on location outdoors, but in a studio using the so-called “digital backlot” technique of sometimes placing the actors against blue screens. The resulting realism is not that of the sun-soaked cliffs above the blue Aegean — Thermopylae remains spectacularly beautiful today — but of the eerie etchings of the comic book.

The Spartans fight bare-chested without armor, in the “heroic nude” manner that ancient Greek vase-painters portrayed Greek hoplites, their muscles bulging as if they were contemporary comic book action heroes. Again, following the Miller comic, artistic license is made with the original story — the traitor Ephialtes is as deformed in body as he is in character; King Xerxes is not bearded and perched on a distant throne, but bald, huge, perhaps sexually ambiguous, and often right on the battlefield. The Persians bring with them exotic beasts like a rhinoceros and elephant, and the leader of the Immortals fights Leonidas in a duel (which the Greeks knew as monomachia). Shields are metal rather than wood with bronze veneers, and swords sometimes look futuristic rather than ancient.

Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense. Once at Thermopylae, he adopts the defenses to the narrow pass between high cliffs and the sea far below. The Greeks fight both en masse in the phalanx and at times range beyond as solo warriors. They are finally betrayed by Ephialtes, forcing Leonidas to dismiss his allies — and leaving his own 300 to the fate of dying under a sea of arrows.

But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others."

Sorry, the spoiler tag isn't working for me.
Here's the link to the original post: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71017

[Mooks]

Those spartans had some big balls.

But the movie probaly is 99% pure action 1% storyline. I would like it so much if movie producers actually did historical stuff. Historical fiction would be awsome, everything is historically accurate but conversations are fake. You couldve got a grand film using reality and no fantasy in the tale of 300 spartans.

[dacdac]

But thats not the point of the movie. The movie is based on the comic, which greatly changed the actually happenings to make it more entertaining to the public. The movie is based on those extravagent and over done comic books, which in turn is loosely based on the real event. The producers are not making it to inform, but to entertain, which, by the previews, looks as if they did a good job. Sure, i might point out some things that are completely wrong, but its not supposed to be right.

[ShadeHonestus]

But thats not the point of the movie. The movie is based on the comic, which greatly changed the actually happenings to make it more entertaining to the public. The movie is based on those extravagent and over done comic books, which in turn is loosely based on the real event. The producers are not making it to inform, but to entertain, which, by the previews, looks as if they did a good job. Sure, i might point out some things that are completely wrong, but its not supposed to be right.

Brought to you by the same people who did Sin City.

I'm not saying this won't be great entertainment valuing only the fiction, but what I will say is that you won't want to be a high school world history teacher in the U.S. after its release. You'd be amazed at how many times this movie will be quoted for historical purposes by those weak in cranial exercise. This is not to mention those who have such weak academic progams that they'll never be taught the truth and forever will have their historical view skewed.

RE: any number of entertaining movies at the cost of historical accuracy.

P.S. I remember hearing many a student trying to source Jim Garrison's speech/closing argument in Oliver Stone's JFK and courtroom testimony. The real Jim Garrison never made that speech and much of the testimony is a bit of hollywood gold..lol

[Decker]

Brought to you by the same people who did Sin City.

I'm not saying this won't be great entertainment valuing only the fiction, but what I will say is that you won't want to be a high school world history teacher in the U.S. after its release. You'd be amazed at how many times this movie will be quoted for historical purposes by those weak in cranial exercise. This is not to mention those who have such weak academic progams that they'll never be taught the truth and forever will have their historical view skewed.

RE: any number of entertaining movies at the cost of historical accuracy.

P.S. I remember hearing many a student trying to source Jim Garrison's speech/closing argument in Oliver Stone's JFK and courtroom testimony. The real Jim Garrison never made that speech and much of the testimony is a bit of hollywood gold..lol

Like when Pearl Harbor came out and hecka people(especially girls) thought it was the shiznat! And Im here goin that WHOLE darn movie was pathetic and a total waste of time(I feel really bad for the Vets who went to see it), TORA!TORA!TORA! whupps that movie day and night, including weekends. But nobody listened to me until waaay after it's release and the historical aspects began slamming it did they agree with me(retards). The 300 will most likely draw the LoTR crowd and what-not. I'm still gonna see 'cuz I already no the parts that are fake and all and will enjoy it for what it's worth.

[ShadeHonestus]

Exactly Decker.

Who can forget that piece of gold Braveheart. lol Or dare I say most "historical" games...

I don't have a problem with entertainment as fiction, but they should not market themselves as if they are telling a story about history.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But thats not the point of the movie. The movie is based on the comic, which greatly changed the actually happenings to make it more entertaining to the public. The movie is based on those extravagent and over done comic books, which in turn is loosely based on the real event. The producers are not making it to inform, but to entertain, which, by the previews, looks as if they did a good job. Sure, i might point out some things that are completely wrong, but its not supposed to be right.

As someone who has read books one to nine of Herodotus (the lot) I can tell you the original story is plenty entertaining enough.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

This is a GROSS simplification

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson

He sounds to me like a Francis Prior or Guy de la whatever. Western Way of War my foot, that would be why Persia subjugated Ionia and Greek Asia Minor. I suppose the Romans defeated Hanabal for the same reasons, and that the Empire was a beacon of freedom and hope.

A quick search of JSTOR terns up one article and a dozen or so reviews. That's not exactly inspiring. In any case he's far too politically motivated and revisionist.

[Pannonian]

Here's a post by Pindar which may give a new perspective to those interested:

This is a piece written by the Classist Victor David Hanson on the upcoming film and the proper perspective when it comes to historicity and narrative.

I'm not watching a film that's been recommended by a Classist. If Hanson cannot treat the Working Class with the same respect as he gives the Upper and Middle Class, then he isn't worth listening to IMHO.

[ShadeHonestus]

I'm not watching a film that's been recommended by a Classist. If Hanson cannot treat the Working Class with the same respect as he gives the Upper and Middle Class, then he isn't worth listening to IMHO.

lawl

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'm not watching a film that's been recommended by a Classist. If Hanson cannot treat the Working Class with the same respect as he gives the Upper and Middle Class, then he isn't worth listening to IMHO.

So if I told you this was a great film you specifically wouldn't go to see it. Hanson is clearly a jumped up politicised academic, but we're not all like that.

[Pannonian]

So if I told you this was a great film you specifically wouldn't go to see it. Hanson is clearly a jumped up politicised academic, but we're not all like that.

ShadeHonestus got it right, but you've missed the point. I was playing on Pindar's mis-spelling. Hanson is a Classicist, someone who studies Classics, not a Classist, someone who discriminates based on class.