MexicanOnABike

when i saw the movie, i made sure to check out the comic before to know what it was about. my dad who also saw it thought it was a bit weird but after i showed him the comics, he thought it was so much cooler.

plus, if everyone understood from the start that the whole movie was a story being told by the guy with a bandage, they'd know some stuff is over the top just like any stories told. oh well. i'll still buy the collectors dvd.

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Frosstbyte

There's really no reason to get personal about this. We are not required to like either what Frank Miller did in the original comic book or in the movie. HISTORICAL fiction derives part of its charm and appeal and certainly all or most of its CONTEXT from a historical setting. There's a point to which we allow artists to play with history in order to make a compelling story. My complaint about the historical inaccuracies-and I think n0nsensical's too-is that they don't in any way contribute to making the story more compelling. For me, in fact, they made the story less compelling. I very much enjoyed watching the battles in the valley and the excess of Persia, as I noted, but the entire storyline in Sparta wasn't compelling. Why is my slaughter being interrupted with political nonsense that isn't factual and isn't interesting and, at the end of the day, didn't even matter?

YaWhateva

That's the main reason I went to see the movie, and I was very pleased.

The side story in Sparta did take away from the slaughter, but like someone said before, Spoiler: there were a lot of women in the audience who cheered when the queen killed killed Theron so I think te side story did it's job.

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ratbastid

Also, as I noted above, the "back home in Sparta" storyline isn't in the graphic novel and has a completely different dialogue style and tone.

n0nsensical

Obviously it's not supposed to be accurate. My main complaint is not about the accuracy of the story, it's about the lack of any substantial story period. The historical context was completely irrelevant anyway. Its like, here's a bunch of white guys killing a bunch of brown guys. For two hours. While some other white people get nekkid and recite lame lines. Its like bad Cinemax porno with lots of violence. None of the movies I liked that it was "similar to" were very historically accurate either; I just can't believe anyone could be entertained by that. Its totally brainless. I was even half stoned while I watched it and I'd still have been more entertained by an old ladies' sewing circle. Now I accept there's some value in the visual style and art, but I don't think a two hour long feature film with no plot is a good way to display it.

Frosstbyte

I haven't read the comics, so my comments are purely a critique of the movie and not Miller's actual work.

KellyC

I hope there's a sequel for this. I'm hankerin' for some more killing on the battle of plataea.

I haven't seen the comic book, yet, but this movie does live up to a lot of my expectations. Which isn't easy. 4.5/5 stars.

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pixelbend

Saw it over the weekend. I thought it was an awesome experience. My wife even liked it, and she's a hard sell on this type of movie.

I had already read the graphic novel, now I'm reading Gates of Fire for a more in depth look at the subject. Really good reads.

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Sultana

I thought it was very pretty, in an intense, gory, gritty way.

A sequel would be a little difficult...

I've heard that Iraqis are pretty much up in arms over this movie, that they're pissed it makes them look bad...any truth to that?

Is the guy who played Xerxes really that tall?

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KellyC

It was the Iranians who are pissed if I recall correctly.

And the guy who played Xerxes is only 6'2", with the help of CGI, he's a 7-foot tall androgynous.

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Frosstbyte

The guy who played Xerxes is Rodrigo Santoro, who you would recognize from Lost or Love Actually. And yeah, as Kelly said, he's a very normal sized guy who usually looks nothing like that.

Redjake

We went to see this movie on Saturday.

I have never seen a worse case of myself wanting to enjoy a movie in my entire life. This movie came so close to being one of the best movies I've ever seen, but it didn't quite do it. It's what I thought was going to happen to Sin City. But they pulled Sin City off, somehow. 300 failed.

Pros: Great cinematography, great visuals, etc. All that was great. No cheesy wirework; all of the moves and fighting looked great. The movie had a nice "polish" to it, as far as visuals go. Great acting, for the most part. The guy that played Leonydus or whatever was really awesome.

Cons: This is what ruined the movie: the viewer is led to believe that these guys are invincible, that they are trained SO damn well that they can accomplish anything, and that if you truly believe in something, you can fight against the odds and overcome them. They kill thousands of men, only 300 Spartans do. They are super buff and can slice through enemies like butter. They have battle formations and all sorts of fancy stuff. They easily slice through wave after wave after wave of enemies. Regular soldiers are cut through, harder, monkey-mask wearing soldiers are slaughtered, an 8-foot tall "boss" is killed, rhinos are killed with one spear, and thenSpoiler: someone tells Echo-Mouth Xerces that they have a hidden path or something, and they all get slaughtered? Just like that? It just came out of nowhere. That's bad continuity. It just didn't flow. It even seemed like they gave up. The movie went directly from a "you can rise against the odds if you believe in yourself" picture to a "even the glorious will eventually fall." It didn't make sense. I found myself confused.

You might say, "But Redjake, the movie is just a GUY MOVIE! It's just a violent, ACTION MOVIE! What did you expect? Shawshank Redemption?"

Yes, I did. Because the movie portrays itself as Shawshank Redemption, The Matrix, and Gladiator mixed together. It is self-aware of the fact it is supposed to be a great movie. It doesn't present itself as an action movie - it has intertwined political plots, adultery plots, a "backstabbing" side character, emotional bonds between son and father, etc. Not just action, like Commando with Arnold. It THOUGHT it was a great movie - and was presented that way - and when it didn't deliver, it left a sour taste in my movie-going mouth. Sort of like the movie tried to pull a "quick one" on me. It didn't work. Useless side plots, the movie not knowing what its trying to accomplish, awkward plot events that don't fit in, and some cheesy dialogue prevented this amazing movie from being "amazing." 2/4 stars. Nice try, but no cigar.

I'm thoroughly convinced this movie could be re-edited to perfection. Remove some side plots, dialogue, and rearrange some scenes, and this movie would be billy-badass. I'm almost thinking if Spoiler: they put the fact they all get slaughtered in the BEGINNING of the movie it would have more of an effect. Stuff like that. It needs a rework.

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Sultana

Weeeellll, even though the movie is based on a comic, the comic *is* based on history, and kinda like Titantic, most folks know how it's going to end.

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At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Ch'i

Tactics. The Spartans were able to hold the Persians at bay because the Persians were funnneled into a narrow opening. Once the Persians were informed of a passage around the corridor they were able to encircle the spartans, thus robbing them of their tactical advantage. Once they were encircled, numbers did matter, and their demise was inevitable. I do not understand why you think they "gave up", since Spoiler: as Leonidas was throwing the spear, the remaining Spartans fought to their death, as was clearly shown. I'm left wondering how much of the movie you paid attention to, because that was the climax of the movie. If something like that slipped by, I can see why you missed the "heart" of the movie which is subtle and unspoken.

YaWhateva

Yes, and Spoiler: said spear that hit Xerxes was never meant to kill him I don't think. It showed that the god-king was, in fact, human and was meant more to demoralize the Persian army even more. Leonidas knew they were going to die, but the spear that cut Xerxes was meant to be a final blow to Xerxes' pride in the hopes that the rest of the Spartan army would be rallied to fight and finish the Persians off, which they did. The movie seems a lot deeper than just some action movie to me (not to take away the awesomeness of the action ).

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

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Frosstbyte

I didn't comment on this earlier, but now that someone has brought it up Spoiler: the entire spear thing made absolutely no sense at all. In what possible universe would you deliberately choose to wound your enemy to "show he's not a god" instead of killing him, which both, uh, kills him AND shows he not a god. I'm pretty sure you'd do a better job of demoralizing an army by killing their leader who they all believe to be a god than by simply cutting him and making him feel sheepish and vulnerable. I think you're right, YW, I don't think that spear was ever meant to kill him. I think it was a direct follow up to the "you will bleed" comment from earlier. When that comment was made I was like "oooh badass." The way it played out was horribly unfulfilling and I didn't feel like it made any sense. Ah well.

Ch'i

In his case, death would have been the easy way out for Xerxes. Makes perfect sense.

Sultana

Come on, the Spartans were awesome, the movie Spartans even more so, but do you really think that from a quarter-mile away Leo intended only to wound Xerses?

The Spartans all knew it was the end, and that they would never surrender, and were simply planning to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Leo was trying to spear X, missed, and finished up by doing as much damage as he could before the bitter end.

Yes, when your position is defendable by a 30-wide line of men, any crack in that position is going to greatly weaken the advantage.

They didn't really portray the key strategies of the real battle very well at all. But a phalanx is not as sexy to watch as a much of individual (gorgeous) fighters on an open field, which is exactly opposite of what happened. But you gotta do stuff like that for movies.

__________________
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Redjake

But we were lead to believe that they were so great. Just because they weren't an a "tactical advantage" means they all Spoiler: get slaughtered? And what was with the spear? Talk about a downer when he just nicked him instead of impaling him. Just didn't work. The Leonydis we grow up with in the film would have divided up the 300 into sections of 150, and had them fight back-to-back or something, covering both passage ways into their stronghold.

It just didn't feel right. And don't accuse me of not paying attention to movies! The climax was every bit of an anti-climax. I was paying attention, but it was all wrong. I understood every piece of info you just told me, it just didn't flow. And don't drop the ""heart of the movie/subtle and unspoken message" bit. 300 is not that type of movie. It wanted to be, and it wasn't. Any film with filler substance to gap the fighting scenes has no worthy "hidden message."

Perhaps if I read the comic I would be less judgmental - but I'm rating this thing versus other movies, not comics. Two different mediums.

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pixelbend

I thought that the point was to lull Xerxes and his immortals into letting their guard down so Leonidas could take a shot at him.

Plus they were a lot less than 300 at that point and they were surrounded by archers.

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Sultana

Umm, they *were* so great. Each Spartan warrior killed at least 100 enemies. But the odds were 1,000 to 1 (or something like)! Not counting the mercenaries and other Greeks, heh.

Even if people laid down and let you kill them without a struggle, it'd be tough to slaughter them all in a matter of hours (I'd imagine). Much less so if they go down fighting, eh?

I'm wondering how they transported the elephants and rhinos, lol.

Yes, don't discount the archers! They offer an incredible advantage in ancient battle. Look up the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 500 men-at-arms and 1000 archers, outnumbered 4 to 1, slaughter the enemy. Now that would make an excellent movie too--oh wait, didn't they make that already? Yeah, Henry the V.

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At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Ch'i

It doesn't work like that. A main tactic of the spartans was their phalanx. In a phalanx, each spartan protects the man to his left. As Leonidas clearly desribed in the movie, this is a "single impenetrable unit." If any part of the phalanx is broken "the phalanx shatters." Also, as pixelbend pointed out, there were not 300 soldiers by the end of the movie. There were very few in fact. So around 40 soldiers, surrounded, forced to fight ground troops from all sides while covering arrow fire from above. Even if there were 300 spartans left, the result still would have been the same. Without the advantage, they were screwed. Still very dangerous, but a far cry from any chance of winning.
This reminds me of what you said earlier... The movie never hinted at being any of those things; those were connections you placed. Such an expectation of the movie was derived from the hype given to it by others.

You're right, there are is not a hidden message. Instead, there is a core to the movie which roots itself in the Spartan's actions. Its not just a CRAZY ACTION MOVIE WITH A FEW BADASS GUYS SLAUGHTERING HELLA MORE GUYS WITH HEAVY METAL, OMGZ!!. If you didn't get that, its fine since it can be viewed as I just described it.
I can understand why you saw faults in continuity if you didn't understand the movie. You could blame Frank Miller for failing to help show you, and Zack Snyder for failing tl portray those apects of Miller's story. However, there were subtleties to the movie. By there very nature, they cannot be completely obvious since they are not directly highlighted, but instead untouched upon by speach, making it an underlying core of the movie. I had to watch it twice to entirely identify it.

YaWhateva

He may have just missed like Sultana said, but I would rather believe that it was intentional. He knew that if Xerxes was killed then it wouldn't really do any good because there would be some other person to say "oh now I am a god king" or some such nonsense, but if his holier-than-thou attitude was broken but he was left alive it would leave a king that wasn't feared by his people anymore which would loosen his grip on them. Thats just my interpritation of it though. His comment about making him bleed fulfilled its purpose to me and I still think it was badass.

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

Frosstbyte

This is a war, Ch'i, not a pissing contest between guys at a bar. There's NO REASON to give your life in a moral victory over your enemy when you could've just as easily sent the damn spear through the middle of his face. It's not like they were in single combat and Leonides was clearly overwhelmed but managed to get in a slash to Xerxes just as he fell. He chucked his spear at him from far away just to scratch his cheek and knock off some of those pretty piercings. Drawing blood in single combat would've been one thing. Drawing blood with a projectile when your opponent is sitting on his throne scratching his nuts means either a) you're a bad shot (not that he didn't have every reason to be a bad shot in that case) or b) you're somehow deluded into thinking that it's somehow a significant moral victory to scratch your opponent's cheek while you die in a mess of arrow fire.

Nicking Xerxes' cheek didn't demoralize the Persian army, though I'm sure it would've pissed him off. Being held at bay by a force of 300 did. If that spear goes out, it should either have missed in a display of the futility of his effort at that point or it should skewer Xerxez.

I think, again, the problem with the movie as a concept is that the REAL victor here was the phalanx. As people keep noting, watching a phalanx work is relatively boring, so the entire system gets tossed out to keep the bronzed Adonises in single or double combat against swarms of enemies. That's all well and good, but it undercuts what made the real battle so amazing and it makes it seem very odd that suddenly they get slaughtered just because they're surrounded. They did ok for the rest of the movie without using a phalanx. What happened?

pixelbend

I think being able to hurl a eight foot spear that is weighted at both ends over about 30 to 50 feet and draw any kind of blood is a pretty darn good shot.

But maybe I just need more practice.

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Frosstbyte

The standard for 8 foot spear throwing is hitting a charging rhino's eye at exactly the right moment so that its twitching corpse slides to a stop inches from your feet. Scratching a cheek doesn't really compare.

Redjake

Yeah. I get the whole "fighting as a single unit" part, but those guys jumping 20 feet in the air at people didn't convey that at all. Where was the "single unit" when Leonydis was fighting the boss with the big axe? All I'm saying is, for someone who doesn't read the comic/graphic novel/whatever, the movie isn't that good. It was close, but it didn't reach it. If the movie is good only if you read the novel, that's a bad prerequisite. To an outsider, the movie just had some weird flow/continuity/theme problems. I couldn't decide if this was a tragedy, a tale of justice, a story about believing in something and sticking to it, etc. The movie was like a runaway freight train, barely all over different plot themes. The only reason I'm still defending my opinion and haven't lost interest already is because this movie came so close to being that damn good. When it is released on DVD, I'm going to attempt to capture the entire movie, and re-edit it and make it work.

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Ch'i

Its fine if you didn't like the movie. On it being a bad movie, I disagree. Maybe I'm just biased because I study and practice this sort of thing all the time. I understood the tactics, and the philosophy of their fighting which may have been something not everyone picked up on. I would like to help clarify the strategies applied to the battle.


That being said, I would like to try and clarify why they were defeated so quickly once they were surrounded. Since the movie was based on a historical event, they did have to inevitably follow a certain criteria for what happened in the battle. I will describe the movie's tactics, and the ones used in the real battle of Thermopylae.




Its getting late; I'll have the examples finished some time tomorrow.

Kadath

Regarding the spear toss: I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be a distance of half a mile or something like that.

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pixelbend

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

Today's Penny Arcade comic illustrates it pretty well.

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Kadath

http://www.penny-arcade.com/img/3-21-07c.jpg

This is mind of a 300 fan.

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Zeraph

I had been waiting to see 300 for a long time and I wasnt disapointed. Although I was a bit bored. First time this has happened to me. Let me explain. Basically I have read the graphic novel and am very familiar with the history so the problem was that it was like I had already seen the movie. Like literally I would know their lines half the time before they spoke them. There was only one new little surprise in there that I hadnt been expecting. But otherwise all very similiar. Of course this also speaks to good conversion between book and movie but still, I was left a little bored throughout the movie.

fnaqzna

Right with ya on "History of Violence." I was unimpressed.

LoganSnake

300, PG edit. Trailer only, no spoilers for those who haven't seen it.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gNqiSkd1M6k"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gNqiSkd1M6k" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

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ironpham

I saw this movie the day it came out. I thought it was a great movie, but I did have a few problems with it. For one, this movie got way too hyped up. When I went to go see it, my expectations were that this was going to be hands down the best movie ever or something. Unfortunately, it fell short of that for me. Also, I felt that it could've been longer...perhaps more fight scenes.

Redjake: It almost sounds like you're saying the Spartans should've won and overcame the Persians. You do realize that history says they were going to lose right? I don't mean to offend, but your arguement is begging to contradict history.

Daniel_

It opened in England last night, and my wife bought tickets.

Bear in mind that the story is not the portrayal of what happened, it's the tale being told by a survivor to motivate the army a year after a thwarted invasion attempt.

He's trying to stir his compatriots before charging into battle as free men to defeat the awesome power of the massed armies of the richest and most militarised country in the world.

[sarcasm=10]
I can't see how anyone can see this film as anything other than historical storytelling - there are no parallels to any current political situations. [/sarcasm]

All in all it was a great watch, and I loved the soundtrack. Five Stars.

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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Grasshopper Green

/threadjack
You are not alone. A History of Violence is one of the lousiest pieces of cinematic trash I've ever seen disgrace a movie screen. My hubby and I are both astounded by the raves it received. /end threadjack

As for 300, we just got back from it. I wasn't expecting a precise history lesson. I wasn't expecting deep character and plot development. I really don't even like gory movies that much. I was quite pleased when I left the movie theater and it was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

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YaWhateva

Playing heavy metal during the fight scenes was a definitely plus for me. haha

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

Delirious

I liked 300, however my problem with it is that it didn't have much originality. Other than everyone having an 8 pack, there were many things in the movie that had been done before in other movies. It's also kind of funny seeing things you've done for years (kettlebells) turning into a fad.

Daniel_

To be fair, the story is a few thousand years old...

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╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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