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300
Ozymandias:
I've always rationalized the movie as such: it's a mythological retelling of the story, filtered through how oral tradition would have changed the story.
300 is to the Battle of Thermopylae as the Odyssey is to that fuck Odysseus getting lost at sea.
Then I saw it last night.
It was significantly more badass than that rationalization. Also, Xerxes is a Goa'uld. It was sweet.
Mnementh:
--- Quote from: TheFuriousWombat on 14 Mar 2007, 14:13 ---The New York Times paned 300. I thought their review was awful, nitpicky, and took the movie far too seriously. I mean, they pointed out how all the enemies were brown skinned while all the good guys were white. Um....they're fucking PERSIANS you stupid fucks. Persians are arabs. Arabs have dark skin.
--- End quote ---
Ugh, if you're going criticize the review, get your facts right. Persians are not Arabs, they're not even a Semitic people. Persians are an ethnic group unto themselves, descended from the Aryan peoples of Central Asia (who also would settle the subcontinent). They can be found in many places other than Iran.
--- Quote ---Ethnic Persians can also be found outside of Iran and include the Tajiks and Farsiwan who can be found in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang province of China. Another group called the Tats lives mainly in the Caucasus region concentrated in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russian Dagestan. The Parsis, a small community in India, are also largely descended from Persian Zoroastrian refugees who fled from Persia following the Arab conquests."
--- End quote ---
Johnny, that argument doesn't hold water with me, because we have Herodotus' account of the battle. This movie slanders not only Iranian history, but Athenian and Thespian history as well, [/url=http://www.livescience.com/history/070312_300_movie.html]while idealizing Sparta[/url].
--- Quote ---300's Persians are ahistorical monsters and freaks. Xerxes is eight feet tall, clad chiefly in body piercings and garishly made up, but not disfigured. No need ? it is strongly implied Xerxes is homosexual which, in the moral universe of 300, qualifies him for special freakhood. This is ironic given that pederasty was an obligatory part of a Spartan's education. This was a frequent target of Athenian comedy, wherein the verb "to Spartanize" meant "to bugger." In 300, Greek pederasty is, naturally, Athenian.
This touches on 300's most noteworthy abuse of history: the Persians are turned into monsters, but the non-Spartan Greeks are simply all too human. According to Herodotus, Leonidas led an army of perhaps 7,000 Greeks. These Greeks took turns rotating to the front of the phalanx stationed at Thermoplyae where, fighting in disciplined hoplite fashion, they held the narrow pass for two days. All told, some 4,000 Greeks perished there. In 300 the fighting is not in the hoplite fashion, and the Spartans do all of it, except for a brief interlude in which Leonidas allows a handful of untrained Greeks to taste the action, and they make a hash of it. When it becomes apparent they are surrounded, this contingent flees. In Herodotus' time there were various accounts of what transpired, but we know 700 hoplites from Thespiae remained, fighting beside the Spartans, they, too, dying to the last man.
No mention is made in 300 of the fact that at the same time a vastly outnumbered fleet led by Athenians was holding off the Persians in the straits adjacent to Thermopylae, or that Athenians would soon save all of Greece by destroying the Persian fleet at Salamis. This would wreck 300's vision, in which Greek ideals are selectively embodied in their only worthy champions, the Spartans.
This moral universe would have appeared as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians. Most Greeks would have traded their homes in Athens for hovels in Sparta about as willingly as I would trade my apartment in Toronto for a condo in Pyongyang.
--- End quote ---
In any historical context the movie is laughable, at best. If you regard it as a wholly fictional work, then it's a fun movie, the problem is, the film itself doesn't treat itself like that.
Ozymandias:
By the film's very existence it treats itself like that. If there's people out there who think half-a-ton executioners with blades for arms are part of a historically accurate movie, they should be culled from the Earth. It takes itself seriously within the context of the movie because within the context of the movie, whether the Persians are monsters or men, it's still serious. Whether Odysseus fought a 20-foot tall cyclops or a 5 foot man who lost an eye to a fishing accident, it's still serious.
I maintain that the movie wasn't a "Hollywoodized" version of history because it went far, far beyond Hollywood. It went into mythological territory. If Homer had told the story of Thermopylae, it would be closer to Miller/Snyder's version than Herodotus's.
It doesn't slanderize Athenians or Thespians or Iranians(seriously? Iranians?) any more than Spartans would have done so themselves. And it doesn't glorify Sparta any more than Herodotus does himself. If you want a fair and balanced(TM) look at the Greco-Persian wars, that's what the History Channel is for.
Cartilage Head:
I was expecting the executioner guy to show up more than once. I was dissappointed. Also, I saw the movie Friday and had the oppurtunity to see it again today. I loved it. The first time was extremely enjoyable, and I could not stop giggling with glee throughout most of the movie.
I Am Not Amused:
Okay, so I'm going to try and put some things in perspective.
This is a MOVIE
Based off a GRAPHIC NOVEL
That was inspired by ANOTHER MOVIE
That was inspired by a TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE ACCOUNT
Of TRUE EVENTS.
And people here are arguing about its historical context?
Holy compacted anal cavities. Settle down.
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