"Best "Ancient Greeks" Movie for Wargamers?" Topic

Of the movies which deal with Ancient Greece, which is the best for a wargamer to see?

300 – sorry guys I just had to say it

Meet the Spartans?

300 is great.

If you mean later period Greeks Alexander is great too.

I really liked Troy.

I agree with WarWizard, Troy is very high on my list.

If you mean later period Greeks Alexander is great too.

Richard Burton or the latest one?

I'm sure there's a ton of classics I haven't seen but I actually really, really enjoyed "Troy".

The latest Alexander is pretty good, especially the god's eye view of Guagamela. The battle vs the Indians is drivel tho.

Troy is rubbish as a simulation IMO – good movie, but there's nothing in it for a wargamer – at least not a historical one!! :)

Id have to second 300 and Troy, both great epic flix.

Alexander………….epic snoozarama IMO.

Rabbit

There isn't one. Use the time well, and read a book.

Allen

Troy was good for the Bronze age, not so much for the Classical period.

300 was good for fantasy.

For wargamers.
Alexander – Birds eye view of the Battle of Arabela. Armour and weapons were right.
300 – Birds eye view of the Spartan Phalanx advancing over dead enemies. That's about it.
300 Spartans – Slightly more accurate, but less entertaining account of the Battle of Thermopylae.
Troy – Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!
Helen of Troy – had a few interesting images, but the battle scenes were wrong.

Troy. Hands down.

OK, if you want to argue that "Alexander" offers an accurate picture of the battle of Arabela, I can't possibly argue agin' it.

Allen

I agree with Allen on the movies.

Alexander, Troy, and 300 are all jokes with respect to history, in my opinion. The best of the lot mentioned would be the original "300 Spartans", if you can survive the music score.

Why not sit down and read Thucydides? You will get a lot more out of it.

- Greg

I'd vote for the Gaugamela scene in the new "Alexander" then 300 Spartans then the advancing legions scene in Spartacus and, I'm NOT Spartacus!

Well, to be honest, the Iliad was probably a LOT further away from history than either 300 or Alexander. So I guess if that is the basis for judgment, whatever you do, do NOT read the Iliad.

From that point of view the Iliad is a complete waste of time.

Don't ever bother to read it, it is stupid, there weren't really any Gods, and even if there were they certainly didn't fight outside Troy. The number of inaccuracies in that book is incredible.

Thucydides should be read with a cautious eye as well, there is a lot left out of there.

Scott, you know you *really* want to recommend VDH.

Allen

I seem to remember one about Hannibal when i was a kid in the 60s. I would have enjoyed 300 better if the Spartans had armour and no Kabuki/Ninja Immortals. The rhino and the grotesque stuff was kind of lame. I also remember the Burton Alexander, but did not remember that it was RB.

I was talking about VDH tonight actually. He was used as an example of what to watch out for when reading history books. I was talking to a group of human donation science students. One of them had never heard of Patton, Sherman or Epaminondas.

Patton- Eight is enough

Sherman- Time traveling boy

Epaminondas- Reincarnated as Victor Davis Hanson..

So as to the best movie with Hoplites in it… Jason and the Argonauts?

JJ

I bought the final edit of Alexander, and reckon the cup is more than half full on that one. I've watched it several times (whilst painting Macedonians), and will, no doubt, again (there are going to be a lot of Macedonians in my Phalanx!).

I wish they'd made much longer, as two films or a trilogy. It'd make more sense that way.

Simon

"The Warriors", "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans" in that order.

In that last one I particularly enjoyed Burgess Meredith reprising his role as Mickey the trainer from the Rocky movies, who helps Perseus prepare for his big fight with Apollo Creed.

Plynikes

Nice one – could have been worse Burgess Meredith could have reprised his role as the Penguin from Batman.

Clash of the Titans only really suffers from the lack of a good musical training montage. Particularly he should have ran up some steps, I feel.

300 is a great film, which does everything it was intended to do and more, and I highly recommend it. But it was not intended to be a historically accurate representation of any event, culture, or individual, and if you see it expecting these (or even demanding these) then the folly is on your part, not the filmmakers'.

Spartacus, The Gladiator, and other great epic films have this same caveat. See them all for inspiration and enjoyment. For historical accuracy, read a book.

My list of "sword and sandal" films, in no particular order:

Spartacus
300
Ben Hur
The Gladiator
Masada(television mini-series)
Jason and the Argonauts
The 300 Spartans
Clash of the Titans

And that's about all that come to mind at the moment. I've seen others (or parts of others), but the above are the only ones that stick in my head as being worth the viewing.

I liked Gladiator up until the end. The end sort of turned into something from a musical. It seemed like everyone should have been singing and maybe dancing somehow as they carried him off stage while his girlfriend was doing some throaty solo type thing.

I think these don't count:

Spartacus
Ben Hur
The Gladiator
Masada (television mini-series)

Romans, not Greeks

…wondering whats wrong with The Western Way of War…??

Maybe instead of Thucydides….Kagans Pelepponesian War?

I can never remember how to spell that…

I found Giant of Marathon in a bargain DVD rack. Not as good as I remembered it… (I was 7)
lc

"Don't ever bother to read it, it is stupid, there weren't really any Gods, and even if there were they certainly didn't fight outside Troy".

From a man who was there!

;-)

- Greg

Hercules, starring Steve Reeves!!! Vctor Mature as Hannabel all forgettable movies. I agree with the rest of your pics! Mike Adams

The Oddysey .

Skirmish potential galore !

The Editor made no distinction to historical accuracy. He asked which was the best for war gamers with regards to Greece. Troy followed the Illiad reasonably well for Hollywood. It definitely deals well with Ancient Greece. It has some marvelous fight scenes. Definitely a good one for wargamers to see. I saw mentioned Jason and the Argonauts as one as well. Loved that movie. Definitely an inspiration for skirmish adventure gaming.

John

acarhj:Troy followed the Illiad reasonably well for Hollywood.

We could actually argue it is a realistic treatment since it excludes gods.

"The 300 Spartans" starring Richard Egan

Troy followed the Illiad reasonably well for Hollywood.

For hollywood yes.

But for a wargamer?

The equipment was silly, the battle scenes were silly, the fortifications were silly.

I like the TV Trojan War thingie that came out at about the same time as the Brad Pitt Ninja Warrior thing.
Helen had a bodacious ass in the TV version.

I liked the mosaic map in "alexander" with the place names in Latin.

Why can no one make a movie with a sympathetic Agamemnon? It's not as if he was a BAD man..

Finally, any Troy movie that excludes the gods cannot be praised in the least, unless it features Helen's bare …

Hey! Enough with the Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides bashing. The Iliad isn't about the gods, it's about human behavior. The first time I read it I was surprised how little it had to do with religion. Herodotus was the first Western Historian and IMHO Thucydides may be the best.
It's easy to bash people's work after they've been dead a few thousand years.

I like the TV Trojan War thingie

Urhhhh? Do tell. Can you get a title or an actor so I can look up the title?

I saw th Odyssey with Armand Asante. It also had Isabela Rossalini, Bernedette Peters and the very hot Vanessa Williams. It was a pretty good movie…nay…really good movie for TV…all of that and eye candy!

No sword 'n' sandals cinema collection is complete without Roger Corman's immortal The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent:

link

It may have been "Helen of Troy". Menelaus exhibits her naked for the Guys, just to show there are no hard feelings.
imdb.com/title/tt0340477
It may have been Diplomacy, too.

The Iliad had little to do with religion? How far does it get before Apollo starts plaguing the "Greeks" for blasphemy?
It is VERY much about not ing off the Divine Olympians, and how we are their pawns.

yeah, the gods are prolly half the page count. lol.

It is VERY much about not Bleeped texting off the Divine Olympians, and how we are their pawns.

'Tis true. The gods, are mentioned in the movie Troy a good bit through the various priests and oracles. You just don't get the divine drama that you had with the poem…only what the holy men think.

There have been many wonderful movies mentioned, I'm a fan of the original 300 Spartans & I did like Alexander especially if you FF through the boring soap opera bits (not the narrative by Ptolemy).

But the 300 men in speedos was over the top, why does hollywood need to take one of the greatest deeds of the ancient world and turn it into a joke, meet the spartans was at least intended to by a comedy. The story only needed to be told to be inspiring, not turned into something out of the realms of fantasy.

300 should be moved to the fantasy category, they only borrowed names and a story line, even the terrain was bull!

What about "Go Tell the Spartans" with Burt Lancaster? Far more realistic then any of the Sword and Sandal rags listed above.

As far as trojan's go I have a few blue movies that are pretty interesting….

VR
James Mattes

Daggz63:But the 300 men in speedos was over the top, why does hollywood need to take one of the greatest deeds of the ancient world and turn it into a joke …?

Jeez, get your facts straight.

A comic book author, Frank Miller, was the one who felt the "need to take one of the greatest deeds of the ancient world" and do what he did with it. From your point of view, "turn it into a joke"; from others, make a great over the top comic book in his signature style.

What Hollywood did was license a property and do a reasonable job of portraying it faithfully.

The very first post was;

"Of the movies which deal with Ancient Greece, which is the best for a wargamer to see?"

Weither 300 was faithful to a comic book is not relevant in this case. The fact that Frank Miller interpreted history this way is fine, but it should not be used as a reference for wargaming, (see first post).

I still believe it mocks a pivotal point in history, where democracy was nearly snuffed out.
How would our Americans friends feel if mockery was made of AWI or ACW or even 911, history has lessons to be learnt from, it's hard when you mock the teacher.

"300" is a crap movie in more ways than one.

"I still believe it mocks a pivotal point in history, where democracy was nearly snuffed out."

Is that Spartan spartiate-helot democracy, or the Athenian sell-your-erstwhile-allies-into-slavery flavour?

I wonder whether the Persians were really so bad by comparison with the various Greek states; they get a bad press (as in 300).

Simon