"300 film sequel is Battle of Artemisium" Topic

"By the way, 300's version of Xerxes is a good example of what happens when you buy your command characters from a different manufacturer."-Mark Watson

Again, that is a matter of personal preferrence or in your case origin of manufacture.

300 was a great movie. It had little to do with history, but it was still a great movie.

Sort of like How Forbidden Planet has little to do with history, but was still a great movie…

I really enjoyed the scene in 300 where before the battle they all sat around the fire and sang spirituals. Made me wonder when they were going to attack the fort.

"something the old films had and the newer shows have simply abandoned completely."

Scutatus you are over-romantisizing the past. Lots of 50s-60s-70s-80s films were utter crap. Sexplotation ad chicxplotation and beefcake movies are all media of the 50s and 60s and 70s. Nudity was not unknown, and in the 30s and 40s biblicals and sword and sandals movies were an excuse to show scantily clad women being rough-handeled by men or being licentious. Lots of class in those films eh?

I dare say HBOs Rome is 100% better scenario wise then any roman flick from the 30s to 80s (and I have seen a lot of them thanks to grandpa).

Deadwood is 100% better then most westerns (excluding the Nameless Man trilogy and some others.)

Gladiator is propably the equal of "Fall of the Roman Empire"

Thin Red Line, Saving Private Ryan, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers are equal or better then many WWII fliks of the 40s and 50s and 60s.

Gladiator ought to be as good as Fall of the Roman Empire…it was essentially a remake.

Gladiator…if only he could of made it back to his legions.

Now that would of been cool! a Renegade ganeral with his loyal lads parading around Italy like Spartacus!

Liked Gladiator, sad ending.

I loved "300"….i didn't view it as an historical film but i thought it was a propaganda film from the Greeks side getting the troops blood-up for the fight against the Persians at Plates?????
If you think of the narrator talking to the troops and using their imagination to tell the story i think you could have a better time watching it????

Cheers Andy :-)

Speaking of Gladiator, guess everyone else noticed that the Germans taunting the Romans at the beginning of the film, sounded just like the Zulus taunting the British at Rorke's Drift in the film Zulu.

Yes. Yes I Have. Noticed it immediately the very first time I watched the film. Or tried to. It is literally the same sound track, the very same chanting from the film Zulu. They haven't even bothered to disguise it. That one moment of laziness utterly ruined the rest of the film for me (immersion don't you know, gone in the first five minutes). Is that the 2nd Century Marcommani Germans we hear? NO it's bloody 19th Century South African Zulus! It was years before I could get past that and watch Gladiator properly…

That one moment of laziness utterly ruined the rest of the film for me

As I understand it, it was more in the nature of a deliberate homage. Then again, one of my buddies was turned off by the Tandy cap rivets on the leather too – totally ruined the movie for him. Even I'm not that picky.

Doug

"One can well imagine that, in that famous Spartacus scene, after his clever dialogue, what followed out of camera shot was Laurence having his wicked way with Tony."

In the Director's Cut Tony hightails it out the window before his peach can be plucked.

300 Spartans is a travesty of history. Fine decent democratic Americans those Spartans, every one

I'm afraid I'm with Scutatus and the rest of the "anti" camp on this one. Several of my buddies tell me I'm a fool, take 300 for what it is, ect. Sorry, the war rhino etc etc etc makes it a 'can't bear to watch" for me.

Hey Cooper..we here in the USA are not democratic, we are a Constitutional Republic.

<Python voice> I thought we were an autonomous collective!

Hey CooperSteveOnTheLaptop please explain why you think that The 300 Spartans is a travesty of History?

I believe that this topic has gotten out of hand IMHO.

Captain Gideon

"300 Spartans is a travesty of history. Fine decent democratic Americans those Spartans, every one"

---- I think he was saying that Richard Egan was a registered Democrat… peeps may have liked the movie if Reagan was King Leonidas…. hmm… maybe he was still a Democrat when that was made :)

Well, 300 Spartans tells the same story in a different way than Miller's 300…. I don't like 300 because it is so black and white, deformed and man-freaky…. I don't like the Rhino and elephants because they are horrible CGI… just bad models and animations…

I like the buffed-up muscle men though, reminds me of those halcyon days for watching Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott movies…. and who couldn't get enamored of all the shouting…. since now all movies have to have shouting…

I like the fact that 300 makes people talk about ancient history and maybe some few will take up reading a book about it, and put down their funny books.

The general audience is never going to like real history movies, I've gotten over that one a long time ago. I remember walking out of Gettysburg and being quite on a buzz over how good parts of it were, and how it just missed the mark, only to witness my friends rolling on the ground and screaming about how happy they were that was over, how dreadfully boring it all was….

So that's when I said, you will all get what you deserve..

ecce. 300.

JJ

I meant the way the spartans are depicted – as people very like modern Americans in attitudes & values – is a travesty. Just as jarring in its own way as battle-rhinos etc in 300, which i have never seen by the way.

I think the only real thing that annoyed me about 300 was the bunch of nitwits who thought that was how it really went down, and bought that ridiculous connection drawn between Spartan society and liberal democratic western states.

Are we talking about individual liberty, autonomy and self determination, or are we talking about a society in which the state and the rulers at the top of it is all?

I mean, I suppose I could ask that of almost anyone praising almost any society including ours, but it just rubbed me really the wrong way when it came to 300.

Plenty fun movie for my money though. I don't pay $13 USD at the cinema to watch a subtle film – the whole point, for me, of the big screen and the over loud speakers is for big things and loud noises to happen.

"Are we talking about individual liberty, autonomy and self determination, or are we talking about a society in which the state and the rulers at the top of it is all?"

There has been a old tradition in american political thought to equate Sparta with the US, as old as the one equating Athens. What they (both COnservatives and Progressives who ascribed to this equation) liked was the fact that Spartans were truly slaves of their laws since there was no way for Spartan laws to be amended or changed by the will of the "people" or even of the eforoi (who could just interpret the law, not create new law). Sparta was a true Nomarchia,i.e where immutable law, not the "people" was the ultimate authority and there were and are many Americans who would like this country to be one as well. Only they use the term republic to mean what is better defined by the proper etymologically Nomarchia (Archi Nomou-> Law as Law). Even classical liberals feared law as immutable authority (Hayek's Demarchia is definetly diffrent then the conservative concept of Nomarchia)

There are plenty of towns called Athens and Sparta in the USA, many of these towns have sent their sons to fight each other in war. There is where the similarities end, other than the general building blocks of western heritage that are obvious.

Personally I am happy that America is nothing like Sparta or Athens. Many folks forget that Athens was mostly brought down by demagogery, and Spartan law eventually left too few legal citizens able to own anything, and by the mid 250's most of the land owner's were women. Sparta is a great example of a society that ruined itself by not being flexible about its laws as the world changes. Athens is a great example that democracy needs brilliant people to lead it, and when the brilliant die off and only the clever and snarky are left, it declines.
JJ

JJartist

agreed on both counts.

KTravlos – thanks a ton, that's actually really interesting. I suppose the question I'd put to Nomarchists(?) is where they think the law comes from. :P

Might have to read some more Hayek, my only exposure was to one article in a single university course.

But yeah, more broadly, I don't think folks who think of Sparta (or Athens, or whatever) as a great place to live expect that, were they to magically appear there, they'd be in the class of people who were dispossesed or disenfranchised or otherwise treated as less than citizens.

Rapidly fezzing it, so I'm just going to reiterate again that the biggest problem with movies like 300 is when we the elite allow the plebes to buy into the movie wholesale. :P

For the Spartans it was a semi-divine fgure (Lykourgos). Constituional "Republicans" would say natural (or divine) law.