300 seconds of the movie 300

[John Q. Mayhem]

This movie looks absolutely, unmitigatedly AWESOME. I've already got plans to see it at least twice. Every preview has just made me want to watch it a whole lot more

Also, anyone who told any of y'all that this was a historical movie was a filthy, filthy liar, and probably a Commie. This is a comic book movie about half-naked Greeks fighting off hordes of monsters and warriors, and it looks absolutely fantastic*.

*to me, to appease shilsen ^^

 

[Aries_Omega]

The wall of bodies from what I remember was accurate. Mind you it was a VERY narrow mountain road they were defending. The Spartans killed a bunch of Persian troops...stacked them up like bricks and used them as cover. This movie looks like pure awesomeness. Count me in to see it.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Yeah... the "fighting in their underwear" aspect sort of ruins it for me.

While hordes of scantily clad, well muscled men dont really do anything for me, I'm sure it wont hurt the sales to women.

I'm in it for the glorious amounts of carnage.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Just a quote from the director in an ABC News web article on the movie:

Snyder freely admits that the film isn't a by-the-numbers historical representation. In ads and scenes for the movie, you see loin-cloth-wearing, bare-chested men with weapons and only a shield for protection. In reality, the Spartans wore heavy body armor.

Snyder brushes off criticism of this aspect. "It's funny because, you know, I had been criticized by people that said, '[In] the real battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans had chest plates and they had armor on and that's what the Spartans really look like and in your movie they're depicted bare-chested.' Victor David Hansen, this historian I showed the movie to, said, 'In some ways, what you've done is similar to the way a Greek vase painter paints a hoplite naked.' That is sort of the Greek ideal of what a warrior would be," Snyder said.

 

[Berandor]

Am I allowed to critisize the clip based on the – to me (heya shilsen ) – use of slow motion in nearly the full 10 minutes? I didn't like the green-screen/slowmo-played-at-full-speed look of that at all.

 

[hexgrid]

Just a quote from the director in an ABC News web article on the movie:

Snyder freely admits that the film isn't a by-the-numbers historical representation. In ads and scenes for the movie, you see loin-cloth-wearing, bare-chested men with weapons and only a shield for protection. In reality, the Spartans wore heavy body armor.

Snyder brushes off criticism of this aspect. "It's funny because, you know, I had been criticized by people that said, '[In] the real battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans had chest plates and they had armor on and that's what the Spartans really look like and in your movie they're depicted bare-chested.' Victor David Hansen, this historian I showed the movie to, said, 'In some ways, what you've done is similar to the way a Greek vase painter paints a hoplite naked.' That is sort of the Greek ideal of what a warrior would be," Snyder said.

It's not the historical inaccuracy of the outfits that bother me. It's that the end result looks more He-Man than classical greek.

 

[Storm Raven]

This, on the other hand, is pretty much a mythic presentation of a real event. No, it's not real historically, but it's perhaps real as the Spartans themselves would have told it. The Greeks as a whole had a way of building myth from history, and this apparently uses a lot of diagloue from some Greek accounts of it. Yeah, some elements are out of place, but the same can be said for the Illiad and the Odyssey.

I don't think anyone is actually paying attention. I am not criticizing the clip for being historically inaccurate - I pointedly said, in my first post, that even leaving aside the historical silliness, this looks like a terrible movie. Why? Because the acting that has been shown in the clips is horribly bad, the "action" is laughable (and most of it is in painful slow motion sequences to boot), and the costuming is ridiculously silly (not just the silly Greek "look at my groin" costumes, but the supervillain-henchman-like Persian outfits too).

Now, none of these criticisms come from the lame reimagining of history - the Spartans don't actual look or behave like Spartans in any of the clips - but from the quality of the movie itself. On its own merits, as a "mythic interpretation of the Thermopylae story", the movie looks lame. The WWF would be embarrased by what passes for dialogue and action in the sequences we have been shown, and if they are trying to sell the movie based on these clips, then they are probably what the producers think is the best part of the movie.

So stop trying to make some sort of point about how the movie doesn't need to be historically accurate to be good as if that rebuts some point I have made. I get that. I pointed that out in my first post in this thread. A Knight's Tale wasn't awful because of the anachronisms and bad history. It was awful because of the lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing. From what the clips have shown of 300, it shares those characteristics with A Knight's Tale.

 

[Pbartender]

It was awful because of the lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing.

...and a lot of people might disagree with you there.

That aside, just because a movie has bad writing, acting and/or directing, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it for the sake of pure entertainment.



For heaven's sake, Star Wars -- and I'm talking about the very first original one, here -- honestly had pretty "lousy writing, poor acting and terrible directing"... But that doesn't stop fans (including myself) from having fun watching it.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh well, if it's like A Knight's Tale, then all sins are forgiven.

Wait, no, that just confirms my earlier analysis. A Knight's Tale was a giant pile of crap. If this movie is anything like that, then paying for tickets to see it is worse than buying mud. It's like buying used mud.

For what it is worth, I hated Knights Tale, and loved 300. I know a lot of folks liked Knights Tale. I'm just not one of them. I love queen music, I hated it in that movie, and that is just one of the things that bugged me about that movie.

Anyway, the acting in this movie is in my opinion quite good. I don't think a single scene in the previews highlights any acting really, so I am not surprised you got the impression that the acting is poor. But in the scenes where people are not fighting Persians, the acting is consistently good from my perspective.

It's also not all slow motion, and they do use smart tactics to fight. There are some amazing phalanx scenes.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't think it can be compared to A Knights Tale. That had a lot of modern day anachronisms and wasn't really based on real knights or any specific event, or even how knights were portrayed in romances of the times. And of course, that was a comedy.

This, on the other hand, is pretty much a mythic presentation of a real event. No, it's not real historically, but it's perhaps real as the Spartans themselves would have told it. The Greeks as a whole had a way of building myth from history, and this apparently uses a lot of diagloue from some Greek accounts of it. Yeah, some elements are out of place, but the same can be said for the Illiad and the Odyssey.

And seriously, if you have ever seen ancient Greek art, it's pretty much entirely scantily clad athletic men, including their battle scenes that they painted (on vases and such). So that's hardly out of character.

this kind of stuff? This isn't ancient art though, merely 1800's.