Rate 300

[Rystil Arden]

I think some people are WAY overanalyzing this movie. I guess it passes the time, but I just don't see the point. I took it at face value and enjoyed the hell out of it.

I've tried to be careful not to analyse the movie at all, since I haven't seen it--I'm only responding to support valid historical information about Sparta and criticise faulty information.

That said, if the movie really does have the Spartans making fun of their Greek allies for homosexuality or pederasty it really would be ridiculous--like if a movie showed Joseph Stalin talking to Churchill and Roosevelt during World War II and laughing at them "You pansies! You still have Communist Parties in your countries--Communism is evil and you should just wipe them out! Be more like the Soviet Union" and then he goes home to his completely capitalistic Soviet Union. If the movie was mostly about Soviets killing Germans, it probably wouldn't matter to enjoyment of the movie for most, but it would be a serious WTF moment. The same is true here.

 

[IcyCool]

That said, if the movie really does have the Spartans making fun of their Greek allies for homosexuality or pederasty it really would be ridiculous--like if a movie showed Joseph Stalin talking to Churchill and Roosevelt during World War II and laughing at them "You pansies! You still have Communist Parties in your countries--Communism is evil and you should just wipe them out! Be more like the Soviet Union" and then he goes home to his completely capitalistic Soviet Union. If the movie was mostly about Soviets killing Germans, it probably wouldn't matter to enjoyment of the movie for most, but it would be a serious WTF moment. The same is true here.

The movie is 99.999999999% about the battle. There is ONE LINE, where Leonidas refers to the Athenians as "boy-loving" in his retort to the Persian emissary:

Persian messenger: All the God-King Xerxes requires is this: a simple offering of earth and water. A token of Sparta's submission to the will of Xerxes.

Leonidas: Submission...Well that's a bit of a problem. See rumor has it that the ATHENIANS have already turned you down. And if those artists and boy-lovers have that kind of nerve...

Theron: We must be diplomatic.

Leonidas: And of course Spartans...have their reputation to consider.

Persian messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.

If that one line will destroy your suspension of disbelief, you shouldn't waste your cash on the movie (that line and the "war rhino" were the worst offenders, to me. But the "war rhino" scene was plenty cool ).

However, it doesn't grate on me at all, as I went to the movie to see a bunch of "spartans" slaughtering "persians" in various neat battle sequences. And, barring a couple of things, the history was "close enough" for me to maintain my suspension of disbelief. If I want a healthy dose of history, I'll research it, read it, or watch a reputable show about it.

I, for one, liked the movie quite a bit, and will probably be seeing it again this weekend.

 

[Felon]

The movie made it a point to portray Xerxes as a hyper-effeminate Goa'uld.

What about the portrayal of the villain as a gay freak, and the ultimately unworthy gay-ish "allies" of the Spartans did you find un-homophobic?

How were the villain and these allies portrayed as "gay-ish"?

You keep claiming this without delivering the particulars.

 

[Spatula]

Enjoyable film, entirely forgettable.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The movie is 99.999999999% about the battle. There is ONE LINE, where Leonidas refers to the Athenians as "boy-loving" in his retort to the Persian emissary:



If that one line will destroy your suspension of disbelief, you shouldn't waste your cash on the movie (that line and the "war rhino" were the worst offenders, to me. But the "war rhino" scene was plenty cool ).

However, it doesn't grate on me at all, as I went to the movie to see a bunch of "spartans" slaughtering "persians" in various neat battle sequences. And, barring a couple of things, the history was "close enough" for me to maintain my suspension of disbelief. If I want a healthy dose of history, I'll research it, read it, or watch a reputable show about it.

I, for one, liked the movie quite a bit, and will probably be seeing it again this weekend.

I think it would probably make me scratch my head if they had one scene in a movie about the Third Reich where Hitler goes to his friend Chaim's son's Bar Mitzvah and makes a snide comment about how anti-semitic the Allies were, to continue the analogy made by someone else earlier.

But I think the better analogy would be a movie about World War II where the Nazi bad guys were Jews (or a Civil War movie where the southerners were Blacks)--the point is that it is weird that the movie went out of its way to flip-flop what was actually true of the period so that the heroes weren't gay and everyone else was.

Remove that line and keep the Spartans hetero and I see no problem at all, just like if you made a World War II movie and removed all references to Jews, or a Civil War movie without reference to race. Actually, I don't really have a problem with keeping the line in there either, since I don't have a problem with the fact that the movie was being homophobic (if it was). I just saw people here who were arguing correctly that the movie went out of its way to do something weird and ahistorical in a move that seems almost-certainly intentionally-homophobic, so I'm lending them the support of my historical study of the period against the "Spartans were totally hetero in real life" crowd.

 

[The Human Target]

Yeah because it sure fell flat with the public...oh wait!

Being good and being popular have never and will never be exactly the same thing.

300 is as good a movie as The Fast and the Furious.

As in, not at all.

 

[shilsen]

I've tried to be careful not to analyse the movie at all, since I haven't seen it--I'm only responding to support valid historical information about Sparta and criticise faulty information.

That said, if the movie really does have the Spartans making fun of their Greek allies for homosexuality or pederasty it really would be ridiculous--like if a movie showed Joseph Stalin talking to Churchill and Roosevelt during World War II and laughing at them "You pansies! You still have Communist Parties in your countries--Communism is evil and you should just wipe them out! Be more like the Soviet Union" and then he goes home to his completely capitalistic Soviet Union. If the movie was mostly about Soviets killing Germans, it probably wouldn't matter to enjoyment of the movie for most, but it would be a serious WTF moment. The same is true here.

The funny thing is that it would be historically accurate (for what that's worth, which, in this case, isn't much), unlike your example or Mallus'. IIRC, during the Peloponnesian Wars, both Athens and Sparta used accusations of homosexuality and pederasty to criticize the other city-state, even though they practiced it themselves.

 

[Lewis526]

I have a way to predict whether you'll like this movie. Ask yourself the following question: "Do I read history books or comic books?"

If you read history books, you'll go home disappointed and angry that the movie failed you in so many ways. The movie was all about the battle, but almost everything about the actual fighting is historically inaccurate, starting with the Spartans' glaring lack of armor on their bodies, and ending with the total lack of phalanx tactics. The first ten seconds of the battle are accurate, the rest is utter hogwash. To add insult to injury, Leonidas lectures another character about how Spartan hoplites "fight as one" only moments (in the movie) before their formation completely breaks down into a chaotic free-for-all of one-on-one duelling. 300 Greeks could never have held that position fighting the way the movie shows them fighting.

If you read comic books, you'll be pleased as punch. There's more eye-candy in it than I've seen in a long time.

Finally, to those who say it had "homophobic" overtones: how do you explain the way the camera dallied so lovingly on all the sweaty male body-builders' torsos? I kept hoping to see some sexy shots of Spartan women, but all I got were sexy shots of Spartan men. Even in the love scene between Leonidas and his queen, you saw more of his body than of hers.

I'm more the history type, so I gave it a 2/10. Not bad enough to walk out of, but I want my $8 back.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The funny thing is that it would be historically accurate (for what that's worth, which, in this case, isn't much), unlike your example or Mallus'. IIRC, during the Peloponnesian Wars, both Athens and Sparta used accusations of homosexuality and pederasty to criticize the other city-state, even though they practiced it themselves.

From memory, it was only the Athenians saying that about the Spartans (since the Spartans through their rather unusual and idiosyncratic society wound up practising institutional homosexuality and pederasty far more often than the Athenians--to 'do it Spartan style' was a euphemism for homosexuality in the Greek world). The Spartans had hosts of other insults they would make about the Athenians and other Greeks, but I don't recall Spartan sources calling out Athenians on that count.

And even if so, the inherent hypocrisy would be an interesting point if it weren't for the fact that they made the Spartan heroes completely heterosexual.

 

[The Human Target]

I have a way to predict whether you'll like this movie. Ask yourself the following question: "Do I read history books or comic books?"

If you read history books, you'll go home disappointed and angry that the movie failed you in so many ways. The movie was all about the battle, but almost everything about the actual fighting is historically inaccurate, starting with the Spartans' glaring lack of armor on their bodies, and ending with the total lack of phalanx tactics. The first ten seconds of the battle are accurate, the rest is utter hogwash. To add insult to injury, Leonidas lectures another character about how Spartan hoplites "fight as one" only moments (in the movie) before their formation completely breaks down into a chaotic free-for-all of one-on-one duelling. 300 Greeks could never have held that position fighting the way the movie shows them fighting.

If you read comic books, you'll be pleased as punch. There's more eye-candy in it than I've seen in a long time.

Finally, to those who say it had "homophobic" overtones: how do you explain the way the camera dallied so lovingly on all the sweaty male body-builders' torsos? I kept hoping to see some sexy shots of Spartan women, but all I got were sexy shots of Spartan men. Even in the love scene between Leonidas and his queen, you saw more of his body than of hers.

I'm more the history type, so I gave it a 2/10. Not bad enough to walk out of, but I want my $8 back.

I actually read comics and still didn't like it.