23 Responses for "300 Review"

1. doughnut

   March 10th, 2007 at 1:10 am

   1

   300 was on my DVD wishlist as soon as I saw the first trailer for it. Can’t wait to see it!

2. Brian Larter

   March 11th, 2007 at 11:36 am

   2

   I love how this movie is exactly what it says it will be with nothing more or nothing less.

3. shane

   March 12th, 2007 at 12:57 am

   3

   this movie was lame all it had was cool fighting and tits 6/10

4. jacob harvey

   March 12th, 2007 at 11:53 am

   4

   After reading the review here and over on Filmsy I’m starting to question this movie. I’d never expect a perfect recreation of the actual historical events but it’s one of those situations where the _actual_ story is heroic and amazing and deviation isn’t really necessary. Guess I’ll be ordering the graphic novel off Amazon to see how much _that_ deviates before I pass judgment. :)

   Can anyone add any insight?

5. Sodagar

   March 13th, 2007 at 4:38 am

   5

   t is a proven scholarly fact that the Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire. Established by the Cyrus the great, the writer of the first human right declaration, Persians ruled over significant portions of Greater Iran, the east modern Afghanistan and beyond into central Asia; in the north and west all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the upper Balkans peninsula (Thrace), and most of the Black Sea coastal regions; in the west and southwest the territories of modern Iraq, northern Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt and as far west as portions of Libya. Having twenty nations under control, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, unquestionably the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity.

   http://www.petitiononline.com/wpci96c/petition.html

   Based on the Zoroastrian doctrine, it was the strong emphasis on honesty and integrity that gave the ancient Persians credibility to rule the world, even in the eyes of the people belonging to the conquered nations (Herodotus, mid 5th century B.C). Truth for the sake of truth, was the universal motto and the very core of the Persian culture that was followed not only by the great kings, but even the ordinary Persians made it a point to adhere to this code of conduct.

   We did not expect Warner Bros. Picture company, as one of the world’s largest producers of film and television entertainment to ignore the proven obvious historical facts, and damage its own reputation by showing the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae as some monstrous savages, and thus create an atmosphere of public mistrust in its content, and hurt the national pride of the millions of Persians while doing so.

   While announcing our disgust at such a heresy, we demand an immediate historical review and quick apology from the responsible people.

6. Gina

   March 16th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

   6

   THis was, by far, the worst movie. How racist can a film get? The only honorable people in the film are white men with able bodies (and mind).

7. patrick the rogue

   March 16th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

   7

   Just saw 300. What a kick ass, rockin’ powerhouse of a movie. For all those silly pc critics, go watch Pride and Prejudice or Ghandi. Racist? Whatever. Basic facts are true: a very few Greeks fought an army of Persians twenty times their size, and delayed their invasion of Greece by several days, while fighting to the death. Not sure where the racism is in that. Just good ole hardcore courage.

8. Hozzckharr

   March 17th, 2007 at 9:07 pm

   8

   This movie sucked really badly. Period. People in the movie theater laughed really hard at some of the dialogues (not that they weren’t all bad, some of them were ridiculous). The facial piercings looked really fake. The coloring in the movie was horrid, it looked like a computer generated image. I really disliked it. All I can do is make fun of it.

9. anonymous

   March 17th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

   9

   Ok this movie seriously was not racist, but me, being a world history honors student, do agree that warner and the movie producers left out a lot of information, but they did NOT make the Persians look bad, just stated what actually happened. This movie was amazing…. period. You should watch it. The movie is beautifully made and digitally mastered. No racism here. (I’m Indian and India was in fact part of the Persian army.) The story goes like this basically. Darius *Xerxeus dad and king of the Persian army, tried to take over greece, failed and died. Then Xerxeus comes in to avenge his fathers death. The spartans fall in the end, but no racism. Currently my favorite movie of all time ;).

10. Michael

    March 17th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    10

    As far as the portrayal of the Persians in this film are concerned I don’t think there was anything done that could remotely be considered racist.

    One thing that you have to keep in mind is that the entire movie is a story told from the perspective of the only Spartan to survive the encounter. It is entirely his version of the story, and in telling it to the soldiers he’s trying to rally, the opposition was portrayed as monsters.

    How else could he portray them? As a peaceful well rounded group of individuals? No side of a conflict ever portrays the opposition in that manner.

    At no point in time does the film pretend to be a 100% accurate representation of what happened in that battle. It is a mythic representation of the battle, told like a legend…like the Iliad or the Oddessy.

11. Manoj

    March 20th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    11

    Hollywood at it’s best. I’ve yet to find a flaw in the movie. It seems perfect from all angles. The cinematography is mind blowing. The color, the background music, the characters, everything is top notch.
    Hozzckharr above seems to not understand cinema and hence his comments.

    A must watch for every adult.

12. Snarf It!

    March 20th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    12

    300 is a cool movie, fit for those who like action filled, gory, bloody, fighting scenes and beautiful computer generated scenery. An excellent “non-complying to historical facts” action film.

    WARNING: This movie may cause some *very* sensitive people to suffer convulsions, vomitting, racistphobia, propagandaphobia and historicalfactophobia. If you suffer from the abovementioned sickness, please refrain from watching this movie. Your cooperation to let others enjoy their movie is appreciated. Thank you.

13. me

    March 20th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

    13

    Apparently Shane doesnt know what hes talking about….u abviously dont know any history of the Spartans….get a book and read about it u dumb shit before talking shit about something u dont even know about.

14. NOtyahuddi

    March 21st, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    14

    The story to this flick is just a 2500 year old fairytale. I cant belive people are taking the story so serious. That said, the fight scenes are unrealistic nad clumsy. the presentation of the persians is fabricated aswell. The director isnt educatedenough to know the difference between the Persian, Egyptians and Africans. Lots of racism and culture bashing going on in the movie aswell which isnt neccesary.
    I think anytime you take a story and use historic events and real names and mix it in with demons, elephants, monkeys’ and what not yur gona end up with some pointless jibiresh like this movie.

15. tacki

    March 21st, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    15

    As for the people who claim the story is a tale told by a spartan and thus its okay for it to be distorted, i would like to state that anytime you make a movie that is supposed to have some historical significance, you must be cautious as how you represent it.
    How is the audience supposed to seperate fact from fiction? the clothes, the names, the appearences, everything has to fit well. The imortals which were infact xerxes real gaurds were portrayed as demons wearing japanese masks with samurai swords. wtf? Why couldnt the director just show them as who they were? there are images available in thousands of history books and hacked on stones on many persian ruins. I just dont see what purpose it served to portray the persian army as some hybrid form of egyptian/satanic demons. while the presentation of the greeks was closely matched aside from the pretty boy, six pack, look of all the warriors.

16. Michael

    March 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm

    16

    tacki –

    If you think that every movie that has ever been made is completely historically accurate, I’ve got some sad news for you.

    It’s a movie. It’s not the History Channel. You just said yourself that there are countless history books and online resources that show a more historically accurate picture. I do not believe for one second that people walk out of the theater thinking that the Persian army was full of monsters.

    If they’re anything like me, watching this movie made me want to learn more about the actual events, and the real history of the battle. I looked it up when I got home, and will gladly watch the inevitable “The True story of the 300″ that will air on the History Channel later this year.

    Movies like this spark interest in history.

17. Mikhail

    March 24th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    17

    Theres one thing people seem to forget about the potrayal of the persians in this movie. The narator of the damn movie is spartan, so do you really think hes going to tell a story that glorifies the persains views on human rights. Most likely not also considering that at the end it shows that he was telling the story to a a bunch of greeks right before the battle of plateau, so the point of his story was to boost morale not to make you like the persains. Just like im sure if the point of view was from a persain one it would betray the spartons as the evil savage monsters. I just wish people wouldnt bitch so much about nothing. By the way I personaly loved this movie, and ive always loved the sparton way of thinking too. If you ever knew anything about how people exagerated stuff back then (look at hercules and the trojan war) then you wouldnt exspect it to be historicaly acurate either considering it was coming from a sparton soldier telling the story to a bunch of other soldiers most likely for the purpose of boosting morale. there was only 1 thing about this movie i didnt like, 1. Instead of leonidas saying come and get them when xerses says to lay down his arms he throws his spear at him. O and about the differences between persia africa and asia and what not, that some other reviewer i saw whining about, persia controlled parts of africa and eygpt back then and from what i can tell from the map even starts going past middle east into more asian areas, hence the different nationalities in the persian empire, (who really werent paid i dont care how much human right shit there was in persia that i know as a fact, except maybe the inmortals were which would make them slave soldiers to professional soldiers such as the spartons).

18. Lionidas reborn

    March 25th, 2007 at 3:33 pm

    18

    The Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire. Established by the Cyrus the great, the writer of the first human right declaration, Persians ruled over significant portions of Greater Iran, the east modern Afghanistan and beyond into central Asia; in the north and west all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the upper Balkans peninsula (Thrace), and most of the Black Sea coastal regions; in the west and southwest the territories of modern Iraq, northern Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt and as far west as portions of Libya. Having twenty nations under control, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, unquestionably the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity. They finally were spanked by 300 greeks. The true reason the persian community is choked

19. Lionidas reborn

    March 25th, 2007 at 8:43 pm

    19

    “Announcing our disgust at such a heresy, we demand an immediate historical review and quick apology from the responsible people”* Quoting Gina a few comments back; Just as the noble King said “Come and take it!”

20. Don

    March 26th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    20

    Well, I wrote a review on our blog (http://blog.alteredegosproductions.com), not gonna quote it verbatim but to sumise:

    The movie looked like it couldn’t make up it’s mind. A ‘blown out of proportion’ style of Gladiator or “completely surreal” Sin City.

    Freaking make up your mind when you make a movie!

21. :)

    March 28th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    21

    this movie was awesome… no doubt about it… as far as i know, this film is based on a graphic novel and portrays exactly that. plus, by imputing historical facts, the movie would become just another war epic which sticks to the old plot which everybody knows from books, movies and stuff, and would totally suck ass… seriously… this movie was great because it was unlike any other and thats what progressive, sane, free and fair people look for in life: new and better things!

22. Lionidas reborn

    March 28th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    22

    The movie was made in Millers graphic novel flare but the main elements of the true story are all there; 300 spartans vs multiple thousands of invading persians and slaves. In details there were several thousand athenians with the spartans at the time, but it was the 300 that stayed to the end, fought for 3 days to buy time for the main army to be deployed. This tale is very true and is revered next to Custards last stand as the greatest account in history of fighting insurmountable odds, courage and sacrifice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

23. vonstorm

    April 4th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    23

    Reading the posts above, a few points…
    For the history majors, Its a film based on Frank Millers comic (graphic novel? whatever), which is in itself a fiction that draws its inspiration from the actual battle.

    For the PCists .. this is pre Iran, Pre Islamic so therefore the only conection to Iran or racicm is one thats falsely attributed.

    However… that said…
    I can see why the film is causing such a fuss in a time where its westerners vs middle east, and I have no doubt that the decision to film and release this picture is entirely wholesome to some.

    But… its escapism so if you look at it as a film, story, and disonnected from reality it rocks. If not its another questionable grey power-play.