Comments on: 300

By: Stone

Stone — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:22:48 +0000

Well, since Gates of Fire is more history, and less mythology, I have to presume that a movie based on it would have been a hell of a lot more accurate.

Gates of Fire is awesome, for the record.

By: JFCC

JFCC — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:19:37 +0000

Thanks, Ed. Thanks.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:10:00 +0000

@Ronster: In regards to that History channel doc, did they happen to mention if Xerxes has a really smoking harem tent stocked with the finest lipstick lesbos* money could buy? If not, and that was all the invention of Miller and/or Snyder, then I am adding one more Ebert Head to my score. Those guys are frickin’ geniuses.

*I’m not being crude nor crass. This flick is set in Ancient Greece so every single chica in that tent could have been fresh from the Greek Isle of Lesbos.

**At JFCC – You’re welcome for the lipstick lesbos reference. I’m sure I just boosted your Google-directed traffic a hundred fold.

By: JFCC

JFCC — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:56:32 +0000

I’m not trying to take away anything from the historical Spartan 300, who did indeed achieve both a strategic and symbolic victory. And I’ll be sure to check out the History Channel special.

I do wonder how an adaptation of Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire would have differed from 300.

By: Ronster

Ronster — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:39:57 +0000

The History Channel ran a two-hour special coordinated with the release of “300″. If it is still running, it would be well worth DVRing and watching. While much of the “300″ takes poetic license, it does not veer off as much as you may think. After two hours, the History Channel special concludes that a very strong and reasoned argument can be made that without the stand of the “300″, democracy might well have never survived, and Western Civilization as we have come to know it would not exist. I am leaving out a lot of analysis and documentation, but suffice to say, I hada greater appreciation for the “300″ having watched the special on the History Channel. Poetic license…for sure..there were no abs to be seen..the Greek Hoplites wore a woven garment that was likened to today’s kevlar and gave ahuge advantage to the Greeks wearing it…they never broke ranks out of the Phalanx until the very end of the battle when they were finally surrounded…they built no wall of Persian dead…there was a pitched battle at sea with the Greeks surprise victors that prevented teh Persians from trying another landing behind the Greeks…Xerxes had a full head of hair and a beard and was not that close to teh battle…the Persians used no horses, rhinos or elephants. They couldn’t fit them or maneuver in the narrow pass…there were other momenst as well, but, again, the plot is pretty straight-forward and teh accomplishment needed no embellishment… without those “300″, you might not be sitting there today reading this blog…

Ronster