300 (not members)

[Poseptune]

That shield looks more British than American!

NO POTATOES FOR YOU!

:P

[Epic Meepo]

POTATOES FOR EVERYONE!

:P

[Darkxarth]

POTATOES FOR EVERYONE!

:P

Except the Irish.

:P

[Poseptune]

POTATOES FOR EVERYONE!

:P

Except the Irish.

:P

I saw a movie that claim that the potato famine started because of Spartan Zebras.



ok that's my last off topic post for this thread.

[SA]

Watching a bunch of geeks discuss the lack of historical merit in a comic book film makes me realise just how a foolish I must look when I do exactly the same thing (such as right now)...

300 reminds me of D.O.A. (though not in terms of quality).  If you walked into that particular movie expecting a faithful adaptation of the game, I sure hope you walked out five minutes later and demanded a refund.  If you decided to stay and watch it through to its conclusion, hopefully you could enjoy it for what it was: some utterly brainless action with jiggle physics up to the wazoo (though nothing can usurp the game's monopoly on bouncing jubblies).

The same goes for 300.  If you'd watched the trailer beforehand, that ninety-second blasphemy should have been enough to deter you if you wanted some element of historicity.  So I'll assume you didn't, but even then the onus was on you to say "hang on, where are all these mutants coming from?" and hightail it yourself, because you were in the wrong movie.

300 (the comic and subsequently the movie) is, by my understanding, an interpretation of the mythology of Thermopylae.  In the same way that all great battles become legend, the historical nuances of the conflict dwindle into near irrelevance when matched against the symbolism of the event.  

Consider a piano Concerto written in the 1800's, performed anew in 2008.  Where is such a piece recorded, so that we might hear it and mimic it? No such thing exists, and so when we rehearse it, it is created anew in the conductor's interpretation, fashioned around the symbols written on the pages (do not assume I am comparing the film's quality to a fine concerto, but the analogy stands).

Alas, even the composer's intent - the desired symbolism of the work - may be easily lost in translation.  Each musician - in any work or form - decides what elements of the original remain.

So again, it is in understanding Miller's intent that the merits of the movie can be weighed (one does not judge a thriller against a musical).  Did the film capture the heroism, the machismo, the sheer damn cojones of the Spartans (let alone the comic's own artistry)?  Well if it did all that, but you were expecting a slew of further accuracies as well (or, heaven forbid, instead), perhaps you stayed in the theatre few hours too long.

Oh, I should state for the record that I have not seen 300.

[khyron1144]

I ain't seen the flick in question yet, but the trailer makes its historicity obviously questionable.  I look forward to seeing it though because it is a comic book movie and the geek in me must support that (I informally boycott all video game movies though) and it looks like a cool action flick to boot.


I read in the Cartoon History of the Universe that the 300 at Thermopylae represents the number of well-armed, well-armored, well-trained free Spartans in the phalanx and that there may have been as many as ten times that many more or less slave conscripts also present on that side.  I am not going to take it as true until I read more because it's a dodgy proposition using a comic book as your primary source for history.

[limetom]

It could just be me being ape-shit crazy again, but seriously, if you're looking for true historical accuracy, like you're supposed to find in a modern textbook, in Frank Miller or Herodotus, you're looking in the wrong place.

Just throwing this out there, knowing probably more than my fair share of ancient Greek and Roman history, there pretty much wasn't any historical accuracy surrounding anything the ancient authors wrote about, especially when it comes to military history.  Numbers are often unreliable, generally exaggerated to make the victor look better.  I personally feel that in this case, the numbers from any source should be taken with a grain of salt; remember, its had about 2500 years to be translated, re-translated, "touched up," and whatever else someone thought to do to the story.  Not to mention the 10 or so years of oral re-tellings that occurred between the battle and when Herodotus wrote about it.

So, before you cry foul at the lack of historical accuracy, remember, there probably wasn't any there to begin with.  Or I'm just apre-shit crazy.  One of the three.

As an addendum: it is supposed to be a fictionalized version of the battle.  It was written by Frank Miller for Zombie Jesus' sake.  It's like saying Star Wars or Star Trek suck because they violate special relativity.

[SA]

I ain't seen the flick in question yet, but the trailer makes its historicity obviously questionable.  I look forward to seeing it though because it is a comic book movie and the geek in me must support that (I informally boycott all video game movies though) and it looks like a cool action flick to boot.

is[/i] it that Video Game movies are almost uniformly bad?  I should've known Silent Hill couldn't break the trend (or do Radha Mitchell's career any credit), so I brought that whole experience upon myself...

There's even an Onimusha film coming, for better or (much) worse.

[Xeviat]

Yay, no one said it already.

Read this Kalos, in complete humor: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/21

Seriously, I knew the movie was based on the comic book, and I knew it wasn't going to be historically accurate. But it was amazing. The special effects (aside from some of the blue screened decapitations), the art and beauty of the back grounds, the pure adrenaline pumping action.

I won't say it was the greatest movie ever made, because it wasn't, but it was an amazing action movie, and an amazing comic book movie.

[Kalos Mer]

Watching a bunch of geeks discuss the lack of historical merit in a comic book film makes me realise just how a foolish I must look when I do exactly the same thing (such as right now)...

The acronym itself.[/i] Up against that, I fail to see how my objection to one of the most glorious last stands made in human history being reduced to two hours of naked muscle men versus black people, lobstermen and rhinoceroses qualifies as so exceptionally foolish that you felt the need to call it as such up front.

Edit:  My original reply sounded a bit angrier than I intended, I cleaned it up a little.  I'm disappointed to see this sort of debate tactic used at the CBG, not angry.  Perhaps Alphonse intended a good deal more irony be contained in his first calling this whole discussion 'foolish' and then entering into it anyway - if so, I'm afraid it went over my head. In an environment supposed to be as supportive as the CBG, I would advise steering away from anything that could seem quite so insulting and dismissive as a general rule, even if something ironic and lighthearted is intended by it.

But then, maybe it's become the norm around here to insult entire discussion topics.  I've been away a lot, after all.  If this kind of statement is NOT uncharacteristic of discussions here, then I really am somewhat disappointed in the CBG.  I get enough of this sort of thing at WotC.

[brainface]

But then, maybe it's become the norm around here to insult entire discussion topics. I've been away a lot, after all. If this kind of statement is NOT uncharacteristic of discussions here, then I really am somewhat disappointed in the CBG. I get enough of this sort of thing at WotC.

I certainly hope not. Hopefully, guy-who-is-always-changing-his-name didn't mean to insult. I'd tell everyone in the thread to make sure they're considerate in their comments, and to try not to offend or be offended, but that's pretty much eldo's job.

[Kalos Mer]

Just throwing this out there, knowing probably more than my fair share of ancient Greek and Roman history, there pretty much wasn't any historical accuracy surrounding anything the ancient authors wrote about, especially when it comes to military history.  

As a classical-historian-in-training (and therefore another who probably knows more than his fair share), I disagree with this assertion.  Sure, numbers are exagerrated all the time in the classical world.  No scholar that I've talked to or read seriously thinks that Xerxes sent literally millions of soldiers into his battle.  But that doesn't mean that there is 'no historical accuracy'.  Herodotus gets a bad rap for being wildly inaccurate because of his fondness to include local legends and stories right in his historical narrative.  But enough of his material has been confirmed by archaeological research to suggest that on the whole, he is truthful, if occasionally a bit opinionated or a bit gullible.

Being fuzzy on the precise details is not the same thing as making stuff up.

Not to mention the 10 or so years of oral re-tellings that occurred between the battle and when Herodotus wrote about it.

Persae[/i] of Aeschylus written soon after Salamis, and so on.  Further, Herodotus probably had a number of documents (inscriptions, mainly) available to him that we do not.

It's like saying Star Wars or Star Trek suck because they violate special relativity.

If my objections were along the lines of "Hey, the movie said that there were 298 Spartans at Thermopylae, but Herodotus said that there were 300!" or something equally pedantic and minute, then your simile would hold.  As it stands, however, it's more like seeing a movie about World War 2 which implies (for example) that the Americans beat the Germans without British help, portrayed the Americans as paragons of virtue (glossing over the japanese internment camps, for instance) and the Germans as mutants, etc...

It's like making an action movie about the American Revolutionary War.  Never mind any in-depth exploration of the ideals of the rebels, let's just mow down some Brits!

I'm really not one to quibble over the minute details of history - slight goofs do not bother me, if a story is well-told.  But 300 was more simplified than it needed to be, and reduced a splendid drama replete with action, emotion, good speeches, and lots of philosophical musings (as Herodotus presents it) to just the action, with the occasional outburst of a single emotion (machismotic anger) or a decent one-liner.

[Elven Doritos]

I heard my name...  :ninja:

I certainly hope not. Hopefully, guy-who-is-always-changing-his-name didn't mean to insult. I'd tell everyone in the thread to make sure they're considerate in their comments, and to try not to offend or be offended, but that's pretty much eldo's job.

I won't try to guess what Salacious Angel meant, but:

Please, folks, remember to try not to offend anyone or take offense to things on this board. More often than not, it's a miscommunication or misstatement, and when it's not, we ask for all parties to be sensitive to others' viewpoints.

That suffice?

[Elven Doritos]

It's like making an action movie about the American Revolutionary War.  Never mind any in-depth exploration of the ideals of the rebels, let's just mow down some Brits!

Did you see The Patriot?

[Kalos Mer]

Yes, and I panned it in my (middle school?  high school? I can't remember which, I wrote for both) newspaper when it came out.

I admit it up front, I'm hard to please in straight-up action movies.

And even that had more complicated plot, higher drama, better speeches, and more exploration of 'issues' than 300.

Edit:  Actually, the transformation of the British into absolute monsters (burning all the civilians to death in a church, etc.) in that movie is somewhat analogous to the transformation of the armies of Persia into monsters in 300, seems to me.