I am so there.
Number one line from the graphic novel? Easy:
Persian emperor Xerxes (during a parley): There is so much our cultures could share with each other...
Spartan king Leonidas: We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.
EDIT: Bastards yanked the trailer; apparently it was an unofficial leak. That's okay, I am still so there. If you didn't see it, well... boy, did you miss out.
EDIT PART DEUX: ...and now the trailer's back up. W00t!
(H/T to Marko.)
-sigh- I'm enough of a history geek to wish they could/would be more accurate. Hair styles, for example: While better than in The 300 Spartans (Richard Egan as Leonidas, 1962 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055719/) Spartans didn't cut their hair. At all. "Makes a pretty boy ugly and a Manly Man terrifying", or something like that. And Spartans certainly didn't go to war in leather jock straps!
ReplyDeleteHere's an excellant website, which includes a guide to Spartan arms and armor, and reviews of the original comic: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~sparta/topics/articles/enthusiast/panoply.htm
Oh, I'm conversant enough with the actual history to spot the flaws...
ReplyDelete...but I'm also enraptured enough with the myth to enjoy seeing it commemorated in such a dramatic style.
Frank Miller's 300 sits on my bookshelf next to Pressfield's Gates Of Fire and Sekunda's The Spartans, and I love them each for what they are...
The trailer is gone, but there is a video blog on the production web site.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.trailerdownload.net/remote/1293
This is just a taste.
(It's a comic book people.... Seeing the Greeks in full battle armor would have been accurate, but less interestnig I think.) You've see one set of bronze-age Greek armor...
Besides, the whole thing is historically questionable. The best source we have is Thucydides. Plutarch was writing 600 years after the fact, he loved Greek history and idolized Greek kings and statesmen. Thucydides was known to exagerate from time to time.
Hey, I said I was a History Geek! I plan on seeing, too, it will likely be the first movie I've seen in the theater (Willingly, as opposed to Mrs. Drang saying "Let's go see Chick Flik IV!") since the last Harry Potter...
ReplyDeleteMy Classical Greek is non-existent, Millers translation of Molon Labe as "Come and get it" is probably as valid as "Come and take them", but still jarring. Maybe if Milius was the director...
Picky, picky, picky.
ReplyDeleteWho cares. The movie looks awesome. The story is timeless.
...and if the history is a lie and there were no 300 Spartans holding that pass - They would have needed to be invented anyway.
The only thing better than to stand with them would be to walk with Armistead's brigade on July 3, 1863.
Check IFilm, Somone was able to cross post the trailer there before it got yanked from the original site
ReplyDeleteYour link worked for me. Looks good too. When is the movie due out?
ReplyDeleteKeith
I love the story of the battle of Thermopylae.
ReplyDeleteBut a story I've known longer, that is arguably as good, and factual, is the Battle of Camerone.
Here's one account. You can Google for others if you're interested...
Ooooo...smell the testosterone...
ReplyDelete"Ooooo...smell the testosterone..."
ReplyDeleteSmell it? I had to disassemble my monitor to wipe it off the inside of the screen.
...and that's a good thing. :)
Wow. I spied Scotland's own Gerard Butler in that trailer, a man for whom I'd pay top dollar to watch reading aloud a telephone book. Nearly nude (inaccurate, schminaccurate), sweaty in a leather thong? This is SO gravy. ROWR! Count me in on the there-ness. Uh, can I pre-order the DVD yet?
ReplyDeleteYou folks might enjoy Gene Wolfe's 'Latro' stories (Soldier in the Mist/Soldier of Arete). Wounded in the battle, Latro forgets everything daily so he writes everything down. Very interesting look at ancient history, unlike anything else I've ever read. After a dozen years,'Soldier of Sidon' a new Latro story is due out next month. Good stuff, Gene Wolfe rocks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Sidon-Gene-Wolfe/dp/0765316641/sr=8-1/qid=1159240842/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8556731-9040727?ie=UTF8&s=books
Here's to 300 the movie, the preview looks good. What's not to like about mucho green screen Frank Miller Magic?