But dude, it's gonna be like "Gladiator" x 300! 

I understand your objection, and I find it over-ruled by the carnage I plan to buy a ticket to see.

For most people ANY concept of an under or nether world immiediately equates to their own notions of such. Just like Chistians think Jews believe in the same hell they do - when such is clearly no the case. Frankly, I don't think it matters that they don't call it Hades, most people are too ignorant to notice such nuances. 

I think its based on a comic that pulled from history, but in the hollywood kind of pulling of history. This time hollywood isn't to blame it would be the comic book guy.

You're correct, the movie is based on a graphic novel. I've never read the graphic novel so I really can't say if the inaccuracies were contained in the novel as well. In any case, the producers have no excuse for not correcting any glaring mistakes contained within the novel. Movies based on novels are changed all the time, just compare the Queen of the Damned book to the movie.

 ...yes, I'm sure a movie about Greek warriors slaughtering thousands of Persians based on a comic book written by an atheist is going to be full of hidden Christian propaganda. You're trying a little too hard here.

I would've. I was a bit confused about the power that posiden gives you, and the fact that the hydra was in water (And the fact that you kill it by whacking it). 

But I still like it.

Maybe it just sounds better? Besides, Hades and Hell are considered sinonyms to many Chrsitians.

isn't 300 the movie in which there will be dragons used in the fighting? I don't think the director intended the movie to be based on history at all. Its kind of like with hell boy when the Nazis are into occult religions trying to open up portals to hell and finding baby demons. Sure Nazis existed and Persians existed but there is where the similarities between history and these movies end.

So now I've read the graphic novel and seen the movie. The movie follows the novel to a "t". I see what Frank Miller was trying to do. He was trying to do a mythological interpretation of the 300 war; so I can discount the historical inaccuracies and depictions.

As a personal opinion, I thought the movie sucked as well as the graphic novel. From history class, I liked Athens more than Sparta and I just didn't like the plot or the sentiments given in the movie. I guess if you're into special effects (people jump really far and elephants fall from cliffs), then this movie is for you.

I really did not go to see the movie to get a history lesson.  I mean, I really did not think that the persians rode rhinos and there were 15 feet tall jaugernauts and goats that play lutes or what not.  it's hollywood and it's a movie based on a comic book..that's as far as I take that. 

guys, it's a movie.  It's for entertainment.  You want a history lesson just look up the battle; Wikipedia does a pretty good job in writing out what happened according to history.

 I laughed when I saw recently that Iran objected to the movie.  Sometimes I really wonder if people don't have anything better to do with their lives but be criticial about every stupid detail that makes no difference to ANYONE 15 minutes from now.

Ok, I saw this movie last night and I have nothing to add vis-a-vis historical accuracy, ethnic sterostyping/racialized archetypes ... I just want to say, this is the best movie ever made.  It made Gladiator look like My Little Pony - It made Blood Sport like Too Wong Fu - It made Lord of the Rings look like You've Got Mail - It made Braveheart look like Baby Geniuses 2

It's like the polled every guy in the world, asked them what would make the perfect movie, plugged the suggestions into the biggest, baddest, most ass-kicking computer on earth and it spit out this script ...

This is the first review I read this morning:

I just saw a movie that’ll give your eyes boners, make your balls scream and make you poop DVD copies of THE TRANSPORTER. It’s called 300. I don’t know what the title has to do with the movie, but they could’ve called it KITTENS MAKING CANDLES and it’d still rule.

It’s about these 300 Greek dudes who stomp the sugar-coated shit out of like a million other dudes. I have a feeling that a lot of high school sports coaches are going to show this film to their teams before they play. Also, gay dudes and divorced women are going to use screen captures for computer wallpaper.

The movie takes place about a million years ago, and it’s sort of like a prequel to SIN CITY. Except way less guns and cars but twice as much skull splitting. If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, "I need some extra sauce packets" guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain.

I can’t spoil the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey.

TWO COOL THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND ONE THING I DIDN’T LIKE:

COOL THING ONE:
HEAVY METAL DURING BATTLE SCENES

Who gives a shit if the music isn’t historically correct? LORD OF THE RINGS could’ve used some Journey. This movie has that chu-CHUNG kind of metal that you hear in your head when your shift supervisor at Wetzel’s Pretzel is telling you that you’ll have to stay for clean up and you wish you had a sock filled with quarters in your hand.

COOL THING TWO:
FOES, MINI-BOSSES AND A BIG BOSS

Basically, the Greek dudes are fighting these Persian dudes, but the director, who must have a dick made of three machine guns, does it all like a video game. The Greeks fight every death metal video from the last ten years. There’s wave after wave of giants, freaks, ninjas, mutants, wizards, and a hunchback who looks like he’s got Rosie O’Donnell on his back.

Would I have been happy if Dom DeLuise from HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I had shown up? Maybe, but this movie more than makes up for that glaring oversight.

NOT SO GOOD THING:
DUDE NUDITY ("DUDE-ITY&quot

These are Greek times, when there were a lot of naked women around. And there are some naked women in this film, but almost every naked woman scene has a muscular dude giving the screen an ass picnic. Dude-ity is something directors put in their movies so people will think they’re serious, I guess, and not just throwing in naked hotties.

Any directors reading this – IT’S OKAY TO JUST THROW IN NAKED HOTTIES.

Can’t someone make a movie about naked Amazons and call it PAUSE BUTTON?

My final analysis is 300 the most ass-ruling movie I’ve seen this year, and will probably be the King of 2007 unless someone makes a movie where a pair of sentient boobs fights a werewolf.

I just saw a movie that’ll give your eyes boners, make your balls scream and make you poop DVD copies of THE TRANSPORTER. It’s called 300. I don’t know what the title has to do with the movie, but they could’ve called it KITTENS MAKING CANDLES and it’d still rule.

It’s about these 300 Greek dudes who stomp the sugar-coated shit out of like a million other dudes. I have a feeling that a lot of high school sports coaches are going to show this film to their teams before they play. Also, gay dudes and divorced women are going to use screen captures for computer wallpaper.

The movie takes place about a million years ago, and it’s sort of like a prequel to SIN CITY. Except way less guns and cars but twice as much skull splitting. If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, "I need some extra sauce packets" guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain.

I can’t spoil the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey.

TWO COOL THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND ONE THING I DIDN’T LIKE:

COOL THING ONE:
HEAVY METAL DURING BATTLE SCENES

Who gives a shit if the music isn’t historically correct? LORD OF THE RINGS could’ve used some Journey. This movie has that chu-CHUNG kind of metal that you hear in your head when your shift supervisor at Wetzel’s Pretzel is telling you that you’ll have to stay for clean up and you wish you had a sock filled with quarters in your hand.

COOL THING TWO:
FOES, MINI-BOSSES AND A BIG BOSS

Basically, the Greek dudes are fighting these Persian dudes, but the director, who must have a dick made of three machine guns, does it all like a video game. The Greeks fight every death metal video from the last ten years. There’s wave after wave of giants, freaks, ninjas, mutants, wizards, and a hunchback who looks like he’s got Rosie O’Donnell on his back.

Would I have been happy if Dom DeLuise from HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I had shown up? Maybe, but this movie more than makes up for that glaring oversight.

NOT SO GOOD THING:
DUDE NUDITY ("DUDE-ITY&quot

These are Greek times, when there were a lot of naked women around. And there are some naked women in this film, but almost every naked woman scene has a muscular dude giving the screen an ass picnic. Dude-ity is something directors put in their movies so people will think they’re serious, I guess, and not just throwing in naked hotties.

Any directors reading this – IT’S OKAY TO JUST THROW IN NAKED HOTTIES.

Can’t someone make a movie about naked Amazons and call it PAUSE BUTTON?

My final analysis is 300 the most ass-ruling movie I’ve seen this year, and will probably be the King of 2007 unless someone makes a movie where a pair of sentient boobs fights a werewolf.

Any questions?!

Oh, and I was sitting next to Spike Lee who was fucking loving it too !!!

But it's a movie.  It almost seems (like many Americans today) that they have so much time on their hands they can sit around and criticize a movie...

I just watched the movie yesterday, and I can say with all certainty that I did not notice the word hell being used at all. That by no means suggests it didn't occur, just that it didn't seem out of place. The music was more out of place. The elephants were a bit of a stretch, but less than 30 seconds of the movie. No big deal. Same with the rhino. And actually, the diseased bit was exaggerated in the previews. Perhaps 3 Persians were shown as diseased, while the Greeks had a whole bunch of them.

All in all, it was a good movie. But I'd never recommend a movie to be used as education, so I don't see a big issue with the discrepancies. It was more accurate than Titanic was.

There was only one scene with a naked guy anyway, compared to three with naked chicks. Unless I passed out partway through or something.

I did not see this at all and thought the movie had a constant barrage of jabs at religion. The theme which was hinted at several times during the few non-combat scenes and was plainly laid out for you at the end was that Sparta/the Greeks represented reason and rationality versus the superstition/mysticism/religion of the Persians (Xerxes = god, the "immortals", etc.)

-Triften 

Susan,

(sorry this took so long - I haven't been able to access the site since last week)

I think the author covered his butt (LOL) by stating

... and sometimes dude-ity is appropriate considering the trinity of awesome action movie stars (Jean-Claude Van Damm aka j-c.v.d., P-Swayze and Steven Seagal - who has no nickname - often show a little butt ...

I didn't see it as a jab at religion. Sure, the Greeks were considered rational, though they weren't painted as atheists in any respect. The Greeks believed in the supernatural, though they didn't believe in Xerxes being a god.

The parts I was talking about pandering was the obvious twisting of historical accuracy to pander to a certain group of people. Perhaps the movie and the novel were dumbed down to reach a broader audience.

Slightly off topic, but what's up with the oracle doing a "Dove" commercial at the beginning of the movie?

I guess I didn't go into the movie expecting much historical accuracy so the lack of it didn't bug me much. Any particular twistings that bothered you, debauchrist?

-Triften 

They weren't present in the Greek afterlife:

The ancient Greek conception of the afterlife and the ceremonies associated with burial were already well established by the sixth century B.C. In the Odyssey, Homer describes the Underworld, deep beneath the earth, where Hades, the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and his wife, Persephone, reigned over countless drifting crowds of shadowy figures—the "shades" of all those who had died. It was not a happy place. Indeed, the ghost of the great hero Achilles told Odysseus that he would rather be a poor serf on earth than lord of all the dead in the Underworld (Odyssey, 11.489–91).

And what "monotheistic" religions are you refering to? Hell isn't even in the vocabulary of the Torah. The word is Sheol, and it's not a paradise. Given the time period of the 300 Spartan war, you'd be hard-pressed to find a religion that believed paradise waited for the dead:

Sheol originated from the ancient Sumerian view that after one dies, no matter how benevolent or malevolent he or she was in life, in Sheol he or she is destined to eat dirt to survive. Sheol is sometimes compared to Hades, the gloomy, twilight afterlife of Greek mythology. In fact, Jews used the word "hades" for "sheol" when they translated their scriptures into Greek. The New Testament (written in Greek) also uses "hades" to mean the abode of the dead (sheol).

I agree that religions borrowed from each other, but the term "Hell" had no place in that movie because it's the incorrect time period and it's the incorrect religious reference.

As side note, I don't consider ancient Judaism a monotheistic religion, it was henotheistic. Meaning the ancient Jews were obligated to one God, but they believed that there were other gods out there. It wasn't until the Hellenistic era (after 323 BCE) that Judaism became a monotheistic. This was due to a mingling of Gentiles with Jews and Judaism with Greek philosophy. I think that would have been when the first stirrings of "paradise" and "hell" concepts may have formed. The 300 Spartan war occured long before in 480 BCE.