300 - war nerd - neo-cons - iraq

[MrWhereItsAt]

Yeesh. I've just seen it, and liked it a lot. I don't see it as being any different in tone or implication than Blackhawk Down, Behind Enemy Lines, or the countless other recent movies about American toughness in the face of huge odds. Only this time they weren't Americans.

It's just the modern day cowboy flick, of testosterone fuelled American-style hardasses showing the world not to mess with them. Makes for cool movies, often, and is more like tapping into a societal thing about America vs the world rather than any particular political statement.

What got me most though, was less how tender Leonidas was with his family, and more that the Arcadians were portrayed as a neighbouring independent and somewhat more pathetic nation to the Spartans. Wasn't it Arcadia that was the neighbour that Sparta brutally invaded, conquered, suppressed and enslaved?

Oh, and the Civver in me was marking out over Immortals vs Phalanxes(well, A Phalanx)!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Saw it last week. I'm no war nerd, but the OP does capture some of my general feelings about the movie (other general feelings: looked cool, was emotionally univolving, and ripped off LOTR too much).

Yes, I get that it's based on a comic. but it'ss a comic that is inspired by an actual historical context. If someone made a film based on a comic about how the brave French Resistance took on the Nazis, and in that film showed the Brits as feckless amateurs and derided the absent Americans as "cheese-eaters" (pretty much the same as the Spartans calling the Athenians "boy-lovers"), I'd have the same problem.

[Barnabas]

The movie inspired me to play civ3, and beat the greeks with the persians

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
If someone made a film based on a comic about how the brave French Resistance took on the Nazis, and in that film showed the Brits as feckless amateurs and derided the absent Americans as "cheese-eaters" (pretty much the same as the Spartans calling the Athenians "boy-lovers"), I'd have the same problem.

That's a great idea

[Drake Tungsten]

Agreed

[BeBMan]

They coud have won at Thermopylae easily with 300 geeks.