Let me get this straight:
I hate 300. Plotline was totally surfaced and sucked, animations were bad compared to other movies at that time and it was as retarded as the movie adaption of LotR,only that the movie intended to be as gory as possible until it was ridiculous.
Also I hated how the Persian were portrayed in that movie.
Like in many American movies is the East an evil place that threatens the poor innocent western,who just want peace and take over the world at the same time.Also because it's a Miller comic:

whores

Blergh,whatever, actually the meaning why am I writing this:
How about a crossover of 300 and Prince of Persia(the SoT-saga one)?
I mean, considering that you can argument that those monsterised Persian soldiers were actually Daevan allies and Xerxes is the Prince's gay brother and Persia is at some grade still interested at Sparta... we could think of a funny plotline.

So,what do you think?

alot of people said that the portrayal of Persians was crude. However i think it makes sense. the story is told in the view point of a Spartan so its obvious he would exaggerate and overdo things. And they usd this ideology over in all aspects of the film which makes it fricken cool.

The plotline wasn't that bad at all, sure, it was straight and everything, but it had it's interesting mojments. The movie portrayed persians in the way spartans saw them. If someone attacked you, you could also see him as a monster. It took all those little details (xerxes on the throne carried by others was an expressionistic idea of the way the country worked at that time, which was true) and exagerrated them as much as possible, and the result was very interesting. A little bit too gory, but still interesting.
About the screen effects, I was frankly amazed. It was wonderful, and the battle choreography was some of the best I've seen. If it wasn't for the effects, the movie wouldn't have been so popular.
It wasn't the best movie I've seen, but I liked it.

That's just how it is. If a western film maker makes a movie, they certainly wouldn't portray their own side as bad, but I can relate to your thoughts there. I am a Serb, and there were A LOT of movies where we were portrayed as savages, butchers etc, even though that doesn't apply to the nation as a whole. It sucks, I know.

I did however watch a Japanese movie called Yamato, and there was no biasing. It depicts a conflict between two nations and no one is labeled as a monster, It's just two factions AT WAR. This is how war movies should be I think, instead of giving the audience the wrong idea about the opposing side.

I gotta admit I'm slightly confused at your views of 300. The movie followed the graphic novel frame-by-frame. Have you read it? It's one of the closest adaptations I've ever seen.

And for reference: Battle of Thermopylae

I also don't quite understand your mixture of PoP and 300 either...

Barveheart is 100000000000 light years ahead of this puny excuse for a film.
FREEEEEEEDOOOOOMMMEEEEE!

Don't worry, I know of the Battle of Thermopylae, since I am one of the cracks of ancient language.My problem is not really the lack of historical accurrance or the actors or even the plot.

My problem: the movie itself and it's intention or ''Message''.I didn't liked it.
It had stupid dialogs, the quality was bad, and the whole movie was just ****ed up gory. I know, the war was based on historical events(look above) but all the overused violence in it just made the movie more ridiculous as it is.

And why I also don't like the movie is how the Persians were portrayed, as black evil monsters who want to enslave everything.

In the American film industry the east was always portrayed as evil terrorists who are just ****ed up and want to take over the world. I mean, True Lies, some James Bond movies and Lord of the Rings, you get the clue.
We all know that America shows resentment towards the eastern and it would be no suprise to dis them down in their movies. Either Cubans, Africans,Chinese or Orientals are the bad guys,while western people(mostly American) are the heros threatened by them and defeat them by military force and weapons. I mean,rassism and stereotypes are really common in American movies.

But 300 was really too much with the Persians.This movie really portrayed an old nation at a bad light, the ancestors of IRAN for hells sake.For me it was just a propaganda movie to make the Irans look bad.

I give you a better picture of what I mean.
Do you know ''The Eternal Jew''?
It's an old antisemitic Nazi propaganda film. And guess what: the jews were portrayed as sickly, malformed facial featured people, being greedy and evil.Also,did you know that Jews can change their appearances? No,it'S true, I saw that in the movie 8P.

And this is the same as I see 300, no matter that you argument ''it's based by a novel'' of some misogynic bastard, who even made sin city.Sin city, for hells sake.

I interpreted it as a propaganda movie( or novel,if you please) about the Americans (Spartans, being the ideal military nation) owning the Persians(the Persians 8P). Heck,even Roger Moore said it was "fascist art''.

But that wasn't the meaning of the topic,just to create a flame war and me getting banned. I just wanted to make clear that I don't like the movie with these reasons.

I thought of a funny thread of crossovering 300 with Prince of Persia, since it would be fun to see how the (SoT/WW) Prince has to deal with all those hardcore SPartans

quote:

Originally posted by Tristan_129:
In the American film industry the east was always portrayed as evil terrorists who are just ****ed up and want to take over the world. I mean, True Lies, some James Bond movies and Lord of the Rings, you get the clue.

...eh?

True Lies: Villains are Irak terrorists who wants to destroy America.

Lord of teh Rings: Mordor, or better, the East, is filled with evil small black ugly monsters, attacking the poor humans from the west who happens to be huge,blonde and blue eyed and so good.
I know, the book is old, but adaptions have their own interpretations.

As for the James Bond movies...many villains happened to be Russians, also sometimes some other Eastern contries.I remember that even one had the whole Africa as a villain.

Could we please skip this? This goes totally OFF-topic.

quote:

Originally posted by Tristan_129:
True Lies: Villains are Irak terrorists who wants to destroy America.

Lord of teh Rings: Mordor, or better, the East, is filled with evil small black ugly monsters, attacking the poor humans from the west who happens to be huge,blonde and blue eyed and so good.
I know, the book is old, but adaptions have their own interpretations.

As for the James Bond movies...many villains happened to be Russians, also sometimes some other Eastern contries.I remember that even one had the whole Africa as a villain.

Could we please skip this? This goes totally OFF-topic.

You're right about True lies and James Bond.
LOTR was mostly as a description of the horrrors Tolkien had seen in World War 1 and Germany being Mordor.

i think... you need to chill the **** out. it wasn't ripped off of lord of the rings movies or anything. it was a graphic novel. lol. the portrayal of persians and all of that is due to the author, frank miller. if you got a problem with that, don't blame the director, blame the writer. also, due to the success of sin city (also written by frank miller), it seemed fitting to make 300 in the same style. it's getting pretty popular to do. so chill out, man. if you don't like it, don't watch it.


your proof:

@Tristan: I really think you're looking too far into the connotations of good and evil, and mistaking them for subtle racism
I enjoyed 300.

@mboltevski:
like I said, Adaptions show their own interpretations

@Dom:
I totally agree with you that the writer is too blame, and I do that, but what about the guy who got the idea to make a movie out of it?
I mean, he couldn't be that stupid to see how the whole scenario was made in the novel. Even I read it.And it was obvious what it presented and what Miller thnks of it.(whores)

@ tristan: dude, think of it this way... how often in history are other races and countries looked at as bestial and degraded. that, in its essence is what drives people to kill each other. i can almost guarantee you that the greeks thought that way about the persian army, while on the other hand, the persian army said the same about the greeks, or whoever else they conquered at the time. the mere fact of the story is a portrayal of the greeks and how they themselves portrayed the persian army. all frank miller did was put himself into the heads of the greeks for this story. a country with a strong sense of patriotism will most likely portray itself as a strong willed and heroic persona. on the other hand, they will portray their enemy as the ultimate evil. as i said before, in history, the enemy was always portrayed as a degraded and inhuman race. if the enemy was shown to be normal people, innocent and the like, with a small minority of powerful politicians who made the decisions, then how on earth would you drive your people kill each other? it would be pretty tough. the only thing that made this movie "controversial" was because of the trouble with the middle east and the current global situation. look back at history. blacks were portrayed as less than human create the perception that it was okay to make them slaves. asians were seen as "smaller" so it was ok that they worked on the back breaking rail roads since they "didn't have to bend over as far to dig and nail in the tracks"... also, they were from another part of the world and wanted to move to america, therefore they had to work for it since they came later. the british were looked at as horrible and evil "red coats" because that's how the americans found the courage to fight back during the revolution. native americans were looked at as savages, and therefore were merely pushed to the side in the US's quest for a country that stretched from ocean to ocean. as you can see, my point is, that this movie is just a portrayal of one country and race from the view of another in a time when that was a socially acceptable thing. and to this day, it is still done. so what is the problem with watching a movie that does that? should we walk on eggshells because a chosen few don't understand that concept?

quote:

Originally posted by dom1999:
the only thing that made this movie "controversial" was because of the trouble with the middle east and the current global situation.

That. That'S what I can't see over the interpretation of yours.Sorry,but his is a movie coming from America.
A country which says, that Iran/Persia is one of ''Axis of Evil'', and loves the military.

So that'S why I can't really be sure with your interpretation.
Maybe you are right,and Miller intended that way, since you explained the movie in a deeper aspect I didn't see since I only looked at the origin of the movie or it's really a film adaptation with the same cloaked patriotic propaganda the novel has.

So let me think about it,okay?

lol... ok...

quote:

Originally posted by dom1999:

Like I said, sarcasm will get you nowhere

sarcasm gets me everywhere, tristan... that's why i'm far cooler and more popular than you are.

quote:

Originally posted by dom1999:
sarcasm gets me everywhere, tristan

It really does. I lent him my motorbike which runs on the stuff.

On the surface, 300 is a mediocre or even bad movie, and that's true for Frank Miller too. But I really think that 300 has a deeper meaning. I always interpret the comic book and the film this way: the Persian are an evil "entity" which destroys culture while absorbs it, so it becomes a multicultural but rotten empire. I feel that this is a clear reference to the current role of the USA in today's world. The Spartans are fighting this enemy, even if it seems an impossible quest. So to me 300 serves as a message: We must not let our own culture to fade away or be absorbed by a power with bigger influence.

On the other hand, 300 is a masterpiece visually. Everything in the movie shows the viewer that the whole thing is the adaptation of the graphic novel. You can see that it's not real on the effects, on the over-the-top gore etc. because it is made that way, it was made to be like the graphic novel. That's why the Persians are not only evil, there are monsters among them and Xerxes is from a gay bar.