March 9th, 2007

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History, Movies
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Last Stand of the Spartans

“You are dead. Game Over. Congratulations! You’re the last Spartan to die, so you’ve successfully finished 300: Last Stand of the Spartans, the newest smash game from EA Games, Vivendi Universal and Vijay’s Game Development and Chutney Haus.”

300 is the latest, greatest example of the convergence of movies and video games. With its hyper-realism, generous slow-motion, muted colour palette, excessive narration, flying gibs and unrecognizable cast, it’s easy to imagine grabbing a gamepad and playing as Malthusis, Spartan #187, slayer of Persians.

Technically, the movie is incredible eye candy. Like Sin City (the graphic novels for both films were written by Frank Miller), it looks like no movie you’ve ever seen before. Writing about Sin City and The Incredibles, I said this:

[These] show us what comic book movies should aspire to. They should render imagined worlds, not follow around guys in rubber suits.

The script isn’t going to win any awards. The dialogue is mostly reduced to sloganeering, with King Leonidas gruffly yelling (in Gerard Butler’s Scottish brogue) things like “This is where we fight! This is where they die!” or “Enjoy your breakfast, for tonight we dine in Hell!” It sounds good in the trailer, but all that shouting can get a bit wearing.

300 is about as straight-ahead a movie as you can make. It’s not remotely historically accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. There’s a silly, entirely moot sub-plot which enables us to gawk at Lena Headey, but it’s basically the story of a long, bloody battle.

On a related note, some sensor in the my cerebral cortex went off while listening to some of the film’s narration. I can’t find the quote online yet, but the narrator says something like “numbers are for nothing”. It took me a while to make the connection, but it reminded me of a quote from “Powderfinger”, a Neil Young song about a last stand:

Daddy’s rifle in my hand felt reassurin’
He told me, Red means run, son, numbers add up to nothin’
But when the first shot hit the docks I saw it comin’
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.

If you watch the film, please make a mental note of the quote and let me know what it is.

UPDATE: Tim sends along an answer to my Neil Young question. The phrase from the graphic novel, and presumably the movie, is “numbers count for nothing”. Close, but not exactly the same as “Powderfinger”. I wonder, is Frank Miller a Neil Young fan?

300

UPDATE #2: Monique sent along a link to some cool behind the scenes footage from 300. Her company is running a contest associated with the movie.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Dan
March 9th, 2007
5:54 pm

It doesn’t deviate too much from Herodotus’s version, except that the characters and scenery is way over the top.

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Chris
March 9th, 2007
7:26 pm

If you want to play “300 - the game” I suggest you check out God of War (1 and 2) for the PS2. When I first saw the trailer, before I knew about the historical reference, I thought this movie was called “God of War - the movie”.

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Ken
March 16th, 2007
7:07 am

I have yet to see the movie, although my wife and I watch the Last Stand of the 300 on the History channel just so we could get a better understanding of what the movie was really all about instead of getting the prettied up version.

I am sure there are going to be some inconsistancy’s but it is hollywood and they tend to make things up so they it “looks better this way”.

I mean of course it looked cool when the Spartan rakes his sword across his shield to remove the arrows from it.
According to history, the Spartan’s where so well trained that they never removed their swords unless they had lost their spear. Also their shields where so strong, and the Persian’s archer’s had weak bows, making their arrows have less force to penetrate the Spartan’s shields.

My wife and I are looking forward to seeing the movie either way.

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Whitey
April 22nd, 2008
1:34 pm

I am no fan of the way stories, truth or no, become “hollywoodised” (for lack of a better word) but this is a notable exception. 300 is not meant to be historically acurate, nor should it have an intricate plot, this is not high brow literature or a film that will test your intelect. It is what it is, a film adaptation of a graphic novel. The reviewer says it perfectly, it shows us what a comic book movie should aspire to. The first time I saw this film it took my breath away, it wasnt like watching a film at all, it was giant comic book that moves and reads itself to the viewer. Without loosing any of the original content 300 captures the text perfectly, that text being a Frank Miller graphic novel not the historically acurate battle of Thermopylae. Something no othr comic book films have yet managed. They try to do too much and loose the spirit of what it is they are trying to capture.

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