300 trailer... digital comic

Let's beat this horse to death.

Another fan was kind enough to splice together scenes from the comic book in sequence to the trailer.

Great job.

300 - FULL - Frank Miller's graphic novel

This is great. Some fan scrupulously took the time to film every page of Frank Miller's epic '300' comic book miniseries.

This goes out to all those 300 haters out there, all the critics who decried the filmmaker's percieved bias and insinuated the film is a propaganda tool.

Note the undoubtable similarities between the comic book and the film; the costumes, the likenesses, the landscape... Zach Snyder truly brought this film to the screen with impeccable precision. His admiration and faithful depiction of Miller's stylized artistry pays great tribute to the comic, and to Frank Miller's creative genius.

Well here it is, the comic book published in 1998, well before Iran's Ahmadinejad began making a fool of himself on the international stage, before Iran was really on the United States' radar, and before most people even heard of the 300 Spartans' courageous defense of their homeland, an act which helped to avoid almost certain domination by the Persians.

I ask this of all the bleeding heart politically correct critics of this film: Would you want to have been ruled by Persia?

300 Gets a Compliment

Socialist Worker Online gave a huge compliment to 300 in a review last week. By bashing the film, Socialist Worker gave every non-Socialist a reason to go see the movie.

Some excerpts:

a rank cesspool of racism, sexism, homophobia and “freedom-loving” pro-war propaganda.

Leave it to the far-far-left to resort to name calling hatred. Incredulously, the filmmakers are compared to Soviet-era propagandists:

300’s style, pro-war message and racism evoke Sergei Eisenstein’s classic propaganda film Alexander Nevsky, a retelling of Russia’s defense against the Holy Roman Empire, which was used as blatant pro-war propaganda in Russia in the lead up to Second World War.

This little nugget challenges the historical accuracy of 300:

The movie 300 inaccurately follows the Battle of Thermopylae, a sort of Alamo for ancient Greece, where an army of about 4,000 Greeks--including 300 Spartans--faced a much larger army of Persians, commanded by King Xerxes. The eventual defeat of this small force is said to have rallied the rest of Greece for a final victory against the Persians.

Apparently, it means little to the Socialist Worker that pre-eminent Classicist Victor Davis Hanson has praised the film, even noting the relative accuracy of the film's historical basis, albeit liberal visual stylization.

Even more outrageous:

The most dangerous aspect of 300 is its blatant call for the West to attack Iran. Iran, after all, used to be called Persia, and the film pulls no punches in exhorting the “free and rational” West to defend itself against the Persian hordes. Queen Gorgo even utters the tired cliché “Freedom is not free!”

I have nothing else to say about that, it speaks for itself.

God forbid a film displays unbridled manliness, rather than panderous politically correct etiquette. I guess it was too much for the Socialist Worker. You would think they would want to sit back, relax and shut their brain off and enjoy an action movie after a long day toiling at the factory, eh, comrade?

300: I have to laugh

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Hates 300

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken time away from his busy schedule of crushing the infidels in order to provide some freelance film criticism about the recent box office hit 300. In a televised speech, Ahmadinejad accused the West of "trying to tamper with history by making a film and by making Iran's image look savage." He never mentioned the name of the film but it was clearly 300 which was also attacked last week by the Iranian Cultural Minister as "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed against Iranian culture." Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

For a sound, reasonable approach to this film (of which there are few), see here:

'300' Fact or Fiction?

Indeed, at the real battle, there weren't rhinoceroses or elephants in the Persian army. Their king, Xerxes, was bearded and sat on a throne high above the battle; he wasn't, as in the movie, bald and sexually ambiguous, and he didn't prance around the killing field. And neither the traitor Ephialtes nor the Spartan overseers, the Ephors, were grotesquely deformed. When the Greeks were surrounded on the battle's last day, there were 700 Thespians and another 400 Thebans who fought alongside the 300 Spartans under King Leonidas. But these non-Spartans are scarcely prominent in the movie.

Still, the main story line mostly conveys the message of Thermopylae.

A small contingent of Greeks at Thermopylae (which translates to "The Hot Gates") really did block the enormous Persian army for three days before being betrayed. The defenders claimed their fight was for the survival of a free people against subjugation by the Persian Empire.

and as a reminder, the movie is based on a comic book...

The warriors of "300" look like comic-book heroes because they are based on Frank Miller's drawings that emphasized bare torsos, futuristic swords and staged fight scenes. In other words, director Zack Snyder tells the story not in a realistic fashion - like the mostly failed attempts to recapture the ancient world in recent films such as "Troy" or "Alexander" - but in the surreal manner of a comic book or video game.

One would think with a faltering economy, sky-rocketing inflation, non-payments to Russia on its nuclear plant, fresh U.N. sanctions, high-level military defections, and now a crisis due to the capricious seizure of 15 British sailors - Iran has enough to worry about. I suppose insecurity knows no bounds.

300: $127.5 Million and counting

'300' conquers box office for a 2nd week

LOS ANGELES - Spartans continued to fend off the box-office competition as the battle epic "300" took the No. 1 spot for the second-straight weekend with $31.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Warner Bros. movie, the story of vastly outnumbered Spartans defending against Persian invaders, shot past the $100 million mark after just a week in theaters, bringing its total to $127.5 million.

A New York Times Op-Ed explores the fan-boy point of view:

It’s All Geek to Me

The less politicized majority, who perhaps would like to draw inspiration from this story without glossing over the crazy and defective aspects of Spartan society, have turned, in droves, to a film from the alternative cultural universe of fantasy and science fiction.

It's not all about politics

The Spartan phalanx presents itself to foes as a wall of shields, bristling with spears, its members squatting behind their defenses, anonymous and unknowable, until they break formation and stand out alone, practically naked, soft, exposed and recognizable as individuals.

The audience members watching them play the same game: media-weary, hunkered down behind thick irony, flinging verbal jabs at the screen — until they see something that moves them. Then they’ll come out and feel. But at the first hint of politics, they’ll jump back behind their shield-wall, just like the Spartans when millions of Persian arrows blot out the sun, and wait until the noise stops.

Victor Davis Hanson questions Iran's motives: Left vs. Right, East vs. West, Spartan vs. Theban

The film’s producers must be delighted at the furor of the Iranian government. But how odd! The Islamic Republic believes that history started in the 7th century with Islam, so why all of a sudden are they harkening back 1100 years to infidel Persia?

In this regard, when an unpopular government like the mullacracy wishes to rally Iranians around getting the bomb, it usually appeals to nationalism, in the manner a despised Stalin after the June, 1941 Nazi invasion, suddenly began talking of Mother Russia rather than the Soviet Union.

It is true that Xerxes in Herodotus’s account is bearded, seated on a throne, fully masculine, and a somewhat tragic figure who weeps at the fragility of the human condition. But the Iranians should at least be happy that their ancestral king was not shown decapitating Leonidas, or ordering the eldest son of Pythius to be cut in half, the torso put on one side of the royal way, the legs on the other, or having the waters of the Hellespont lashed and branded—in other words, there is an entire corpus in Herodotus of anecdotes that might make the King seem far worse and sillier than the comic-book portrayal in the movie.

It is true that the surviving story of Thermopylae is from Greek sources only (Herodotus, various works of Plutarch, Diodorus, etc.), but that fact too illustrates the difference between an autocratic imperial east and the decentralized and autonomous city-state in which history was not merely the deeds of an autocrat chiseled on stone honorific monuments.

Bill Walsh of The Weekly Standard: True Thermopylaes

Their martial prowess, professionalism, sangfroid (see Housman's famous line, "The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair."), and absolute sense of honor unto death, were shocking to the Persians and became more than an epic war story: Historians from Herodotus, through Plutarch, and stretching all the way to Victor Davis Hanson some 25 centuries later, have seen in this instance of a tiny force composed of free men dealing horrible destruction to a larger, slave military, the very essence of the conflict between East and West.

Greece was the only location in the classical world in which the flame of liberty burned. A Persian victory would have snuffed out the Greek concept of freedom under the law, imposing a highly centralized god-king system known to past generations as Oriental Despotism. The free Spartans, in this telling, not only fought better as free men fighting for their liberty, but their sacrifice helped preserve the notions and institutions which blossomed into the glorious civilization eventually built on Greek foundations.

Compliments for Persia, hard words for Greece

Meanwhile, Persia looks a little more reasonable. They were a well-run, tolerant empire. Cyrus had even returned the Jews from exile. What were the Greeks so determined to resist? In fact, there were plenty of Greeks who were ready to sign up with Xerxes, sending symbolic tributes of earth and water. But the democrats of Athens and the militarists of Sparta not only refused, they broke with all diplomatic custom and executed Xerxes' messengers, tossing them into a pit and a well, respectively, with the taunts that they might find their earth and water down below.

Fighting for freedom

SO WHAT were the Greeks fighting for? Power, certainly. Athens and Sparta were Great Powers of the day. (Indeed, it was the not the Three Hundred at Thermopylae but the Athenian navy at Salamis that crucially broke the momentum of the Persian invasion, before the Spartans got their revenge at Plataea.) But in the end, one gets the sense that Herodotus and Hanson are on to something. Leonidas and company might well have recognized the battle cry of Mel Gibson's ludicrously anachronistic, semi-Pictish William Wallace: "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

Frank Miller's version of the 300 Spartans

Miller's comics present an imaginative, stylized, and somewhat ahistorical version of the great battle. The Spartans are generally running around in loin cloths, heroic classical-nude action figures rather than men at arms in armor; other than Leonidas, they seem to have left their helmets' distinctive crests home in Lacedaemon. The Persians are a bizarre cast of characters, led by a heavily-pierced, African-looking Xerxes with a predilection for self-aggrandizing mystagogy, and employing elephants in battle, à la Hannibal at Lake Trasimene.

That said, Miller's 300 is reasonably faithful to the general outlines of history, although he omits almost the entire broader context and occasionally oversteps the bounds of credibility with his additions. Take, for example, Miller's depiction of Ephialtes of Trachis, the traitor who betrays Greece, as a suicidal, hunchbacked, would-be hoplite rejected for service by Leonidas. Entertaining? Sure, but it sticks out a mile as an invention.

Ultimately, what made 300 work on paper was the combination of Miller's dynamic art (brilliantly colored by Lynn Varley), which alternated between the mimetic and the abstract, and the terse--though often clunky--text which frequently used the Spartans' own Laconic words to tell a hard story of hard men going to the hard task of dying at the hands of their enemies.

Skewed depictions of the Persians

An unfortunate addition to the film is the literal dehumanization of the Persians. The elite Immortals look as if Mr. Roboto had been sent to ninja camp and cloned--at least until one of them gets his mask ripped off, revealing that he hails not from Persia, but from Mordor or Mos Eisley. A couple of giants are added to the Persian ranks, presumably to provide level bosses for the inevitable video game. On the other hand, Rodrigo Santoro's performance as Xerxes adds weirdness and verve to the comic book's character--and he has the added bonus of actually appearing somewhat Persian, unlike Miller's quasi-Zulu original.

The film is still a spectacle

Nevertheless, with its digital scenery, its monstrous villains, its muscular, superheroic Spartans, and its Matrixesque high-speed camerawork, 300 is a genuine spectacle, for good and ill. It creates a lurid phantasmagoria of Thermopylae, a fascinating, bizarre hallucination which concentrates the mind on the Three Hundred's brutal fate--as well as the drama of free men choosing to fight and die to oppose a tyrant's army.

Unlike those films, however, 300 describes an actual historical event, which invites interpretation and analogy. Predictably, many in Europe and on the Left have tried to make 300 into an allegory for today's Iraq, seeing President Bush as the imperial would-be conqueror thwarted by a smaller foe. Others, particularly in the critics' caste, have cringed at seeing Western warriors portrayed heroically against an alien Other with whom they'd rather sympathize.

These projections are almost entirely inapt. Snyder's film is faithful to Miller's book which was written in 1998 and conceived earlier. If 300 may be called pro-Western, it's ultimately because Herodotus and Plutarch were pro-Western. If the valiant, doomed Spartans seem heroic, it's because, much as it pains us in our anti-heroic age to admit it, heroes have at times walked the earth performing deeds we now find incomprehensible.

If 300 has something to say to us, it is not a facile analogy to our own times, but an occasion, however sensational and simple, for considering the meaning of values such as sacrifice, liberty, honor, and valor. These continue to resonate in us, even if they have fallen somewhat out of favor. They have been central to our past, and our acceptance or rejection of them will shape our future.

The film 300 should not deeply offend Iranians. As Hanson wrote, just how many similarities are there between modern day Iran and the ancient collection of tribes that made up the Persian Empire? It seems highly childish and insecure for Iran to cry foul because 300 paints it in an unflattering light, while any number of films and television movies depict Germans as blood-thirsty Nazi's without nary a peep from the German people. Perhaps as an American with half Italian blood, I should protest Hollywood's depiction of Roman debauchery, lecherous emperors, and murderous thugs: See Gladiator, or HBO's ROME. To go a step further, it seems utterly ignorant for Iran to claim "Warner Brothers, which belongs to the famous and rich American Jew, has made the movie" while Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ prompted a fierce firestorm of criticism and attack from "Jewish" Hollywood.

There is a time when a film seeks out to make a clear and unambiguous political statement, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 or Schindler's List. But there is a time (most of the time), when a film seeks out to be a flashy, over the top action roller-coaster and make a ton of money. 300 is the latter.

300 &... Hating America?

The Huffington Post: 300 Reasons to Hate America

What's unusual about 300 is its convergence with the axis-of-evil message Washington favors. Ancient Persians is a proxy for contemporary Iran; the Spartans are stand-ins for America's Western Civ forebears. The Persian are costumed as though they just stepped out of one of Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps; the Greeks look like they spend all their free time at Bally Total Fitness.

But

U.S. Marines have a different reaction:

A bunch of US Marines thought the film a cracking good time:

There was periodic cheering Monday night at the Regal multiplex in downtown Oceanside, a few blocks from the main gate of Camp Pendleton, where young Marines attended showings of “300″ on three screens. Some Marines nodded in recognition at lines in the movie that were familiar from their training — such as when King Leonidas instructs his son that the more troops sweat in training, the less they will bleed in combat.

“When the Spartan officer says that Spartans are all about protecting the guy to the left and right rather than being worried about themselves, that struck a chord,” said Pfc. James Lyons, 20. “That’s what they tell us all the time.”

The Guardian:

Hollywood declares war on Iranians,'' blared a headline in Tuesday's edition of the independent Ayende-No newspaper.

In Iran, the movie hasn't opened and probably never will, given the government's restrictions on Western films, though one paper said bootleg DVDs were already available.

And Zach Snyder on his film:

He really didn't mean to make a political statement.

"I'm pretty obvious. It's not like: 'Zack Snyder weaves his web so subtly. He's the most subtle filmmaker of our time.' I mean, come on!

Xerxes isn't for everyone.

"The people I made the movie for, people like myself, love Rodrigo in it. He's fun. One of the major gay Web sites likes the movie and one hates it. And they pick out Rodrigo in particular."

This stuff really happened! Well, most of it anyway.

"The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy. A lot of people are like, "You're debauching history!" I'm like, "Have you read it?" I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is."

Besides, it's an opera, not a documentary.

"My movie is more like an opera than a drama. That's what I say when people say it's historically inaccurate. You have to understand the convention I'm working in. Everything is at 11."

300 Keeps Shattering Records

300 Breaks IMAX Theatres Opening Day/Weekend Records

But the criticism is STILL pouring in. How many movies in the history of cinema continue to receive criticism and spark debate days after their debut? Maybe Mel Gibson's "Passion" comes to mind, but not a whole lot else (at least in recent movie history).

Yet, a critic wrote yesterday Movie Review: 300 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Feel Bad About Skipping 300:

Not since Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhastan has watching a movie made me snort and chuckle as much as Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. I imagine Zack Snyder as a director who, showing up on set at 6:30 am with his venti latte in hand, started filming 300 with, “We need more lip gloss and body glitter for Xerxes!” And that’s what 300 is — a lip gloss film if ever there was one. It’s the equivalent of Showgirls for male audiences.

And what the hell is this comment?

The one visual effect I did like was the oracle scene with the girl swimming in the air. It would have been really great if she hadn’t looked so pained in the process of trying to hold her breath.

After all the half-witted jabs and obvious and oblivious observations:

Needless to say, I was highly entertained by 300. Rarely does a film miss its mark so cleanly that it becomes fun to watch. So whether you go because you’ve heard it’s the best thing since buttered toast or because you’ve heard the opposite, one thing’s for sure — you’ll be entertained.

By the way... where are the 300 reasons?

I'll give you one great reason to see 300: Iran Ticked Off Over '300'. Centre Daily.com has more, noting that Iranians outraged over hit movie '300,' calling it an insult to ancient Persian culture. Clearly, it's the American government's fault:

That's the headline in the independent Ayende-No newspaper Tuesday as Iran reacts with anger to the Greeks-vs-Persians blockbuster "300."

Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the United States tries to "humiliate" Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran.

But Ben Shapiro explains Why The Left Hates "300" (and apparently Iran).

The Spartans, by contrast, say they are fighting for "freedom." In which case, "300" is an old-fashioned battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of oppression.

And the left doesn't like it at all. Many reviewers have panned "300" not on artistic grounds, or even on grounds of inanity, but on the grounds that the Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs; that the tyranny they fight is less tyrannical than Sparta; that good vs. evil is too simplistic. "His troops are like al Qaeda in adult diapers," writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post. "Keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule -- never compare anything to Hitler -- it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a "300" screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again." A.O. Scott makes the obligatory racial point: "It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white."

The Iranians don't like "300," either. Javad Shamqadri, an art adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaims that "300" is "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture." "Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran," explains Shamqadri, "Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture … certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

This goes back to what Joe Lieberman said, what Zawahiri has recently said (or quoted from), and what I cannot help but notice every other day in the news: Democrats and war critics, posturing, like naming a timetable for withdrawal (Terrorists say "Allah be praised" to that). They have fallen into the trap of taking a stance opposite to that of the administration... to the "nth" degree... which leaves them siding with our enemies.

They side with Iran by advocating talks (Though thankfully, Democrats recently backed down from trying to limit the President's authority to take military action against Iran), decry Bush's tough stance against a regime that has stated it would like to annihilate Israel, and they provide fodder for terrorist leaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri to quote from liberal press outlets and columnists. Many terrorists have come to draw support by default from dissenters here at home.

Which leads me to this: Democrats, liberals, anti-war activists... I certainly hope that you truly believe in your ideals. I certainly hope that your rhetoric is honest and true. Because if it's not - if you are simply pandering to your base, acting contrarian, or speaking with your emotions rather than your brains (as I suspect you are), then you should be held responsible as terrorists marshal their resources to heighten attacks and further dishearten the American public, and increase the inflammatory critics at home.

You are being played.

300: 2007's 1st Blockbuster, and Iran cries fowl

ABC News:

'300' Becomes 2007's 1st Blockbuster
'300' Earns $70 Million in Debut to Win Weekend Box Office, Become 2007's 1st Blockbuster

LOS ANGELES Mar 11, 2007 (AP)— The ancient battle of Thermopylae was the stuff of 2007's first certified blockbuster as the bloody action tale "300" debuted with ticket sales of $70 million over its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

That's about $233,000 for every one of the legendary 300 Spartan soldiers who fought off a much larger Persian force in the epic battle.

The number of movie-goers for the Warner Bros. epic "300" outnumbered crowds for the rest of the top-10 movies combined.

Along with many domestic movie critics, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's art advisor criticized the film. Isn't that reason enough to go see it ten times?

Strongly condemns, I should say. Albeit not as strongly as certain hysterical
left-wing American film critics.

The news network Khabar organised a special programme in which the film was evaluated from several angles by film critics who argued that the film’s alleged efforts to expose Persians as violent was a US political plot implemented through Hollywood and the Warner Bros. company.

Steve Daly on ew.com has great coverage about the movie's controversy. Summing it up for critics like A.O. Scott of the New York Times, and Dana Stevens of Slate, who have tried in vain to paint the movie as either a race-baiting epic, or vindication of the President's current war, Daly first points out what should have been obvious to critics:

In all likelihood, Spartan warriors didn't actually do battle in nothing but clingy leather underwear and red capes. They wore body armor and loose drawers like kilts. But here on the Montreal set of 300 — a retelling of the Alamo-style last stand that a Spartan army elite took against a Persian army 250,000 strong — history is not the guiding force. It's what looks cool.

The filmmakers themselves have been saying that for months. The stylized film is not intended to be a History Channel documentary about Thermopylae (although, incidentally, if anyone watched it last week, the program on Thermopylae looked suspiciously similar to Synder's movie). It's what looks cool. And...

''That's the way Frank drew it,'' says director Zack Snyder. He's referring to Frank Miller, a cult-star comic-book creator best known for Sin City and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Snyder, a buff, energetic 40-year-old who got his start in commercials and scored with 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake, debated tinkering with Miller's concept of Spartan attire, circa 480 B.C., but went with the nearly naked look.

How many times must the creators, producers and fans yell that it is a faithful adaptation of Frank Miller's 1998 comic book?

"It's what looks cool" also included violent and entertaining...

Snyder's plan was to make a kickass, hard-R-rated action movie that felt like anything but a period piece. It would be shot almost entirely on bluescreen soundstages with computer-generated backgrounds added later. CG would also be used to create geysers of spurting blood worthy of Jackson Pollock, the better to control the precise level of the gore if the MPAA's ratings board found it all too much. The battle scenes would be filled not with conventional swordfights but with post-Matrixslow-to-fast-motion mayhem, heavy on impalements and decapitations. In short, it would be what Snyder's wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, describes as ''a ballet of death.''

Many critics bemoaned the alleged "racist" overtones. What of the feminist overtones?

''We got, like, a 100 percent recommend from women under 25,'' says the director. ''They don't even get that kind of score on a romantic comedy.'' Why did women respond? In Miller's original graphic novel, Leonidas' wife, Queen Gorgo, appears only in passing. In the movie, Queen Gorgo (Brit Lena Headey) is a front-and-center partner to Leonidas, calming his nerves in bed (while both are very, very naked) and getting her own new subplot about political corruption as Leonidas marches off to war.

"Freedom is now a dirty word"

The studio had banked on how well sword-and-sandal movies play abroad, but when 300 was unveiled at the Berlin Film Festival in February, the filmmakers got some hostile reactions from journalists. ''I was getting bombarded with political questions,'' says Snyder. Some Europeans saw Leonidas' lone-wolf march against the Persians as an allegorical defense of President Bush's incursion into Iraq. ''When someone in a movie says, 'We're going to fight for freedom,' that's now a dirty word,'' says Snyder. ''Europeans totally feel that way. If you mention democracy or freedom, you're an imperialist or a fascist. That's crazy to me.''

Some critics took the political metaphor way too far.

To be, or not to be... homoerotic.

The movie, true to Miller's vision, is also loaded with sweaty hunks running around in those tight leather Speedos and capes. None of this is played for gay appeal, but could induce snickering among some teens. Snyder shrugs it off. ''Some people have said to me, 'Your movie is homoerotic,' and some have said, 'Your movie's homophobic.' In my mind, the movie is neither. But I don't have a problem with people interpreting it the way they'd like to.'' As long as they buy tickets first.

At the end of the day... money talks and bull$hit walks.

The Spartans have the last laugh

Although critics like Kyle Smith of the New York Post wrote:

PERSIAN SHRUG
DESIGNER CARNAGE KILLS ANY THRILLS IN BLOODY '300'

...it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a "300" screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again.

But yesterday, the New York Times acknowledged the success:

Surprise! Spartans Assault Box Office

LOS ANGELES, March 11 — Even a film business that expects big numbers is likely to be double-checking the box-office receipts for Warner Brothers’ “300” on Monday and asking, “What just happened?”

The sword-and-sandals epic posted an estimated $70 million in ticket sales Friday through Sunday as it surged past hostile critics and industry expectations to become the fourth surprise hit in a winter season that began with a limp.

and

Critics were divided on the merits of Mr. Snyder’s adaptation of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel about the Spartans’ stand against the Persians at Thermopylae, which A. O. Scott’s review in The New York Times described as “about as violent as ‘Apocalypto’ and twice as stupid.” (An admiring Richard Roeper, of The Chicago Sun-Times, called it “gorgeous to behold.”) Still, ticket buyers were lining up for showings that sold out on various electronic services.

Momentum had been building among fans since the film was introduced at last year’s Comic-Con International comic book and popular arts convention. It received a boost about a month ago when a trailer — highlighting the movie’s stylized, computer-assisted visual approach — caught fire on MySpace. Mr. Snyder and his collaborators also helped broaden the film’s appeal among women by expanding a subplot, about the Spartan queen Gorgo.

The box office receipts would seem like sweet vindication... the tyranny of the majority, you could say.

And if you believe Kyle Smith of the New York Post, they're a majority of "adolf boys."

300: The Public has spoken

The movie did something right:

Earlyshowings for "300" film draw sell-out crowds

and

Here Come The Spartans! R-Rated '300' Stampeding Towards $60 Mil Weekend; Record For Biggest March Opening Ever

Also, a breath of fresh air and some reasoned wisdom from writer Hesiod, on the liberal Daily Kos (Clearly a real fan):

"300" is Not About Iraq, Iran or George Bush

He writes:

Some people are just stupid.

and

The criticism of the movie, however, is ludicrous. It pretty faithfully tracks the dialogue and plot of Miller's graphic novel, which was published in 1998! One clue that, for certain, it is not intended to be an anti-Bush movie is that noted Neocon Victor Davis Hanson is an historical consultant for the project.

and

There is no way that it intentionally or implicltly supports Bush or opposes Bush. It is depicting an historic event of antiquity, in a highly stylized, mythologized manner.

I can certainly understand why the director of the movie, Zack Snyder, is winkingabout its meaning. Anything that gets people talking about his movie is good publicity and will generate box office.

If I were him, I wouldn't discourage this kind of speculation either. But, I think any resonance to our current times is due entirely to the universal themes and timelessness of the story itself, and has nothing to do with the intentions of the movie's creative team.

But a commenter on Kos notes:

it grinds on me, nevertheless, because I just know how popular culture will interpret what is put to screen. No helping it, but...eh.

This is exactly what I said yesterday. The fear from the left is a vindication for the right and the glorification of noble, valiant reasons to go to war: preserving freedom.

Another deranged commenter on Kos says:

The clips used the same kind of "we'll do what's necessary" rhetoric that Bushniks are so fond of. The way neocon creeps love twisting metaphors, it looked highly probable that the movie would deliver some thinly-veiled messaging in support of pooring more lives into the quagmire of Bush's world historic blunder.

To return to some of Dana Stevens' criticism in Slate:

Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the "bad" (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him.

What of Lord of the Rings? Didn't the noble and white band of white men(led by Viggo Mortensen, an outspoken war critic, ironically) march in opposition of tyranny that took the shape of a "dark" evil lord who created evil "black" orcs and monsters? Was Tolkien a racist?

What of Star Wars? The youthful, angelic Luke Skywalker combats the "dark lords" Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Is George Lucas (a flaming liberal) racist?

What of Alexander? Oliver Stone created a (crappy) epic of Alexander the Great's exploits in Persia. Is Stone a racist?

The bottom line: Quit the hyperbole, the liberal antiwar hysteria. Critics are only making themselves look stupid, and conflating what should be a non-issue.

And as for Miller, the film's creator, here is an interview he did on NPR.

NPR: [...] Frank, what’s the state of the union?

FM: Well, I don’t really find myself worrying about the state of the union as I do the state of the home-front. It seems to me quite obvious that our country and the entire Western World is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants ... and we’re behaving like a collapsing empire. Mighty cultures are almost never conquered, they crumble from within. And frankly, I think that a lot of Americans are acting like spoiled brats because of everything that isn’t working out perfectly every time.

...NPR: A lot of people would say what America has done abroad has led to the doubts and even the hatred of its own citizens.

And speaking of the "grotesque" Persian that "300" depicts:

FM: Well, okay, then let’s finally talk about the enemy. For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we’re up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people’s heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I’m living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built.

...NPR: And as you talk to people in the streets, the people you meet at work, socially, how do you explain this to them?

FM: Mainly in historical terms, mainly saying that the country that fought Okinawa and Iwo Jima is now spilling precious blood, but so little by comparison, it’s almost ridiculous. And the stakes are as high as they were then. Mostly I hear people say, ‘Why did we attack Iraq?’ for instance. Well, we’re taking on an idea. Nobody questions why after Pearl Harbor we attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we’re doing the same thing now.

Lastly, this just brings a smile to my face. The writer often makes absolutely no sense, but it's interesting to read nonetheless.

Make a fuss

We need to be offended when an offense is targeted at us.

As you may know, there is a petition drafted against a movie called “300”. Actually, a short clip of the movie made me laugh rather than offend me. The freaky monster that the supposed “Persian Immortals” let out to smash up the Spartans is priceless.

Anyway, after watching the clip of the movie and reading the petition, which is a bit too hyper-Persian for my taste, I decided to put my name on it for a simple reason. We need it. Let me elaborate. We, as in Iranians, need to stand up more, especially with the current political climate. We need to be sticklers about little things so as to insure that we don’t lose on the big things. It’s true that the Persian Empire did not expand “organically”. But, considering the standards of that era, the Persian Army was a love-machine! And, we need to say that as loud as we can.

This movie is not meant as a historical movie, neither is the original book by Frank Miller. Zack Snyder has created a fun-flick. Watch it, eat your popcorn, and try not to have sweaty palms when holding your date’s hand. But, there are too many of these movies that don’t necessarily make Iran/Persia look bad, but they don’t make non-Iranian all that comfortable about our culture either.

In and of itself, “300” would not merit a second of attention from us, because there is so much more to the history and culture of Iran/Persia. But in the Western vacuum that exists about our culture and history, films like “300” amplify the negative perceptions created about Iran and Iranians. Zach Snyder may not have intended to add a political angle to his fun-flick, but John McCain’s election chances ride on exactly such political angles.

The movie critics have made a big deal of it, as a result, bloggers such as myself are making a big deal out of it to counter many statements that have been inaccurate and often out of line.

I recommend this movie if you like war films. It will certainly deliver.

300 Fans speak

KEYT3 Santa Barbara

'300' Presale Selling Strongly

LOS ANGELES -- Fandango, the online, phone and mobile movie ticketing service, reports that seats are going fast for the highly-anticipated action-adventure epic, "300."

The movie is accounting for:

-- Ninety-two percent of all weekly ticket sales on Fandango
--Sold-out Thursday midnight shows at every IMAX screen in Fandango's nationwide network.
--Hundreds of sold-out Friday and Saturday shows at Fandango theaters throughout the country.

According to a recent poll, 76 percent of respondents indicate they plan to see the movie on opening weekend.

In another Fandango poll, thousands of moviegoers identified the main factor that makes them want to see "300." The top results include:

--Thirty-one percent are action-adventure fans.
--Twenty-one percent say it's the Frank Miller graphic novel, upon which the movie is based.
--Seventeen percent identify star Gerard Butler and the rest of the cast.
--Fourteen percent say they love seeing movies in IMAX.
--Four percent are drawn by director Zack Snyder's previous work (including his "Dawn of the Dead" remake).

300 Critics ignore facts

Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense.

The Spartans fight bare-chested without armor, in the “heroic nude” manner that ancient Greek vase-painters portrayed Greek hoplites, their muscles bulging as if they were contemporary comic book action heroes. Again, following the Miller comic, artistic license is made with the original story — the traitor Ephialtes is as deformed in body as he is in character; King Xerxes is not bearded and perched on a distant throne, but bald, huge, perhaps sexually ambiguous, and often right on the battlefield. The Persians bring with them exotic beasts like a rhinoceros and elephant, and the leader of the Immortals fights Leonidas in a duel (which the Greeks knew as monomachia). Shields are metal rather than wood with bronze veneers, and swords sometimes look futuristic rather than ancient.

~ Victor Davis Hanson, professor of Classics

Unfortunately, unlike Hanson, many reviews of 300 have utterly and completely missed the point.

Here is A.O. Scott of the New York Times

It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.

I don't know, they look white to me... are Greeks white? Technically speaking?

Here is Dana Stevens of Slate:

The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him.

As anyone with half a brain can see, Xerxes is portrayed nearly exactly as Frank Miller drew him in the comic book.

Andrew Stuttaford of the New York Sun:

But look at the movie a little more closely and the imagery of our current troubles creeps into view, not least in the way some of Xerxes's warriors opt for the Al Qaeda/ninja chic more usually associated with Osama bin Laden's training camps.

A cursory glance at one page of the 300 comic book reveals that the filmmakers very faithfully adapted Frank Miller's visual interpretation, which was published in 1998. Miller is an astute writer, but if he could have anticipated al Qaeda chic that early on, he should have been working for the Pentagon.

Stevens further adds:

The noble and sexy Gorgo finally gives herself to Theron in exchange for a chance to persuade the council.

...which is wrong. In the film, Gorgo gives herself to Theron in exchange for his vote and support, she already had permission to speak at the council.

Let's return to Victor Davis Hanson, the person who holds a doctorate in Classics:

So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy — freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.

Greek writers and poets such as Simonides and Herodotus were fascinated by the Greek sacrifice against Xerxes, and especially the heroism of Leonidas and his men. And subsequently throughout Western literature poets as diverse as Lord Byron and A.E. Houseman have likewise paid homage to the Spartan last stand — and this universal idea of Western soldiers willing to die as free men rather than to submit to tyranny. Steven Pressfield’s novel Gates of Fire and the earlier Hollywood movie The 300 Spartans both were based on the Greek defense of the pass at Thermopylae.

300, of course, makes plenty of allowance for popular tastes, changing and expanding the story to meet the protocols of the comic book genre. The film was not shot on location outdoors, but in a studio using the so-called “digital backlot” technique of sometimes placing the actors against blue screens. The resulting realism is not that of the sun-soaked cliffs above the blue Aegean — Thermopylae remains spectacularly beautiful today — but of the eerie etchings of the comic book.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

300 Controversy

Reuters reports the Greek spectacle "300" set to reap big numbers. You wouldn't know it to read some of the reviews.

The New York Times' A.O. Scott reviews 300.

“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid.

and

the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities. They also hew to a warrior ethic of valor and freedom that makes them, despite their gleeful appetite for killing, the good guys in this tale. (It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.)

and

But not all the Spartans back in Sparta support their king on his mission. A gaggle of sickly, corrupt priests, bought off by the Persians, consult an oracular exotic dancer whose topless gyrations lead to a warning against going to war. And the local council is full of appeasers and traitors, chief among them a sardonic, shifty-eyed smoothy named Theron (Dominic West, known to fans of “The Wire” as the irrepressible McNulty).

and

The big idea, spelled out over and over in voice-over and dialogue in case the action is too subtle, is that the free, manly men of Sparta fight harder and more valiantly than the enslaved masses under Xerxes’ command.

Although the Times review's scathing criticism was difficult to top. somehow Dana Stevens at Slate managed to do so. Dana Stevens has taken the film so seriously, she finds it unconscionable the Director and Producers not paint the movie in a more balanced and politically correct pallet. Stevens is not satisfied with mere critiques about the cinematography or script. She must go much further with wild hyperbole beyond even what I thought were some liberals' most acid-induced dreams:

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Hello, Ms. Stevens?... Persians invaded Greece in 480 B.C. Xerxes did not want to simply go on parade with his army. Death and enslavement were a virtual guarantee. Yet, Stevens is not satisfied with simply bashing the movie, she has to attack the viewers, and what she perceives to be their ignorance, as well:

The comic fanboys who make up 300's primary audience demographic aren't likely to get hung up on the movie's historical content, much less any parallels with present-day politics. But what's maddening about 300 (besides the paralyzing monotony of watching chiseled white guys make shish kebabs from swarthy Persians for 116 indistinguishable minutes) is that no one involved—not Miller, not Snyder, not one of the army of screenwriters, art directors, and tech wizards who mounted this empty, gorgeous spectacle—seems to have noticed that we're in the middle of an actual war. With actual Persians (or at least denizens of that vast swath of land once occupied by the Persian empire).

Stevens is aghast that the writers did not take into account her Freudian guilt about not supporting the war, and her clear obsessivenss with Bush and Iraq. I've written more about these writers here. Recall the New York Times article after the Super Bowl, which claimed the commercials were thinly veiled messages to the American public conveying guilt through violence.

Stevens did have some nice words, but quickly adds that Synder and Miller should have considered inserting a senseless "nod" toward antiwar sentiment. Why in God's name would they do that? Do they not have a right to artistic integrity? Isn't that what bleeding-heart liberals always preach?

And visually, 300 is thrilling, color-processed to a burnished, monochromatic copper, and packed with painterly, if static, tableaux vivants. But to cast 300 as a purely apolitical romp of an action film smacks of either disingenuousness or complete obliviousness. One of the few war movies I've seen in the past two decades that doesn't include at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment, 300 is a mythic ode to righteous bellicosity.

And if she believes her own drivle here:

Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the "bad" (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him.

Then The Lord of the Rings is the king of all racist, hateful films, is it not? Curiously, the New York Sun also chimed in with many negative comments:

Leonidas had, wrote Herodotus, "proved himself a very good man." No more needed to be said. The Spartan's deeds spoke for themselves. Compared with this, the bombast and bluster of the Miller version is simply tacky, a transformation of history not into myth, but kitsch.

A short aside acknowledging the technical skills employed, but insisting on a less cutting edge approach:

Yes, the manner in which the filmmaker has reproduced the look and feel of Mr. Miller's work is technically impressive (almost all the sets were "virtual"), but "300" would have benefited from concentrating less on the temptations of the digital backlot and more on old-fashioned storytelling.

But Andrew Stuttaford of the Sun makes a statement that contradicts Stevens' proclamation about the necessity for a liberal 'antiwar' them. However, he does try to draw a comparison with the persian's garb as al qaeda/ninja chic. Who are these people? Have they looked at the comic book at all?

The last time Hollywood tackled Thermopylae was "The 300 Spartans" (1962), a blunt Cold War allegory from a time when the threat from the east came from Moscow, not Mecca. This updated version is not so direct. It couldn't be: Mr. Miller's original work predates the fall of the twin towers. But look at the movie a little more closely and the imagery of our current troubles creeps into view, not least in the way some of Xerxes's warriors opt for the Al Qaeda/ninja chic more usually associated with Osama bin Laden's training camps.

Perhaps even more revealing is the way that, like the graphic novel, the movie fails to address the central paradox of Thermopylae: the fact that freedom's most effective defenders cared so little for individual liberty themselves. Of course, in our age of Guantanamo and Jack Bauer, that's a question that still resonates. If Mr. Snyder has chosen to dodge it, he's not the only one.

What really just gets my goat is this: Why can't the movie stand on its own? I am a huge comic book fan. A 'fanboy' to use Ms. Stevens' derogatory rhetoric. I am also a student of history and a movie buff. As I sit here writing this, my 9:15 theater tickets next to me, I'm brimming with anticipation. And why? Because I'm a guy. I like violent movies, they are enjoyable to me. I am well aware what to expect when I see the movie: Swords, slashing, blood, haughty men bragging about their battle prowess - can't I just have that without critics feeling the need to incorporate their mental deficiencies, (possibly brought on by their guilt about deserting the troops in the face of such bold testosterone courage that 300 displays).

Indeed, if 300 blows up, if 300 makes it big, if Americans thoroughly enjoy 300 and praise it, do these liberals not in some way fear it will vindicate the President's bravado?

Who knows? And why bring politics into it?!?!

Hey... they started it.

300: The Future of Movies

ABC News:

'300': The Future of Movies?

Adapted from the graphic novel by Frank Miller, "300" is the underdog story of how 300 men held off a million (men).

The fight pitted a portion of the Spartan army against the much larger Persian Empire. The Spartans stood their ground, helping the Greeks unite and preventing the Persians from spreading into Europe.

"I took the battle of Thermopylae and turned it into a myth. I think my movie is the way a Greek would tell the story of Thermopylae months after it happened, not with 2,000 years of hindsight," Snyder said.

In "300," the Spartan king Leonidas faces off against the Persian tyrant Xerxes. Some media reports speculate that one or the other is supposed to represent President Bush. Snyder, who also co-wrote the screenplay, says that he began the script long before Bush was elected, and that any connection is purely speculative.

"I think it's awesome that our little movie about the crazy Frank Miller version of Thermopylae could evoke that kind of discussion, and like I said in [The New York Times] article, if people are saying, 'I think Leonidas is Bush' and the other is saying, 'I think Xerxes is Bush,' and those two people are having a debate about world politics because they saw my movie — hey, that's pretty awesome," Snyder said.

To create the fantastical look of the movie, all the scenes were shot entirely on green screen. Snyder was worried that not being able to visualize the finished product would affect the actors, but that wasn't the hardest aspect for him.

"I was afraid that the actual fighting would be the hardest part, but it turned out that when an actor is swinging a stick at an actor and trying to hit him in the head, they tend to duck and it looks real. The harder part of the movie for me was actually the post-production side of the movie — the year of post production it actually took to finish the movie," he said.

300 seconds of 300

300 minutes straight from the film, not a trailer.

It won't spoil anything... except maybe your dinner.

300

The Comic Book Reel reviews 300, which is released nationwide this Friday. 300 is an adaptation of Frank Miller's Graphic Novel of the same name, which is, in turn, a stylized, testosterone driven adaptation of the historical 300 Spartans, who fought and died to the man in order to defend Greece from the invading Persian hordes.

With Xerxes and his limitless armies standing on the porch, the front door to war literally kicked open, King Leonidas prepared to defend Greece. As the President of the United States must receive permission from Congress before waging war (heh...), so too did the King from ancient Sparta's democratic equivalents. And like the America of today, the political system of ancient Sparta operated only at the pleasure of a relatively small group of traditionalist mystics, all of whom were wholly corrupt, largely inbred, sexually deviant and disliked by essentially everybody. And perhaps also like the America of today, these false prophets sacrificed the health of their nation to the interests of a decadent Middle-Eastern monarch. They were called the Ephors, and they denied Leonidas permission to protect Sparta.

And so marched the 300, illegally.

Despite any ideas, history or metaphor tied to the film, it should be viewed primarily for its stunning visual creations:

"300," in any case, seems to actually synthesize the two [Comic book and film] mediums, creating a new language all for itself in order to make a film that stands completely on its own as one of the best war movies ever made.

The notion of "fight choreography" has been severely trivialized for me as a result of "300." No more can I be entertained by two, three or even dozens of men throwing hundreds of punches and kicks with hardly a one landing or, when one does, causing little to no consequences. No, "300" is not about "fight choreography." It's about killing the hell out of people. The force, might and skill of the Spartans' every move is fully displayed in "300," in shot after bloody shot. Audiences will leave "300" with the memory of one particular sequence in which we see in one gorgeous slow-motion/fast-motion/back-to-slow-motion shot, King Leonidas viciously take down one enemy after another for what seems like five minutes without ever cutting away. It is glorious.

The stylized combat of "300" is, as far as I've seen, unparalleled in American filmmaking, and that includes "The Matrix," "The Lord of the Rings," and everything else. In fact, "Rings" devotees may wish to avoid "300," because after seeing Frank Miller's widescreen illustrations come to life and start moving, leaping, hacking, gouging, tearing and bleeding all over their neighborhood IMAX, the Tolkien trilogy will be reduced to little more than the very long story of a schizophrenic Muppet and his curiously affectionate companions. And I love those movies!

The metaphor should not be taken literally, but does serve to highlight the slow, grinding, trivial and sometimes contrarian nature of politics. On our home front, discussion and debate about what is best for the country becomes surrounded by lesbian daughters, patriotism, settling scores and draft-dodging.

"300" diverges from Miller's graphic novel most obviously with the inclusion of a subplot involving Leonidas' wife Queen Gorgo, played by Lena Heady, and the politician Theron, portrayed by Dominic West. While Leonidas is battling the Persians, the Queen works to persuade Congress to bypass the nonsensical decrees of the mystic Ephors and send the rest of Sparta's army to aid the King in saving them all from obliteration. Theron, a scheming politician with an agenda that depends on the Persians winning, attempts to derail the Queen's machinations by standing before Congress and accusing the Queen of assorted scandalous activities including adultery.

To call this addition a "subplot" is somewhat misleading, as book fans are used to "subplots" in film adaptations meaning "new and generally needless changes to the text at the expense of better material they'd rather see on screen." "300" omits nothing, or at least nothing crucial, and the Queen/Theron scenes serve to actually strengthen Miller's story. Viewers get to see the fabled strength of Spartan women, not to mention the weakness of an eerily familiar Congress that allows the substance of a critical issue to be obfuscated with gossip and sensation. While the heroes of Sparta continued to fall at the hands of an unstoppable enemy, their government bickered about who was sleeping with whom.

The Spartans came to their country's (city-state's) aid:

But despite the parallels that we can draw to the scenarios depicted in "300," it's important to remember that the story is (largely) true. This battle really happened. It's not a metaphor for anything , and the connections I or any other viewer draws to the world of today are just coincidental. That the United States is currently experiencing a conflict with modern-day Persia has nothing to do with "300." Yet meaning and symbolism will by some viewers be inferred, even where this is none. To be fair, it's likely because riding shotgun with Leonidas and his 300 is so much fun.

Beware complacency, decadence, appeasement. That would be the lesson here.