300 Spartans movie

[lussigagas]

300 is a great movie full of visual effects and graphics which made it different and much better.
Acting was great, director did a wonderful job and chose great actors, full of action, and it is based on a true story.

[dani87]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

I'm going to watch it tomorrow....

[Selpak]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

it is based on a true story

are you sure about it?

[Ari]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

these movies have been done to death and braveheart is still #1

[TomServo]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

these movies have been done to death and braveheart is still #1

Why? Because an Aussie directed and starred in it?

So Taxi Driver must be #2 then?

[Thai-Samurai]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

lame

[icoN]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

Yeah it's a good movie, just wondering didn't the Armenians serve in the Persian Empire and maybe in the Spartan/Persian Empire war?

[ArmSurvival]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

The worst mistake someone can make is to think that the movie "300" can teach them something about real history. It is nothing more than a hollywood blockbuster made to make profit. Its based on a true story, but thats where it ends.

In fact, you can argue that Achaemenid Persia was much more free than Sparta at this time. Sparta had democracy only for its citizens, which consituted much less than 10% of the population of Sparta. In the Persian Empire they had universal human rights for all, established by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century, B.C. Also, while Spartans had slaves in their society, the Persians paid all their workers, so technically there was no slave class.

Braveheart is not very accurate either, but as a movie, it was good.

[alby]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

Thank you ArmSurvival for telling it as it is. Don’t anyone forget that movies are made to sensationalize and distort facts and they do it all the time.
A recent example is Last King of Scotland. Many may think that the movie was based on real story but they would be hundred percent wrong. The only thing real in the movie was using the name Idi Amin Dada, everything else was fictional. Same holds true for 300. As beautiful as it may be for its visual work, it is not a true story; it is only based on a true story.

Here is a link to a related documentary, it's very interesting to watch.
http://http://www.spentaproductions....ew_english.htm

Below are some excerpts of articles regarding 300 that might interest you. Don’t read I tall but just glance through it and come to the right conclusion.

In 498 BCE, Athens carried out a terrorist attack on Sardis, a major Persian city, which made 9/11 seem like child's play. Aristagoras, an Athenian, set fire to the "outlying parts" of Sardis trapping most of its population "in a ring of fire." (Herodotus 5:101)

More innocent civilians died at the hands of Aristagoras than Osama bin Laden could ever hope to kill. And just as most of the world supported America's retaliation against Al Qaeda, so did it rally in support of Persia's attack on Athens.

The Spartans were not even targets of Persia's attack, until they violated a universal protocol by killing a Persian messenger who Herodotus claims was asking for Sparta's submission but in reality was probably sent by Persia's king, Xerxes to convey the same message George Bush sent to the entire world after 9/11: "you're either with us, or against us."

The Spartans were Greek Jihadists who lived only to die. They were by all accounts ruthless savages who murdered Greek slaves known as "Helots" just for sport, cultivated a culture of thievery and rape, and practiced infanticide, as the movie '300' rightly points out in its opening scenes. Sparta was not even democratic. It was an oligarchy at best. Despite knowing all this, the West continues to hail the Spartans as the saviors of Western democracy.

Yes, the Spartans died fighting a foreign invader. But so do countless Iraqi insurgents, yet few of us would consider them good guys. Those who do are then not much different from Westerners who cheer for the Spartans. Rooting for the Spartans merely because they were underdogs is like rooting for Osama bin Laden today.

History is no longer written by the victors, it is written by filmmakers. When will the children of Persia rise up and fight back using the same weapon Hollywood has used for years to denigrate the legacy of their ancestors? When will we abandon our defensive posture and begin to write our own history again?

Perhaps the movie '300' was a necessary wake up call. But Persia bashing will never disappear on its own. It is the main villain in the Western saga. The only way it will change is through the power of film.

Alex Jovy's epic movie about Cyrus The Great could have done wonders for the Iranian image. Instead it sits idle for lack of money. My documentary film about Cyrus The Great (www.spentaproductions.com) has languished for the mere want of $400,000.

Iranians are the most affluent minority group in America. If we set our minds to it, we can achieve anything. This Nowruz, I hope all Iranians will resolve to finally unite in an effort to redeem the reputation of our ancestors.

--------------

Cyrus' Cylinder: Considered as History's First Declaration of Human Rights
in Ancient Times is today displayed at the British Museum.
©British Museum, London

But America's founding fathers new better. They were not swayed by Herodotus. They implemented many safeguards to protect freedom from the pitfalls that mired Athenian democracy. Even Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others which have been tried."



Democracy may well be the best form of government. But what makes America great is not so much democracy as it is its Bill Of Rights. And this is exactly what made Persia Great. Democracy can often lead to tyranny by the majority as was the case in democratic Athens, where women, slaves and foreigners did not have the right to vote.



In monarchic Persia, however, women enjoyed a level of gender equality unmatched even to this day, and slavery was not practiced. The fact is, Persia's monarchy was more free than Athens' democracy, all because of Persia's Bill Of Rights.



No one exemplifies Persia's freedom better than Herodotus himself. He describes Athens as the bastion of freedom, yet he chose to live in Persia. Xenophon, on the other hand, who actually lived in Athens, reminisces enviably about the monarchy of Cyrus The Great?



Herodotus claims Persia had enslaved most of the known world, yet we know Herodotus was not a slave. He traveled freely throughout the empire, openly criticizing it.



Why did Herodotus not live in Greece? Because Persia - the empire he is so quick to demonize - afforded him the very freedom to publish his scathing report of it. People want to live where their god-given rights are protected, regardless of whether its democratic or monarchic. These god-given rights were first drafted into law by the founder of the Persian empire, Cyrus The Great. In fact, ancient Persia may well have served as the blue print for America's Bill Of Rights. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the architects of America's Constitution, were great admirers and owned several copies of Xenophon's Cyropaedia.



Today, no other country resembles ancient Persia as closely as does the United States. If any country should sympathize with, rather than celebrate, Persia's quagmire in Greece it is the United States. Few events in history mirror America's war on terror as closely as Persia's war on Greece.



The Greeks had been carrying out terrorist attacks on Persian holdings for years. They had attacked Persian cities, set fire to Persian temples, disrupted key trade routes, and pirated merchant ships crossing the Bosphorus. They incited rebellions inside Persian provinces, but perhaps most abhorrent to the Persians was the ease by which the Greeks broke their treaties and betrayed Persia's trust.



Rather than resort to violence, however, Persia tried to keep the Greeks in check by financially supporting Greek politicians who were "pro-Persian," much the same way America fights its proxy wars. But what finally triggered Persia's wrath was an act rarely mentioned in the West, though well documented, even by Herodotus (7:11).

[Wind]

Re: 300 Spartans movie

I saw that movie a few time and even though it wasn't historically accurate the battle scenes were still amazing.