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...and nobody watches it.

Well, except me and a bunch of friends. I already found 300 as much hilarious as I found it revolting, but it seems 300: Rise of an Empire is some sort of unintentional parody, couldn't supress giggling for the whole duration of the movie. Let's list the "highlights".

Spoilers ahead!

1.It plays the "they hate us for our freedom"-meme completely straight. According to this movie, Dareios made war on Athens and other greek cities because he hated their freedom (and not because Athens kept inciting revolts in Ionia, nosiree). O yeah, and Themistocles personally killed Dareios at Marathon. I presume just like Paul Revere killed George III. at Yorktown. Little known historical facts

2.Middle Eastern suicide bombers in 480 BC. Exactly the stereotype missing from the first movie. Glad they found the time to put it in

3.Ironclad warships some 2000 years early. Man, those Persians surely were an advanced bunch!

4.Artemisia, queen of Halikarnassos was apparently both Darth Vader and Palpatine to Xerxes, who transformed into a Goa'uld after bathing in a dark, magical pool. (yes, really)! Then there's her backstory. Her family was murdered by Greeks and she was kept for years as a chained sex-slave until rescued by the Persians...uhh...why am I supposed to root against her again?

5.A sex scene so off-putting your member will be flaccid for hours afterwards. But still giggle-worty for the juvenile nature surrounding its setup

6.Babylon (I presume that's the persian city shown) and the Persians look much more sophisticated, advanced and civilised than the Greeks, who fight and act more like Celtic or Germannic Tribesmen (complete with those huge, double bladed Viking-style battleaxes *g*). Complete with Artemisia's backstory and the awesome ironclad above...I think I'll thrown my hat in with the Evil Easterlings

7.The best one, the Athenians fight just as "tough" (and unorganized) as the Spartans. Which means the Spartans are really a bunch of sissy-boys since they need training from hell to achieve it while it seemingly comes naturally to the Athenians. Athens > Sparta, deal with it!

8.They recycle the Astinos-Artemis subplot from the first movie. O but there's an awesome twist, here...it's the father who dies in the arms of the other. Are you blown away yet?


All in all, very funny, but also very forgettable. Years of actual parodies have not been kind to this sort of movie, I give it ten Mel Gibsons out of eleven Bravehearts.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the original 300 was one of the most boring action movies I've had the displeasure of sitting through. Nevermind the implied or outright racism; I nearly fell asleep in the theater I was so bored with all the slow-mo. I can't imagine a sequel would be better.

I think they are both valuable because they give an insight into how certain right-wingers perceive the world. Big burly, caucasian men who talk enitrely in tough-guy memes and catchphrases who live in a totally militarized state fight against an overwhelming, yet strangely pathetic and cartoonishly distorted caricature of evil foreigners containing evil black people, middle eastern people, a scorned and treacherous woman , a bodily deformed eugenics refugee and a homoerotic giant.

EDIT:
Oh, and don't forget the "betrayed by big government angle". It's basically all right-wing fears condensed into two movies.

I really hate this trend of "victims of (sexual) abuse must suffer when they go up against their (righteous) tormentors" that we see in a lot of modern media right now. Centurion had a similar storyline and to some extent the abominable DLC from bioshock infinite had the same.

Metahive wrote:I think they are both valuable because they give an insight into how certain right-wingers perceive the world. Big burly, caucasian men who talk enitrely in tough-guy memes and catchphrases who live in a totally militarized state fight against an overwhelming, yet strangely pathetic and cartoonishly distorted caricature of evil foreigners containing evil black people, middle eastern people, a scorned and treacherous woman , a bodily deformed eugenics refugee and a homoerotic giant.

EDIT:
Oh, and don't forget the "betrayed by big government angle". It's basically all right-wing fears condensed into two movies.

On a related topic, Ted Cruz posted on his FB page about how Toyota is moving their HQ from California to Texas. The comments are all along that vein. Half of them (literally) blame "Liberal Parasites". It's disturbing and hilarious all at the same time.

Definitely, yeah! The sex scene I alluded to above? Artemisia trying to seduce Themistocles. What's actually disturbing about it is that Themistocles was never in danger to fall for her temptations and just used the opportunity for a quicky. Ain't he a smooth operator *vomit*?

The movie tries to make Artemisia look all evil and stuff what with her doing the Vader routine of disposing of incompetent flunkies, but with a backstory like that, it's just impossible for me to root for the Greeks, no mattter how much they shout about freedom and stuff.

Fun fact to boot - there is plenty of evidence that Persia actually treated her subjects better than most Greek states, including Sparta which was in essence a huge slavestate. Top 5% lording over everybody else and using terror campaigns to keep them in line (with all that entails)....hooray?

Also the reason why they had such a highly militarized society to begin with, when your much abused slaves outnumber you 1:20, you do better keep your swords ready. In 300 the Spartans proudly proclaim that they have no profession other than being soldiers. Hasn't anyone who watched this then asked himself where all the non-military stuff in spartan society comes from?

Metahive wrote:Also the reason why they had such a highly militarized society to begin with, when your much abused slaves outnumber you 1:20, you do better keep your swords ready. In 300 the Spartans proudly proclaim that they have no profession other than being soldiers. Hasn't anyone who watched this then asked himself where all the non-military stuff in spartan society comes from?

Of course not, because they're the white masculine heroes who let their women speak freely and talk about freedom and democracy and being free from "the old gods." Obviously they're the good guys.

Another fun fact, Persia had a way more egalitarian attitude when it comes to women, who in ancient greek society were either trophies or baby-machines (or both). The ancient Greeks were in fact so misogynist, they invented an entire all-women tribe as a bogey(wo)man, the dreaded Amazons.

The entire 300 concept is so topsy-turvy, I wonder if in 2000 years people will give the Battle of Stalingrad the same treatment.

It won't take 2000 years. "The Patriot" took place only 250 years later...

Arguably, Hollywood has already given the battle of Stalingrad its horrible doover, what with the Enemy at the gates movie.

Thanas wrote:Arguably, Hollywood has already given the battle of Stalingrad its horrible doover, what with the Enemy at the gates movie.

Nope, the proper 300 treatment would reset the whole battle into the brave, white, heroic, manly Russians who've never done anything bad and constantly espouse the glories of Communism (which woudl be portrayed as the only good system, of course) fending off the vastly numerically superior Nazis, who have inexplicably become brown people.

Even as I write that, I suspect there are a few twisted minds who think that's a great idea for a film.

C'mon, they went and turned the battle of Stalingrad into a love triangle.

Thanas wrote:C'mon, they went and turned the battle of Stalingrad into a love triangle.

Even that was a good film compared to a proper 300 treatment of Stalingrad.

A proper 300-style reversal would in my opinion turn the Sixth Army into heroes who bravely sacrificed their lives for freedom, democracy and the well-being of all of (white) humanity against the unwashed eastern horde and their naked God King Stalin* and his black sorcery called communism.







*there's an image for ya'.

Thanas wrote:C'mon, they went and turned the battle of Stalingrad into a love triangle.

Gratuitously slapping a romance plot onto a war movie is practically traditional; they were doing it simultaneous with the Battle of Stalingrad, in movie theaters around the globe.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:

Thanas wrote:Arguably, Hollywood has already given the battle of Stalingrad its horrible doover, what with the Enemy at the gates movie.

Nope, the proper 300 treatment would reset the whole battle into the brave, white, heroic, manly Russians who've never done anything bad and constantly espouse the glories of Communism (which woudl be portrayed as the only good system, of course) fending off the vastly numerically superior Nazis, who have inexplicably become brown people.

Even as I write that, I suspect there are a few twisted minds who think that's a great idea for a film.

The only thing that could possibly make it better would be if the shades of Hitler and the core National Socialist Party membership could be conjured up and forced to watch.

Metahive wrote:A proper 300-style reversal would in my opinion turn the Sixth Army into heroes who bravely sacrificed their lives for freedom, democracy and the well-being of all of (white) humanity against the unwashed eastern horde and their naked God King Stalin* and his black sorcery called communism.

I think the catch is that our current culture in the West traces ancestry from Greece, not Persia.

Any similar movie about Stalingrad two thousand years from now will be tracing ancestry either to Germany (which spits on the Nazi era) or Russia (which spits on the Nazi era). Therefore, I predict that the analogous process would make the Soviets into the heroes, not the Germans.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:

Thanas wrote:Arguably, Hollywood has already given the battle of Stalingrad its horrible doover, what with the Enemy at the gates movie.

Nope, the proper 300 treatment would reset the whole battle into the brave, white, heroic, manly Russians who've never done anything bad and constantly espouse the glories of Communism (which woudl be portrayed as the only good system, of course) fending off the vastly numerically superior Nazis, who have inexplicably become brown people.

Even as I write that, I suspect there are a few twisted minds who think that's a great idea for a film.

Vice versa. It would be about the brave, white, heroic, manly Germans, who've never done anything bad fending off the vastly numerically superior Soviets, who have inexplicably become filthy animals.

Which, if you take out the " never done anything bad" part, pretty much sums up the plot of "The Enemy at the Gates"

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Wait, when did Enemy at the Gates portray the germans as heroic or manly people?

Yeah, seriously, Ed Harris murdered that kid just to get at Jude Law. The snipers themselves were pretty much the only heroic characters, the Germans were either mooks or the main bad guy.

The Soviet hierarchy was a dick, too, but what did you expect from a Hollywood movie?

You forgot the end where the commissar goes all "oh shit communism doesn't work because the girl won't bang me" and commits suicide-by-sniper. In Hollywood, this is exactly what a man chosen purely for the strength of his political convictions would say, and retards would call it depth. Perhaps even character development, because we apparently redefined "shitty stereotypes" as "Tropes Are Not Bad".

I have to wonder how many made-in-America movies make the point of having one of the American characters say that the American Dream is bollocks and the country's founding principles are shit.

Also, on topic: dear god did I ever dodge a bullet by not seeing this. I mean I know that these guys were apparently the good guys in the first movie, but it always gets worse.

And to think I was going to see this in the cinema. Then I realised Monument Men was on and decided to see that instead. Whilst it may also be inaccurate, it was a lot more entertaining to watch the excellent cast in action.

Hey guys, I heard somewhere that movies based on comic books that are loose interpretations of history, may not be historically accurate.

Havok wrote:Hey guys, I heard somewhere that movies based on comic books that are loose interpretations of history, may not be historically accurate.

I still haven't read the comic or seen the movie, but I love the idea of it just because I want to believe that if the Spartans had access to modern film-making technology this is exactly the way they would have described the whole thing afterward.

Ralin wrote:

Havok wrote:Hey guys, I heard somewhere that movies based on comic books that are loose interpretations of history, may not be historically accurate.

I still haven't read the comic or seen the movie, but I love the idea of it just because I want to believe that if the Spartans had access to modern film-making technology this is exactly the way they would have described the whole thing afterward.

Actually no, because the Spartans themselves would never have portrayed themselves as either defenders of "freedom and democracy" or poo-poo'd "religion and mysticism" because they were A: a monarchy and B: renowned for their religious piety. O yeah, and later they waged war on Athens with the support of Persia, conquered the city and abolished democracy there.

300 and its sequel is exactly the movie dumbass late 20th/early 21st century rightwingers would make with access to modern filming equipment.