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I know i goes against the majority, but I've never been in love with 300.
If we go for "on screen faithful adaptations of an over the top comic book", i'm still 100% with Sin City.

But that's personal tastes: i don't dismiss 300 because it's not historical (what a silly objection!)... 300 is an excellent product that delivers exactly what promises and deserves its status of "iconic movie". But it's not my cup of coffee.
 
Killer Angel said:
I don't dismiss 300 because it's not historical (what a silly objection!)
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I can't tell whether you're joking or not - I sincerely hope it's the former...

At the end of the day, it's a comic-book adaptation, not a historical epic. If you like it, great, I agree some lines are very quotable and dramatic, and at least it's made clear that it is a comic-book adaptation, but personally I do like at least a decent amount of historical accuracy to go with quotable lines and awe-inspiring action - the reason I avoid heresies like Britannia.
 
Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl said:
I can't tell whether you're joking or not - I sincerely hope it's the former...
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I'm not joking. 300 is not historical, if not for the fact that the Thermopylae is true. But i've heard people say that 300 is trash because it was not logical for spartans to break formation like they do in the movie, or because there were no monsters at Serse's service.
These are not serious objections, these are dumb expectations.
It's like to watch xXx and expect plausible action scenes.

So: i don't like 300, but not because "there were no monsters in ancient Greece".
and if i don't like a superman movie, it's not because a flying dude is unreal.
 
Killer Angel said:
I'm not joking. I've heard people say that 300 is trash because it was not logical for spartans to break formation like they do in the movie, or because there were no monsters at Xerxes's service.
These are not serious objections, these are dumb expectations.
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I wouldn't say it's stupid to not expect grotesque Persian piercing-junkies, war elephants more closely related to Mumakil and oversized rhinos wearing armour and released like war dogs to feature in a film called 300 and with links to Ancient History and Spartans, because most people would expect such a film to be a historical retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, as opposed to something like Clash of the Titans which is an entirely fictional story (even the legend it is based on is still a story, not historical fact) and was always meant to be a mythological fantasy (or as per your example, Superman which is entirely fictional and where everyone expects it to be about a guy who flies). Some stories can allow for a lot more artistic licence than others and still remain credible, but others can't, and in my opinion the Battle of Thermopylae is one of the latter.

It would be like making a film called Hastings. Everyone would expect it to be a historical retelling about that famous battle in 1066, surely? But what if the creators just happened to be fans of a particular hypothetical comic book with the same name which features the English releasing war bears with armoured headdresses that charge down the hill to attack the Normans, who all wear horned helmets and nose rings, and such a scene was included in the final film with gusto? While that would delight all the comic-book geeks that would have read the obscure source material, it's going to look pretty weird to everyone else, and anyone with even the vaguest understanding of history is going to have problems with it, and I couldn't blame them.

Make no mistake, I'm not dissing artistic licence in all its forms. Artistic licence in moderation certainly makes things more fun and enjoyable - I enjoy Spartacus, which has similar sort of action-style and atmosphere to 300 (which I do think can get over-the-top sometimes) - but for any production set in a historical era, for me personally, it can't take too much historical accuracy away - case in point being Spartacus still managing to deliver a significantly greater level of historical accuracy (no punk Romans, pet Chaos Spawn or giant war-monkeys for instance) than 300. I play SPQR because as a wargame it is simpler, more action-packed, fast-paced and dynamic than its main rival, Clash of Spears, again testament to some appreciation of artistic licence, but I can still take the game seriously because it still maintains decent level of historical accuracy (indeed in the rulebook for it they go to great lengths to dispel any myths portrayed in 300, while still including some of the standout lines from the film in the special rules for Leonidas purely for fun). Getting the right balance between artistic licence and historical accuracy can be done, and thus I do frown upon any production that doesn't achieve it well enough for my tastes.

Indeed the problem with 300 is very much the same as that I have with Braveheart and Britannia - all of these productions throw too much promising potential historical accuracy away in favour of crowd-pleasing art (very much like Shakespeare plays). It's fortunate though that in 300's case a lot of the action does look very much in the style of comic books, so that when you do find out it's primarily meant to be based on a comic rather than actual ancient history, you can see that it makes more sense. In that regard 300 deserves a free pass, so I will relent on that subject (though the other two don't have this excuse). If you like it, great, if you don't like it for reasons other than historical inaccuracy, again that's fine, different people like different films, but I certainly wouldn't diss people who point out the clear historical inaccuracies in the film, because it is a valid point.
 
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And many more to come!
 
Oh, i agree with everything you've said.
That's the reason why i cannot stand many series or movies based on historical background.

However, as you've said:

Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl said:
I It's fortunate though that in 300's case a lot of the action does look very much in the style of comic books, so that when you do find out it's primarily meant to be based on a comic rather than actual ancient history, you can see that it makes more sense. In that regard 300 deserves a free pass
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well... yes. Many people were upset probably because they were expecting something else.
but i had read Miller's novel before seeing the movie, so i knew exactly what the movie was going to offer me, and i knew that the battle was just an excuse for a fantasy version of it.

I still not love 300, but i'm not going to criticize it in that regard.


EDIT: on a second thought, my example with superman was not the best one. A better one would be Capitan America, which revolves around WWII, but with a superhero. And yes, it's not historically accurate, despite the setting.
 
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I mean, 300 was very obvious in the marketing that it wasn't going to be realistic in the slightest. Even if you didn't know the comic.
For starters the spartans are halfnaked in basicly all of it, including all of the trailers, (seriously is their a scene where they aren't?). Which doesn't exactly scream "this will be historically accurate". 300 absolutely did not try to appear accurate in the slightest.

It's not like say braveheart which at least appears historically accurate at a glance.
 
I enjoyed 300 as a movie. I just had to forget that it was supposed to be historic. It has very little resemblance to history.

Much like a lot of Hollywood action movies, it is totally unrealistic in terms of fight scenes. I still enjoy it though.

If you want that, read Gates of Fire (which is a fantastic book btw)
 
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