Leonidas, King of Sparta at the Hot Gates

[carvel2]

And on the spear point too please ...pretty please

[Correus]

And on the spear point too please ...pretty please

Carvel's got a point there (no pun intended) - what's wrong with you man....getting old?

[Cubster]

I actually once held both etertiny and infinity in the palm of my hand, but I put them down to hold my pint and when I turned round the barmaid had wiped them up and put them in the bin. Weird huh?

[Phil]

DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA

[Correus]

Holy Smoke Batman!!! For a minute there I thought BD was back!!!!

[Ghostmojo]

Nice figures. Interesting. And fun. But not historically accurate in any way...

300 was a mixed blessing in my view. I am a huge student and devotee of all things Spartan and have been reading and discussing them for far too many years! It was great to see the period being covered - albeit via the Frank Miller re-imagining route - rather than actual history - but I wonder whether it clouded the subject too much. It was after all more Tolkien than Herodotos!

One day somebody will make a film that does the subject justice in a way that neither "300" nor the early 1960's sword & sandals effort "The 300 Spartans" did. In fact Michael Mann had intended to do so about a decade ago. Both George Clooney and Bruce Willis were interested in being the lead. Those that had read the treatment said it made Gladiator look like a picnic! We definitely missed out there. Gerard Butler was pretty good in 300 but really miscast - Leonidas I of Sparta would have been at least in his mid 50s (possibly nearer 60) at Thermopylai.

The lambda device if was used (I think it was - but there is a counter argument that is wasn't) probably didn't appear until either just before or during the Peloponnesian Wars - some fifty or so years after the events of 480 BC - and was certainly painted. The hoplite shield - the aspis - was made of wood with a thin bronze face. Some of them weren't even faced with metal but with leather or just the wood - and in any event would have been painted - never embossed.

300 is good fun and great cinema. I actually had the Frank Miller comic books years before the film was made (I like the genre). But it is utter rubbish when it comes to history and the almost homoerotic, leather-thonged heroes with their implausibly long capes and bin-lid shields etc. are Hollywood junk history - not the real thing

[Hedwerx]

I like that, although he's not really helping the shieldwall by leaping around like that..

A guy I know got very crotchety about the movie, calmed down when I pointed out it was more a fantasy film with a flimsy historic background. "They didn't have Goblins in Ancient Greece!" He cried.
Well no.. That's one of the markers that point out it's a fantasy movie. Albeit one with stunning cinematography.

I like to think of it as maybe how someone at the time might imagine the story as it's told to them.
Those crazy foreigners with their monsters and freakish warriors.

[Thaddeus]

I like to think of it as maybe how someone at the time might imagine the story as it's told to them.
Those crazy foreigners with their monsters and freakish warriors.

Exactly! It's not supposed to be history, it's pro-Spartan propaganda. That's why the Persians are grenade-chucking mutants, and the Helots aren't even mentioned...

[Ghostmojo]

Yeh and with the 300 Spartiates just part of 8000+ plus Greeks there, and no real mention of the 700 Thespians or 400 Thebans still hanging around into extra time - it is well full of deficiencies!

But entertaining nonetheless. I hear there is a follow-up planned. Something like 300-Empire or suchlike - can't remember exact title ...

[Cubster]

It's a comicbook movie adaptation.

Read the graphic novel and it's the movie, almost exactly.