Another bit. That last bit where Leonidas throws the spear at Xerxes didn't happen. Leonidas was dead at that point, and Xerxes wanted his body. The remaining Spartans of the 300 died defending his body.

(make sure you read the post before this page, it has important info in it!)

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Uxbridge: go watch a Tom Clancy movie if you're so worried about details. The crabman was in it for one second. And uh oh GUNPOWDER? Let it go. I was actually hoping to see more of these ****ed up creatures in it. The movie had a surreal sort of edge when they came on.

Sorry if having an opinion about a movie offends you. In the future I will only say great things about mediocre movies.

If you had read my post you'd see that I actually wanted to get into the film and enjoy it, but I thought adding in other-worldly creatures was going overboard.

The graphic novel was better - I think anyone who has read it would not dispute that. I just can't understand why the director saw it fit to dumb the movie down.

And the above post is right. Leonidas unfortunately did not get the chance to launch his spear at Xerxes. Most of the people in my theatre were cheering and hoping it would kill him. It follows that most people didn't know that Xerxes went through the battle perfectly unharmed.

As I said though, I wasn't expecting history. I wasn't that "worried about details". I at least thought they could be true to the nature of the graphic novel, which was apparently too taxing.

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So drawing a comparison to the "pre-emptive" strike on Iraq is pointless.

I agree, but I'm not drawing the comparison. The filmmakers are obviously trying to. After all, the U.S. never strikes first, right? We only react to perceived threats. Judging from Miller's other works, he seems bloodthirsty and extreme enough to endorse right-wing entertainment. Not that I didn't love Sin City...

And MY GOD did they luuuuuuv boys. The only difference between their pederasty and that of other Greek city-states was the agoge made it even more pronounced, required and sometimes brutal in Sparta. I guess this can be disputed, as Spartan history is spotty, but plenty of Greek historians place carnal man-boy love at the top of the list of Spartan rituals. And come on, they wrestled naked. Didn't know that about the women, though...

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and they DID fight the Persian army alone for the last half.

Yeah, maybe... or maybe they had a full 1000, along with help from other cities. Again, it's spotty. What's for sure is that they didn't go marching off by themselves on the King's whim. They were part of a much larger unit, along with several thousand of their own Spartans, and Leonidas and 300 or so of his elite stayed behind at Thermopylae to guard a passage so that the rest of the Greek army, including Spartans, could escape entrapment and regroup to continue battling the Persians, which they did. The film has Leonidas and some guys confront the entire Persian force alone.

And you're telling me the choreography was intentionally that one-sided? It looked like the Immortals had actually trained to get killed.

Look, we all know that we'll be lucky if a movie or comic like this is even remotely historically accurate. And we're lucky that it's THAT faithful to the graphic novel. Most directors would have probably raped Frank Miller. Thankfully Snyder and Rodgriguez have both stayed pretty close to the originals (granted Rodgriguez has been closer with his adaptation). But things like personal touches add to the movie.

And things like the king throwing a spear that cuts open the side of Xerxes face is ****ing awesome whether it happened or not. While I like the idea of all of the men defending the king's dead body, we all know how anti-cinematic and anti-climactic that would have been.

Honestly I think the spear bit was the best part of the movie. **** Xerxes.

the immortals were the inly ones who actually managed to kill the Spartans. The other guys sucked.

And yes, it was only the 300 spartans. None of the other spartans showed up till later.

As soon as I get home I'll reference a book for ya'll to look at. I read it for a history class and it is ALL about the battle of Thermopylae.

and I am 99.9% sure that this whole man-boy, love realtionship you are talking about never existed. (at least, not that history records anyway).

I think the significance of the spear cutting Xerxes and making him bleed instead of killing him was to show him that he wasn't a deity and bled like everyone else. If this is the intended message, then maybe Leonidas did it on purpose.

Definately, but I think he would have preferred to kill him, thats my opinion.

Based on all of the voice over proceeding that, explaining how heavy the armor was and how he needed a clear line of sight and all that, I'm fairly certain he did exactly what he meant to do. If he had killed the guy, the Persian Empire would just have found another leader. If he scarred him, he was proving Xerxes was not a deity, and could be touched.

Right before he threw the spear, the narrator talked about how heavy the armor and sword was. With all this off, it was bound to throw off the spear throw, I think his aim was to kill, but failed because he wasn't used to throwing with less weight.

No... he needed to get rid of that stuff specifically so that he WOULD be able to make an accurate target.