300

[Teleku]

This historian guy rips the historical accuracy of 300 a new one.

Oh, I wasn't trying to uphold 300 for any of its historical points.  Its a complete work of fiction.  That article pretty much coresponds with what Ive heard from people in discussion back in school.  Note:  Ive only read the comic (doesn't fucking come out in Japan until god damn June), and my studies never focused on Greece at all, so I am by no means an expert on this.  Still, from what I have gathered from reading and conversations with professors about Sparta, that seems fairly accurate.  I know 300 is very much not historically accurate, but thats OK to me as long as they got the comic translated to screen in a good manner (which was a fun and great work of fiction).  300 has about the same amount of historical accurateness of Alexander or Troy, and I really hope people who watch it understand how little of basis in reality it had.  I just also hope people don't take it seriously and try to attack it for historical inaccuracy, since it certainly wasn't striving for that, heh.  May as well attack Sin City for not realistically portraying the crime problem in this country  .

[Llava]

The movie had a giant deformed troll-like berserker, a Jabba The Hutt-esque executioner with forearms made out of axes, and a woman who never cried once no matter how bad things got.  Of course it's fiction.   :-D

Seriously, anyone who thinks that was all fact should be smacked.

[Teleku]

The movie had a giant deformed troll-like berserker, a Jabba The Hutt-esque executioner with forearms made out of axes

Hmm, dont recall those in the comic, heh.  How the hell did they work a guy with forearms made out of axes into it?

Wait, this is Frank Millar.....

[Velorath]

Snyder did an interview at Suicide Girls of all places, and among other things, goes into some of his plans for Watchmen.

DRE: Can people sitting around talking be cool?

Zack: It absolutely can. Watchmen has a lot of fucking talking in it [laughs]. Dawn of the Dead had a lot of talking in it.


DRE: Talk to me about the kind of color palette you want for the Watchmen movie.

Zack: The thing about Watchmen is that I'm looking to make a movie that looks more like Taxi Driver than Dick Tracy [laughs]. People bring that up to me "Is it like Dick Tracy?" because that’s colorful. Watchmen as a printed medium references comic books itself. It goes "Look, I’m a comic book" and you read it, you're like "You're fucking blowing my mind!" But that’s what it tries to do, it draws you in by being a comic book. I think my responsibility is to draw the audience in by saying "Look I’m just a movie" and then you get in there and it fucks you up. That’s my hope anyway. It is a weird movie. When you see the trailer and you go "Okay that looks like Richard Nixon. Dude that blue guy is in fucking Vietnam, what is this?"

There’s a song you can not put in a Vietnam war movie and it’s Ride Of the Valkyries which should not be put it in any movie because of Apocalypse Now. But in Watchmen, you can imagine a sequence in Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan is 100 feet tall stomping through the jungles of Vietnam with Hueys all over him, zapping the Vietcong while Ride of the Valkyries is playing. It is transcendent of itself so you can reference Apocalypse Now and that’s okay. It is pop culture.

I’ve been drawing the storyboards and I’m very careful with sequence and things like that. There’s a sequence where Rorschach shoots his grappling gun up to the window and climbs up there. I just kept pulling shots out of the book and putting them in my boards. There’s no reason not to just shoot it like that.


DRE: I can't wait to see him shoot the grappling hook into the SWAT guy.

Zack: Yeah, that’s cool. When Nite Owl says "I made that for him!"


DRE: The best line of the whole book is when Rorschach says "I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me!"

Zack: That’s awesome. One of the things that I think is cool that in the movie there'd be a poster of Dr. Manhattan with silverware and trays floating around him and in America it would say "Superman is real and he's American." That same poster in Europe would say "God is real and he's American." That’s good shit.

I don't know, Watchmen is going to be a hard movie not to completely fuck up.

[Trippy]

I don't know, Watchmen is going to be a hard movie not to completely fuck up.

Yes it is.

[Samwise]

This historian guy rips the historical accurancy of 300 a new one.

Cool.  Maybe next he can go after The Prestige and explain to us dumb plebes how Tesla didn't actually invent a *spoiler deleted*.

[Strazos]

Seriously, it's not a documentary. However, I think the movie stayed very true to the comic, which was more-true-than-one-would-expect to the historical source material.

Also, comparing 300 to drek like Troy is a travesty.

[stray]

Troy was crap for sure, but I do see similarities in how the combat styles of Achilles and the Spartans were portrayed. The spear/sword and board choreography were similar. Very...umm...multi-directional.

...

Anyways, I have to challenge the hype for a second here (not necessarily hype at this site, but hype everywhere)....

I appreciate 300 for what it is, but I have to say that this type of film could be done even better. I don't necessarily think it needs "historical accuracy" to be improved either (I'm hardly picky about that). It just needs as much cerebral as there is visceral. Better dramatic elements, etc..

Basically, if Rome and 300 were fused into one project, then it'd be the greatest film of it's type.

But in the end, if I can't have both, then I'd end up taking Rome over this. On it's own, it's better than 300.

[Trippy]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070312

[HaemishM]

Hey Professor, you missed the fucking point.

It's an epic, mythological retelling. It's not history, nor was it ever meant to be. And you likely missed all the subtlety in the original graphic novel in the first place. It's an example of Miller's archetypal storytelling, where characters are not human, but emobodiements of archtype. Criticizing its history is like criticizing the Martha Washington stories for not being accurate enough.

300 = Fiction.

[Endie]

Exactly, Haemish.  I mean, I'm no staunch disciple of Saussure, but any historian who says that Miller's re-telling isn't historically accurate, then justifies this with reference to Herodotus (he of the giants, the magic and mystical beasties) is well off-base.  Cicero wasn't altogether sure about the veracity of some of Herodotus, after all, and that was two millenia ago.  It doesn't mean that the Histories aren't evocative, readable and downright useful.

Anyway, still a week before I can see the damn film myself.  Trailers and the book are not sufficient.

[Merusk]

The professor's problem is he's too close to the matierial on a daily basis to have anything BUT a myopic view of things.

Kind of like how in every "crucial document" film, people here ask aloud "Wtf, does nobody make backups?" or I snicker at 'architects' in movies/ tv always carrying bundles of shit and hunching over drafting boards.

[Bunk]

It may have even been in this thread, I can't remember - I've looked at so many - but the best "explanation" I've heard yet for 300, is to take it as this is how the Narator described the events in an effort to rile up his troops before a battle.

Essentially, it's the visual representation of a military rah rah speach.

[Lantyssa]

Well, it kind of is considering.

[Ironwood]

The professor's problem is he's too close to the matierial on a daily basis to have anything BUT a myopic view of things.

Kind of like how in every "crucial document" film, people here ask aloud "Wtf, does nobody make backups?" or I snicker at 'architects' in movies/ tv always carrying bundles of shit and hunching over drafting boards.

Backups are important.

Really, really, really fucking important.

 

[Lantyssa]

*hugs Ironwood*

[Abagadro]

This film made me feel like I need to hit the gym.

[Ironwood]

*hugs Ironwood*

Cheers honey, I need that.

I heard an interview with the 'King of Sparta' last night and was shocked that he's not only an unknown actor, but a Scot to boot and one who, on the radio, sounded exactly like me.

This will probably be a good party trick from now on, coming onto TS and shouting lines from 300.

[Endie]

I heard an interview with the 'King of Sparta' last night and was shocked that he's not only an unknown actor, but a Scot to boot and one who, on the radio, sounded exactly like me.

As I mentioned a page or two back, he's come a long way since he made that weepy nonsense "Dear Frankie" set in my native Greenock.  But I thought the Scottishness was pretty obvious from the trailer, especially where he shouts.  Lowland Scots is, I maintain, the very best accent for aggression, shouting and swearing.  Proud boasts :)

This will probably be a good party trick from now on, coming onto TS and shouting lines from 300.

My work has been full of "This is probably the line with the problem in it..."  "No!  This!  Is!  Spartaaaa!"

[Llava]

This film made me feel like I need to hit the gym.

No better way to feel horrible about your body than to watch 300 guys with abs like the rocky fucking mountains running around in loin cloths.

<sigh>

I need to exercise harder.

[Lantyssa]

Wouldn't that hurt your goth-cred?

[Llava]

That's Trent Reznor.

The new goth thing is to get completely ripped, I think.

[shiznitz]

This film made me feel like I need to hit the gym.

No better way to feel horrible about your body than to watch 300 guys with abs like the rocky fucking mountains running around in loin cloths.

<sigh>

I need to exercise harder.

Some of those guys were cut, sure. But who knows how much ab-airbrushing happened after filming.

[MrHat]

Lots.

Oh, and.

You fucking girls.

 :-D

[Endie]

Wouldn't that hurt your goth-cred?

I'm a goth, a surfer and I play rugby.  The whole wearing fishnet on the arms and looking aenemic thing is so 1984-Batcave.  I saw Alien Sex Fiend and realised I needed to do some weights.

[Llava]

You fucking girls.

That's the point, the idea is to do exactly that.

(Tried phrasing it 6 different ways, hard pun to make.)

[Merusk]

Trent's Goth? Here I always put a line in my head between Industrial and Goth.

Besides, Trent's from Cleveland.  We didn't have Goths in Cleveland when he and I were growing up.  We had 'Skaters'.

[Endie]

Trent's Goth? Here I always put a line in my head between Industrial and Goth.

Besides, Trent's from Cleveland.  We didn't have Goths in Cleveland when he and I were growing up.  We had 'Skaters'.

When I saw them on their Pretty Hate Machine tour they were utterly, unmistakably Goth.

[Merusk]

The band he had working with him was, yeah.  (Pretty Hate Machine was Trent's vocals mixed-in with various local bands so he was the band. Dunno how that works these days.)   Guilt by association, I guess, so yea I suppose he is.  Ko, then.   Still, can't recall ever seeing a Goth in Cleveland.. But then there weren't "Mall Goths" back then, either.

[MrHat]

But this isn't Cleveland.


THIS

[Endie]

IS

[Llava]

SPARTA!!!

[Margalis]

Nice teamwork there. cough Nerds cough.

[Merusk]

It took 'em long enough, tho.

[Trippy]

Yes, nice work, especially considering the delay between the first two.