Response to Carleen’s Review
While both myself and Carleen walked out of 300 feeling satisfied, the lens through which we viewed the movie was very different. Her biggest “complaint” was that 300 was heavy on “war glorification”. I think she’s a bit shy of bullseye on this one. While certainly the movie was battle-scene heavy, I don’t think the point was that “War is Good”. I think to do any kind of movie centered around the Spartan culture is to do a movie about one war or another. That’s who they are. Their culture was a warrior culture. Their women didn’t send the men off with “Come back safely!”. They handed the men a shield and said “With it or on it”. In other words, come back victorious, or dead. To say that 300 was about the glorification of war is like saying Braveheart is about the glorification of the kilt. It’s simply a part of their culture, they trained to be fighters starting at the ripe age of 7. Having a trade was looked down upon. They were soldiers first and foremost.
One thing that has irked me about peoples criticism of this movie from the very beginning is how they are criticising it assuming that it is trying to be a historical documentary. No. It is a movie, based on a comic book Graphic Novel. Which is in turn based on a historical document well over 2000 years old. Filtered through that much time and that many different types of media, it would surprise me greatly if there were no “creative licences” taken with the factual account of what really happened. It’s a story, about a race of people that were incredible military strategists. It’s a story about a bad-ass King who sacrificed himself and his men for his country. Now, isn’t that worth relaxing your historical sphincters? Really, what story of war, or some fancy-pants General hasn’t been greatly over-exaggerated. Let’s face it, Custer didn’t have a “Last Stand”, if that man’s drawers came out clean, then I’m the Queen of England. We all know this, but you know when it comes down to it, we still like to believe that these men faced insurmountable odds and looked fine doing it.
Besides, there were so many other more powerful themes in 300 that I felt over-shadowed the theme of war: brotherhood, family, courage, perseverance and self-sacrifice. Some pretty powerful stuff.
Discussing all this with Carleen this morning, she mentioned the desire to see more of the Spartan culture, more “daily life” scenes, especially focusing on women in general. I have to say, for the most part, I agree with her on this, since Spartan women enjoyed a hefty amount of power unheard of at that time. However, the premise and focus of the movie (and I’m assuming the Graphic Novel), was on the Battle of Thermopylea. This wasn’t a movie detailing daily life of the Spartan people - it was solely about “…how few, stood against many”, to quote good King Leonidas.
Technically, the movie absolutely shined. They used CGI the way CGI is meant to be used - they BASF’ed it, i.e. they didn’t use CGI to make the movie, they used CGI to make the movie better. The battle sequences *sigh* were filmed in delicious slow motion. I get so tired of the “camera man on speed and too many espresso’s” look that is popular with so many battle scenes. Everything in this movie is slow (yup I mean a good slow), sharp and gorgeous. The soundtrack fit perfectly, so much so that after buying it I couldn’t remember a single piece of music that I heard. A clear sign that the soundtrack meshed with the film rather than dominating it.
Overall, I would say this: if you have Braveheart and/or Gladiator in your DVD rack, 300 belongs there as well.
Tara on 
stephanie on 
Carleen on 