300 (film)
An animatronic wolf and thirteen animatronic horses were also created. announced 300 s release date as March 16, 2007, On July 9, 2007, the American cable channel TNT bought the rights to broadcast the film from Warner Bros. 300 was released in North America on March 9, 2007, in both conventional and IMAX theaters. 300 opened two days earlier, on March 7, 2007, in Sparta, and across Greece on March 8. Since its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007, in front of 1,700 audience members, 300 has received generally mixed reviews.They can t believe it s as accurate as it is. He continues that the film is an opera, not a documentary. It s just in the visualization that it s crazy..
Visual effects supervisor Chris Watts and production designer Jim Bissell created a process dubbed The Crush, In July 2005, composer Tyler Bates had begun work on the film, describing the score as having beautiful themes on the top and large choir, but tempered with some extreme heaviness. The composer had scored for a test scene that the director wanted to show to Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter. The official 300 website was launched by Warner Bros.
I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I’m living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built. 300 has been spoofed in various media, spawning the This is Sparta! internet meme, 300, particularly its pithy quotations, have been adopted by the student body of Michigan State University (whose sports teams are nicknamed the Spartans), with chants of Spartans, what is your profession? becoming common at sporting events starting after the movie s release, and Michigan State basketball head coach Tom Izzo dressed as Leonidas at one student event. A single series of adult collectible action figures was created by NECA following the release of the movie itself. He praises the film for its portrayal of the Spartans heroic code, and of the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honour, while expressing reservations about its West (goodies) vs East (baddies) polarization. Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic History at the University of Toronto, states that 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society in a problematic and disturbing fashion, as well as portraying the hundred nations of the Persians as monsters and non-Spartan Greeks as weak.
When they realize Ephialtes treachery, the Arcadians retreat. It’s about the romanticizing of the Spartan “ideal,” a process that began even in ancient times, was promoted by the Romans, and has survived over time while less and less resembling the actual historical Sparta. Before the release of 300, Warner Brothers expressed concerns about the political aspects of the film s theme.
Leonidas orders a reluctant Dilios to return to Sparta to tell the Council of their sacrifice. In Sparta, Gorgo, Queen of Sparta reluctantly submits sexually to the influential Theron in exchange for help in persuading the Spartan council to send reinforcements to Leonidas. Pictures acknowledged in an official statement: ..
Herodotus fanciful numbers are used to populate the Persian army, and Plutarch s discussion of Greek women, specifically Spartan women, is inserted wrongly in the dialogue between the misogynist Persian ambassador and the Spartan king. Nunnari discovered Frank Miller s graphic novel 300, which impressed him enough to acquire the film rights. The film is a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic book, similar to the film adaptation of Sin City. Two months of pre-production were required to create hundreds of shields, spears and swords, some of which were recycled from Troy and Alexander.
to capture the style of the film in the video game, which was released simultaneously with the film in the United States. Warner Bros. Ephialtes asks to redeem his father s name by joining Leonidas, warning him of a secret path the Persians could use to outflank and surround them.
Leonidas hopes that the sacrifice of himself and his men will spur the council to defy the Ephors and all of Greece to unite against the threat to freedom and democracy (represented by Greece) posed by slavery and tyranny (represented by Persia). Along the way to Thermopylae, the Spartans are joined by Arcadians and various other Greeks. The climax of this is when the young Leonidas kills a giant wolf using an improvised spear, after which he returns to Sparta and is crowned king.
The exposure of Theron s treachery, along with their Queen s plea, prompts the Council to unite against Persia. They construct a wall at Thermopylae to contain the approaching Persian advance.
300 is a 2007 American action film adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller, and is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. As the battle rages, Spartan Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) attempts to rally support in Sparta for her husband.
Diodorus statement about Greek valor to preserve their liberty is inserted in the film, but his mention of Persian valor is omitted. Interactive Entertainment announced its intention to make a PlayStation Portable game, 300: March to Glory, based on the film.
After Leonidas departs a messenger from Xerxes appears, rewarding the Ephors for their covert support and revealing that they have been corrupted by Xerxes. Denied by the Ephors, Leonidas follows his plan anyway, deciding to set out with only 300 soldiers. Some acclaimed it as an original achievement, while others criticized it for favoring visuals over characterization and its controversial depiction of the ancient Persians. Through Dilios narration, the life of young Leonidas is depicted, chronicling his journey from a boy to a man through the Spartan doctrine of Agoge.
Meanwhile, Leonidas encounters Ephialtes of Trachis, a hunchbacked Spartan whose parents fled Sparta to spare him certain infanticide. Various critics, historians, journalists, and officials of the Iranian government including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The film s portrayal of ancient Persians caused a particularly strong reaction in Iran. Slovenian philosopher and author Slavoj Žižek defended the movie, from those who attacked it.
The conceptual art and Zack Snyder s production blog were the initial attractions of the site. At Comic-Con International in July 2006, the 300 panel aired a promotional teaser of the film, which was positively received. In April 2006, Warner Bros. He wrote that the story represents a poor, small country (Greece) invaded by the army of a much large In response to the criticisms, a Warner Bros.
While he does not require the council s permission for this, taking such a small force turns what had been a bold strategy into a certain suicide mission. Snyder relates that there was a huge sensitivity about East versus West with the studio. Outside the current political parallels, some critics have raised more general questions about the film s ideological orientation.
While it received a standing ovation at the public premiere, Variety s Todd McCarthy describes the film as visually arresting although bombastic A number of critical reviews appeared in major American newspapers. Leonidas is sympathetic to the eager warrior but rejects him, as Ephialtes cannot properly hold a shield, which would compromise the Spartans phalanx formation. Prior to the battle, the Persians demand that the Spartans lay down their weapons.
Aeschylus becomes a major source when the battle with the monstrous human herd of the Persians is narrated in the film. Knowing that these actions will precipitate a Persian attack, Leonidas visits the Ephors, ancient, leprosy-ridden priests whose blessing he needs to convince the Spartan council to authorize going to war.
The studio developed this film purely as a fictional work with the sole purpose of entertaining audiences; it is not meant to disparage an ethnicity or culture or make any sort of political statement. The original 300 creator, Frank Miller, has made the following statement about the work in question: For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we’re up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. A furious Xerxes orders his troops to attack.
Stills from the film could easily be used to promote Buns of Steel, or AbMaster, or ThighMaster. promoted 300 by sponsoring the Ultimate Fighting Championship s light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell, who made personal appearances and participated in other promotional activities. In August 2006, Warner Bros.
Only a young child is left to live. Leonidas seemingly bows in submission, allowing one of his men to leap over him and kill the general instead.
That s what I say when people say it s historically inaccurate. Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of Greek names, and states that they made good use of his published work on Sparta. This included King Leonidas (with interchangeable heads), Gorgo, Ephialtes, and an Immortal. In June 2008, producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari and Bernie Goldmann revealed that work had begun on a sequel/prequel to 300. .
As Persian archers shoot at the remaining Spartans, Leonidas rises and hurls his spear at Xerxes, cutting the King on the cheek, thus making good on his promise to make the God-King bleed. Visibly disturbed by this reminder of his own mortality, Xerxes watches as all of the Spartans are slaughtered by a massive barrage of arrows. Concluding his tale before an audience of attentive Spartans, Dilios declares that the Persian army, depleted by desertions out of fear and the heavy casualties they suffered at the hands of a mere 300 Spartans, now faces 10,000 Spartans commanding 30,000 Greeks. As the Spartans continue to defeat Xerxes forces, Ephialtes defects to the Persian king and reveals the location of the secret path.
Along the path, the band encounters a sacked & burning town, apparently caused by Persian Immortals. He proposes a strategy to repel the numerically superior Persians by using the terrain of Thermopylae (the Hot Gates); his plan involves funneling the Persians into a narrow pass between the rocks and the sea.
Collision Studios worked with Warner Bros. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant.
A.O. The film s opening was the 24th largest in box office history, although critics were divided over its look and style.
spokesman stated that the film 300 is a work of fiction inspired by the Frank Miller graphic novel and loosely based on a historical event. Leonidas refuses, and with their tightly-knit phalanx formation the Spartans use the narrow terrain to repeatedly rebuff the advancing Persian army.
a number of the music cues for the score of 300 were, without our knowledge or participation, derived from music composed by Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the motion picture Titus. Remember Us, from 300, is identical in parts to the Finale from Titus, and Returns a King is similar to the cue Victorius Titus. (See Copyright issues.) On August 3, 2007, Warner Bros.
Years later, Persian messengers arrive at the gates of Sparta demanding its submission to King Xerxes. Meanwhile, at Thermopylae, the Persians use the goat path to surround the Spartans.
Leonidas declines, promising instead to make the God-King bleed. The story is framed by a voice-over narrative by the Spartan soldier Dilios (David Wenham).
Xerxes general demands their surrender, again offering Leonidas titles and prestige. Shaun Smith and Mark Rappaport worked hand in hand with Snyder in pre-production to design the look of the individual characters, and to produce the prosthetics, props, weapons and dummy bodies required for the production. 300 entered active production on October 17, 2005, in Montreal, Post-production was handled by Montreal s Meteor Studios and Hybride Technologies filled in the bluescreen footage with more than 1500 visual effects shots.
in December 2005. Bates said that the score had a lot of weight and intensity in the low end of the percussion that Snyder found agreeable to the film. The score has given rise to some controversy in the film composer community, garnering criticism for its striking similarity to several other recent soundtracks, including James Horner and Gabriel Yared s work for the film Troy.
These people saw people’s heads off. Upwards of 600 costumes were created for the film, as well as extensive prosthetics for various characters and the corpses of Persian soldiers.
The film was shot mostly with a super-imposition chroma key technique, to help replicate the imagery of the original comic book. Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian God-King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his army of more than one million soldiers. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us.
Scott of the New York Times describes 300 as about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid, while criticizing its color scheme and suggesting that its plot includes racist undertones. Some Greek newspapers have been particularly critical, such as film critic Robby Eksiel, who said that moviegoers would be dazzled by the digital action but irritated by the pompous interpretations and one-dimensional characters. At the MTV Movie Awards 2007, 300 was nominated for Best Movie, Best Performance for Gerard Butler, Best Breakthrough Performance for Lena Headey, Best Villain for Rodrigo Santoro, and Best Fight for Leonidas battling the Über Immortal. In 2009, National Review magazine ranked 300 number 5 on its 25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years list. 300 s director Zack Snyder stated in an MTV interview that the events are 90 percent accurate. to illustrate the path of the project.
Following her address to the Council, Theron publicly betrays the Queen, prompting the councilmen to cry out in outrage and Gorgo to kill him out of rage, spilling open a bag of Persian coins from his robe. Through this narrative technique, various fantastical creatures are introduced, placing 300 within the genre of historical fantasy. 300 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD on July 31, 2007.
Warner Bros. Praising the sacrifice of King Leonidas of Sparta, Dilios leads the brave Greeks in a charge against the Persian army, beginning the Battle of Plataea. Producer Gianni Nunnari was not the only person planning a film about the Battle of Thermopylae; director Michael Mann already planned a film of the battle based on the book Gates of Fire.
He suggests that the film s moral universe would have seemed as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians. Victor Davis Hanson, National Review columnist and former professor of Classical history at California State University, Fresno, who wrote the foreword to a 2007 re-issue of the graphic novel, states that the film demonstrates a specific affinity with the original material of Herodotus in that it captures the martial ethos of ancient Sparta and represents Thermopylae as a clash of civilizations. He remarks that Simonides, Aeschylus and Herodotus viewed Thermopylae as a battle against Eastern centralism and collective serfdom, which opposed the idea of the free citizen of an autonomous polis. Touraj Daryaee, now Baskerville Professor of Iranian History and the Persiante World at the University of California, Irvine, criticizes the movie s use of classical sources, writing: Some passages from the Classical authors Aeschylus, Diodorus, Herodotus and Plutarch are spilt over the movie to give it an authentic flavor. Xerxes personally approaches Leonidas to persuade him to surrender, offering Leonidas wealth and power in exchange for his loyalty.
The heaviest borrowings are said to be from Elliot Goldenthal s 1999 score for Titus. The actors trained alongside the stuntmen, and even Snyder joined in.
Classical sources are certainly used, but exactly in all the wrong places, or quite naively. Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica and author of How to Know states that the film is an almost ineffably silly movie. The Ephors consult the Oracle Pythia, who decrees that Sparta must not go to war.
I ve shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it s amazing. Although still outnumbered, Dilios declares that the Greeks shall have victory.
Outraged, Xerxes sends in his elite guard, the Immortals, whom the Spartans dispatch. Offended by their threats and behavior, Leonidas and his guards kick the messengers down a well.
The New York Post s Kyle Smith writes that the film would have pleased Adolf s boys, However, Newsday critic Gene Seymour stated that such reactions are misguided, writing that the movie s just too darned silly to withstand any ideological theorizing. Since its opening, 300 also attracted controversy over its portrayal of Persians.
