The 300

[Nameless]

Wow. Why are ppl looking for this movie to be historically accurate? It's based on a comic book, not the actual events. Guess what, a man coming from a far off galaxy who can fly around and burn you up by staring at you is physiologically inaccurate, but we love Superman anyway. Spiders don't give you superpowers either and nobody grew up with bone claws popping out of their hands. All things inaccurate and 300 is no different. Hell, they didn't even put 'based on a true story' anywhere in the advertisements.

What you really gloss over, for those who saw it, was this was a story told by a soldier who survived to other soldiers to pump them all up. He exaggerated (and also had no idea what an elephant or rhino was) to make the enemy seem insurmountable, but yet the 300 thrived in battle against them.

The director made a more than faithful interpretation of the Frank Miller story. I get it if you have a problem, but your problem is with the wrong person.

The thermopiles battle really happened. There was really 300 spartans lead by King Leonidas. They really were outnumbered and really killed more persians than they were (though the fight ended into the Persian camp where the spartans stormed and almost reach the tent of Xerces). SO why we are expecting some realism? Because it is an historical fact well documented IMO. If it was based solely on a fantasy I would understand but it is not.

No but it really is. I mean that's cool that you know all this history (I've found this thread interesting since it's revival) but all you have to do is watch the movie and understand that historical accuracy is not what you're going for. I'm sure plenty of myths throughout history were actually rooted in something that actually happened then glorified to capture people's imagination. Seriously, it's a comic book film interpretation. Like Killface said, hold it against Frank Miller not the film.

300 is a historically-inspired comic book (later collected as a graphic novel) written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Lynn Varley. The comics itself is true inspired history, they just put some funny color and a specific art around it, which I have no problem about; They can depict an historic event with colors and with the style they want (more or less), my problem is definitely how they fucked up things in the process, if it would only slightly modify some stuff to make the history fit better together, I am all ok with it; they did the same for LOTR and though some details irked m e seriously, the overall was quite ok but in 300....
Thus said, I agree that many things in history have been pulled by the hairs to inspire men etc. However, 300 isn't exactly the case as there is many different records from various sources that seem to corroborate that battle. The spartans were amazing fighters and superbly organized but to hold on against 250 000 men with solely the help of 7000 soldiers with them,they need another ally; The ground battle was more than perfect for that kind of battle otherwise no matter how good they were, 250 000 would have simply steamrolled them.