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In Reply to: Analog Scott posted by DWPC on January 8, 2007 at 12:16:09:
"You were right about "300 Spartans" from 1962. I watched it Saturday and you're right...pure B-movie all the way. I forgot how cornball and mechanical it was."
This sort of thing does happen with movies from our past. especially ones like this that does have a great story.
"But I still think "300" will be as bad in the other direction."
If you let your prejudices about comic books dictate things you will likely prove yourself right...to you.
I was the makeup department head on this film. Now before you get all "I thought something was up" about it let me make a few things clear. I don't shill movies because I worked on them. I have already been paid. My opinions are based on what you would call inside information, extensive inside information really. I am every bit as critical as anybody about the movies I work on.My problem with your comments and attitude towards 300 has nothing to do with it being positive or negative. Some people will go see 300 in good faith and come away disliking it. I have no problem with that. You OTOH are pre-judging it based on your attitude towards comic books.I am not a comic book fan. In fact I have read all of two graphic novels in my life 300 being the first.That was our source so I read it several times. While it may be easy for some to dismiss the genre out of hand, 300 showed me a thing or two about such attitudes. It's damned good work of art/literature. It is anything but stupid or childish. It is beautifully rendered and very rich and complex in it's story telling. The only people I see dismissing 300 becuase it is based on a comic book are ultimately people who have neither seen the movie or read the book.
Now let me tell you what I think will happen with 300. I think it is going to be a huge hit. I think many critics will love it and many will pan it. I think it will have a huge cult following like Star Wars and LotRs. I think a good many will hail it as a landmark achievement. I have only predicted success for two other movies that I have worked on. Aliens and Star Trek First Contact. I'm not the sort that typically has unrealistic expectations about the projects I work on. This movie is going to blow people away. It will intoxicate many of it's veiwers and haunt them for days after. You will see people coming out and going straight to the end of the line to see it again and again. Mark my words.
Follow Ups:
Actually I have no problem with the "comic book" genre per se. And I actually like some of the stylized look of "300" though I think its overdone. Its Miller's transforming an important historical event into a vehicle for fantasy, e.g., war rhinos, monsters, etc. that I object to. What if in "Pvt. Ryan", Tom Hanks had done double back-flips over German war rhinos ridden by leather-clad blue orges? Geez, we're drowning in fantasy movies.Fantasy is a valid genre, but I strongly believe the boundary between it and reality, and that includes history must be plain and well-defined. Certainly license to make dull things more interesting is OK, but not to the point where it puts the factual story into question. If the Persian rhinos are fantasy, maybe that Greek tenacity is hype too.
Thermopylae may have happened almost 2600 years ago, but it was fully as important to Western history as D-Day (if not more so) and deserves to be preserved from being "Conanized" and cheapened. The story of the Greeks at Thermopylae is diminished by the "Warcraft" stuff.
1. The story, both in the book and in the movie, is literally told as a story by the one survivor around a camp fire as a story of inspiration. Both Miller and Zack Snyder as an interpretor of Miller's work chose to tell the tale form the perspective of myth. Myth can be completely made up or inspired by true events like this. There is nothing vague about the fact that this is a mythical tale of true events from the perspective of an ancient Greek with all the beliefs that go with living in that time and place.2. The history that is presented in this movie is actually remarkably accurate. Some side strories have been added to help flesh out the narrative and give us some relief from what would otherwise be a second half of a movie comprised of one relentless battle after another. The things that have been changed/turned into fantasy are more or less the visuals and some added magic, magic that was believed to be real by the people in that time and place. This is nothing new. Just look at how artists of the that time and place depicted Spartan soldies in battle. Look how artists have visually interpreted history throughout the ages. The fact is "the history" is very much in tact in 300. The visual spectacle is an artistic liberty that has been taken by artists over the centuries. Is Michelangelo's David any less great because of the technical inaccuracies? Is DaVinci's last supper discredited becuase he got the ethnicity wrong? That is just off the top of my head. The list of extreme licence taken by artists in depicting history is pretty vast. One nice thing about 300 is that artsistic licence is not ambiguous.
3. Most important is that the spirit of that great historical event is captured quite faithfully. To me that is what really matters. For some getting the costumes right will matter more. Telling the story "that few stood against many" is what matters.
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