oh crikey...

[winterbadger]

I've been seeing trailers for 300 on TV for a while now, and I have to say it looks as if it is going to reach new levels of Hollywood Abuse of History. The Spartans, fighting for democracy? THE SPARTANS? Apparently giants, rhinocerosessss, and probably giant bat-winged scaly flying monsters feature. Maybe there will be a special cameo for King George, leading the Freedom-Loving Westerners against the Evil Iranians Persians...

Really, do they have to keep making cr@p like this when there is real history to film that's so much better?

Comments

[murdergeisha.livejournal.com]

I think you might enjoy 300 a lot more if you think of it as a comic book movie rather than an historical movie.


THat said, I'm pretty annoyed at the historical inaccuraces as well. Spartans fighting in clothing? When they look like Gerard Butler? Criminal, I tell you.

[winterbadger]

This is my point: could they please stop calling these things historical and using the faintest smear of historical place and peoples' names? Can't it just be The 300 Barzabulians Take On The Army of Great Darkness And Evilness Who Are Coincidentally The Ancestors of This Week's Bogeymen? OK, that's a bit long, but you get the idea.

The actual story of the 300 Spartans (or Elizabeth I or Francis Marion or William Wallace) would be miles better IMO because the stories would be better than what Hollywood comes up with and REAL too. But at least we wouldn't have to put up with people who think that this stuff is actual history and quote to to those who know better.

And if you think "No one could be that stupid!" keep in mind that "Braveheart" sparked an actual real-world resurgence of nationalism in Scotland because a large proportion of the people who went to see it REALLY THINK IT'S ALL TRUE. Admittedly, most of those have spent far too much of their lives inside a can of lager and are convinced that soemwherer there's a big forest where a talking teddy bear and a talking toy pig share an house made out of a tree, but...

[murdergeisha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I have similar spots on my personal hell list for Braveheart (well, not Braveheart really, but definitely King Arthur) and its ilk. However, I've not seen any marketing for this movie that seem to be giving even a little bit of a hint that it's meant to be serious history. Rather, I've seen Frank Miller's name prominently displayed, lots of monsters and video game villains, people making impossible leaps, and heavy metal music. All not your thing, that's fine, but it's about a million miles from your standard procedural 'The Real Story' style historical butcherings.

In fact, if it catches on, maybe it will herald a resurgence of overblown pseudohistory, like Charlton Heston Biblical epics, and leave room in the market for more real history.

[jan-rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

The wave of anti-English sentiment in Scotland after Braveheart was absolutely sickening and mostly by fucking morons who couldn't quite bring themselves to accept that not only did all this 'history' happen several hundred years ago, it was also complete guff.


But hey, the average Scot needs no excuses to be a parochial fucktard. Calvanism, as Iain Rankin so beautifully put it, is still rife even though most Scots don't even know what it is.