Talk:300 (film)/Archive 1

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Criticism section

I would like to explain my reasoning for removing the Criticism section from this film article. Wikipedia is about citing not only sources, but reliable sources. The two links you provided, a Yahoo! Message Board thread and a World's Armed Forces Forum thread, are not published and/or authoriative sources. Anyone can have dialogue on the Internet about a topic and draw controversy where there was none to be had before. There can be Internet buzz about any topic imaginable, yet Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. This does not qualify as encyclopedic material unless such controversy enters the awareness of an independent news source, online or offline. If this can be provided, then the controversy can be recognized as worthy of recording in an encyclopedic fashion. However, having the Criticism section and its content violates the policy that article structures that imply a view should be avoided. I am going to revert out the Criticism section once more, and I strongly suggest that you have dialogue here on this talk page before editing it back in. --Erik 22:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Erikster. I'd also add that Wiki isn't a crystal ball. Ascribing recent historical events as motive for a movie which has been in the pipes for a number of years is ridiculous conspiracy theory writing. IF a reliable source can be found not just dismissing the tinfoil hat wearing intarwebzzz, but actually examining the idea sa s seriosu and worthwhile topic, THEN it can be added. There are forums on which it has been posted that the movie sucks. Should we post the reviews of folks who haven't seen it? Of course not. Forums aren't WP:RS. ThuranX 22:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to follow this up with a direct link to the policy that says the message board threads are not valid sources: Bulletin boards, wikis, and posts to Usenet. --Erik 15:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Drawing a line in the sand for freedom, so that the Spartans and Athenians could go back to their cities and oppress their slaves and persecute others... Western ignorance. I hate this whole "Western supramacy" thing, it even makes the brutal savage spartans look like decent people, when infact they were more barbaric than the "barbaric" Persians are going to be portrayed in this movie. Atleast in Alexander they made Alexander gay, and so even the Greeks were pissed off... This article definetly needs a criticism section.Khosrow II 15:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we definetly need a criticism section. I'm pretty sure once we get closer to release date we'll see some crticisms that are not from online forums Klymen 20:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not a doco - anyone who watches the trailer will know it's fiction

Danlibbo 09:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Action figures for an R rated film

Do forgive my ignorance (I live in the UK so maybe thing's are a bit different regarding merchandise) but 300 is getting action figures despite being a bloody R. Does this make the film notable in the appeal, similiar to Alien/Predator/Terminator? Wiki-newbie 20:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The film is based on a comic book, so there is an action figure market based on such literature. I don't know what you mean by notable, though... seems like NECA is trying to cash in on the possible fan base that this film will generate. I don't think 300 necessarily has the fan base like Alien, Predator, and Terminator, since from what I've read, this is one of Frank Miller's "lesser" comics. This information could help track the growth of a 300 fan base, though, if it takes place. —Erik (^talk/_contrib) @ 20:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I basically meant if they're trying to get kids excited for an R flick. I suppose toys aren't just aimed for little boys Stateside then. Wiki-newbie 20:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely not. I think the company McFarlane Toys has been notable for promoting the figures for more mature audiences. Thus it wasn't a surprise to me that there were 300 action figures available. You should see the figures they came up with regarding the Wizard of Oz... —Erik (^talk/_contrib) @ 20:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Dilios

Didn't want to change this myself but wanted to state that the character of Dilios does exist in the comics and serves as the narrator, as is apparent at the end of the 5th issue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.139.164 (talk • contribs) 23:07, December 12, 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it. Thanks for the heads-up. In the future, sign your comments by typing four tildes (~) at the end of it. It will insert your signature with the time and date. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 03:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Meme

The trailer has become a 4chan meme. Include? FerventDove 02:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 02:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

On 4chan the phrase, "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA!" has become a meme recently. If you go visit 4chan for any period of time, there is a very good chance of seeing the phrase. FerventDove 05:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess it doesn't strike me as incredibly notable, as I haven't heard of this before among film articles. Have any recent films included 4chan memes in their Wikipedia articles? And where do you suggest inserting this information, if it's worthy of inclusion? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 05:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

expansion upon myspace marketing

I think some more detail should be brought to the movies sponsoring myspace's number of photos per account increasing from 16 to 300 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Norton112200 (talk • contribs) 23:06, January 4, 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if I understand the information. Does this apply to everyone who uses Myspace? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 09:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Citations for use

• "Tyler Bates scores 300". SoundtrackNet. 2006-12-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• "Set Visit: 300". IGN. 2007-01-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Rebecca Murray (2007-01-05). "Zack Snyder and Frank Miller Talk About "300"". About.com. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Daniel Robert Epstein (2007-01-06). "Frank Miller, 300 Interview". UGO. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Devin Faraci (2007-01-07). "TONIGHT WE DINE ON CRAFT SERVICES!!!!: 300 SET VISIT PART 1". CHUD.com. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Citations, mostly from set visits. Might be information that the SHH.com citation doesn't have. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Historical Inaccuracies

I added this section:

"==historical inaccuracies== 1. The 300 Spartans had 700 Thespians who fought alongside them at Thermopylae.

2. The Spartans never fought for freedom. The Spartans would be today's equivilent of Stalinesque communists. Everything in Spartan society was owned and controlled by the millitary state. Athens was the actual democracy.

3. The Persians never had a 1,000,000 man army. The Persians' strength, even at the high end, totaled no more than 250,000 soldiers.

4. The 10,000 Immortals of the Persian army never wore the grosteque-Gothic masks.

5. Spartans never lived with their wives. They lived in military barracks for most of their lives and were encouraged to have extramartial realtions and homosexual realtions. "

-intranetusa 16:06, January 14, 2007 (UTC)

I reverted your edit on the basis of original research and the fact that this film does not intend to be accurate, but purposely exaggerated. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

To intranetusa - the movie is basically fiction based on a fictional battle; "modern statistics" (size of the armies) are derived from a few ancient greeks who attempted to glorify their society. The description of the battle is entirely one sided and undoubtedly extremely exaggerated. Atleast recently historians are beggining to acknowledge these biases and are greatly decreasing their predictions of the size of the Persian army and increasing the army size of the Greek.

To Erik - Although the film makers did not create this movie with "accuracy" in mind, many ignorant viewers will not receive that picture. Thus, a criticism section is necessary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.123.213.84 (talk • contribs) 17:45, January 20, 2007 (UTC)

The issue with adding a "Historical inaccuracies" section is that you cannot take real-life facts that exist on their own and present them as contradictions to the film -- this seems to constitute original research. There should be reliable sources that are a direct criticism of the film, not just a source that is used by an editor to criticize the film for him or herself. Apocalypto, while not the best film article, has some nice reviews by anthropologists that criticized the film's historical inaccuracies. I would not oppose including such reviews, since they are directly relevant to the article. Since the film has yet to come out, the sources may be sparse at this point. As reviews from screenings, especially from historians especially of the Grecian sort, come out, we can include them. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you erik; these "facts" do not exist on their own and are not definite. Take a look:

[[1]] Also, I wanted to point out that this movie will naturally be historically inaccurate because the Persian Armies are portrayed as the antagonists, thus everything negative is attributed to them. Ironically, most people would find the ancient greeks barbaric and their morales repugnant if they were exposed to their true traditions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mavsman1 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Actually... Maybe there needs to be a misconceptions/innacuraccies page because the whole film will unfortunately create many misconceptions about both ancient persian and greek history. The movie is suppossed to be a frame by frame duplicate of the comic and if anyone has read the comic they are able to see numerous, insulting historical errors. One error includes the spartans homophobic attitudes when in reality they were notorious homosexuals and pedophiles. Also, the spartans constantly refer to the defense of freedom, when, in fact, sparta was a military state. The latter are just a couple of the copious historical mistakes. If a criticism section was created it should also emphasize that method of combat portrayed is innaccurate: the hopolites had spears with very far reach therefore they only needed to stand back in formation and protect their niche in the canyon (they fought extremely defensive unlike their portrayl as "herioc", aggressive combatants in the comic and film 300). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ron1337 (talk • contribs) 04:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

As I've said, I would not be opposed to such a section. However, any discrepancies would need to be pointed out by someone other than Wikipedia editors, such as film reviewers who are familiar with Grecian history. It can't be left up to the editors to determine the historical accuracy (or lack thereof) without citation; I've seen too many edit conflicts at a historically based film like Saving Private Ryan to support any kind of original research outlining the issues with 300. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

This movie is based on a comic book, and has such things as magic, ogres, and mutant rhinos in it. I really don't think it was meant to be historically accurate and it's not worth mentioning how it isn't so. That'd be like putting a "physical impossiblities" section in the X-Men article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.99.131.188 (talk) 01:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

I read the comic yesterday, and there are no Mutant rhinos, magic or ogres. There is one hunchback but that is about it. As so far as the comic showing the spartans as homophobic, there is one passage were the spartans refer to the Athenians as boy lovers(implying pedophilia not homosexuality). There has been some disagreement among historians over this, but it is at least arguable (in back of the sin city comics several historians sent in letters and took various sides)that the spartans were not pedophiles. Frank Miller was allegedly inspired by the movie "the 300 spartans"(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055719/). The 300 Spartans attempted to portray the Persians as the soviets and the Spartans as the anticommunist west. This is why "the 300" has this talk of freedom. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.206.228.245 (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Actually spartans were notorious homosexuals and pedophilia was a common practice in their society. Also, they never defended 'freedom' and democracy like the film synopsis on the movie's website states; their society was military ruled. If spartans were actually portrayed accurately, westerners would find them barbaric and repulsive. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.170.48.145 (talk) 01:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Although Apocalypto was a fictional movie, many historians were outraged and insulted by the historical inaccuracies and, now, wikipedia has created a historical inaccuracy section for it. I do not see why the two articles should be any different in this manner, especially since the film 300 makes vast and numerous errors when depicting both civilizations. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.170.48.145 (talk • contribs) 21:18, February 14, 2007 (UTC)

Apocalypto is not a high-quality film article by any means, but there were worthwhile citations provided by anthropologists who reviewed the film. When 300 debuts, we can include similar reviews by those who are familiar with Grecian history. In the meantime, the film has yet to come out, so I don't know if there are any citations yet that directly criticize the historical inaccuracies of the film. Also, please sign your comments by typing four tildes (~) at the end of them. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 01:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Soundtrack

• Warner Bros. Records (2007-01-19). "WB Records to Release 300 Soundtrack". SuperHeroHype.com. Retrieved 2007-01-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

—Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Watching Trailer 2 I was listening to music climax close to the end, it sounded like a Nine Inch Nails sample, Just Like You Imagined. But I could be imagining things.--Kjmoran 22:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Take a look under Marketing. You heard right -- it's the song by NIN. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 23:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess I failed to look further than the soundtrack credit. Thanks!--Kjmoran 03:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Genre

I haven't seen the movie but I've read the Comic and I've also read Herodotus, and I can tell you that it has much more historical precision than say, Braveheart or Troy (comparing the latter to the Iliad). Sure it has an artistic touch, but it doesn't mess the actual historical sequence of events, and I can assure you that at no point it uses magic. For example Spartans would carry some 35+ kg of armour and the film shows them half-naked. Ephialtes was not a deformed monster-like person and the Persians did not look like the Sex Pistols. Furthermore, unless "historical fiction" is added in films like Braveheart or Gladiator (currently described as "historical drama") then there's not even a case to open discussion here. I'm not telling you to describe it as "historical", I'm only suggesting to leave it simply as "motion picture". You on the other hand are trying to push a POV, unreferenced, and contradictory to wp practice in other articles. Hence I'm changing to "motion picture". Miskin 00:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Herodatus is the antithesis of historical inaccuracy. It is amazing that so many people believe the supposed writings of one guy 2000 years ago (only source that the west uses for the greco-persian wars), while some people don't even believe the "truth" behind recent events such as 9/11. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.170.48.145 (talk) 01:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

The talk page is not a forum for general discussion. Please limit your discussion to improving the film article. This discussion was last week -- there's no need to make commentary on discussions that have concluded. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 01:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

You're citing yourself as a reliable source in terms of your so-called knowledge of the graphic novel and Herodotus. I think you're the pot calling the kettle black. Please don't be so accusatory when you fail to reference an actual source for the graphic novel's historical accuracy besides yourself. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 00:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What you accuse me for would be valid iff I had wanted to coin the film as a "historical" one. However, I've only wanted to remove a clear POV and replace it with the "genreless", neutral description "motion picture movie". I used myself as a source in order to respond to comments about "read the article" or "the film uses magic", which used an erroneous personal perspective as an argument on the reversion. Yes, it would have been much easier for me to simply point you to Braveheart and Gladiator but I preferred to show some good will by discussing it over. The current version is equally neutral to the one I proposed; I don't see what the removal of "motion picture" can change (apart from adding the illusion of compromise). Miskin 00:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:300 (film)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I don't rate it higher than B, because it has not gone through a GAC review.--Yannismarou 21:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 21:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)