300 is a American
actionAction movies are a film genre wherein the story is largely told through physical action as opposed to dialogue. The action typically involves individual efforts on the part of the hero. While action has long been an element of films, the "Action film" as a genre of its own began to develop in the...
film adaptationFilm adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even other films...
of the
graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using the comics form. The term is employed in a broad manner, encompassing non-fiction works and thematically linked short stories as well as fictional stories across a number of genres.Graphic novels are typically...
of the same name by
Frank MillerFrank Miller is an American writer, artist and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
, and is a fictionalized retelling of the
Battle of ThermopylaeThe Battle of Thermopylae took place over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae . It was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by Sparta,...
. The film was directed by
Zack SnyderZack Snyder is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name, and...
, while Miller served as
executive producerAn executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the filmmaking or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production. Typically an executive producer handles business and legal issues. See also associate producer, co-producer, line producer...
and consultant. The film was shot mostly with a
super-impositionIn graphics, superimposition is the placement of an image or video on top of an already-existing image or video, usually to add to the overall image effect, but also sometimes to conceal something .This technique is used in cartography to produce photomaps by superimposing grid lines, contour lines...
chroma keyChroma key is a technique for mixing two images or frames together, in which a color from one image is removed , revealing another image behind it. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay , greenscreen, and bluescreen...
technique, to help replicate the imagery of the original comic book.
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
n
King LeonidasLeonidas was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery...
(
Gerard ButlerGerard James Butler is a Scottish actor known for his portrayal of King Leonidas in 300, The Phantom in the 2004 film version of The Phantom of the Opera, Gerry Kennedy in P.S. I Love You, One Two in RocknRolla, Mike Chadway in The Ugly Truth and Clyde Shelton in Law Abiding Citizen...
) and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against
PersianThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
"God-King"
XerxesXerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah of the Achaemenid Empire.Xerxes was the son of Darius the Great and his wife Atossa...
(
Rodrigo Santoro-Life and career:Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. In 1993, as Santoro was studying Journalism at PUC-Rio, he entered the Actor's Workshop of Rede Globo...
) and his army of more than one million soldiers. As the battle rages, Spartan Queen Gorgo (
Lena HeadeyLena Headey is an English actress known for playing Sarah Connor on Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as well as appearing in such films as The Remains of the Day, Possession, The Brothers Grimm and 300....
) attempts to rally support in Sparta for her husband. The story is framed by a
voice-overVoice-over is a production technique where a non-diegetic voice is broadcast live or pre-recorded in radio, television, film, theatre and/or presentation....
narrative by the Spartan soldier
DiliosAristodemus was a Spartan warrior, one of the many sent to the Battle of Thermopylae. He was one of only two survivors as he was not present at the last stand...
(
David WenhamDavid Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300. He is also known in his native Australia for his role as Diver...
). Through this narrative technique, various fantastical creatures are introduced, placing
300 within the genre of
historical fantasyHistorical fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy, related to historical fiction, which makes use of specific elements of real world history. It generally takes place prior to the 20th century.-Overview:...
.
300 was released in both conventional and
IMAXIMAX is a motion picture film format and projection standard created by Canada's IMAX Corporation. The traditional version of IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
theaters in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
, Blu-ray, and
HD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisaged to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
on July 31, 2007. The film's opening was the 24th largest in
box officeA box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall, or at a wicket...
history , although critics were divided over its look and style. Some acclaimed it as an original achievement, while others criticized it for favoring visuals over
characterizationCharacterisation is the process of conveying information about characters in narrative or dramatic works of art or everyday conversation. Characters may be presented by means of description, through their actions, speech, or thoughts....
and its controversial depiction of the ancient Persians.
Plot
Through Dilios' narration, the life of young
LeonidasLeonidas was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery...
is depicted, chronicling his journey from a boy to a man through the
SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
n doctrine of
AgogeThe agoge was a rigorous education and training regime for all male Spartan citizens, except for the first born son in the ruling houses, Eurypontid and Agiad...
. 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. Years later, Persian messengers arrive at the gates of Sparta demanding its submission to King
XerxesXerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah of the Achaemenid Empire.Xerxes was the son of Darius the Great and his wife Atossa...
. Offended by their threats and behavior, Leonidas and his guards kick the messengers down a well. Knowing that these actions will precipitate a Persian attack, Leonidas visits the
EphorAn ephor was an official of ancient Sparta...
s, ancient priests whose blessing he needs to convince the Spartan council to authorize going to war. He proposes a strategy to repel the numerically superior Persians by using the terrain of
ThermopylaeThermopylae is a location in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity...
(the Hot Gates); his plan involves funneling the Persians into a narrow pass between the rocks and the sea. The Ephors consult the Oracle
PythiaThe Pythia was the priestess presiding over the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited with giving prophecies inspired by Apollo, giving her a prominence unusual for a woman in male-dominated ancient Greece. The Delphic oracle was...
, who decrees that Sparta must not go to war. 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. 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. 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
ArcadiansArcadians can refer to:* Residents of Arcadia, Greece* The Arcadians , a 1909 long-running musical theatre comedy* Arcadians , a 1982 computer game by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron-See also:...
and various other
GreeksThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
. Along the path, the band encounters a sacked town burning on fire, apparently caused by Persian Immortals. Only a young child is left to live. They construct a wall at Thermopylae to contain the approaching Persian advance. Meanwhile, Leonidas encounters Ephialtes, a hunchbacked Spartan whose parents fled Sparta to spare him certain infanticide. 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 is sympathetic to the eager warrior but rejects him, as Ephialtes cannot properly hold a shield, which would compromise the Spartans'
phalanx formationThe phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...
.
Prior to the battle, the Persians demand that the Spartans lay down their weapons. Leonidas refuses, and with their tightly-knit phalanx formation the Spartans use the narrow terrain to repeatedly rebuff the advancing Persian army. Xerxes personally approaches Leonidas to persuade him to surrender, offering Leonidas wealth and power in exchange for his loyalty. Leonidas declines, promising instead to make the "God-King" bleed. Outraged, Xerxes sends in his elite guard, the
ImmortalsThe "Immortals" were an elite force of soldiers who fought for the Achaemenid Empire...
, whom the Spartans dispatch. As the Spartans continue to defeat Xerxes' forces, Ephialtes defects to the Persian king and reveals the location of the secret path. When they realize Ephialtes' treachery, the Arcadians retreat. Leonidas orders a reluctant Dilios to return to Sparta to tell the Council of their sacrifice.
In Sparta,
Gorgo, Queen of SpartaGorgo was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named...
reluctantly submits sexually to the influential Theron in exchange for help in persuading the Spartan council to send reinforcements to Leonidas. 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. The exposure of Theron's treachery, along with their Queen's plea, prompts the Council to unite against Persia. Meanwhile, at Thermopylae, the Persians use the goat path to surround the Spartans. Xerxes' general demands their surrender, again offering Leonidas titles and prestige. Leonidas seemingly bows in submission, allowing one of his men to leap over him and kill the general instead. A furious Xerxes orders his troops to attack. 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. Although still outnumbered, Dilios declares that the Greeks shall have victory. Praising the sacrifice of King Leonidas of Sparta, Dilios leads the brave Greeks in a charge against the Persian army, beginning the
Battle of PlataeaThe Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara, and the Persian Empire of...
.
Cast
- Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor known for his portrayal of King Leonidas in 300, The Phantom in the 2004 film version of The Phantom of the Opera, Gerry Kennedy in P.S. I Love You, One Two in RocknRolla, Mike Chadway in The Ugly Truth and Clyde Shelton in Law Abiding Citizen...
as King LeonidasLeonidas was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery...
: King of Sparta
- Lena Headey
Lena Headey is an English actress known for playing Sarah Connor on Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as well as appearing in such films as The Remains of the Day, Possession, The Brothers Grimm and 300....
as Queen GorgoGorgo was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named...
: Queen of Sparta
- Dominic West
Dominic West is an English actor best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.-Biography:...
as Theron: A corrupt (fictional) Spartan politician
- David Wenham
David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300. He is also known in his native Australia for his role as Diver...
as Dilios: Narrator and Spartan soldier
- Vincent Regan
Vincent Regan is a British film and television actor.-Career:Regan has over 15 stage roles to his credit, most recently as Achilles in Troilus and Cressida at the Edinburgh International Festival. In association with The Royal Shakespeare Company, the festival presented director Peter Stein's...
as Captain Artemis: Leonidas' loyal captain and friend
- Tom Wisdom
Tom Wisdom is a British actor of theatre, film and television. His film roles includes the downtrodden hero of Danny Patrick's Hey Mr DJ and Astinos in 300 , based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae.-Personal Life:Tom Wisdom is of British and Japanese heritage...
as Astinos: Captain Artemis' eldest son
- Andrew Pleavin
Andrew Pleavin is an actor known for his appearances in the TV film Attila, Unstoppable, Batman Begins, Attack of the Gryphon, Return to House on Haunted Hill and his roles in the British police dramas Messiah III: the Promise and the Bill...
as Daxos: Arcadian soldier
- Andrew Tiernan
-Theatre:Tiernan began acting with the Birmingham Youth Theatre and moved to London in 1984 to study a three-year Diploma in Acting at the Drama Centre London run by Christopher Fettes and Yat Malmgren...
as Ephialtes: Deformed Spartan outcast
- Rodrigo Santoro
-Life and career:Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. In 1993, as Santoro was studying Journalism at PUC-Rio, he entered the Actor's Workshop of Rede Globo...
as King XerxesXerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah of the Achaemenid Empire.Xerxes was the son of Darius the Great and his wife Atossa...
: King of Persia
- Stephen McHattie
-Career:A graduate of American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he has appeared in many films and television shows including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Highlander: The Series, and American Playhouse's Life Under Water...
as The Loyalist: A loyal Spartan politician
- Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender is a German-born Irish actor. He played Azazeal in the Sky One television series Hex. Other credits include Band of Brothers and the Zack Snyder epic film 300 in which he plays Spartan soldier Stēlios...
as SteliosDienekes or Dieneces was a Spartan soldier present at the Battle of Thermopylae. He was acclaimed the bravest of all the three hundred Spartiates selected to fight in that battle. Herodotus related the following anecdote about Dienekes:...
: Young and spirited Spartan soldier
- Peter Mensah
Peter Mensah is an actor who has appeared in such films as 300, Hidalgo, Tears of the Sun, Jason X, Harvard Man, Bless the Child and has made television appearances in Star Trek: Enterprise, Tracker, Witchblade, Blue Murder, Relic Hunter, Earth: Final Conflict, Highlander: The Raven and La Femme...
as Persian messenger
- Kelly Craig
Kelly Craig is a Canadian model and actress from Montreal.She is best known for her work in modeling. She was featured in the April 2006 edition of ELLE Canada and ELLE Québec....
as the OracleThe Pythia was the priestess presiding over the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited with giving prophecies inspired by Apollo, giving her a prominence unusual for a woman in male-dominated ancient Greece. The Delphic oracle was...
- Tyler Neitzel
Tyler Max Neitzel is an American actor. He played Young Nathan in the 1999 movie Wednesday's Child, and Young Blake in The Big Brass Ring ....
as Young Leonidas
- Robert Maillet
Robert Maillet is a Canadian professional wrestler and actor known for his tenure in the World Wrestling Federation , as a member of the Truth Commission and the Oddities as Kurrgan.-Career:Maillet spent some time in Japan working for the W*ING promotion as Goliath El Gigante...
as Über Immortal (Giant)
- Patrick Sabongui
Patrick Sabongui is a Canadian actor and stuntman.He was born in Montreal, Quebec to Egyptian parents. His father, Wadid Sabongui, is a psychologist and his mother, Leila Rizkalla, is a French educator and librarian...
as Persian General
Production
Producer Gianni Nunnari was not the only person planning a film about the
Battle of ThermopylaeThe Battle of Thermopylae took place over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae . It was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by Sparta,...
; director
Michael MannMichael Kenneth Mann is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
already planned a film of the battle based on the book
Gates of FireGates of Fire is a 1998 historical fiction novel by Steven Pressfield that recounts the Battle of Thermopylae through Xeones, a Spartan Helot and the sole Greek survivor of the battle.Gates of Fire is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list...
. Nunnari discovered Frank Miller's
graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using the comics form. The term is employed in a broad manner, encompassing non-fiction works and thematically linked short stories as well as fictional stories across a number of genres.Graphic novels are typically...
300, which impressed him enough to acquire the film rights.
300 was jointly produced by Nunnari and Mark Canton, and Michael B. Gordon wrote the script. Director
Zack SnyderZack Snyder is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name, and...
was hired in June 2004 as he had attempted to make a film based on Miller's novel before making his debut with the remake of
Dawn of the DeadDawn of the Dead is a American horror remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly...
. Snyder then had screenwriter Kurt Johnstad rewrite Gordon's script for production and Frank Miller was retained as consultant and executive producer.
The film is a shot-for-shot adaptation of the
comic bookA comic book is a magazine made up of narrative artwork, often accompanied by dialog and often including brief descriptive prose...
, similar to the film adaptation of
Sin CitySin City is an ensemble cast American action/crime/thriller film written, produced, and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
. Snyder photocopied panels from the comic book, from which he planned the preceding and succeeding shots. "It was a fun process for me... to have a frame as a goal to get to," he said. Like the comic book, the adaptation also used the character Dilios as a narrator. Snyder used this narrative technique to show the audience that the surreal "Frank Miller world" of
300 was told from a subjective perspective. By utilizing Dilios' gift of storytelling, he is able to introduce fantasy elements into the film, explaining that "Dilios is a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth." Snyder also added the
sub-plotA subplot, sometimes referred to as a "B story" or a "C story" and so on, is a secondary plot strand that is auxiliary to the main plot.Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
in which Queen Gorgo attempts to rally support for her husband.
Two months of
pre-productionPre-production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- Information :In the film industry, pre-production usually only commences once a project has been developed and is greenlit...
were required to create hundreds of shields, spears and swords, some of which were recycled from
TroyTroy is a 2004 epic/action film concerning the Trojan War. It is loosely based on Homer's Iliad, besides material from Virgil's Aeneid and other sources of the Epic Cycle, but it frequently diverges from myth...
and
AlexanderAlexander is a 2004 epic film, based on the life of Alexander the Great. It was directed by Oliver Stone, with Colin Farrell in the title role....
. An
animatronicAudio-Animatronics is the registered trademark for a form of robotics created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequently expanded on and used by other companies. The robots move and make noise, generally in speech or song...
wolf and thirteen animatronic horses were also created. The actors trained alongside the stuntmen, and even Snyder joined in. Upwards of 600 costumes were created for the film, as well as extensive prosthetics for various characters and the corpses of Persian soldiers. Shaun Smith and
Mark RappaportMark Rappaport is an American special effects/makeup artist.His main body of work is with special effects in a wide variety of films from science fiction to horror, to comedy and theater. Mark has created hyper-realistic animatronic animals including the horse used by Tom Cruise in The Last...
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
MontrealMontreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie , the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the...
, and was shot over the course of sixty days in chronological order with a budget of $60 million. Employing the
digital backlotDigital backlot is a term used to describe motion picture sets that have neither genuine location shoots nor practical sets on the soundstages; the shooting takes place entirely on a stage with a blank background that will have an artificial environment put in during post-production...
technique, Snyder shot at the now-defunct Icestorm Studios in Montreal using bluescreens. Butler said that while he didn't feel constrained by Snyder's direction, fidelity to the comic imposed certain limitations on his performance. Wenham said there were times when Snyder wanted to precisely capture iconic moments from the comic book, and other times when he gave actors freedom "to explore within the world and the confines that had been set." Headey said of her experience with the bluescreens, "It's very odd, and emotionally, there's nothing to connect to apart from another actor." Only one scene, in which horses travel across the countryside, was shot outdoors. The film was an intensely physical production, and Butler pulled an arm tendon and developed a
foot dropFoot drop is a deficit in turning the ankle and toes upward, known as dorsiflexion. Conditions leading to foot drop may be neurologic, muscular or anatomic in origin, often with significant overlap. The result is an abnormal gait.-Features:...
.
Post-productionPost-production is part of the filmmaking process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, videos, audio recordings, photography and digital art...
was handled by Montreal's Meteor Studios and Hybride Technologies filled in the bluescreen footage with more than 1500
visual effectsVisual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot...
shots.
Visual effects supervisorIn the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
Chris Watts and
production designerProduction designer is a term used in the movie and television industries to refer to the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and...
Jim Bissell created a process dubbed "The Crush," which allowed the Meteor artists to manipulate the colors by increasing the contrast of light and dark. Certain sequences were
desaturatedIn colorimetry and color theory, colorfulness, chroma, and saturation are related but distinct concepts referring to the perceived intensity of a specific color. Colorfulness is the difference between a color against gray. Chroma is the difference of a color against the brightness of another color...
and tinted to establish different moods. Ghislain St-Pierre, who led the team of artists, described the effect: "Everything looks realistic, but it has a kind of a gritty illustrative feel." Various
computer programComputer programs are instructions for a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions...
s, including
MayaAutodesk Maya, or simply Maya , is a high-end 3D computer graphics and 3D modeling software package originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation, but now owned by Autodesk as part of the Media and Entertainment division. Autodesk acquired the software in October 2005 upon purchasing Alias...
,
RenderManPhotoRealistic RenderMan, or PRMan for short, is a proprietary photorealistic RenderMan-compliant renderer.It primarily uses the REYES algorithm but is also fully capable of doing ray tracing and global illumination....
and
RealFlowRealFlow is a fluid and dynamics simulator for the 3D industry, created by Madrid-based Next Limit Technologies. Currently at version 4, the stand-alone application can be used to simulate fluids, water surfaces, fluid-solid interactions, rigid bodies, soft bodies and meshes...
, were used to create the "spraying blood." The post-production lasted for a year and was handled by a total of ten
special effectThe illusions used in the film, television, theater, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s companies.
Soundtrack
In July 2005, composer
Tyler BatesTyler Bates is a music producer and composer for films. His most known work includes "The Hangman's Song" and various other tracks from the zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead, and 2008's Day of the Dead...
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. to illustrate the path of the project. 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 was recorded at
Abbey Road StudiosAbbey Road Studios, established in November of 1931 by EMI in London, England, is an iconic recording studio located at Abbey Road, in St John's Wood in the City of Westminster...
and features the vocals of
Azam AliAzam Ali is an Iranian musician/singer, who currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:Azam Ali was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up in India from the age of four in the small town of Panchgani, a hill station in the state of Maharashtra...
. A standard edition and a
special editionThe terms special edition, limited edition and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition and others, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints or recorded music and films, but now including...
of the soundtrack containing 25 tracks was released on March 6, 2007, with the special edition containing a 16-page booklet and three two-sided
trading cardA trading card is a small card, usually made out of cardboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person and a short description of the picture, along with other text...
s.
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 HornerJames Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
and
Gabriel YaredGabriel Yared is a Lebanese winning composer, best known for his work in French and American cinema.Born in Beirut, Lebanon, his work in France included the scores for Betty Blue and Camille Claudel. He later began working on English language films, winning an Oscar for his score for The English...
's work for the film
TroyTroy is a 2004 epic/action film concerning the Trojan War. It is loosely based on Homer's Iliad, besides material from Virgil's Aeneid and other sources of the Epic Cycle, but it frequently diverges from myth...
. The heaviest borrowings are said to be from
Elliot GoldenthalElliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways.-Biography:Elliot Goldenthal was...
's 1999
scoreTitus is the original soundtrack to the 1999 motion picture Titus. Elliot Goldenthal wrote the score for the film, an adaptation of Shakespeare's first, and bloodiest, tragedy Titus Andronicus; written and directed by Julie Taymor, Goldenthal's long-time friend and partner...
for
TitusTitus is a 1999 film adaptation of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, about the downfall of a Roman general. It was the first film of the play . The film was made by Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions and released by 20th Century Fox. It was the directorial debut of...
. "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. Pictures acknowledged in an official statement:
... 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. Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter.
Promotion and release
The official
300 website was launched by Warner Bros. in December 2005. The "conceptual art" and Zack Snyder's production blog were the initial attractions of the site. Later, the website added video journals describing production details, including comic-to-screen shots and the creatures of
300. In January 2007, the studio launched a
MySpaceMySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United...
page for the film.
The Art InstitutesThe Art Institutes is a collection of private, for-profit educational institutions for career preparation in the visual, creative, and applied arts, including design, media, fashion, and culinary programs. There are 41 Art Institutes located in major cities across North America, and have over...
created a micro-site to promote the film.
At
Comic-Con InternationalComic-Con International: San Diego, commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con was founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans...
in July 2006, the
300 panel aired a promotional teaser of the film, which was positively received. Despite stringent security, the trailer was subsequently leaked on the Internet. Warner Bros. released the official trailer for
300 on October 4, 2006, and later on it made its debut on Apple.com where it received considerable exposure. The
background musicAlthough background music was by the end of the 20th century generally identified with Muzak or elevator music, there are several stages in the development of this concept.-Antecedents:...
used in the trailers was "
Just Like You Imagined"Just Like You Imagined" is an instrumental by Nine Inch Nails from their 1999 album The Fragile.It features on piano Mike Garson, known for his work with David Bowie and The Smashing Pumpkins...
" by
Nine Inch NailsNine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
. A second
300 trailer, which was attached to
ApocalyptoApocalypto is a epic film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in Central America, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, Apocalypto depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and destruction of his village.The film...
, was released in theaters on December 8, 2006, and online the day before. On January 22, 2007, an exclusive trailer for the film was broadcast during
prime timePrime time or primetime is the block of programming on television during the middle of the evening.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period, for example, from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm...
television. The trailers have been credited with igniting interest in the film and contributing to its box-office success.
In April 2006, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced its intention to make a
PlayStation PortableThe PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
game,
300: March to Glory300: March to Glory is a video game for the PlayStation Portable that was released on February 27, 2007, based on the comic book mini-series 300 by Frank Miller and the movie of the same name.- Story :...
, based on the film. Collision Studios worked with Warner Bros. to capture the style of the film in the video game, which was released simultaneously with the film in the United States. The
National Entertainment Collectibles AssociationThe National Entertainment Collectibles Association or NECA is an American manufacturer of collectibles typically licensed from films, sports, music, and television based in New Jersey...
produced a series of
action figureAn action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon from various movie, comic book, video game, or television program characters. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys...
s based on the film, as well as replicas of weapons and armor.
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
promoted 300 by sponsoring the Ultimate Fighting ChampionshipThe Ultimate Fighting Championship is a U.S.-based mixed martial arts organization. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC; Zuffa, LLC, controlled by the casino-moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, owns it....
's light heavyweightIn boxing, the light heavyweight division is the weight division between cruiserweight and super middleweight...
champion Chuck LiddellChuck "The Iceman" Liddell is an American mixed martial artist and former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion. Liddell has an extensive background in kickboxing and collegiate wrestling. He is noted within the MMA community for his exceptional takedown defense and knockout...
, who made personal appearances and participated in other promotional activities. The studio also joined with the National Hockey LeagueThe National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league as a joint venture for its self perpetuating membership of 30 franchised member clubs located in the United States and Canada...
to produce a 30-second TV spot promoting the film in tandem with the Stanley CupThe Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club cup trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion. It has been referred to as The Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
playoffs.
In August 2006, Warner Bros. announced 300s release date as March 16, 2007, but in October the release was moved forward to March 9, 2007. 300 was released on DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
, Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the standard DVD format. Its main uses are for storing high-definition video, PlayStation 3 games, and other data, with up to 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered disc...
, and HD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisaged to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
on July 31, 2007, in Region 1 territories, in single-disc and two-disc editions. 300 was released in single-disc and steelcase two-disc editions on DVD, BD and HD DVD in Region 2 territories beginning August 2007. On July 21, 2009, Warner Bros. released a new Blu-ray entitled 300: The Complete Experience to coincide with the Blu-ray release of WatchmenWatchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
. This new Blu-ray is encased in a 40-page Digibook and includes all the extras from the original release as well as some new ones. These features include a Picture-in-Picture feature entitled The Complete 300: A Comprehensive Immersion, which enables the viewer to view the film in three different perspectives. This release also includes a Digital CopyDigital copy provides consumers who purchase a DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, nonphysical, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD....
.
On July 9, 2007, the American cableCable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required...
channel TNTTNT is an American cable TV channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner which also owns Cartoon Network. However, despite the fact that it is a channel, it is seen all across the United States, much like a television...
bought the rights to broadcast the film from Warner Bros. TNT will be able to start airing the movie in September 2009. Sources say that the network paid between $17 million and just under $20 million for the movie. TNT agreed to a three-year deal instead of the more typical five-year deal.
Box office
300 was released in North America on March 9, 2007, in both conventional and IMAX theaters. It grossed $28,106,731 on its opening dayOpening Day is warmly regarded in North American tradition as the beginning of a new Major League Baseball season. It falls annually around the beginning of April, signaling such a generational feeling of rebirth for some that the writer Thomas Boswell once penned a book titled, Why Time Begins On...
and ended its North American opening weekend with $70,885,301, breaking the record held by Ice Age: The MeltdownIce Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2, is the sequel to the computer-animated Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last...
for the biggest opening weekend in the month of March. 300s opening weekend gross is the 24th highest in box office history, coming slightly below The Lost World: Jurassic ParkThe Lost World: Jurassic Park is a science fiction thriller film, directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was produced by Bonnie Curtis, Kathleen Kennedy, Gerald R. Molen and Colin Wilson. The screenplay was penned by David Koepp, based on the 1995 novel The Lost World by Michael Crichton...
but higher than Transformers. It was the third biggest opening for an R-rated film ever, behind The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 film, the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theatres on May 15, 2003, and around the...
($91.8 million) and The Passion of the ChristThe Passion of the Christ is a film co-written, co-produced and directed by Mel Gibson. It is based on the New Testament accounts of the arrest, trial, torture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, events commonly known as The Passion. The film’s dialogue is in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew, with...
($83.8 million). The film also set a record for IMAXIMAX is a motion picture film format and projection standard created by Canada's IMAX Corporation. The traditional version of IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
cinemas with a $3.6 million opening weekend.
300 opened two days earlier, on March 7, 2007, in SpartaSparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars...
, and across Greece on March 8. Studio executivesThe studio executive is an employee of a film studio or a corporation doing business in the entertainment industry. A studio executive may be a Chief executive officer, a Chief financial officer, a Chief operating officer, or be employed to serve in a variety of Vice presidential capacities, such...
were surprised by the showing, which was twice what they had expected. They credit the movie's stylized violence, the strong female role of Queen Gorgo which attracted a large number of women to the movie, and the MySpace advertising blitz. Producer Mark Canton said, "MySpace had an enormous impact but it has transcended the limitations of the Internet or the graphic novel. Once you make a great movie, word can spread very quickly."
Reviews
Since its world premiere at the Berlin International Film FestivalThe Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
on February 14, 2007, in front of 1,700 audience members, 300 has received generally mixed reviews. While it received a standing ovationA standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding. This is done on special occasions by an audience to show their approval and is done after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim...
at the public premiere, it was reportedly panned at a press screening hours earlier, where many attendees left during the showing and those who remained booed at the end. Critical reviews of 300 are divided. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films. The name derives from the historical cliché of throwing tomatoes and other produce at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad.- History :...
reports that 59 percent of North American and selected international critics gave the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 214, with an averageThe weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 6.1 out of 10. Reviews from selected notable critics were 47 percent positive, giving the film an average score of 5.7 out of 10 based on a sample of 38. At MetacriticMetacritic is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalizedIn statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51 based on 35 reviews.
VarietyVariety is a weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the Daily...
's Todd McCarthy describes the film as "visually arresting" although "bombastic" while Kirk Honeycutt, writing in The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood Reporter is an American trade publication of the entertainment industry. During the last century it was one of the two major publications — the other being Variety. Today both newspapers cover what is now more broadly called the entertainment industry.- History :The Hollywood Reporter...
, praises the "beauty of its topographyTopography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
, colors and forms." Writing in the Chicago Sun Times, Richard RoeperRichard Roeper is an American journalist and film critic for The Chicago Sun Times. He also co-hosted the television series At the Movies with Roger Ebert from 2000–2008.-Early life:...
acclaims 300 as "the Citizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, and the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. It was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, but won only for Best Original Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz and Welles...
of cinematic graphic novels." 300 was also warmly received by websites focusing on comics and video games. Comic Book ResourcesComic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
' Mark Cronan found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand." IGNIGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games...
's Todd Gilchrist acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary and "a possible redeemer of modern moviemaking."
A number of critical reviews appeared in major American newspapers. A.O. Scott of the New York Times describes 300 as "about as violent as ApocalyptoApocalypto is a epic film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in Central America, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, Apocalypto depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and destruction of his village.The film...
and twice as stupid," while criticizing its color schemeIn color theory, a color scheme is the choice of colors used in design for a range of media. For example, the use of a white background with black text is an example of a basic and commonly default color scheme in web design....
and suggesting that its plot includes racistRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
undertones. Kenneth TuranKenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
writes in the Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
that "unless you love violence as much as a Spartan, Quentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s he was an independent filmmaker whose films used nonlinear storylines and aestheticization of violence...
or a video-game-playing teenage boy, you will not be endlessly fascinated." Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...
, in his review, gave the film a two-star rating, writing, "300 has one-dimensional caricatures who talk like professional wrestlersProfessional wrestling, or pro wrestling, is an athletic performing art where matches are prearranged by the promotion's booking staff. It is a non-competitive sport which contains strong elements of theatre, mock combat, and catch wrestling. Wrestling's origins date to 19th-century carnival...
plugging their next feud."
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."
Awards and nominations
At the MTV Movie Awards 2007The 2007 MTV Movie Awards took place on June 3, 2007 at Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California and were hosted by Sarah Silverman. The ceremony featured performances by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, who performed Umbrella, and Amy Winehouse, who performed Rehab...
, 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." It eventually won the award for Best Fight. 300 won both the Best Dramatic Film and Best Action Film honors in the 2006-2007 Golden Icon Awards presented by Travolta Family Entertainment. In December 2007, 300 won IGNIGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games...
's Movie of the Year 2007, along with Best Comic Book Adaptation and King Leonidas as Favorite Character. At the 2008 Saturn Awards, the movie won the award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller FilmThe following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film:...
.
In 2009, National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine and web site, founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955 and based in New York City...
magazine ranked "300" number 5 on its 25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years list.
Historical accuracy
300's director Zack SnyderZack Snyder is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name, and...
stated in an MTV interview that "the events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy.... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is." He continues that the film is "an opera, not a documentary. That's what I say when people say it's historically inaccurate." He was also quoted in a BBC NewsBBC News, formerly BBC News and Current Affairs, is the department within the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the corporation's news-gathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online....
story as saying that the film is, at its core "a fantasy filmFantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap....
." He also describes the film's narrator, Dilios, as "a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth."
Paul CartledgePaul Anthony Cartledge is the first A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University, having previously held a personal chair in Greek History at Cambridge....
, Professor of Greek HistoryThe history of Greece traditionally encompasses the study of the Greek people, the areas they ruled historically, and the territory now composing the modern state of Greece....
at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of GreekAncient Greek phonology is the study of the phonology, or pronunciation, of Ancient Greek. Because of the passage of time, the original pronunciation of Ancient Greek, like that of all ancient languages, can never be known with absolute certainty...
names, and states that they "made good use" of his published work on Sparta. 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 honor," while expressing reservations about its "'West' (goodies) vs 'East' (baddies) polarization." Cartledge writes that he enjoyed the film, although he found Leonidas' description of the Athenians as "boy lovers" ironic, since the Spartans themselves incorporated institutional pederastySpartan pederasty, the traditional intimate and pedagogic friendship between a man and a boy, a custom held in common with other Dorian tribes, is thought to have either been introduced at the time of the Dorian invasion, around 1200 B.C., or to have been instituted in the seventh century B.C. in...
into their educational system.
Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic History at the University of TorontoThe University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...
, 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. He suggests that the film's moral universe would have seemed "as bizarre to ancient GreeksAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
as it does to modern historians."
Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, notable as a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and other media outlets, and was a strong supporter of the...
, National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine and web site, founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955 and based in New York City...
columnist and former professor of Classical history at California State University, FresnoCalifornia State University, Fresno, commonly referred to as Fresno State, is one of the campuses of California State University system, located at the northeast edge of Fresno, California, USA....
, 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 HerodotusHerodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
in that it captures the martial ethos of ancient Sparta and represents Thermopylae as a "clash of civilizations." He remarks that SimonidesSimonides of Ceos , Greek lyric poet, was born at Ioulis on Kea. He was included, along with Sappho and Pindar, in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was uncle to Bacchylides, another of the nine lyric poets...
, AeschylusAeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides...
and HerodotusHerodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
viewed Thermopylae as a battle against "Eastern centralism and collective serfdom," which opposed "the idea of the free citizen of an autonomous polisA polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens...
." He further states that the film portrays the battle in a "surreal" manner, and that the intent was to "entertain and shock first, and instruct second."
Touraj DaryaeeTouraj Daryaee is a contemporary Persian Iranologist and historian.His elementary and secondary schooling was in Tehran, Iran and Athens, Greece. Daryaee took his Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999...
, now Baskerville Professor of Iranian History and the Persiante World at the University of California, IrvineThe University of California, Irvine is a public coeducational research university founded in 1965, located in Irvine, California....
, criticizes the movie's use of classical sources, writing:
Some passages from the Classical authors Aeschylus, DiodorusDiodorus Siculus , was a Greek historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doing than is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca historica...
, Herodotus and PlutarchPlutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 – 120, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
are spilt over the movie to give it an authentic flavor. Aeschylus becomes a major source when the battle with the "monstrous human herd" of the Persians is narrated in the film. Diodorus' statement about Greek valor to preserve their liberty is inserted in the film, but his mention of Persian valor is omitted. 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 "misogynistMisogyny is hatred of women or girls. Misogyny comes from Greek misogunia from misos and gynē . It is parallel to misandry—the hatred of men or boys. Misogyny is also comparable with misanthropy which is the hatred of humanity in general...
" Persian ambassador and the Spartan king. Classical sources are certainly used, but exactly in all the wrong places, or quite naively.
Robert McHenryRobert Dale McHenry is an American editor, encyclopedist, and writer. McHenry worked from 1967 for Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. or associated companies, becoming editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1992, a position he held until 1997...
, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica and author of How to Know states that the film "is an almost ineffably silly movie. Stills from the film could easily be used to promote Buns of Steel, or AbMaster, or ThighMaster. 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."
Controversy
Before the release of 300, Warner Brothers expressed concerns about the political aspects of the film's theme. Snyder relates that there was "a huge sensitivity about East versus West with the studio."
Media speculation about a possible parallel between the Greco-Persian conflict and current events began in an interview with Snyder that was conducted before the Berlin Film Festival. The interviewer remarked that "everyone is sure to be translating this [film] into contemporary politics." Snyder replied that, while he was aware that people would read the film through the lens of contemporary events, no parallels between the film and the contemporary world were intended.
Outside the current political parallels, some critics have raised more general questions about the film's ideological orientation. The New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
s Kyle SmithKyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
writes that the film would have pleased "AdolfAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
's boys," and SlateSlate is an English-language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft, as part of MSN. On December 21, 2004, it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
s Dana Stevens compares the film to The Eternal Jew, "as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war." Roger Moore, a critic for the Orlando SentinelThe Orlando Sentinel is the primary newspaper of the Orlando, Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently in its 133rd year of publication. The Sentinel is owned by Tribune Company and is overseen by the Chicago Tribune. As of 2005, the Sentinel’s president and publisher was Kathleen...
, relates 300 to Susan SontagSusan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, and political activist.-Life:Sontag, born Susan Rosenblatt, was born in New York City to Jack Rosenblatt and Mildred Jacobsen, both Jewish Americans. Her father ran a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis when Susan was...
's definition of "fascist art."
However, NewsdayNewsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
critic Gene Seymour stated that such reactions are misguided, writing that "the movie's just too darned silly to withstand any ideological theorizing." Snyder himself dismissed ideological readings, suggesting that reviewers who critique "a graphic novel movie about a bunch of guys...stomping the snot out of each other" using words like " 'neocon,' 'homophobic,' 'homoerotic' or 'racist' " are "missing the point."
Since its opening, 300 also attracted controversy over its portrayal of Persians. Various critics, historians, journalists, and officials of the Iranian government including President Mahmoud AhmadinejadMahmoud Ahmadinejad is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country.An engineer and teacher from a poor background, Ahmadinejad joined the...
denounced the film. As in the graphic novel, the Persians were depicted as a monstrous, barbaric and demonic horde, and King XerxesXerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah of the Achaemenid Empire.Xerxes was the son of Darius the Great and his wife Atossa...
was portrayed as androgynous. Critics suggested that this was meant to stand in stark contrast to the masculinity of the Spartan army. Steven Rea argued that the film's Persians were a vehicle for an anachronistic cross-section of Western stereotypes of Asian and African cultures.
The film's portrayal of ancient PersiansThe Persian people are the majority ethnic group in Iran. However, there are sub-groups who speak the Persian language as their mother tongue throughout the Iranian plateau. The term Persian has also a supra-ethnic significance and has been historically referred to a part of Iranian peoples...
caused a particularly strong reaction in IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
. Azadeh MoaveniAzadeh Moaveni is an Iranian-American journalist and writer.- Education :Moaveni grew up in San Jose, California, and studied politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz...
of TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
reported that TehranTehran is the capital and largest city of Iran, and the administrative center of Tehran Province. Tehran is a sprawling city at the foot of the Tochal mountain range with an immense network of highways unparalleled in Western Asia...
was "outraged" following the film's release. Moaveni identified two factors which may have contributed to the intense reaction: its release on the eve of Nowruz, the Persian New YearThe New Year is an event that happens when a culture celebrates the end of one year and the beginning of the next year. Cultures that measure yearly calendars all have New Year celebrations...
, and the common Iranian view of the Achaemenid EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
as "a particularly noble page in their history." Various Iranian officials condemned the film. The Iranian Academy of the ArtsThe Iranian Academy of the Arts was established in Esfand 1378 Hsh/February . It is one of the four academies of the Islamic Republic of Iran...
submitted a formal complaint against the movie to UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
, labelling it an attack on the historical identity of Iran. The Iranian mission to the U.N. protested the film in a press releaseA news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. Typically, they are mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers,...
, and Iranian embassies protested its screening in France, ThailandThe Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia.It is bordered to the north by Laos and Burma, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Burma...
, TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
and UzbekistanUzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union...
.
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north...
n philosopher and author Slavoj ŽižekSlavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian theoretical psychoanalyst, Marxist political thinker, film theorist, and cultural critic....
defended the movie, from those who attacked it. He wrote that the story represents "a poor, small country (Greece) invaded by the army of a much large[r] state (Persia)," suggesting that the identification of the Spartans with a modern superpower is flawed. Instead of seeing a "fundamentalist" aspect in the Spartan identity, he stated that "all modern egalitarian radicals, from Rousseau to the JacobinsThe Jacobin Club was the largest and most powerful political club of the French Revolution. It originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles as a group of Breton deputies to the Estates General of 1789. At the height of its influence, there were thousands of chapters throughout France,...
...imagined the republican France as a new Sparta."
In response to the criticisms, a Warner Bros. 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. 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 statementThe term political statement is usually used to refer to any act or non verbal form of communication that is intended to influence a decision to be made for or by a group....
."
Popular culture
300 has been spoofedA parody , in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
in various media, spawning the "This is Sparta!" internet memeThe term Internet meme is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke...
, with parodies also appearing in film and television. These include the shortShort film is a technical description originally coined in the Indian Film Industry and used in the North American film industry in the early period of cinema. The description is now used almost interchangeably with short subject...
United 300United 300 is a short film that spoofs United 93 and 300 . It won the MTV Movie Spoof Award at the MTV Movie Awards 2007. The short was created by Andy Signore along with some of his friends...
, which won the Movie Spoof Award at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards. SkitsSketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
based upon the film have appeared on Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a weekly late-night sketch comedy and variety show filmed in New York City. It made its debut on October 11, 1975, under a slightly different title. The show features a regular cast of comedy actors, joined by a guest host and musical act...
and Robot ChickenRobot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-Head Writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root...
, the latter of which mimicked the visual style of 300 in a parody set during the American Revolutionary War, titled "1776." 20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios...
released Meet the SpartansMeet The Spartans is a parody film directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Similar to past movies, such as Scary Movie and Date Movie, it directs parodies at various films...
, a spoof of 300. Universal PicturesThis is a partial listing of films produced and/or distributed by Universal Pictures, the main motion picture production/distribution arm of Universal Studios, a subsidiary of NBC Universal.-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc...
is planning a similar parody, titled National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. 300 was also parodied in an episode of South ParkSouth Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become infamous for its crude, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
named "D-Yikes!"D-Yikes!" is episode 1106 of Comedy Central's animated comedy series South Park. First aired on April 11, 2007. The episode is rated TV-MA, and is a parody of the film 300.-Synopsis:As the episode begins, Ms...
".
300, particularly its pithy quotations, have been "adopted" by the student body of Michigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least six winners of the...
(whose sports teams are nicknamed the SpartansThe Michigan State Spartans are the athletic team that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 23 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the school colors are green and white...
), with chants of "Spartans, what is your profession?" becoming common at sporting events starting after the movie's release, and Michigan State basketballThe Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team represents Michigan State University and competes in the Big Ten Conference of NCAA Division I. The team currently plays at the Breslin Student Events Center....
head coach Tom IzzoTom Izzo is the head coach for the Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team. Under Coach Izzo, the Michigan State program has been one of the most successful in the country, winning the national championship in 2000 and had ten players selected in the NBA Draft, third most in the NCAA since...
dressed as Leonidas at one student event.
A single series of adult collectible action figures was created by NECANECA is an acronym that could refer to any of the following:* National Entertainment Collectibles Association, an organization that licenses various film and television characters in order to create collectable merchandise such as dolls, figurines and other toys.* National Exchange Carrier...
following the release of the movie itself. This included King Leonidas (with interchangeable heads), Gorgo, Ephialtes, and an Immortal.
Sequel/prequel
In June 2008, producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari and Bernie Goldmann revealed that work had begun on a sequel/prequel to 300. Legendary Pictures has announced that Frank Miller is writing the follow-up graphic novel, and Zack Snyder has declared his interest in directing the adaptation, though he is waiting until he sees the graphic novel before officially signing onto the project. The new film's title is rumored to be Sparta.
External links
- "Inside 300" by HowStuffWorks
HowStuffWorks is a commercial edutainment website that was founded by Marshall Brain explaining the way many things work. The site uses photos, diagrams, videos and animations to explain complex terminology and mechanisms in easy-to-understand language...
300 Production notes
Interview with Zack Snyder
300 Lies? Give poetics a chance, by David C. Ryan
10 things the makers of '300' got right, by Mary BeardWinifred Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog , which appears on The Times as a regular column...
300: Fact or Fiction?, by Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, notable as a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and other media outlets, and was a strong supporter of the...
300 at MSN Movies