Nice. Looks like a jousting helm.

perhaps a C15th jousting helm....
Looks a whole lot safer than the one I saw in July where a lance entered the eye slot to cut the brow of the jouster! (right as I was forced to swap batteries no less - dammit)

Considering the graphic novel of 300 was released before they filmed the Rings Trilogy do you think perhaps Peter Jackson may have been a fan of Frank Miller? I noticed some similarities myself but the 300 comic was basically an exact storyboard for the movie so it's hard to say who may have ripped off whom. Makes ya wonder!:)

I loved the film. Purely *because* it was so obviously a moving graphic novel (I'm a sucker for good graphic novels.) As you said, the graphic novel pretty much *was* the story board; severed limbs and all!

Oh, and nice helm. Shiny.

Agree completely with your review and luv xoxo your comparison of Legolas to a sk8r boi!

That's alright, there wasn't any real armor in the movie either...

I Netflixed it twice.

And twice the disc that arrived would not play without the commetary.

Commentary Off netted me the voiceover commentary.

Commentary On netted me the voiceover AND the commentary as subtitles.

you can just loop the soundtrack of a fight scene from Gladiator, every time you see an army marching in slow motion, play with a nine inch nails song, and every time someone's mouth moves with motivation, shout "SPARTA!" that's about all you need. the words don't really tell the story.

Thoughts:

(1) Nicki Jane must have some rough fans if she needs to wear armor.

(2) As far as long epic tales written in modern (last 100 years or so), The Dark Tower is way better than LOTR. Roland and his Ka-Tet could beat the snot out of the Fellowship...

...I thought all that extra Peter Jackson stuff ended up in the battle scene in Chronicles of Narnia...especially when you consider the big battle was actually a rather small part of the actual book.

I haven't seen it yet (it came out when I was in Afghanistan) but from the promos, I'm inclined to agree with friends that say it's the best bit of gay soft porn you could ask for. I mean instead of "SPAAARTA!" they might as well be yelling "BEEEEEFCAAAKE!"

>best bit of gay soft porn you could ask for

tres true. we all know what greek armor looks like and it's not a speedo.... but it's hollywood. 300 of the buffest guys you can imagine, sweating in their thongs for an hour an a half -- that's basically the movie.

Okay, the "dialog" is largely DOCUMENTED to the event through Thucydides and others. The term "laconic wit/phrase" comes from LACADAEMON, which is to say, Sparta's province. Yes, Gorgo actually did tell off an envoy using just about those exact words. Yes, they really did tell the Persians they'd fight in the shade.

No, the lengthy freedom and democracy speech is not authentic, but it's certainly in the style of Greek orators, and for those who haven't read The March Upcountry (Xenophon), let me assure you that Persians and Arabs haven't changed in 3000 years, and those @!#$ers would be the source of European and Western culture if the Persian Wars hadn't been won by Greeks. And Thermopylae was a critical battle and turning point in that war.

As noted, the story is being NARRATED by a Greek story teller. So yes, the creatures are fantastic and the "Companions" (Whom the Greeks called the "Immortals") come across as ugly ninjas. Guess what? Ajax and Achilles didn't have 36 foot long spears, either. But that exaggeration, which survives in Western culture in stories like Paul Bunyan, is very classically Greek.

Same reason for the traitor to be portrayed as deformed--Spartans worshipped perfection and beauty. A traitor can't look good.

Same for not wearing armor. A huge amount of Classical Greek art portrays nudity, and they exercised nude, to show the purity and perfection of the human form, much like body builders still do. That portrayal was to signify that it was the Spartan warrior ethos that won the battle, not their (most definitely superior) weapons technology. Technically, they should have been wearing linothorax, and carrying xiphose swords along with the hoplon shields. But this PORTRAYAL fit both Frank Miller's artwork and Greek art and culture.

The presentation was awesome, the raw facts (2000-7000 Greeks, 300 of them Spartans, vs 200K to 1 mil Persians, documented through multiple sources--they even showed the Ethiopian levies in the movie) and commentary correct and the art to a level the Spartans themselves would have respected.

As a man of letters and an Oxford don, Tolkien most certainly knew his Classics and used THAT as the basis for several battles in LOTR, and as is pointed out, the Miller novel predates Jackson's movie takes.

So yes, LOTR was a fantastic if boring ripoff of Thermopylae, 300 and Miller;-)

Dissing "300" is grounds for having your Man Card revoked.;-)

Well said! Thank you:)

...plus a lot of old costumes they must have had lying around after Peter Jackson ran off to get his Oscars and left the keys to the costume department in the bathroom of a bar on Sepulvita.

LOL. I wish more movie reviews read like yours.

CBS should offer me a job!

Don't miss the YouTube video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6251720370175274841&q=300+raining+men&total=30&start=0&num=50&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

JJB
jjbrannon@aol.com

I thought "300" was overrated too... ugh.

-Tom