Two Classisists and a Movie

Friday night I went with A and Em to see 300 after Good Friday service. A nice way to cheer up after sitting through service which I don't believe in (being a Catholic Agnostic who attends a Lutheran Church).
In any case, after service (why couldn't it have been in Latin?) we went to see a comedy: 300.
I guess that it really wasn't intended to be a comedy, but that's how it turned out. We laughed ourselves silly, not that we weren't already silly... But I promised to post a list we made after the movie with our impressions:
A Comprehensive List of Historical Inaccuracies Contained Within the Movie Entitled "300"

• The cast was almost entirely garbed in tight leather underwear (yumm). And although I appreciated the view, it was inaccurate, very much so. And A claims that several of the actors were falling out of said garments
• The cast was wearing floor length cloaks into battle. Impractical anyone? Try fighting in that during battle. Plus the length was closer to something a woman would have worn.
• Hair? Aside from Leonidas, everyone else had interesting hair (and what was up with his rattail).
  
• bad wigs
• What's up with the Queen's hair?

• Speaking of which, did anyone think the Queen's outfits remarkably period? Though I have to say I am impressed with how those things stayed on. I guess lots of ductape was needed.
• What was with the diapers the children were wearing, were they supposed to be loin cloths?
• And what were those imbred, leper priests doing in a temple on top of a cliff (how's anyone supposed to get an oracle?) having sexy sexy with a red haired oracle/prostiture (who had nipples the size of marbles). Not even going to ask. And the oracle was drug induced? No, that was from fumes from the ground at Delphi, thank you very much.
  
• There was a pile of baby skulls. No, this is not right, babies exposed that young do not leave skulls (and would probably have been picked up for slaves or something). And what was with the wierd training regime they made up? The Spartans were wierd, but the movie was ridiculous. And there was a wierd CG-ed Warag type wolf who randomly appeared with snow (In Greece?) who's eyes glowed, literally. Sigh
• The whole Xerxes thing. Could we have laughed any harder? I doubt it. A was biting her knuckles when he first came on scene.
  
• Gay Xerxes?
• Xerxes in golden underpants with chains?
• Xerxes in blue (Em thinks it was turquoise) eyeliner?
• Xerxes trying to give Leonidas a massage? (Was that an oil massage?)
• Xerxes on a Minoan Bull throne?
• And his jewelry? Come on...
• The actor who played him was too young and had a shaved head.

• The Spartans in the movie had virtually no armour, except those leg greaves.
• My personal pet peeve: Stirrups. Stirrups are not period, and they put them in the movie. Grrrrr...Neither are knights, or destriers.
• Rhinos? In battle? Giant Oliphants?
• There were honest to god longbows in that movie. Way too early and wrong location. And really bad arrows which didn't even look aero dynamic. And the quivers were also medieval.
  
• Ninjas? In Greece? Hahahahaha. Seriously, these guys had Asian masks on, ninjaoid outfits and what looked a heck of a lot like katanas.
• What was with the hunchback? I just didn't get it.
• The Spartans all seemed to have different accents (I don't expect them to all speak ancient Greek, but come on). Lets see, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, English (of various derivations), American, and Aussie. And they were all supposed to be from the same tribe?
• Those swords looked absolutely bizzare and not even remotely Greek, I'm sorry.
• The houses looked more like Roman villas.
• Blond Spartans? Who were all body builders (not that I'm complaining, but they looked like body builders, not fighters) and quite a few of them had man boobies. Did they have breast implants?
• The language was just off, descriptions of things.
• What was with the S&M outfits on the Acadians?
• The fighting was just off. And so sad too, considering that not minutes before battle was enjoined, Leonidas bothered to explain how hoplite warfare worked in a reasonably accurate manner. Then they didn't bother with any of that and jumped and cavorted (in tight leather underwear) about the battlefield complete with Ninjas (immortal ninjas) rhinos, a cave troll (I expected Boromir and Aragorn to jump in here. Faramir was already there), and Oliphants.
• They also decided to make a wall with dead bodies. I don't care what Hollywood (or baliwood for that matter) tells me, dead bodies are not good building material. And they're smelly. And gooey, and nasty.
• Tortuga (sp?) shields? That's a very Roman idea, not Greek.
• Did I mention that they had a cave troll?
• They kept calling the soldiers slaves, but in reality it is more likely the Persian soldiers would have been mercenaries.
• Xerxes harem was....I'm not even going to go there.
• The belts had modern buckles, the fibulae were bizzare, and the shin protectors were metal.
• The jewelry was bizzare.
• The shield were all the same and metal (they should have been wood and leather painted)
• There were no people doing normal things: pottery, spinning, weaving etc.
• Gold coins? No, more like silver, bronze, stuff like that. And certainly not stamped with Xerxes' profile (complete with face piercings). I'm pretty sure portraits on coins are later (like the romans).
• Iron Swords? Where is the bronze. It is called the bronze age for a reason.
• There were people impaled with spikes coming out of there mouths. We just couldn't figure out quite how they managed that. It looked like it would have been tricky. Why not just hack the head off and impale that?
• There were people throwing "magic" grenades who really looked like beduin women. Yeah
• And I swear that I saw some huns somewhere in there.
• There seemed to have been no 2nd king in Sparta. When in fact there were always two kings so one could be at home ruling while the other was out fighting.
• Plus, 300-10 does not still equal 300, they seemed to have had a hard time with math in the movie.

Lots of fun. This movie really should have been billed as a comedy.