300 Spartans

In the midst of the Persian-Greco war, Spartan King Leonidas leads his army of 300 soldiers into battle against the invading Persian army during the Battle of Thermopylae. According to legend, their valor and sacrifice inspired all of Greece to unite against the Persian foe, leading to the origins of democracy.

300 is a 2007 film adaptation of the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller about the Battle of Thermopylae. The film is directed by Zack Snyder with Frank Miller attached as an executive producer and consultant, and was shot mostly with bluescreen to mimic the original comic book work. 300 stars Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro, Andrew Tiernan and David Wenham. The film is scheduled to be released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on March 9, 2007.

The film 300 is faithfully adapted from the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller in which Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the last man against Persian King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive army. Facing insurmountable odds, the Spartans' sacrifice inspires all of Greece to unite against the Persian invaders. The story is loosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae which took place in the summer of 480 BC.

Cast

On September 26, 2005, a casting call was issued for the role of Pleistarchos, younger portrayals of Leonidas, as well as a Persian messenger. Three days later, a second casting call went out for the role of the Oracle Girl, a slave to the Ephors. In October 2005, Lena Headey was announced to join the cast as Gorgo, Leonidas' wife. Actors David Wenham, Dominic West, Rodrigo Santoro, and Vincent Reagan were also announced to join the cast. Santoro was familiar with the graphic novel before ever auditioning.

Production

In May 2003, the project was being produced by Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton, whilst Michael B. Gordon had completed a second draft of 300 that was 121 pages long. In June 2004, director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) was hired to helm the film. Snyder, with the help of screenwriter Kurt Johnstad, worked to rewrite Gordon's script for production. Frank Miller, the author of 300, was also attached to the project as executive producer and consultant.The film is a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic book, similar to the film adaptation of Sin City.Snyder said that he had photocopied panels from Frank Miller's comic book and worked to plan out the shots that would lead up to the moment and the shots to get out of it after. "It was a fun process for me to kind of have to go, to have a goal, to have a frame as a goal to get to," said Snyder. The director also worked to craft the film style to be similar to the comic book. Numerous images and pieces of dialogue are taken frame for frame from Miller. One exception to the direct adaptation was using the character Dilios to narrate the story. Dilios was used by Snyder to show the audience that the surreal "Frank Miller world" of 300 was through the perspective of Dilios taking artistic license in his storytelling about the Battle of Thermopylae. Snyder also added the sub plot of Queen Gorgo trying to rally support for her husband.The film spent two months of pre-production in creating 125 shields, 250 spears and 75 swords, although some were recycled from Troy and Alexander. The actors trained alongside the stuntmen, and even Snyder joined in. 600-700 costumes were created for the film, as well as extensive prosthetics for various characters and the corpses of Persian soldiers.

300 entered active production on October 17, 2005 in Montreal, and shot over 60 days in chronological order. Warner Bros. provided a budget of $60 million to back the 300 project. The director employed the digital backlot technique for the film, which was shot at the now-defunct Icestorm Studios in Montreal using bluescreens. Gerard Butler said that he didn't feel constrained as an actor by Snyder's direction of the film, however saying, "If you are performing in a way that's trying to be so truthful to the comic, then, of course, there are certain freedoms that are limited to the way that you perform." David Wenham said there were times where Snyder wanted to capture iconic moments from the comic book specifically and times where the director gave actors "absolute freedom and liberty to explore within the world and the confines that had been set".Lena Headey said of her experience with the bluescreens, "You can't sort of relate to any world, so it's very odd, and emotionally, there's nothing to connect to apart from another actor."The only scene shot outdoors is a shot of horses travelling across the countryside.The film was an intensely physical production, and Butler pulled an arm tendon and gained a drop foot. In post-production Snyder enlisted the assistance of Montreal's Meteor Studios to work on 250 visual effects shots to fill in the film footage of bluescreens and near-empty film sets. James Price, Meteor's visual effects supervisor, said the team of 70 Meteor artists manipulated the colors in 300 by increasing the contrast of light and dark, and certain film sequences were de-saturated and tinted to establish different moods for the scenes. Ghislain St-Pierre, Meteor's GM, described the look, "Everything looks realistic, but it has a kind of a gritty illustrative feel." The team worked on creating visual effects shots for scenes including a battle between Spartans and Immortals (elite Persian soldiers) and an expansion of the city of Sparta. Chris Watts and Jim Bissell created "The Crush" which filtered colours to look like Miller's novel, meaning props were painted differently on set due to the eventual process. As well as digital effects, the crew created an animatronic wolf and 13 animatronic horses.In August 2006, Warner Bros. announced that 300 would be released on March 16, 2007. In October 2006, Warner Bros. moved the release date to March 9, 2007, a week earlier. The MPAA issued an R rating for 300 for graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity.

Soundtrack

In July 2005, composer Tyler Bates 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 shot 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 Studios and features the vocals of Azam Ali. A standard edition and a special edition of the soundtrack containing 25 tracks will be released on March 6, 2007, with the special edition containing a 16-page booklet and three two-sided trading cards.

Reception

In an early screening in August 2006, Mark Cronan of Comic Book Resources gave a positive review for the film. Cronan described most of the film as being " a bit of a cross between Gladiator and several scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies". He found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand". However, he admitted, "This is a chest thumping, dirty, writhing mass of violence at times... It is all quite stylized and probably less gory overall than Miller's other big screen success, Sin City. Still, it's there, and if you don't want to see men fighting and dying, do not see this movie."IGN's Todd Gilchrist disagreed. Giving the film a score of five stars out of five, he said "Leonidas' relationship with his wife Gorgo offers a rare display of tenderness and devotion that is seldom seen in "guy movies" like this one". He acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary as well as the visual sensibility of the film. George Rousch acclaimed the film, citing its visual appeal and Gerard Butler's performance. 300 had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007 and received a standing ovation from its 1700 strong audience. Alex Billington said "Be ready to be blown away on March 9th", calling a film ahead of its time. Kirk Honeycutt praised it, saying "Those turned off by the sex-and-violence cartoonery of Sin City can embrace 300". Emanuel Levy also praised the film, complimenting Snyder in that he "retells Miller's saga not as an ancient tale (sort of "once upon a time..."), but as a classic and eternal one." Todd McCarthy of Variety gave it a positive review, and praised Lena Headey, though he criticised Butler as he "bellows most of his bellicose lines, which become tiresomely repetitive as they underscore the obligations and destinies of Spartan fighters", as well as the lack of focus on geography. Erik Davis heavily criticised the film, calling it "one of the most overly hyped films in history... a boring, fast-food version of better films, with better scripts, better acting and better battles. 300 men fought to defend their freedom but, in the end, 300 people (including me) wanted their two hours back."

The Interesting History Of Sparta

When one studies the history of Sparta, it is difficult to conclude that this society was not one of history's strangest. Maybe due to design by a man names Lycurgus than through developing naturally.

In the last few centuries, quite a few societies have been constructed by committees, and there have been many more failures than successes. The history of Sparta can serve as an example of both a success and a failure, and it would be helpful to remember these ancient people whenever we opt to design anything, such as a business or family.

In a time when cities were typically surrounded by walls to protect them from the latest conquering horde, Sparta needed none. Each and every male citizen was trained literally from birth to be a hardened, world-class soldier.

In English, the term "Spartan" has connotations of discipline and frugality. A Spartan room, for example, might contain nothing but a table and chair. This is an accurate description of the Spartan way of life. In the mind of a historian, however, the meaning of "Spartan" leans more towards "brutal" and "militaristic." Sparta was a society designed to dominate its neighbors: A warrior culture.

Sparta was a considerable military power for over a thousand years. Their system of warfare based on hoplite spearmen was copied by every army in the Mediterranian region. Their soldiers' prowess was demonstrated most vividly in 480 B.C. at Thermopylae, a narrow stretch of land between cliff and sea where only 300 Spartan hoplites held off an entire Persian army numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

This power dearly cost the Spartan citizens, and their unusual society eventually garnered a more humble status as a Roman tourist attraction.

Sparta took common Greek practices to extremes, even ones which would seem brutal to modern people. For example, it was acceptable in most of Greece to abandon an unwanted newborn in the woods. There was a chance that someone would find and adopt such a baby. In Sparta, babies were a communal asset, unless they were considered a liability due to being somehow weak or deformed. These infants were thrown over a cliff!

Every day of a young boy's life was a struggle for survival. Boys lived as members of small bands, living off the land and raiding farms and villages. They were punished for stealing from other Spartans, but more for getting caught than for the act itself.

Surviving teenagers were each assigned a mentor/lover (homosexuality was considered necessary for a soldier far from home). They were put through a coming-of-age gauntlet during which a significant percentage were mortally wounded.

Marriage was a contract between two families. Young women were trained for marriage and child rearing as young men were trained for war. Women were responsible for controlling all aspects of sex and reproduction. This was often a jolting experience for the man who had seen few women during his short life.

When it came time for war, Sparta was always ready. However, they were spread very thin. The number of slaves and serfs in the wide regions around Sparta was hundreds of times the number of Spartan citizens. Sparta controlled vast wealth, but its citizens never enjoyed any of it.

Eventually, all of Greece was absorbed into the Roman empire. They were spared most of the downsides of conquest faced by the "barbarians" of places such as Gaul. Romans respected Greek culture, and even believed that Rome was founded by Greeks. Therefore, they left Greek society very much intact, including Sparta.

The Spartan culture caused each of its citizens to become an awesome powerhouse of strength and discipline. Unfortunately, there just weren't enough of them, and there wasn't much variety.

However, Sparta was now just another state within a vast empire. Though its traditions were still alive, suddenly they were quaint rather than brutally effective.

Rome won over Sparta because Romans valued individuality and personal rewards as well as communal strength and power. Sparta's society had just a few fatal flaws. It was too elitist. People couldn't "join" Sparta: They had to be born into it. Spartan men had to be warriors before being husbands, merchants, or politicians. Other cultures were allowing different men to perform different tasks. Sparta's population began to shrink as soon as Lycurgus implemented his militaristic reforms, and it never recovered.

Of course, Rome was won over by a certain movement, and you probably know what it is (This would make a good article). Think about this also when you next decide to design something.

What does this all mean, and why should you care? History shows us what has been done right in the past, and what has been done wrong. There are quite a few lessons we might take away from the history of Sparta:

To grow and expand, to gain control of assets, you need to be able to grow internally.

It's better to open your doors to diversity than to screen and weed people, or to stuff them into a mold. Think of some other regimes in the last hundred years or so that tried to do this, and what happened to them.

Wealth, power, and respect are all some people are looking for. Sparta had all of this, and for a long time. In the long run, however, these things amounted to only a few moments of glory and a place in the history books. Maybe you're looking for something more "in the moment".

When studying the history of this most interesting society, you must decide how to intrepret it and its effect on society (if any). That, after all, is why the study of history is so important.



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