[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
acidhell wrote:
It also promotes Arianism.
Which is ironic as Aryans originally came from India and Iran.
– ElbowStrike
[/quote]
Actually that group of people originated in the caucasus mountain area, then moved into europe, russia, the middle east, and india. the term aryan originated in persia, but not the group of people that it referred to.
[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
acidhell wrote:
It also promotes Arianism.
Which is ironic as Aryans originally came from India and Iran.
– ElbowStrike
[/quote]
Actually the whole Aryan Invasion Theory of India, was false and promoted only to further the British Rule in India.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
The ironic thing is, how many here, before a couple of months ago, had actually heard of Thermopylae? Not me, now I’m hooked. My knowledge of Sparta has increased 100X’s. I actually researched on my own and gave a 30 minute class to my Marines on this battle, Spartan warfare, the phalanx, and Persian armor. I didn’t know shit about this stuff and had no interest until I heard about this movie.
So the movie was historically inaccurate, however it has been a gigantitic springboard for, I’ll guess tens of thousands, who will actually go out a reseaech this topic on their own.
That’s the mark of greatness.
[/quote]
I find this post hilarious considering the fact that you argued with me for holding the same exact viewpoint in another thread.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
carter12 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I understand what you mean.
But there is no excuse for being uneducated, especially in the age of the internet. It is pure lazyness.
There is definitely no excuse for being uneducated. But who defines what areas of knowledge makes one educated? I know plenty of guys who didn’t finish high school but still know a hell of a lot about some things.
I agree, I have more buddies that never went to college who watch the history channel alot that are far brighter than half of the dimwits I saw in college.
I’m just saying I wish people who seek it out more, instead of having the movie version of history all the time.
And by educated, in this case I mean “knowing history”, I think, because history is the one of most important and underrated of all the subjects. [/quote]
lol no offense but this is a dumb post… so apparantly if people are ignorant of history that make3s them “uneducated”? so people who learn history are all of a sudden smart?
there’s different realms of knowledge dude… heck do you know anything about organic chemistry?
I feel special now, for being 16 and knowing most of the crap said on this thread.
It doesn’t make me a genius, it means I watch the history channel and poke around on wikipedia every once in a while.
Don’t worry about the whole anti-Iran thing. How many rednecks do you think know who the persians even are?
[quote]mharmar wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
No, not in this country. The classics are pushed aside for Anna Nicole Smith deaths and OJ trials, and the only education people get is through movies. Books and literature are not America’s strong point.
Get used to it.
Don’t get used to it, if you don’t like it, try to change it. Buy a dozen copies of Gates of Fire and give it to the next guy who says that 300 was cool.
mike
Gates of Fire is not one of the classics, it would be better to hand out Herodotus.
[/quote]
Not very many people would read that.
You, sir, are correct. The only true test of someone’s worth of a person is their knowledge of Greek history. That is the only thing that matters in life and if you know more about it then someone else then you are obviously better than them. You’re a tool.
Knowing a lot about cars is 100x more beneficial than knowing details of the battle of Thermopylae.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Ask them who Herodotus is, Plato, Virgil…
No, not in this country. The classics are pushed aside…Books and literature are not America’s strong point.
Get used to it.[/quote]
Not these days at least, but it wasnt always like that FI, we wrote book reports on this stuff back when I was in grade school, a long, long time ago…Our own TC is proof of this…
[quote]nik19 wrote:
Actually the whole Aryan Invasion Theory of India, was false and promoted only to further the British Rule in India.[/quote]
This is new to me…PM me some links to evidence to support this claim please…
[quote]PGJ wrote:
The ironic thing is, how many here, before a couple of months ago, had actually heard of Thermopylae? Not me, now I’m hooked. My knowledge of Sparta has increased 100X’s. I actually researched on my own and gave a 30 minute class to my Marines on this battle, Spartan warfare, the phalanx, and Persian armor. I didn’t know shit about this stuff and had no interest until I heard about this movie.
So the movie was historically inaccurate, however it has been a gigantitic springboard for, I’ll guess tens of thousands, who will actually go out a reseaech this topic on their own.
That’s the mark of greatness.
[/quote]
No doubt. I have always been a pretty big history guy but my first experience with Sparta was when my team leader gave me his copy of GoF when I was just a PFC in Okinawa. Now, it is a dog-eared copy highlighted with notes all in it from which I read select passages to motivate my squad when we were in Iraq.
mike
[quote]mharmar wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
No, not in this country. The classics are pushed aside for Anna Nicole Smith deaths and OJ trials, and the only education people get is through movies. Books and literature are not America’s strong point.
Get used to it.
Don’t get used to it, if you don’t like it, try to change it. Buy a dozen copies of Gates of Fire and give it to the next guy who says that 300 was cool.
mike
Gates of Fire is not one of the classics, it would be better to hand out Herodotus.
[/quote]
Herodotus was good merely for being the father of modern history. He plays an important role, but he had a very bad habit of extreme exaggeration. He really wouldn’t give you a terribly historically accurate account. At this point, no one really can.
That said, why can’t GoF be considered a classic? This is elitist bullshit really. You just wanted to puff your chest out and tell us how smart and better you are because you know/have read Herodotus. You are probably the first guy to chime in, “Yeah, but the book was better.” every time someone talks about a good movie. Pressfield’s take on the battle was an absolute classic in military fiction.
mike
[quote]JonP wrote:
You, sir, are correct. The only true test of someone’s worth of a person is their knowledge of Greek history. That is the only thing that matters in life and if you know more about it then someone else then you are obviously better than them. You’re a tool.
Knowing a lot about cars is 100x more beneficial than knowing details of the battle of Thermopylae.
[/quote]
Who is this addressed to?
[quote]CC wrote:
PGJ wrote:
The ironic thing is, how many here, before a couple of months ago, had actually heard of Thermopylae? Not me, now I’m hooked. My knowledge of Sparta has increased 100X’s. I actually researched on my own and gave a 30 minute class to my Marines on this battle, Spartan warfare, the phalanx, and Persian armor. I didn’t know shit about this stuff and had no interest until I heard about this movie.
So the movie was historically inaccurate, however it has been a gigantitic springboard for, I’ll guess tens of thousands, who will actually go out a reseaech this topic on their own.
That’s the mark of greatness.
I find this post hilarious considering the fact that you argued with me for holding the same exact viewpoint in another thread.
[/quote]
Did I? Please elaborate.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
mharmar wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
No, not in this country. The classics are pushed aside for Anna Nicole Smith deaths and OJ trials, and the only education people get is through movies. Books and literature are not America’s strong point.
Get used to it.
Don’t get used to it, if you don’t like it, try to change it. Buy a dozen copies of Gates of Fire and give it to the next guy who says that 300 was cool.
mike
Gates of Fire is not one of the classics, it would be better to hand out Herodotus.
Herodotus was good merely for being the father of modern history. He plays an important role, but he had a very bad habit of extreme exaggeration. He really wouldn’t give you a terribly historically accurate account. At this point, no one really can.
That said, why can’t GoF be considered a classic? This is elitist bullshit really. You just wanted to puff your chest out and tell us how smart and better you are because you know/have read Herodotus. You are probably the first guy to chime in, “Yeah, but the book was better.” every time someone talks about a good movie. Pressfield’s take on the battle was an absolute classic in military fiction.
mike[/quote]
I think GoF qualifies as a classic, especially when modern military experts consider it one of the greatest battle epics of all time. I can’t really think of one “classic” that was absolutely historically accurate. Keep in mind, those books we normally consider “classics” are fiction. Pure history books are not intended to be great literary works. Also, has anyone not liked the book?
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Herodotus was good merely for being the father of modern history. He plays an important role, but he had a very bad habit of extreme exaggeration. He really wouldn’t give you a terribly historically accurate account. At this point, no one really can.
[/quote]
I was thinking this same thing.
“Herodotus says that Xerxes raised 5,283,200 [Emphasis mine] men, not counting eunuchs, cooks, and prostitutes! Five million troops would be 20 percent of the entire empire. By Herodotus’ reckoning, they required four thousand tons of grain per day (four hundred thousand tons for a three-month campaign), drank rivers dry, and bankrupted entire cities with a single dinner. Modern historians guess that Xerxes’ host was actually five hundred thousand or less [Emphasis mine, again], still the largest army the ancient ancient world had ever seen.”
– The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society. Ian Morris and Barry B. Powell.
If you trust modern historians’ guesses, then Herodotus was only off by a factor of ten!
“Herodotus: Father of history; father of lies.”
What I really didn’t like was:
No final stand. In the end, Leonidas ordered his men out into the open so they could inflict as much damage as possible. In the movie, they just kind of gave up.
The Persian executioner was dumb.
No midnight attack on Xerxes tent. When I read that part in the book (it was in “The 300 Spartans” movie also), I thought that it would be a really cool part of the movie.
Only a brief glimpse of phalanx warfare. What they showed was great, then it turned into Conan warfare. I was hoping for more of an organized fight on the part of the Spartans to demonstrate their training.
Leonidas seemed to have a slight speech impediment when he yelled.
Xerxes voice.
The oracle girl scene was odd. Didn’t add anything to the movie, and she wasn’t hot. One or the other, please.
I had to keep in mind that this was based on a comic book and was being told from the point of view of a soldier, not an historian. Suspension of disbelief.
What’s the obsession with movies being accurate? Gives gives a shit? A movie is a movie.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
I thought it was super hot.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Did I? Please elaborate.
[/quote]
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1453096&pageNo=3#1474899
My original post:
Just came back from it.
Great story. Not fond of the surreal beasts; disappointed with scenes shot for the girls (holding the boy at the burning village); not a fan of the rocking tunes tracking along initial fight scenes.
That out of the way, 300 ranks top of my list for inspirational stories. True story of brave, tough, field-smart men whose death is a big ‘fuck you’ to all the contemporaries expecting a surrender or an easy victory. Sure, its portrayed in a light to make easy heros of the Spartans - but any group of men brave enough to stand before many-fold their number have an engraved place in history.