03-03-2009, 12:25 AM
This is way late, but here are some of my observations on "300". I was amazed not by how much it got wrong, which is to be expected in a movie, but the unexpected things that it got right: the way a spear wobbles in flight: the fact that the Greeks fought primarily as spearmen, resorting to the sword when the spear was lost or impracticable: the importance of the shield. Usually the shield is used as a sort of counterweight, held to the rear while the fighters bang their swords together. Just these three things justified the whole film as far as I was concerned. The Iranians needn't be concerned. Not one American in a hundred has any idea that ancient Persia was modern Iran. Most of them couldn't locate America on a map.
Pecunia non olet