It is better to Die a freeman than submit to slavery

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2007)

The highly enjoyable film 300 has unfortunately been bashed by some for its historical inaccuracies. To those people I say that this movie never set out to be a historically accurate portrayal of the Battle of Thermopylae in the first place. The movie 300 is an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 which is loosely based off of the movie "The 300 Spartans" which is about the battle of Thermopylae. It is not a movie about Herodotus' history book VII (Polymnia) or any other historical account of this great battle; however, it still manages to keep the most important aspects of this great story intact. For instance this movie captures the courage and self sacrifice of the Spartans in great detail. It also highlights how their sacrifice served as a moral victory for the Greeks which ultimately lead to the Greeks driving the Persians out of Europe.
This movie has also been wrongly labeled by some as being racist because the Persians are the villains of the movie and Persia just happens to be modern day Iran. The bottom line ladies and gentlemen is that this is a movie about the Battle of Thermopylae and it was fought between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. The Persians were not simply thrown into the film to bash Iran. The historical facts as to whom this battle was fought between was not altered in the least. Also lets not forget that this is a movie about the courage and self sacrifice of the Spartans and not about how the Persians won the Battle of Thermopylae by killing every last man who remained on the battlefield (If this was a movie that had centered on Xerexes campaign to conquer all of Europe beginning with his invasion of Greece and eventually his killing the bold 300 Spartans would you really want to see a film like this? I know I for one would not). I encourage people to keep these things in mind before they starting making unsubstantiated labels.
Some have also tried to make the weak argument that the look of the enemy is part of the racism because there are some non-human enemies in the Persian army. Again I must point out the fact that this movie is an adaptation of a graphic novel. Being that this is the case the whole look of the movie has been structured to create a surreal world. In this world things like monsters are possible. So it makes sense that the enemies can have monsters in their ranks that they can unleash whenever they feel it necessary. It is all a part of the visual presentation of the story it is not a secret plot to attack the Iranians. Think about it. Would you really be as interested in what would happen next if the wonderfully fit Spartans just fought against other wonderfully fit humans? No, you wouldn't. The monster element makes things much more visually appealing.