The 300: Remember The Spartans

The Spartans are the original underdogs. They were not the largest army in all of Ancient Greece, but they were the best trained, bravest, and most feared in all of Greece. Their pivotal last stand came during the Battle of Thermopylae, when 300 legendary Spartans held off the mighty Persian army of about a quarter million in order to buy time for the Greek city-states to mobilize against the invaders. That epic battle is used as a rallying cry whenever a team is faced with insurmountable odds, and now that battle is recreated in The 300. I have the YouTube version of the trailer here, but do yourself a favour and check out the large screen versions for The 300 on the Apple website. It's bloody gorgeous.



The 300 is based on the Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name. Miller is known for such hard boiled works as Sin City and the ground-breaking graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The trailer looks visceral, looking to draw in fans of the battle scenes from The Lord of The Rings and Braveheart. It reminds me of The Battle of Agincourt scenes from the excellent Henry V by Kenneth Branagh, which also saw a smaller army hold off a larger opposition. I'm looking forward to The 300, as it looks like a dirtier, more vivid depiction of war than, say, Troy, which I found made everything a bit too pretty to take seriously as a comment on the brutal nature of war.

Visually this trailer has a dark and brutal beauty, which is understandable as the director is Zach Snyder, who got Hollywood's attention with his 2004 remake of Dawn of The Dead. He's currently linked to the long-gestating production of The Watchmen, based on the revolutionary graphic novel by Alan Moore.

The 300 opens in March 2007.

300 Production Blog