politalX Politics Store - The Last Stand Of The 300 - The Real Story
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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £2.98
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Imc Vision
Starring: Jeffery A. Baker, Orion Barnes, Erin Bennett, Kristopher Blount, Joshua Bradley
Directed By: David Padrusch
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Exempt
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5016641116395
Format: Full Screen
Label: Imc Vision
Manufacturer: Imc Vision
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Imc Vision
Region Code: 2
Release Date: 2007-05-21
Running Time: 120
Studio: Imc Vision
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Effective and informative retelling of an incredible story
Comment: The battle of Thermopylae was one of the most decisive battles in world history, as well as being one of the most awe inspiring. If the beurocrats in Brussels truly want to forge a common sense of European identity then perhaps they should ensure that every schoolchild on the continent is at least aware of the story.
Sadly, the battle isn't really as well known as it should be, or at least wasn't until the blockbuster '300' came out last year. And here we have an American made documentary to companion that film, sticking fairly closely to the events as depicted there (and astonishingly as the events are widely agreed to have actually happened). In contrast to what other reviewers have written, I didn't find this to be particularly low budget. True, talking heads take up much of the time, often stating the merely banal and obvious, but the recreated scenes are effective if brief. In fact, they are so similar in style to the film that I'm sure a lot of the same extras and production team were involved.
Its such an astonishing story that its hard to tell badly and this documentary does quite a sound job. I'm far from an expert on Ancient Greece but I was suprised at the historians seemingly claiming that the battle of Thermopylae caused the birth of a collective sense of Greek identity which led directly to a united Greece under Phillip II and then the glory of Alexander's empire. Hmmm...I thought the subsequent war between Sparta and Athens (the peloponnesian) left all of Greece easy prey for the Macedonians (who for hundreds of years had never been allowed to participate in the Olympic Games because they were not seen as sharing in the common Greek cultural identity).
That quibble aside, a well made and effective retelling of an incredible story that everybody should know.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A noble sacrifice, but not as often told.
Comment: The story of King Leonidas' 300 troops holding back an immense Persian invading force is historically accurate - up to a point. Why 300? That was the standard troop bodyguard of either Spartan king (oddly, there were two at any given time, and they were subject to magistrates, Ephoroi.) Theirs was a fine achievement, deliberately gaining time for the mainland Greek forces (480 BCE) to marshall and prepare, although the 300 must have known well they would never return. It was the utmost disgrace for a Spartan to return defeated. However, there were more than 300. Each full Spartan (a homoios) had a retinue of several helots, regarded as of lesser status. So the true figure of the defenders of the pass of Thermopylai was at least 1,000. There's almost contemporary evidence of this, around 445 BCE, from the historian Herodotos, who recounts in full the earlier attempted Persian invasion (490 BCE) and who must have had some nearby contemporaries of the event, or their children, to interview. He tells us a stone lion was set up in Thermopylai after the final defeat of Persia, at Plataia in central Greece. There's no mention of a depiction of King Leonidas himself, so that the present-day representation of him on the statue set up in the general area where the defence is believed to have taken place is no more than guesswork.
What is accurate is the depiction of the horrors of Spartan childhood (on which, incidentally, the British public (=private) school system is based.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant High Quality DVD
Comment: this is a wonderful DVD, full of great effects, packed full of information....some people bought it thinking it was the film and gave one star, how silly is that!, its a great great DVD, esp for the low price, an excellent gift idea, and wonderfully boxed and packaged
Customer Rating:
Summary: Little content, lots of repetition
Comment: Note to self: Next time you want to know the facts behind an event, buy a book by a reputable expert in the field.
Note to David Padrusch & Matt Koed: Can I have the last 120 minutes of my life back please?
The thinking behind this film seems to have been "If you can say something once then why not say it five times." Perhaps this was orginally made for TV and the endless repetitions were designed to be recaps after a long advert break. In any case the repetions quickly became annoying.
The product description at Amazon says "visually stunning with breathtaking dramatisations and graphics." The dramatisations and animations weren't bad, but I think most of them were repeated at least twice and the documentary makers obviously decided that they could show simple pictures of swords, shields, helmets etc unless they had animated lines whizzing around them.
For all the content in this documentary it could have been easily compressed into 30-45 minutes simply by removing the repetition and the result would have been much better for it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Last Stand of the 300.......
Comment: Well, knowing this was a real story and not the blockbuster film title, I was up for becoming more knowledgeable about the last stand of the 300 Spartans.
Since watching the film when it first came out all I can say about this title is.... what a waste of time!
Several PHd gentlemen rattling on about the same thing over and over again. Whithin 20mins this "2 hour spectacular!" could've been completed.
The film doesn't really lose any of the information that these guys prattle on about, repeating themselves, repeatedly.
If you interested in the last stand of the 300 spartans, just watch the film!
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