Wednesday, March 14, 2007


6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is my original review of the movie:

I went to the movie with high hopes. I felt like a kid going to Disneyland. I was in high spirits.

After watching the movie at 1 pm for a second time....I am left being sick to my stomach.

The Trailers at the beginning of the movie didn't help. Showtime had an advert for their series to appear about The Tudors. It looked sick--gratuitious sex and effeminate men. Nothing honoralbe. The next five or six trailers were absolutely disgusting, one movie about a pair of male ice skaters together looking at each other's crotch, another movie about dumping convicts on an island, letting them kill each other while bar patrons back in the cities enjoyed watching it, another movie about a southern town experiencing biblical plagues with a mom asking her child to be killed so the "prophecy" can come right, another movie about out of wedlock marriage, about a supermodel girl doing it with Joe the garbage man--a goofball from the word go. And all over the place women kicking butt like in the convict film.

None of those films interest me and I was rather disgusted with what is being offered---nothing wholesome. They were all amoral and downright nihilistic.

It scared me.

"300" was no better. I closed/shielded my eyes for over 10% of the movie to disgusted with watching the gratuitous sex. I was aghast at how they portrayed the ephors as grotesque disease ridden individuals. That was totally wrong, unhistorical and false. They were disgusting. Their frivilous attitude and their demeanor was also abhorent.

The King did NOT disobey the orders or the celebration of the Carneia. The movie portrayed the King as anti-religious and a lot of spartans as irreligious.

Reality is the complete opposite. The Spartans did NOTHING without praying first, they didn't go into battle without the god's permission!!!! The movie portrayed the Spartans as not only hating religion but having no real religious significance.

All sorts of people are going to have the wrong impressions about the Spartans and it will only enforce wrong stereotypes that are completely unhistorical----which is a grand travesty.

The real truth of the battle and the Spartans are so much greater and more beautiful that there was NO need to exagerate or even add.

There was some great parts, but most parts I cringed. Many people adored it, loved it. While I was cringing, I saw a guy clapping and enjoying it thoroughly. I was saddened beyond belief.

The movie showed callous killing of wounded soldiers---The Spartans never did that. The Spartans were gentlemen to the core--all of them. Trained in years of virtue, the acts this movie attributes them is simply outrageous.

Basically, I am sick of America, its culture. I am sick of its people I am sickened by this country---everything about America makes me sick to my stomach.

Though the Battle of Thermopylae is an awesome story worthy of remembrance, Though the Battle of Thermopylae could have been the vehicle of so much good, it was thorougly disgusted. I wanted the movie to succeed, I wanted the movie to do good, but not at this price.

8:01 PM  
Blogger vetdino said...

Dear Lindsay, I am afraid I can not agree with you, at least not 100%. I have not yet seen the movie, but I have read the comic, and, well, it didn't have major historical flows.

Ok, the ephors are depicted in a rather extreme way, but their role in Thermopylae is disputed, many say they sacrificed Leonidas to convince the other Greeks to defend the Peloponese.

They played "dirty" role in different moments of Spartan History, whenever a King tried to bring innovations, so in my opinion their obsession to keeping the Laws of Lycurgus played a major role in the decay and collapse of Sparta.

I am actually from the Southern Peninsula of Mani, where people still claim that we descend from the Spartans, however, if we wish to be objective, the truth is that the Spartan regime was a regime of equality for the equals and inhuman suppression of the helots.

Like Xenophon said: "No man is more free anywhere in the world than in Sparta, but no man is more a slave than in Sparta!!"

I don't know where you are from, but your judgment of the USA (who I am not a great fan of) is also a bit extreme, if you want my opinion. I believe that in every society, in every system, especially in democratic countries, we should focus on the positive sides, and as active citizens (which most Americans are not) we should all fight the disadvantages of the society.

The progress of our society depends upon us, and the way we think and act. If we only care about ourselves we can not complain about misjudgments. That is the essence of democracy.

5:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see you used the word, "progress". Progress is a Jewish/Enlightenment word. The Spartans were not "progressive" but Compliers--obedient to the Temporal Order. They were obedient to the Laws of Nature. Human nature is the same, has "human nature" progressed? Not in my opinion, and is slipping back into barbarianism.

10:50 PM  
Blogger vetdino said...

what does "Jewish/Enlightenment" mean? I honestly can't understand this terminology? and you can not condemn anything or anyone jewish??!! There are good jews and bad jews, good greeks and bad greeks, who have good or bad ideas...

Progress has been an element of society before the Jews ever appeared in the World scene. It was progress that drove the Athenians from a Monarchy to Aristocracy and then to Democracy.

It is progress that today you and me can express our opinion freely, it is through progress that people live 80 years and not 40 like a few centuries ago.

Spartans did not obey the Law of Nature, they obeyd the Law of Lycurgus and the Laws of the Gods. Enslaving a population at least 4 time larger than you and turn them into the beasts to run your economy is not normal!! Their refusal to progress was their eventual downfall!! They fought with the same tactics at Platea and at Mantinea 117 years later. They simply refused to evolve and adapt.

Progress (evolution) is even part of Nature itself. Species which evolve and adapt live longer, those who fail, just die away.

10:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

See, what "Progress" is, is socialist dogma that came out of the Jewish influenced Enlightenment. It is about "Fixing the World" which in Jewish parlance is "Tikkun Olam". That is what they mean by Progress.

To the Doric Greeks there was NO "fixing the world". They imitated the principles and paradigms found in Nature.

"What the Dorians endeavored to obtain in a state was good order, or cosmos, the regular combination of different elements." and again, Plutarch sums up well the Lacedæmonian spirit when he says, "We are not in the world in order to give laws, but...in order to obey the commands of the gods" (where those commands of the gods are embedded in nature).

And again, one must understand the principle of "Righteousness". They "ordered" their society due to Righteousness. One group farms, and One group Soldiers. That is how they constructed a Successful and Winning Culture.

Europe is dying and America is dead Because they are into progress. Socrates said in the Republic, "We follow in the footsteps of our Fathers". That is the Greek Traditional Aristocratic Way. No Intellectual of Classical Antiquity looked to Athens---They all looked to Sparta.

7:21 PM  
Blogger vetdino said...

Lindsay, I agree with you that the Spartans were conservative by nature. We admire what they did, and pay tribute to the glories of their civilization, however, we can not idealize them and present them as being perfect. Not in modern ethical terms.

I don't know if you know about the "Spartan Chimaera", the view that the other Greeks had for the Spartans and the ideal city state. This was cultured by the Spartans to make their opponents admire them and fear them, so they wouldn't have to fight against them. This was far from the truth though. The Spartans had serious internal problems, not only with the Hellots who revolted whenever given the chance, but with the equals as well, even with their Kings (Cleomenis or Pausanias for instance were executed by the ephors for trying to impose changes in the social structure of Sparta).

Most ancient schollar were interested in Sparta also because Sparta kept itself apart from the rest of the Greek city states giving her a mystical, almost illusive vision in the mind of other Greeks. Athens was far more open and extraversive.

On the other hand, I agree with you that the West has suffered from too much progressive thinking puting in danger our very existance, especially when dealing with extremists, who, I think, we fight in a very wrong way.

There is also a lack of morals and ethics in our society, and we have to deal with this urgently!! Taking examples from the past can help, but can not, alone, solve our current issues.

This a discussion for my other blog I think:

http://www.politicallyincorrecttalk.blogspot.com/

12:36 PM  

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