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My History professor says they are full of crap but she also hates the history channel because they are also often full of crap and inaccuracies. Soo....

Last edited by NahtanoJ88 (2007-03-17 05:51:09)

No his teacher is right, Frank Miller wasn't trying to be historicly accurate when he wrote the comic that was the basis for the movie.

apparently one of his favorite movies is the 1962 film The 300 Spartians. and he wanted to do his own telling of the story

Trivia: Frank Miller also wrote the screen plays for Robocop 2 & 3 and was so pissed off with how the studio fucked with his script he set out to write something that could never be made into a movie.(and seing as how sincity2 comes out this summer it goes without saying that he failed)

Okay, anyone who believes the History Channel is under a gag order about ANYTHING needs to have their head examined.  The History Channel does what is commercially viable, but I'd be willing to bet my yearly paycheck they aren't knowingly producing falsehoods as propaganda for the government or anyone else.  I dare say that any such rumor was started by someone who disagreed with THC's interpretation of some set of events.

You are right about the difficulty verifying "reality" once you start getting into the distant past.  As you point out, history was written by the guys who won, and the reasons for things tend to get lost in the mists of time.  However, archaeological evidence is turning up more and more often now.  The whole reason that one has to keep an open mind about history is because while the event doesn't change, what we know about it sure as hell does.

Every historian tells history through their own lens.  It is nearly impossible not to color history with your own opinions, because there is so much guesswork that happens when you start talking about the distant past, or when you are trying to ascribe motives to people when you don't have any proof of their motive. 

For example:
Emperor Ziegbert killed a thousand people, and if you didn't like him, you will call him a butcher... when the truth is that his security chief had discovered these thousand people were attempting to start a war with neighboring Jinglykeyland so that they could overthrow the government during the resulting chaos and put themselves in power.  The proof of the reason, however, was kept secret because it would expose a weakness in the empire's defenses... and is thus lost to history, unless we get lucky enough to find some hidden record of it.  Until then, your opinion of him as a butcher will stand, because no one else has proof otherwise...  Until those records are found, at which point, if you're an honest person, you will realize he wasn't a butcher, but someone who felt that a thousand lives lost was better than a hundred thousand.  Unfortunately, most historians aren't that open-minded, and will find a way to continue calling him a butcher.

I am a Babylon 5 fan, and there is a Vorlon saying that I like very much:

Understanding is a three-edged sword.  My side, your side, and the truth.

Only those with an open mind will EVER find the truth.

Net Wolf

PS: Neitherspace, I wasn't making reference to the movie, as I have not even heard of it before this conversation started.  I was restricting my comment to The History Channel.

"300" is a very stylish movie. It blurs the line between cinematography and visual effects.

BTW, funniest thing I've read all day:

"Leonidas had a really nice ass.  Do you think that was historically accurate?"
My History professor says they are full of crap...

Ok I haven't seen all the comments from other reviewers I have only the comment that matters to me... I saw it and I thought it kicked ass It was not 100% accurate but it had alot of things I've read in history books... and it was well done...


... And you can't trust teachers or filmmakers or hell even the history channel...or books entirely

            ...they are all subjective written and produced with the creator's own prejeduces very much in mind.

         ..only by researching a topic from several different directions will you get most of the facts we have to offer

                      ..and like Net Wolf said some are lost for all time
   ...so some common sense when looking it all over will help spot strange gaps that others filled in their own ideas into.

Last edited by dv8n (2007-04-03 10:14:27)