The comic is good, but it's not really a long running series. 5 issues I think. Excellent stuff.

There are a few key scenes from the comic just in the trailer, it looks good as an adaptation, and it's directed by the guy who did the Dawn of the Dead remake, which I enjoyed.

I clicked on his info on imdb and...Watchmen is listed? When did that get resurrected?

300 is good, fun stuff. I thought they were making a movie out of "Gates of Fire" as well, but perhaps the dual flops of Troy and Alexander killed it.

Trailer is nice, due mostly to the NIN.

Yeah, otherwise known as "The Hot Gates". It's worth picking up. It's got that Frank Miller touch, but not as many "True Hollywood Story" or made for tv movie-ish liberties taken as you'd expect.

I apologize in advance for dragging this into P&C, but this trailer looks like the exact movie a Wilhelminian German would've made if he had had the means of today's Hollywood. I just don't have patience for this.

Wilheliminianism, named after the last emperor of Germany, William (Wilhelm) II, was a strongly militaristic cultural movement that dominated German society on the eve of WW1 and had strong influences on pre-Third Reich Germany.
The battle of the Thermophylae was seen as one of the big ideals to aspire to. One saw the German soldiers as the modern equivalents of the Spartans and tried to emphasize such 'virtues' as blind loyalty, mercilessness towards the enemy, and a lack of fear of death, all of which were found in that historical event. Quite a few pointless heroic last stands in WW1 were based on the words "Wanderer, if you come to Sparta, tell them..."

Nemesis never actually said that the Battle of Thermophylae should be ignored historically. He just said that he doesn't have the patience for a movie that glorifies the ideals of Sparta, because that sort of presentation too closely resembles a tragic moment from his country's past. I think that's fair enough, and certainly not hypocritical at all.

I think the movie looks very cool, very stylistic versus the "realism" of Troy and Alexander.

Apology refused. The derailment is much more interesting than the rail.

It definitely looks good, regardless of the politics. Does this count as the first Frank Miller work where the men wear less than the women? (Not that I'm complaining...)

I don't think he was trying to convince anyone of anything. Just stating an opinion.

And the parallels with those other examples don't exactly work. The characters in those shows/movies are anti-heroes, the whole point being that they're really not all that admirable, even if we can relate to them on a certain level. While in the 300, the characters are portrayed as extremely heroic, upstanding (if by a different set of values) men.

In the case of the battle of Thermopylae, I don't think it falls into the category of what you're describing Nemesis (and while I know it's been used that way in the past, I don't feel Miller's version is pro-aggression), partly because they, well, they all die, and partly because in this instance at least, the Greeks are for once not the aggressors. The hunchback that everyone seems to hate is kind of the anti-Spartan ideal, true, but in the comic he is not ridiculed or abused, but he is turned away when he asks for a chance to fight in the battle, because he is physically incapable of working in formation with the phalanx. He betrays them because of this, and his remorse drives him to kill himself.

I think it's hard to have an argument over overtly aggressive behavior of the Spartans, they were a people who placed a great deal of stock in being warriors, but I would say that it was a very aggressive era, and that the Persians were no less aggressive, perhaps even more so, seeing as how far the empire had spread.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that while I can see why you'd be jaded against another interpretation of the story, given certain abuses of it in world history and Germany's history, that I don't feel "300" is guilty of the same abuses, and that you might enjoy it if you picked it up. It's only 5 issues, and I'm pretty sure they've collected them into one volume by now.

Edit: Just out of curiousity, how does that version of the quote end? And how is it interpreted?

I would think its safe to say someone commanding a 4 million man army was aggressive.

That said, I mainly objected because I thought you were an American college student criticising authoritarian militaristic culture and I enjoy taking pot shots at hippies. Since you actually live in Germany and I've never been there, I'll defer to your judgement in this case.

And this is where I drop the bomb.

It has been suggested - with some reason, if you ask me - that parts of contemporary American culture and Wilhelminianism are comparable:

Wilhelminians argued that the best way of educating a young man - the best way to "make a man of him" was military drill. This opinion finds itself reflected in American movies, in the success of 'boot camps' for misbehaving kids, or opinions that a good person of authority should have served in the forces.

Wilhelminians argued that a nation's foremost pride had to be its military. In contemporary American politics, any single candidate, no matter of what opinion, will try to give the impression that he "supports our troops", that he "stands behind the troops", no matter what kind of actions were performed by the military lately. Even during the height of Abu Guhreib, everyone still proclaimed how much they supported the troops.

Wilhelminians were absolutely convinced that God was with a single nation, and that nation was Germany.

When Germany lost WW1, Wilhelminians were quick to point out that the German military stood "unbeaten in the field". They created the "Daggerthrust-Legend" which argued that the defeat was due to left politicians and pacifists staging a revolution on the "home front". Talked to a conservative American about Vietnam lately?

Note that I bolded that "parts" at the beginning. This, like any other sweeping generalization on the national level, limps: The mentioned traits are only a selection of what defined Wilhelmianism and are in turn only applicable to a selection of Americans.
Still, Germany also included other cultural movements before the Great War broke out. I believe there's a very dangerous kind of nationalistic militarism loose in parts of America's culture, and this trailer struck me as a rather obvious example for this.

You're right, Zero, the Whilelmian movement used the Battle of Thermpylae as propoganda, but who cares?

Maybe you should reread your Plutarch and Herodotus, the story of this battle is the story of sacrificing oneself for the better good of many. Which, I think, is also the basis of the world's most popular religious movement.

From what I see in the trailer they explain why the Spartans were such bad-asses -and they were incredible bad-asses- and I hope that Miller includes all the cool things that Plutarch has Leonidas say. I don't see anything in this few minute long trailer that would lead me to believe that all the movie is about is creating a centralized, militaristic society. But then, not being from Germany, maybe I'm not sensitive to these things.