300 Spartans: The Real Story

I tried and tried to ignore the heavy Australian accents, which made it hard to take this documentary hard to take seriously. The portrayal of the historical figures by the Australian actors was bad. And the dialogue by the historical experts seemed very clunky.

Finally a complete story on a single topic, so long since I saw a documentary that was not a collection of trivia and a covert invitation to visit somewhere and spend money.

Nearly 400 volunteer extras, that must have taken some organizing.

And something new on the last stand of the 300 (+1400 others). At long last, not the usual rehashed glorified stuff. Lots of details, maps, explanation and some discussion. Have to be careful not to give away any spoilers.

Pretty good action as well, worth a watch. The Greeks even hold their spears correctly and fight in a proper phalanx.

We decided to view it as "Jim Gaffigan's Australian Historical Reenactor's 300" and laughed like crazy. It's campily cheesy but does debunk a lot of the myths in favor of more considered and layered knowledge.

People have unrealistically high expectations these days-don't let the fake leopard, tiger, snake, zebra prints put you off. Listen to the information, consider it and have a little fun while doing it.

Though the content is extremely interesting and seems detailed and accurate, there is no professional editing or story telling. There are repeated repeated statements and facts, the various "experts" repeat information that they've each said independently, and the backdrops behind these story tellers are annoying and distracting. One can almost forgive the horrible acting and the re-enactments can't have been directed by even stuntmen, however what's most distracting is the cutaways and editing flourishes that are so random and varied that it reminds one of a first timers attempt at Power Point. I learned a lot of information from this but I wouldn't use it in a middle school class.

The history in this documentary is sound but the way they tell the story makes it nearly impossible to follow. I generally like the documentary/reenactment method of historical storytelling but have never seen it pulled off in such a bad way.

Michael Scott is a very good history presenter, which makes it all the more strange that the makers of this film used him so sparingly.

The less said about the green screens the better.