300: Rise Of An Empire
300: The Rise of an Empire Large Group Workout Because of the number of guys we were training at any one time, we ended up doing a lot of things that were in the vein of say, max reps in 60 seconds, or X reps every 30 seconds for 10 minutes, and then fine-tuning the number of reps and the weights. 300: Rise of an Empire Queen Gorgo of Greece tells her men about the Battle of Marathon, in which King Darius I of Persia was killed by General Themistocles of Athens. As Xerxes' forces advance towards Thermopylae, Themistocles meets with the council and convinces them to provide him with a fleet to engage the Persians at sea. Frank Miller's 300 sequel, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, finally gets a release date. After being teased for several years, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, the long-awaited follow-up to the book that many consider writer/artist Frank Miller's magnum opus has been given an official release date by publisher Dark Horse Comics.
ABOUT THE FILM
“300: Rise of an Empire,” told in the breathtaking visual style of the blockbuster “300,” is a new chapter of the epic saga takes the action to a new battlefield-the sea.
The story pits the Greek general Themistokles against the massive invading Persian forces rules by mortal-turned-god Xerxes, and led by Artemisia, the vengeful commander of the Persian navy.
Knowing his only hope of defeateing the overwhelming Persian armada will be to unite all of Greece, Themistokles ultimately leads the charge that will change the course of the war.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures present, a Cruel and Unusual Films/Mark Canton/Gianni Nunnari Production, “300: Rise of an Empire.” Reprising their roles from “300,” Lena Headey stars as the Spartan Queen, Gorgo; David Wenhan appears as Dilios, Andrew Tiernan plays Ephialtes; Andrew Pleavin plays Daxos; and Rodrigo Santoro returns in the roles of the Persian God-King. The cast includes Hans Matheson as Themistokles closest friend and advisor, Aeskylo; Callan Mulvey and Jack O’Connell as father and son soldiers. Scyllias and Callisto; and Igal Naor as the Persian King Darius.
The action adventure stars Sullivan Stapleton (“Gangster Squad”) as Themistokles and Eva Green (“Dark Shadows,” “Casino Royale”), as Artemisia. Lena Headey reprises her starring role from “300” as the Spartan Queen, Gorgo; Hans Matheson (“Clash of the Titans”) stars as Aeskylos; David Wenham returns as Dilios, and Rodrigo Santoro stars again as the Persian King, Xerxes.
The film is directed by Noam Murro, from a screenplay by Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad, based on the graphic novel Xerxes, by Frank Miller. Gianni Nunnari, Mark Canton, Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder and Bernie Goldmann produced the film, with Thomas Tull, Frank Miller, Stephen Jones and Jon Jashni serving as executive producers.
Hollywood might not know much about history, but it has an advanced degree in sex and violence. Yet somehow, it can manage a surprising amount of insight into the human condition. A case in point is 300: Rise of an Empire, a sequel to 2006’s hugely successful 300. Both films are loosely based on fact. The first is about the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.), where 300 Spartans fought to the death to defend Greece against a massive invading Persian army. The dead included Sparta’s king, Leonidas. Terrible as the defeat was, it inspired Greece’s resistance and eventual victory.
The sequel focuses on the war at sea, and particularly on two battles: Artemisium, which took place around the same time as Thermopylae, and Salamis, one of history’s greatest naval encounters, which occurred about a month later. Thermopylae had been the Greek equivalent of a bare-knuckle battle, and the Spartans prided themselves on being the manliest of men. The Athenians, who saved Greece at sea, fought a different kind of war. Ships and seamanship, rather than brawn, proved decisive. And when brains rule, women can rise to the challenge. In fact, the two naval battles saw the participation of probably the first female admiral in history—Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus. Though half-Greek, she fought for the Persians.
Rise of an Empire rewrites many of the facts. In 480 B.C., the Greeks were infuriated that the Persians sent a woman to fight them, but the movie ignores this reaction. Instead, it makes Artemisia into the stunning and deadly leader of the Persians, rendering the Persian king, Xerxes, as a figurehead. In the charismatic French actress Eva Green, Artemisia is entirely credible. She is a masterful killer, equally at home with swords and sex as weapons—not a surprising role for Green, who has portrayed a Crusader queen, a Parisian pleasure-lover, and a James Bond girl.
Themistocles, leader of the Greek fleet, played by the muscular Australian Sullivan Stapleton, is no figurehead, but he fades in comparison with Artemisia. The historical Themistocles resembled a cross between Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon—heroic and cunning, a Machiavellian bulldog, with Lord Nelson’s audacity thrown in. But the film’s Themistocles can’t quite pull off a victory against the Persian fleet. In the big-screen telling of Salamis, another woman comes to the rescue: Gorgo, widow of Leonidas, the fallen king, who brings the Spartan fleet with her to polish off the enemy. Played by English actress Lena Headey, Gorgo is gorgeous but all business, a cold but still-inspiring leader. The real-life Gorgo stayed home; the celluloid version saves Greece.
A less than vital hero and two women who decide the war’s outcome—is this political correctness run wild? On the contrary, it’s closer to being political philosophy on the silver screen. As anyone who remembers Helen of Troy knows, men have marched to war throughout history under the banner of women. Often, their inspiration is a virginal figure, supposedly pure and idealistic—such as Elizabeth I of England, called the Virgin Queen, or France’s Joan of Arc. But men sometimes follow a more full-blooded woman, like Cleopatra or the bare-breasted “Liberty Leading the People” in Delacroix’s famous painting about the 1830 revolution in France. Roman generals such as Julius Caesar went to battle in the name of Venus.
The 1960s youth culture urged us to “make love, not war,” but love and war are not always opposites. In fact, they often go together. Whether for Gorgo or for Artemisia, men are willing to die for love. Gorgo symbolizes freedom and the austere virtues of the Greek city-states; the voluptuous Artemisia stands for the power and glory of Persia, accurately portrayed in the film as the greatest empire the world had yet known. Both represent ideals that inspire passion for victory.
The 300 sequel may have a lesson for today’s world. We instinctively root, say, for Ukrainian liberty over Russian imperialism, but believers in Russian national greatness would feel otherwise. They choose empire, and well they might, if empire offers Artemisia. Gorgo is the more subtle, less obvious choice—but then freedom has never been easy.
Barry Strauss is Bryce & Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University and author of The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece—and Western Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 2004).
—–
300: Rise Of An Empire
Read the original article – Under the Banner of Women