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Yeah... I just watched the trailers (making me an expert, of course); and that was absolutely a weapons-grade rhino.

I didn't see Michael 'cause it looked dumb.

I was listening to a review on the radio this morning and the reviewer said "There's a scene in the movie where some politican guy is about to sleep with the queen and tells her 'This will not be over quickly and you will not enjoy it' -- and, well, that about summed up the movie."

Edited, Mar 13th 2007 7:14am by Jophiel

I suppose you could say that. But she went on and on about how it portrayed the angel badly. /shrug

War Elephants in wikipedia states:
From India, military doctrines for using war elephants spread to the Persian Empire where they were used in several campaigns.
It would not be a surprise that Elephants were used by the Persian in the army they fielded against the greeks. Nor was it a huge difficulty to transport them by ship. Hannibal transported a large numberr of them by ship in his campaign against the Romans.

Edited, Mar 13th 2007 12:15pm by fhrugby

A rhino would serve the same purpose as a charging elephant, to break enemy lines. That a captured rhino was used in such a fashion would not surprise me, they were natives of India from which Persian developed most of its battle tactics. What is lacking in both scenes, is that in order to take advantage of any break in the enemy lines caused by a large charging animal, your infantry would have to be right behind them.

Edited, Mar 13th 2007 12:25pm by fhrugby

Given the mentality of the Xerses, who fancied himself a god, even though a rhino was much less efficient than an elephant in shocking an enemy line and most costly to transport, I would find it not only possible, but likely that Xerses would have one to use in battle, as it would give him something no one else had.

Xerses expanded the Persian Empire greatly during his reign because he relied heavily on slave soldiers, which provide cheap and expendable forces he used to outnumber and overwhelm his enemies. It also greatly diminished the population, tax base and economy of a conquered province. It was a policy that depleted almost all of the resources of conquered province and when the expansion stopped he then ran out of easy labor for slaves and he could not therefore maintain an army large enough to control all his lands without also depleting the resources of the Persian Empire. That key factor is what made possible Alexander the Great's easy conquest of the Perisan Empire and its break away provinces long after Xerses death.

The use of slave armies makes the giant man scene more plausible, as any Andre the giant sized men found anywhere in the expanding empire would have been seized for their shock value on the battle fields, and probably not without a fight from said giant sized man.



Edited, Mar 13th 2007 3:29pm by fhrugby

Could it have been out of religious belief that she didn't see that movie?

I doubt it, he didn't mention her being functionally retarded.

True, true.

Sadly, a film or book doesn't have to be based on a historical event to have people believe it happened.

Take the "Left Behind" series for instance...

Only if they are completely stupid......


Back down you twerp. You already said you havnt seen it. Its a movie, based on a comic, based on a story from thousands o' years ago.

What about the biblical epics of the 50's and 60's. You see them? All that idiotic ressurecting and parting of the waters. Paff!

Load of ***** pretty darned entertaining tho.

You'll be telling us that they are historically accurate 'cos its in the bible next.

Its a em.oh.vee.eye.ee. MOVIE. Why dont ya get ****** about the slew of movies coming out about 9/11. Now theres some bloody fictional twaddle if I ever saw it. Not that I have you understand. But I know what it will be like from the posters in the cinema.......

Oh, the delicious irony of gbaji complaining about an inaccurate portrayal of reality.

Whatever next?

Complaining that the monologues were too long?

We saw it tonight at the IMAX theater at the Loew's Metreon (formerly Sony) in San Francisco. Enjoyed the movie for what it was. The sound was awesome, but I could take or leave seeing it on the IMAX screen. The seats were uncomfortable compared to the Metreon's regular theater seats, as the IMAX seats don't recline and are really small.

We'll pick up the flick on DVD when it comes out. For historical accuracy, I hope to catch the History Channel's Last Stand of the 300 again.

The wife and I saw this last night and enjoyed it. After reading this thread, I noticed that the people here who didn't like it were almost without exception people that I've always considered asshats anyway.