Product Description

This spectacular two hour documentary tells the amazing true story of the 300 Spartan warriors who so selflessly defended their country against the mighty Persian army, estimated at being a million strong for almost 7 days. This is the real story of the most famous last stand in history. At the height of the Persian-Greek war, Xerxes, King of Persia, intent on conquering all of Greece, led his mighty army into battle. But what awaited them was not to be anticipated . For seven days the King of Sparta Leonidas accompanied by just 300 Spartan warriors and a number of Greek regulars held off the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae, so that the Greek army would have time to mobilise. Against impossible odds, the Spartans held the narrow pass, inflicting shocking casualty numbers on the Persians untill every last Spartan was slain. This program is visually stunning with breathtaking dramatisations and graphics helping to bring the true story of the Spartans last stand to life and tell the real story behind what happened at the pass at Thermopylae, which is still used in military academies and by tactitians around the world today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26470 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-05-21
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Synopsis
Documentary detailing the captivating battle in which 300 Spartan Warriors stood their ground, defending themselves against a legion of marauding Persians - estimated at over a million men.

Customer Reviews

Very informative.
An interesting DVD from the History Channel with a very comprehensive account of the famous battle, with reasonable background info regarding the history leading up to the Persian invasion. Production values are as expected from a television show, with none of the high budget CGI seen in films. It is all passable though and depicts the chain of events well, especially the all important marine offensive in the straits to ward off the Persian pincer movement against the army led by the Spartans.

The explanations of the battles by the various academics and authors (including Steven Pressfield of 'Gates of Fire' fame) are absorbing and one is left in no doubt about the amazing sacrifice made by so few... but not as few as one is led to believe by certain Hollywood films. One small niggle with the DVD is that there are obvious pauses and fades to black, which are annoyingly dead give-aways for TV commercials when the programme was aired.

All in all an excellent addition to the truly stunning 300 Hollywood movie.

Little content, lots of repetition
Note to self: Next time you want to know the facts behind an event, buy a book by a reputable expert in the field.

Note to David Padrusch & Matt Koed: Can I have the last 120 minutes of my life back please?

The thinking behind this film seems to have been "If you can say something once then why not say it five times." Perhaps this was orginally made for TV and the endless repetitions were designed to be recaps after a long advert break. In any case the repetions quickly became annoying.

The product description at Amazon says "visually stunning with breathtaking dramatisations and graphics." The dramatisations and animations weren't bad, but I think most of them were repeated at least twice and the documentary makers obviously decided that they could show simple pictures of swords, shields, helmets etc unless they had animated lines whizzing around them.

For all the content in this documentary it could have been easily compressed into 30-45 minutes simply by removing the repetition and the result would have been much better for it.

A documentary that lets itself down
An ultra-low budget production that gives (as far as I can tell) a reasonably comprehensive picture of the battle of Thermopylae including a historical context, a brief but painfully clear picture of the upbringing of Spartan children and a little of adult life, the geography and technology of the battle including the marine aspect, the politics that shaped it on the day, and arguably its effect on the modern world's culture (based on the rather dubious claim that democracy could not have arisen elsewhere had Greece fallen). The almost completely pointless scenery of soldiers standing around and gashing each other is intercut with head shots of academics giving their considered and fascinating point of view on what and how and why.
It's not actually too bad but the main narrator's running commentary was unnecessary repetitious and often simplified, doing a disservice to the professional historians employed (and was delivered in that deep, gravelly, oh-so-sincere accent loved by American documentary makers -- do they genetically engineer these people to sound this way or what?).