Thursday, April 05, 2007

300

Went to Melbourne Central today with K. First playdate in a while, which was good, because it's been a struggle not finding proper time to set aside for that. We saw 300 in Gold Class... pretty much disappeared into the giant chair. You could probably have sat a family in one of the seats.

300 was pretty good, very graphic movie. I've heard rumours about it being racist, bias, etc. Which it could be. See, the movie is about a group of 300 Spartan warriors versus the might of the Xerxian Persian Empire. However, the Spartans are pure bred warriors - noble, strong, brave. The Persians have mutants, lesbians, their leader is dressed pretty scary transvestite-esque. And they're the bad guys. So I can understand that.

Anyway, I prefered to focus on the obvious value points of the movie - honour, glory, nobility, freedom, fighting for your beliefs. Although, this fighting was with violence, which maybe I don't see a problem with sometimes... don't abuse me on that. I still haven't figured out what I believe there. I believe in Jesus, and I don't know if he thought violence was ever appropriate. Although, God did choose people to lead his people in battle.. mostly in Old Testament though. I have never been sure of the righteousness of violence, and if it's appropriate ever.

All in all, 300 was a good movie, but maybe there might have been more focus on themes and ideas, rather than a bit of that and a lot of violence. One of my favourites, V for Vendetta, managed to have violence and lots of thought-provoking stuff. But still. Go see 300. Next on my list is... TMNT (which has been getting like 2 stars). And Mr Bean. Maybe with the Garage boys.

4 comments:

  1. I want 300 to see now movies at! I'm one of the only girls I know who actually wants to see it. Damn girly girls. Kidding.

    I would've said that violence is okay in self-defense... but then the bible says something along the lines of if someone slaps you on one cheek, give him your other cheek too. While it's sort of metaphorical and not totally in context, still makes me think about it.

    Self-defense isn't murder, but is it right? And what about defending the life of another person? (By defending, I don't mean, just defending, I mean fighting back, ultimately killing the 'baddie')

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  2. Hmm not sure about the violence thing. I think it is definately a thing that should always be tried to be avoided.

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  3. Em: 300 is definitely worth seeing. Girl or not.
    The bible does say to turn the other cheek, but how long can you keep turning? You only have so many cheeks. Does the bible expect us to lay down and take it if somebody is attacking us? That's a very literal look at it, but still could apply?

    Jono: If you always avoid violence, it could only work if everybody avoided it. If, say, the Spartans in 300 had chosen to avoid it, they would have been overrun and killed, along with their wives and children, as well as their lifestyle, ideals, freedom, morals. Is it ok to use violence to defend these seemingly noble causes?

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  4. I get where you're coming from, Ben, but what I was actually trying to say is to avoid where possible. This obviously wasn't possible for the spartans. If there was a way out of their situation without violence, I think that would have been a better answer, but I'm not sure there was a better way, so it may not be so bad.

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