Best movie i've seen this year. Hands down.
The battle scenes are great, i've heard a lot of people saying how "historically inaccurate" and "unrealistic" this move is, but who gives a fuck, it's a movie. Not to mention, it has some of the best quotes i've ever seen in a movie..

 

The numbers have been debated to death in the original thread. Heradotus claimed five million persians (of which just over two and a half million were actual soldiers, the rest were support crew and royal slaves), modern estimates range from two hundred thousand up but I like the original accounts.

The important thing to remember however is that they were in a serious bottleneck. Unless the persians wanted to back track a few hundred miles, they had to go through a very small path to get to the rich city-states of Greece. The Persians had to basically come at the Spartans one at a time (ok, twenty or so at a time) rushing against a line of shields and spears that completely blocked the path. Not an easy group of people to kill.

 

United 300

Full of awesome, that is all.

 

First off... if you're reading this, you WILL go and see 300.

If you've already seen it.. you will see it again, God damn it!

And if all all possible you will see it in an Imax theater.

Yes, it's just that fucking good.

Don't argue... just do it.

As to the historical side of it, the battle is called the Battle of Thermopyale.

The numbers were as follows.

Persians
Units Numbers
Fleet crew 517,610
Infantry 1,700,000
Cavalry 80,000
Arabs and Libyans 20,000
Greek troops allied
with Persians 324,000
Total 2,641,610

vs

Spartans and co
Spartans 300
Mantineans 500
Tegeans 500
Arcadian Orchomenos 120
Other Arcadians 1,000
Corinthians 400
Phlians 200
Mycenaeans 80
Thespians 700
Thebans 400
Phocians 1,000
Opuntian Locrians 13
Total 5,200+

Now here's the thing... modern scholars generally try and act all superior and claim that Herodotus was exagerating the crap out of the persians forces.

*He actually claimed there were 5,283,220 (counting all the support staff)

However Simonides also gave a similar number... and frankly I don't trust modern historians for shit.

They all said that Alexander the Greats battles were over exagerated until some of the battlefields are dug the hell up and proved that they were spot on, they also claimed that Troy was a myth as well... up until they were proven wrong.

But the fact of the matter is this.. 5200 men... vs 2.6 million... and they held them. How much more kick ass can you get?

Undoubtedly, the bleeding pussy critics will "poo poo" 300 to the point that it'll not win any awards (except maybe for cinematography or something equally candy-ass like that).. mostly because it points out how much a punch of pansy assed metro-sexuals most film critics are.

In closing 300 : scores an infinity on the coolness meter.