13th March 2007, 7:00 PM
A Black Falcon Wrote:It was written by comic book authors, but it IS based on historical events (and as far as I know doesn't have monsters, though I could be wrong), so historical accuracy certainly does count, and the film is lacking, just like Troy was. Could very well still be fun to see, though, but as a student of history if I notice historical inaccuracies they can irritate me...
Uh, ASM, the Shah? That was Islamic Persia, a regime wouldn't be founded for over a millenium after the events of the Persian Wars... Xerxes was Emperor of Persia.
As for the 'god' thing, I'm not sure... I know that Persia then was Zoroastrian, which was an essentially monotheistic religion, but I'm not sure if they considered the monarchs some form of deity or not...
Another case of "cinema putting theater above historical fact". It was a decent enough movie, and I liked it, but yes, historically... well, they definitely exagerated the actions of the British in some regards (there is no evidence they burned people alive in a church like that, as far as I know, for instance...), even though that was a bloody, violent war there.
The problem with complaints like this is that they seem to think that there is a connection between the US Government and cultural products of the nation such as films, something that is simply not true... the movie directors have said that they were just making a movie, not a political statement, I believe. I'd tend to believe them...
Actually the word king in both ancient persian and modern Farsi is "Shah" , Cyrus's title was Shah'an'shah "King of Kings" more or less emperor, Their culture never had such a title as a emperor since the persians were really the first to have such a massive collection of territory and conquered nations, China did not even exist yet. Local tribal kingdoms like Israel were subordinate to them.
Islam has nothing to do with it , The Arab monarchs up untill Genghis khans invasion who ruled over Iran refferd to themselves as sultans since they were arabic and they made their language official , But with the advent of Shia sect and devision with the rest of Islam a new dynasty of native rulers helped the local cultural regain a revival along with Farsi , So Shah became the title again.
Some Kings tried to associate with a angelic being who ruled as a lord within their god's court amongst 6 other figures two of which are female. Cyrus tomb pretty confirms that he didnt have a god complexe, As it was inscribed with a prayer to Ahura mende in penitent for his misdeeds and transgressions while on earth and be allowed to cross over the celestial bridge into heaven. Records of his burial suggest he gave some kind of offering to a spirit gaurdian who's job it was to judge who was worthy of going into purgatory or paradise .
The faith was scriptural and some of it called the gathas was taught like the hindu vedas with oral recitating hymns.
Irans goverment is intentionaly making a deal of this to falsely feed the idea to their people that americans are making hate films about them , Like I said before the Islamic republic has a poor record for honnoring Irans heritage so their claims are hypocritical to say the least.
The only way hollywood could counter this attack would be to make a Cyrus the great film do like Mel Gibsons films and have it in ancient Farsi.
I have seen some people claiming to be Iranian complain about the depictions of the persians in 300 but they were quickly eased from any emotional gripe when people pointed out from the Uk how BraveHeart and the Patriot trashed their image , That its simpily hollywood custom to exaderate and inflate things for the sake of adding drama and not some racially motivated slander.
Maybe Edward the great was a butcher but the english folk werent serial killers. But for the sake of drama lets have them spit on William Wallace and cheer his execution like Passion of the christ except with englishmen instead of jews.