Making burgers out of sacred cows: beloved movies that completely suck

[TheIronRuler]

300 is a terrible movie.
I thought it was a terrible movie when I saw it in the theater, I thought it was a terrible movie when THIS! IS! SPARTA! became an absolutely insufferable and inescapable meme, I thought it was a terrible movie when it came out on DVD and got endlessly parodied and imitated.

300 features zero actual characters, portrays Leonidas as a petulant maniac, Xerxes as a gigantic androgynous monster-person and Persians as demonic hellbeasts who actually spend the time nailing hundreds of innocent civilians a single tree to show how mean and evil they are.

It is one long historical inaccuracy that would normally be perfectly fine for this kind of movie, but it hamstrings itself with 'cool looking' slow-mo fight scenes that are the entire point of the movie AND YET end up look pretty fucking retarded in any context.
The Spartans have made a huge deal out of how important their unbreakable Phalanx is, but when the fighting actually happens they all constantly break ranks to do inane and ridiculous little cool-fight moves. (Sorry, Ephialtes! You can't hold a shield right so you can't die with us! TOO BAD YOUR INABILITY TO HOLD A SHIELD UP WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY POINTLESS ANYWAY AMIRITE)

I have nothing against the performers themselves, I thought they did great with the pathetically vacant, empty, jingoistic script.
I have nothing against the director, (even though Sucker Punch was insufferably boring) and I do enjoy his visual style.
I have nothing against Frank Miller, even though his work is wildly hit-or-miss and frankly 300 was one of his broader misses.

I hated this movie. I thought it was terrible.

What I hated most, though, was the tremendous missed opportunity it represented.

See, if you replaced the Spartans in that movie with Klingons and the Persians with Romulans
the movie would have been exactly the same.

As a matter of fact, it would have been way the fuck better.

Change Leonidas' name to Kahless and suddenly his mindless aggression (KILLING THE MESSENGER IS NOT A HEROIC ACT OK) makes perfect sense.
You wouldn't even have to alter anything about the Persians/Romulans. At all.
You would not have to alter the script or anything that happens in the script, all that ridiculous shouting about FREEDOM FREEDOM HEY GUYS FREEDOM would have been perfectly in character.

Trek geeks would have loved to see their precious Bat'leths not be a useless weapon.
Mainstream audiences would have been all about it.
It would have gone a long way towards re-invigorating the franchise long before J.J. Abrams had to save it.



K, so, that's the movie I can't fucking stand that everyone else seems to love.

Your turn.

Mate, that was based on a COMIC BOOK called '300' that was LOOSELY BASED on these events.
Take THAT into consideration.

 

[end_boss]

I hated Clerks. I think it got away with way too much forgiveness because "it was made for almost nothing!" and because... well... people like hearing others talk about blowjobs? A few good moments, a couple laughs here and there, but the acting was terrible, the writing wasn't much better, and I hated all of the characters.

 

[SckizoBoy]

the op was saying the movie itself isn't consistent with the mythology it sets up. it's shitty and a lot of people just like it cause of the visuals.

And I agree with him, but it seemed a bit pointless me just saying 'I agree', so I made reference to a much superior film (which supposedly inspired the graphic novel) on the basis that someone would either make comments about said original film, or inquire further about it. Granted, it was prevaricating a little, but you wouldn't begrudge me that, would you?

Besides, I reckon '300' was shit as well, and the visuals weren't particularly impressive either... so I honestly didn't see what the fuss was about, either.

OT: Another one's come to mind: Enemy at the Gates (while thinking of shitty graphix)

Story = wrong/shit/whatever
Characters = a bad hash up of several sources
Ed Harris = talent wasted on a non-existent individual, even whose analogous character never existed either

Decent film about Stalingrad = well, Stalingrad (in German, depressing as hell)