300 Persians

[The Ubbergeek]

On a related note, a movie who would show the less savoury sides of Sparta would be good too. Like that Hilotes Revolt...

Good in the sense of breaking that certain image of the spartans, I means.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

Diaspora filmmakers then.

Market issues. Not enough diaspora Iranians for a large budget film, perhaps. Hard to show certain foreign films in Iran -- subject to censorship -- where the biggest market would be.

However, a filmmaker in Iran is currently trying to make a film, of all people, Cyrus the Great --- creator of the 1st charter of human rights (by some accounts). What will the Ayatollahs have to say about that?

http://presstv.com/detail/2014/05/05/361392/iran-to-film-persian-empire-cyrus-king/

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Market issues. Not enough diaspora Iranians for a large budget film, perhaps. Hard to show certain foreign films in Iran -- subject to censorship -- where the biggest market would be.

However, a filmmaker in Iran is currently trying to make a film, of all people, Cyrus the Great --- creator of the 1st charter of human rights (by some accounts). What will the Ayatollahs have to say about that?

http://presstv.com/detail/2014/05/05/361392/iran-to-film-persian-empire-cyrus-king/

That said, the iranian-persian world was a big culture who always influenced the others around, from Turkey to India, like greeks, China... And so I can see it giving solid box office results in the east if it's good.

India of one by example is an huge market of movies.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

That said, the iranian-persian world was a big culture who always influenced the others around, from Turkey to India, like greeks, China... And so I can see it giving solid box office results in the east if it's good.

India of one by example is an huge market of movies.

Indian movies are very popular in Iran. Of course India has the most prolific film industry in the world and dominates the Central/South/SE Asian film market. The Iranian film industry is currently minuscule by comparison.

 

[Deleted member 82792]

I was thinking more of a 'reverse' Greco-Persian war, where the Greeks, lead on by the Spartans, invade Persia long before Alexander the Great. Then we'd get a Persian version of the 'Hot Gates' were a small group of soldiers or Immortals massacre a larger number of Greeks/Spartans before their heroic last stand.

 

[Daniwani]

It would be interesting to see how unrealistic and entirely different any movie analogue would be able to make the Greeks look, if we assume the Greeks are as famous to the average movie goer as they are today. Demon Gargoyle Samurai Hoplites?

 

[gianni_rivera]

It's very reasonable to feel sorry for the Persians re the movie 300 -- they were portrayed as evil, arrogant, and (most of all) silly. Of course, the Spartans weren't exactly portrayed accurately either. Their lack of standard hoplite armor was akin to a WWII Battle of the Bulge movie that has troops running around in Green, convertible SUVs (wind whipping through their hair) instead of in Shermans; and their lack of cohesive fighting would make a rugby scrum look more like soccer.

All that said, yes it would be possible to make a good movie about the reverse type of "stand", but there's a cultural bias (in the West) against it.

Umm, they attacked the so-called of the 'Birth of Western Civilization', it is quite inevitable that they would get the stick because of that. The current Persian regime does not help either.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

Umm, they attacked the so-called of the 'Birth of Western Civilization', it is quite inevitable that they would get the stick because of that. The current Persian regime does not help either.

If Greece allied itself to Russia and the Iran-US rapprochement bears fruit, you'd have an excellent background (and marketability) for a Persian reverse stand movie.

 

[Dave Howery]

Umm, they attacked the so-called of the 'Birth of Western Civilization', it is quite inevitable that they would get the stick because of that. The current Persian regime does not help either.

the Persians 'got the stick' because the movie followed the comic book pretty closely. Although the Spartans looked nothing like what they should have, I noticed that the very first wave of Persians who attacked at Thermopylae (the ones with no armor and oval shields) looked a lot like illustrations I've seen of the real Persian Immortals, except for having scimitars instead of spears...

 

[sarahz]

Umm, they attacked the so-called of the 'Birth of Western Civilization', it is quite inevitable that they would get the stick because of that. The current Persian regime does not help either.

itronically there were almost as many greeks on the persian side as fighting against them (at times there were more)

 

[Deleted member 82792]

itronically there were almost as many greeks on the persian side as fighting against them (at times there were more)

Which city-states?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Which city-states?

There was the greek coast of what is now modern Turkey, and probably places of what is now Syria or such..

 

[Deleted member 82792]

Any more ideas?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Would a Persian-Ottoman war scenario after fall of Constantinople work? no idea which war would offer a battle as this...

 

[Deleted member 82792]

Bump. Any more thoughts?

 

[jahenders]

For the tactical scenario, you could have a group of elite (and well supplied) Persian archers holding a small hill that's right in the path of the Spartan advance. The Spartans have no archers and few, if any, slingers and have to climb a rough hill to get at the Persians. The Persians wreak havoc on the Spartans advancing up the hill with little formation, but the Spartans can't advance past the Persians or they'll all be vulnerable to fire from the rear.

The Persians hold the hill for a long day, with piles of Spartan dead on the slopes. They only fall when the last of their arrows runs out and the Spartans make it up the hill in enough numbers to overwhelm them.

 

[Pio2013]

Its a shame the title "Inmortals" has been already taken
In Iran, theres a statue in honor of Ariobarzanes, the commander of the persian forces who standed against Alexander in the Persian Gates, so i think this is the scenario you are looking for.