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[Simmura McCrea]

Pippin's the one who actually slew him in the book, iirc.

Merry stabbed him in the back of the knee, then Eoywen (be damned if I can remember how to spell it) killed him.

[kaijyuu]

Well I can't even get the hobbit that stabbed him right, so I'll trust you there xD

[Kay12]

Pippin's the one who actually slew him in the book, iirc.

Nope, it was Merry and Èowyn. They tag-teamed him. And Èowyn dealt the final blow against both the mount and the Witch-King, if my memory and Wikipedia serve me right.

[scriver]

I don't see how movies can be judged by such claims, is Lord of the Rings also misogynist and xenophobic? Should we ban and protest against all movies that portray problems relevant in modern society?

Please, enlighten me. How is demonising middle-easterners "portraying problems relevant in modern society"?

300 was an action movie with a faint historical theme about 300 men with huge swelling chests killing huge droves of enemies in fantastical environments, people put way too much time into analyzing movies about details that are merely background.

People not thinking enough is a far bigger problem than over analysing the media we're fed and the opinions within it.

Pippin's the one who actually slew him in the book, iirc.

Nope, it was Merry and Èowyn. They tag-teamed him. And Èowyn dealt the final blow against both the mount and the Witch-King, if my memory and Wikipedia serve me right.

Except in the original Swedish translation, where the translator disapproved of women doing such things (or, well, anything really) and changed it to suit his own views.

[Bauglir]

300 was an action movie with a faint historical theme about 300 men with huge swelling chests killing huge droves of enemies in fantastical environments, people put way too much time into analyzing movies about details that are merely background.

Eh, I dunno. I get where you're coming from; at a certain point, people aren't analyzing the movie anymore and are analyzing meaning that they're projecting onto it. I mean, there are people who insist that Lord of the Rings is a metaphor for either of the World Wars, even though Tolkien explicitly denied that this was the case and pointed out how he would have written it differently if it were. On the other hand, the fact that it's easy to take an analysis too far doesn't mean that no analysis of any kind is reasonable, and it's certainly reasonable to look at a movie as a product of a culture you're analyzing (and as something that influences that culture). At that point you're really talking about cultural attitudes toward certain ideas, and the movie just happens to be the concrete example you're referring to. Going back to the example I just brought up, it'd be fine to talk about the influence of the Wars on Tolkien's writing (which he acknowledged existed), as long as you kept in mind that connections don't imply equivalence.

[Kay12]

Pippin's the one who actually slew him in the book, iirc.

Nope, it was Merry and Èowyn. They tag-teamed him. And Èowyn dealt the final blow against both the mount and the Witch-King, if my memory and Wikipedia serve me right.

Except in the original Swedish translation, where the translator disapproved of women doing such things (or, well, anything really) and changed it to suit his own views.

Woah, never heard of this one before. At least Swedish Wikipedia's got it correctly, so I guess the proper version is what stayed.

Finnish translators somehow managed to muddle up one of the things in Nineteen Eighty-Four. I'm almost too embarrassed to say it...

[RedKing]

You don't seem like you want to say anything specific, but it would very much help!

It was a pretty freakin' misogynist and xenophobic movie.

I don't see how movies can be judged by such claims, is Lord of the Rings also misogynist and xenophobic? Should we ban and protest against all movies that portray problems relevant in modern society?

300 was an action movie with a faint historical theme about 300 men with huge swelling chests killing huge droves of enemies in fantastical environments, people put way too much time into analyzing movies about details that are merely background.

It wasn't just the ridiculous depictions of Xerxes and the Persians as subhuman brown-skinned freaks led by a giant androgyne . Remember that the other Greek tribes (especially the Athenians) were derided with jokes that they were gay (which is doubly egregious given that the Spartans have far more homosexuality ascribed to them in contemporary texts than the Athenians). The traitor Ephialtes was a cripple, mocked by Leonidas. In the end, the core values of the film (and graphic novel) are that the heroes are all big, manly men with giant pecs who disdain everyone and everything but themselves, and diplomacy is for pussies.

There's also the context that the creator himself offered in radio interviews that this was representative of the Huntington-esque Clash of Civilizations with the "civilized" world (represented by big, burly, manly Spartans) against the "uncivilized" Middle East (repesented by the otherwordly, subhuman Persians). Just before 300's premiere, Frank Miller stated the following on a radio interview with NPR (I remember actually listening to it at the time):

"For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people's heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I'm speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I'm living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built."

So yeah. I think it's a fair cop to analyze what Miller is trying to say in 300.

[Darvi]

Now to be fair, Pippin did kill a huge troll chief that was about to slay Aragorn.

My point: Hobbits are awesome.

[Kay12]

I guess that was Tolkien's point as well. Small, hardly noticeable, hard notable. Simple folk but great heroes in their way.

The PJ rendition of Frodo is mainly annoying, though. I know the Ring's a terrible burden, but still, that whiny voice is taking it a bit too far if you ask me... Your Mileage May Vary.

[scriver]

Woah, never heard of this one before. At least Swedish Wikipedia's got it correctly, so I guess the proper version is what stayed.

Finnish translators somehow managed to muddle up one of the things in Nineteen Eighty-Four. I'm almost too embarrassed to say it...

I have no idea if it were ever changed, but I'm pretty sure there's ever only been two translations. Perhaps Tolkien/his publisher forced mr Misogynist (how is that not a great supervillain name?) to redo that part, though. I can't remember how it went when I read it as a kid.

Your Mileage May Vary.

Yes. Very much so.

[G-Flex]

You don't seem like you want to say anything specific, but it would very much help!

It was a pretty freakin' misogynist and xenophobic movie.

I don't see how movies can be judged by such claims, is Lord of the Rings also misogynist and xenophobic? Should we ban and protest against all movies that portray problems relevant in modern society?

300 was an action movie with a faint historical theme about 300 men with huge swelling chests killing huge droves of enemies in fantastical environments, people put way too much time into analyzing movies about details that are merely background.

It wasn't just the ridiculous depictions of Xerxes and the Persians as subhuman brown-skinned freaks led by a giant androgyne . Remember that the other Greek tribes (especially the Athenians) were derided with jokes that they were gay (which is doubly egregious given that the Spartans have far more homosexuality ascribed to them in contemporary texts than the Athenians). The traitor Ephialtes was a cripple, mocked by Leonidas. In the end, the core values of the film (and graphic novel) are that the heroes are all big, manly men with giant pecs who disdain everyone and everything but themselves, and diplomacy is for pussies.

There's also the context that the creator himself offered in radio interviews that this was representative of the Huntington-esque Clash of Civilizations with the "civilized" world (represented by big, burly, manly Spartans) against the "uncivilized" Middle East (repesented by the otherwordly, subhuman Persians). Just before 300's premiere, Frank Miller stated the following on a radio interview with NPR (I remember actually listening to it at the time):

"For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people's heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I'm speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I'm living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built."

So yeah. I think it's a fair cop to analyze what Miller is trying to say in 300.

Okay, I definitely see what you're saying now.

The thing is, 300 is self-aware enough as it is that I would have given it a pass on all that, since it seemed facetious and intentionally ahistorical (sort of like an intentionally very subjective folk story) and come on, who would possibly take any of that seriously? Whoops, seems like Frank Miller does!

Basically, I assumed that the movie was supposed to be intentionally ridiculous in terms of theme and content, as representing a sort of Spartan propaganda folk tale that you aren't really supposed to see as representing anything but what those people saw as the truth regardless of how hypocritical or ridiculous they were. The fact that Frank Miller was actually trying to make a point about the real world using that is pretty telling.

[Vector]

Yeah, that was what I meant.

Sorry, I was posting at 3 AM my time and by that point lucidity was kind of out the proverbial window.

[Bauglir]

Oh Jegus, wow. Given that, I'm not sure the thing I posted earlier is really even relevant, although I suppose it depends somewhat on the thoughts on the people who worked on the film.

[G-Flex]

Again, I think the problem here is that even if Frank Miller was being a xenophobic prick about it, it's easy enough to interpret the xenophobic prick nature of the movie as being a self-aware and ironic thing that you might notice it, but see it as intentionally laughable or quaint. So in an odd way, I guess he shot himself in the foot there.

[Vector]

Usually, self-aware movies show some sort of sign of self-awareness, or give a distinct signal of an unreliable narrator.