Way, way too similar to 300.
Exactly how much of this is truth?
- The Immortals are dressed in black gear (like in 300) that makes them appear more like Arab terrorists than ancient elites. No mention of their historically well-known colourful clothing and scaled armour worn over their tunics. It just makes the Persians look evil.
- Nothing in history suggests Dienekes was a captain. Nor that he lead the defend of Leonidas' corpse on the last stand hill. He was just a guy that said funny one liners and happened to also be a brave Spartan. Herodotus would have mentioned he was a captain, and he wasn't.
- Shield designs. Nice work not putting the lamvthas on the Spartan aspides, HC - that makes you one above every other damn TV documentary about Sparta ever. Bad work not knowing which Spartans wore which shield designs. The Leonidas character wears the Bull of the Elos mora - one that would have appeared commonly in a Persian Wars Spartan Army. I have no idea why he's wearing this, as the Spartan king wore a better preserved design, a red, black and white solar ray.
- A lot of scholars state the same old jack cliches about Sparta, calling them the 'special forces' of the ancient world, etc. Some seem forced to say myths, such as that regarding the kaiadas (Spartan infanticide via throwing babies of mount Taygetos) which has been proven false.
- The guy playing Leonidas looks about 30. Leonidas was probably about 60. This is a documentary, people.
- This isn't a much more serious brother to 300. Some of the scenes look like direct ripoffs to those found in 300 (a great movie and certainly not one to take to close to heart) - the aforementioned kaiadas, Leonidas' "Christ pose" in the last stand, the whipping of the boy etc. Not to mention the unbelievable sword-fighting techniques. And the fact that... unless my eyes fooled me, that the Spartans weren't even wielding xiphoi, despite it says so in the documentary. On that note, Greek shields were not called 'hoplons', either. And 'hoplite' is not pronounced 'hop-lite' (granted, I can't recall whether this mispronounciation occurs or not).
- Not a single mention of the 700 Thespians that fought at the last stand, or even the 400 Thebans that supposedly became traitors at the last minute!
Obviously this is nitpicking, the documentary was better than any other one I've seen on Sparta and Thermopylai, and high quality for a TV documentary. Still, it fares way to closely to 300 - in appearance, even in 'fact'. It's a pretty looking show, but like 300 - it comes off more as entertainment than education.
I have some kudos to the makers, though.
- To not claim the Spartans were all homosexual lovers, for once. Like the kaiadas, this is a false misconception.
- To show more of Themistokles' role.
- To give a background of Xerxes, showing he was a stronger individual than most think.
- To give the Spartans the most accurate costumes more-or-less yet seen on TV documentaries.
I'd give it a 6/10.