This is not Sparta, but I know a place...

I watched the 300 last week, and I must say, it was one helluva movie. It was sort of like as if the battle at Helm's Deep in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers had been extended into a 90-minute movie. Except for the fact that the bad guys were Persians, not Uruk-Hai. And it was set in ancient Greece, not Middle Earth. And the Spartans organized in phalanx warfare, not medieval warfare. Also, it was way more violent.

In fact, forget the analogy altogether. It was a neat movie, all right? Do not bring little kids to see it, however. Some people brought a little kid into the movie, and after the first battle scene he started crying. At first, I was ticked off because it ruined the mood, but then I was even more ticked off when I wondered "Why are you bringing a kid to see this movie? Not only is it rated R, the title of the movie is written as a stylized blood spatter on the poster and in the previews." If a young kid didn't cry during that movie, I'd think there was something wrong with them. At least the people behind us had the good sense to take the kid out of the theater.

I liked how the movie was unapologetic about the viciousness of the Spartans. Regardless of whether or not the Spartans were that brutal (although I'm inclined to believe they were), nobody wants to watch a film about the battle of the three hundred Spartans against Persia's massive army if it's going to go off on wussy tangents about clemency towards the enemy and making peace. The 300 was dramatic, theatrical, and heart-pounding. I walked out feeling exhausted. The only real flaw was the shallowness of the political intrigue, but I suppose it can be difficult to write those sort of scenes when making a movie out of a graphic novel.

Moving on, I'd like to draw your attention to this thing called Vaporstory. It's a "collaborative fictional encyclopedia," which basically means they're writing a fictional world into existence. I like the people there (all 16 of them), but this thing desperately needs help. The whole place seems to be having trouble maintaining its focus, and it suffers from a lack of solid content from which to build. Anyone who has tried to write a fantasy or science fiction story or tried to invent a Dungeons & Dragons campaign from scratch probably understands the problem: it's easy to come up with names of people and places, but very quickly you realize how hard it is to make it more than a name. To make a believable fictional world, people and things have to interact like real people and things would. This is why I don't like Final Fantasy; everything is just completely made up and the story seems to happen independently from the setting(s). There's no sense of realism or sustainability in the entire fictional universe.

So, if you would be so kind, please visit Vaporstory and make some contributions. Don't worry about clashing with what's already written, just fill in the empty spaces. This is especially good for anyone who knows a bit of history and/or socioeconomic stuff.