movie 300 vs lord of the rings : A comparison

Without “The Lord of the Rings,” there would be no “300,” the action movie based, in part, on Herodotus’ version of the Battle of Thermopylae, as refracted through a cultic graphic novel.

Many of the LOTR elements are repeated: A small, hardy band of heroes (300 Spartans) faces down seething hordes of barbarians, who include monsters and enormous beasts of war; Enya-esque music; lots of hand-to-hand combat (splatter variety here); gorgeous, painterly use of CG technology; a script aimed at preteen boys but (just) literary enough to retain the interest of adults.

While “300” never rises to the grand themes of LOTR, it’s far superior to “Troy,” in part because the narrative focus is tighter and the writers don’t take pointless liberties with the history, or, at least they do so on an imaginative level, not altering motivations or roles.

Another LOTR parallel — more disturbing — is the explicit depiction of Westerners as threatened by the tyrannical, degenerate powers of the East, here in highly theatricalized versions of heavily pierced, masked or shrouded Asians and Africans. Adding fuel to contemporary cultural flames? Uh, yes.

Especially since the movie celebrates an undilutedly fascist fealty to power, blood and nation. “We are Spartans!” is the only excuse the characters need for their actions. And a culture that hands its young over to a brutalizing government at an early age can hardly call itself the hallmark of freedom.

Borrowing a phrase from Zbig Brzezinski, who appeared the other night on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” it speaks to “Manichaean paranoia,” or an extreme case of Us vs. Them.

So in short, Lord of the rings is the better one.