300

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About

300 is a comic book series written and illustrated by Frank Miller which was published by Dark Horse Comics from May to December of 1998. The story centers around a fictional retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. A movie adaptation was released on 2006 followed by a sequel on 2014.

Premise

In 480 BC, King Xerxes of The Persian Empires begins his invasion of Greece with over a million soldiers under his command. In response, King Leonidas of Sparta amasses 300 of his best soldiers at the hot gates in Thermopylae to hold off the advancing Persian army.
In 300: Rise of an Empire, The Persians have broken through the hot gates and are ravaging Greece. To stop their advance, the hero of Marathon Themistokles leads a small Athenian naval force in an attempt to halt the Persians from the sea.

History

300 began as a comic series which was written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Lynn Varley. The comic was published by Dark Horse Comics from May to September of 1998 with a total of 5 volumes.

In 2006, a movie adaptation of the comic under the same name was released to theaters (shown below, left). The movie was directed by Zack Snyder and starred Gerrard Butler as King Leonidas. In 2014, a sequel titled 300: Rise of an Empire was released to theaters (shown below, right). The sequel was directed by Noam Murro and starred Sullivan Stapleton as Themistokles.

Reception

As of June, 2015, The first movie earned a 7.8 user rating on IMDb^[1], a 60% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[5], and a score of 51 on Metacritic^[3]. Its sequel earned a 6.3 user rating on IMDb^[2], a 42% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[6], and a score of 48 on Metacritic^[4].

Online Presence

300 has become the subject of discussion in a number of sites such as IMDb^[7]^[8], Rotten Tomatoes^[9]^[10], and Tumblr^[11]. On October 31st, 2006, Urban Dictionary user Cody Murray submitted an entry regarding 300^[12]. The official 300 Facebook page has over 11 million likes as of June, 2015^[13].
On July 14th, 2011, the How It Should Have Ended Youtube channel uploaded a video titled "How 300 Should Have Ended" (shown below, left) which gained more than 16.5 million views in 3 years. On March 4th, 2014, the Cinema Sins Youtube channel uploaded a video titled "Everything Wrong With 300 In 10 Minutes Or Less" (shown below, right) which gained more than 5.6 million views in a year.

On the art sharing site Deviantart, typing the keyword "300" would yield more than 239.000 results^[14].

This Is Sparta!

This is Sparta! is a catchphrase usually used in images that parody the scene from the film 300 where the main protagonist Leonidas, King of Sparta, declines peace with the Persians by shouting at the Persian Messenger “This is Sparta!” and kicking him into a large well proceeded by the killing of the other Persian messengers.

Sparta Remix

Sparta Remix is the name given to a mash-up based on a scene from the 2007 movie 300. The song inspired various remixes, normally accompanied with images that include Leonidas’ face.