Well as it turns out I used to special effects. A lot of people I know worked on 300. I guess I do like a bad story with good fx.
I did some research for this post. Not much. But here is what I learned.
When looking up 300 I found this:
The film's director Zack Snyder states that "The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is." He continues that the film is "an opera, not a documentary". Snyder describes the film's narrator, Dilios, as "a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth."
Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of Greek names, and states that they "made good use" of his published work on Sparta. He praises the film for its portrayal of "the Spartans' heroic code," and of "the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honor," while expressing reservations about its "'West' (goodies) vs 'East' (baddies) polarization.""
When I looked up Apocolypto, I found this:
The film has been accused of historical inaccuracy and racism by historians, Native Americans, and those in the archaeological community. The film has been accused of fueling a stereotype of native Mesoamericans as bloodthirsty savages with few civilized achievements other than architecture. For example, it was more typical of the Aztecs to practice the kind of human sacrifice depicted in the movie, rather than the Maya. The sun god Kukulkan, to whom the sacrifices are offered, is in fact the Maya equivalent of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and did not demand human sacrifice.
So, I guess when it comes to which film is more "realistic" I'd have to say the film that's 90% accurate would be more realistic than a film that is filled with inaccuracies.
I'm glad I saw a film based on what it was I wanted to see and not because it had 'more blood'
