I would like to start off with the title of the movie “300.” The fact that movie insinuates that there were 300 Spartans that went up against 300,000 Persians is not 100 percent true in itself. In the film it is omitted that the Spartans were also accompanied at Thermopylae by as stated by Herodotus in his Histories - “500' (men) 'from Tegea, 500 from Mantinea, 120 from Orchomenus in Arcadia ... from Corinth there were 400, from Philus 200, and from Mycenae 80. In addition to these troops from the Pelopennese, there were the Boeotian contingents of 700 from Thespiae and 400 from Thebes. The Locrians of Opus and the Phocians had also obeyed the call to arms, the former sending all they had, the latter one thousand.” I think the reason it was made to look like just 300 men took on an army of 300,000 Persians and was almost successful, because this was a Hollywood movie and 300 vs 300,000 sounds that more dramatic and interesting.
Another thing that I noticed is that the movie never really established why Xerxes has set out on this massive conquest in the first place in the film. The Ionian revolt is not mentioned at all and neither is the First Persian War which is strange in the fact that some aspect of background is usually incorporated into a film as to give the viewer a more in depth understanding of the nature of the film and its themes. Personally, I assumed he was trying to expand the Persian Empire. However this is fairly understandable as the film can be perceived as a western civilization vs. eastern civilization struggle with Sparta and her Greek allies representing the democratic Western world defending themselves against a warmongering totalitarian east who is set out for conquest purely on the basis of advancing their own empire and civilization. So it can be presumed that Snyder, The film’s director, omitted the reasoning behind the Persian invasion to