Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The wasteland of the Intelligentsia

My brain hurts.

Unfortunately, I was able to hear a sound clip from Rush Limbaugh today while at work. I completely forgot about...him. Yet, as I rolled my eyes and blocked out his voice to think about what to eat for lunch: curry or curry, a flashback reminded me that I was once a Rushbo fan. Dittos was a greeting and tobacco stained fingers was a laughter eliciting comment.

That was 1994-1999. Then I moved to college, supposedly became a ranting socialist liberal although I joined the military. I prefer to define it as "political atheism."

But it was not Rush Limbaugh that hurt my brain; well, it did cause some pain listening to his sense of logic. No, that award goes to The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior.

I know that I have a passing knowledge of classical history, but this movie caused me to cringe from start to finish. Randy Couture as Sargon was possibly the most painful to watch. I wont comment on the acting performance or the cheesy use of CGI, but the jarring and confusing history.

They mention Akkad and Sargon as an evil monster with the powers of the dark side--yet, the Sargon of the Akkadian Empire was probably not so empowered. What was really confusing was the moment that he travelled to Greece--not quite sure that civilization had really started to flourish in Greece by the reign of Sargon (24th century BCE). It was a jarring clash of mythology and history--especially when they went to the Underworld to see Lady Asarte....the Goddess of Love and War living in the Greek Underworld...and its gate existed in the Laybrinth in Crete, which was the home to the famous Minotaur. Yet, while Asarte is prevalent in Mesopotamian mythology, she was later adopted into the Greek Olympian Pantheon as Aphrodite.

What is truly confusing is that if this were all to occur in the 24th century BCE, the Greek guide/poet/etc refers to Herodotus who lived in the 3rd century BCE...and at that point, the region that was once Akkad and even Egypt and Crete were under the Perisan yoke. Herodotus gives us a great tale of the fall of Egypt to the Persian armies in his Histories. In fact, Herodotus only chronicles the histories that lead up to the great wars between the Hellenic states and Persian Empire...minus the Spartans in speedos, capes and heavy metal music in the background.

What is ironic, since I'm blabbering about Classical History and Hollywood film (either to theatres or straight to DVD...remember when it was straight to video? Damn), is that if they actually wrote the film to the histories that we have of the Greek stand at Thermopylae, it would have been probably more brutal and violent than 300. Somehow the final stand of the Spartans and Thespians as they dragged King Leonidas's body back to their lines fighting to the point of their claws and teeth against the Perisans would probably shock more than anything that was in 300...or Xerxes 's desecration of Leonidas's body.

What's the point? That someone reads Herodotus or Anabasis....

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