300: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Jun 16th, 2007 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
EXT. SPARTA
PERSIAN MESSENGER PETER MENSAH approaches SPARTA and demands to see the king, GERARD BUTLER.
PETER MENSAH
I am a messenger for Rodrigo Santoro. He wants a gift of water and earth from you as a sign that you fall under his rule.
GERARD BUTLER
The men and women of Sparta submit to no ruler.
PETER MENSAH
But they all submit to you. You’re their king. And you submit to a bunch of inbred priests that talk to gods.
GERARD BUTLER
I shall kill you where you stand for pointing out how silly the premise is!
PETER MENSAH
Whoa, hold on. You’re going to kill a messenger? For basically insulting your pride? We’ve already established you kill newborn babies if they don’t look great - killing messengers because your dick is small won’t exactly get the audience on your side.
GERARD BUTLER
Um, it’s for FREEDOM.
PETER MENSAH
Oh, well if you’re going to use the word “freedom” then that changes everything. Clearly you’re the good guys now.
GERARD kills the PERSIANS, sentencing his people to fight a battle they cannot win. This is HEROIC, rather than JUVENILE.
EXT. HOT GATES
GERARD BUTLER, DAVID WENHAM, VINCENT REGAN, and 297 EXTRAS PISSED OFF THEY SPENT SO MUCH TIME IN THE GYM ONLY TO GET A NON-SPEAKING PART all watch as the invading army of CGI invaders renders itself closer and closer.
Suddenly, a MUTANT ANDREW TIERNAN appoaches.
MUTANT ANDREW TIERNAN
Gerard, let me fight by your side. All I ever get are shit parts on TV shows. I’m finally in a movie, please give me some screen time.
GERARD BUTLER
No. Even though you know about a secret passage that will allow the Persians to defeat us, I’ve decided once again that my pride is more important than my intelligence. Fuck off.
MUTANT ANDREW TIERNAN
Geeze, what a dick. You’re sure you’re the good guys in this story?
GERARD BUTLER
Freedom!
DAVID WENHAM
Freedom, fuck yeah!
VINCENT REGAN
Freedom is good! And since we use the word freedom, it means we embrace it! Freedom freedom!
A METRIC FUCKTON of PERSIANS attack, but they are killed. The scenes go in and out of slow-motion stylistically as pixelated blood decorates the fake landscape.
VINCENT REGAN
If video game makers are trying so hard to make their games “look like movies” why are we trying so hard to make our movie look like a video game?
GERARD BUTLER
We’re going for the “brainless thick-headed macho asshole” demographic
DAVID WENHAM
Have you seen our costumes? I’m pretty sure we’re going for the “closeted homosexual” demographic.
After some more violence, RODRIGO SANTORO decides to talk.
RODRIGO SANTORO
Bow before me, your new god. I have divine powers, and I shall spare you if you submit to me.
GERARD BUTLER
We will never embrace your silly mysticism. We much prefer our own, with all the inbred mutant guys at the top of the mountain and the naked oracle chick.
RODRIGO SANTORO
You will pay for this! I will burn all Greek writings! Nobody will ever know you existed!
GERARD BUTLER
Greek? I’m Greek? Why the fuck have I been doing a Scottish accent for the entire movie?
RODRIGO SANTORO
For that matter, why are most of my Persian fighters caucasian?
Predictably, MUTANT ANDREW TIERNAN tells RODRIGO about the secret passage. Persians surround the Spartans. There is some more fighting as the audience is doused with TESTOSTERONE.
VINCENT REGAN
(dying)
Man, this whole plan was really, really stupid.
GERARD BUTLER
(dying)
Freedom!
VINCENT REGAN
Did I say stupid? I meant brave and inspirational! Freedom!
END
Pretty good Rod, but you’ve written better scripts.
Trouble is, there’s not too much to make fun of in 300. The film is great cheese in its own right.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:50 amShouldn’t Peter Mensah’s third line go “We’ve already established YOU kill newborn babies if they don’t look great - killing messengers because your dick is small won’t exactly get the audience on YOUR side” instead of “we” and “our”?
June 17th, 2007 at 7:58 amA little-known fact: a metric fuckton is approximately ten percent larger than a standard (or “Imperial”) fuckton.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:58 amNo mention of those ugly oracle-banging guys?
June 17th, 2007 at 4:32 pmActually “Si,” there’s plenty to make fun of in 300… and he did. He even managed to criticise it without stooping to mention how grossly historically inaccurate it is (naked Spartans? Samurai Immortals? Huge hairless homosexual Xerxes?), like I always do. Heh.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:11 amDon’t diss the naked Spartans, please. And of course he speaks with a Scottish accent, all badass people are Scottish (as are all ginger dwarves). I know this because I happen to be a Scottish badass myself (and also slightly ginger, and dwarfish).
June 21st, 2007 at 6:30 pmSaber,
Why do historical accuracies matter in a film which is based on a graphic novel based on the fragment of a myth?
M
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:07 amAw, what, not going to make fun of the ugly burn-victem (i.e. FUGLY!) chicks who all wanted to band the mutant Spartan?
Other than that, nice.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:32 pmMichael, it’s not based on myth. It’s based on a recorded historical event. Now whilst the particulars of the event are fictional. The fact is an army held the pass of Thermopylae (The Gates of Fire) for 3 days. and a 300 strong Spartan army stood as a rearguard and dies almost to a man. It’s not a myth.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 amWell, no.
Actually there were about 3000 spartans.
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 am3000 warriors, 300 of whome were spartans. The other 2700 were losers from other states.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 amI just wish someone would have pointed out that historical Sparta were excessive in their usage of slaves.
GERARD BUTLER
Uh… It’s for FREEDOM!!!
PETER MENSAH
Wait, didn’t the historical Spartans ruthlessly exploit the Helots, who had virtually no rights, were often humiliated, and were occasionally massacred in order to keep them in line? I mean, that’s one of the reasons the Spartans trained so hardcore, to ensure their servile populations wouldn’t rise up and slaughter them?
GERARD BUTLER
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 pmShut up and die already in a painfully obvious computer generated scene!
Um… Yes, the battle for Thermopylae is real. The number of Spartans in the overrall army.. realish. The film, 300, was based on Frank Millers comic of the same name, which itself was only based on the mythological content that grew out of the actual historical event. And loosely.
Oh, and it’s just a FILM! Jeez…
June 24th, 2007 at 9:00 amMore ! I want MORE !!!!
June 24th, 2007 at 11:09 amthe comic’s based on the movie called The 300 Spartans. go watch it sometime.
and who freakin cares of xerxes was bald? 3,000 years from now when someone makes a president bush movie, is anyone going to scream “having never seen the man, i can only assume the part in his hair was on the other side! your movie is fraudulent!”. no. because by then people won’t be so friggin annoying. go away, bald-mongerers!
June 26th, 2007 at 2:13 pmHi Rod. Love the scripts, hope all is well with you. I haven’t seen anything new from you for a while, so I hope you’ll have some more commentary and/or scripts soon. I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but we had a religious/philosophical discussion last year. I’m the Mormon guy who agreed with you that Pat Robertson is a loonbat.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:09 pmYeah, it’s historically inaccurate.
But hey, comic books are hardly a reliable source of history, eh? Lol. ;)
PS This script is still pretty good. I like it when Rod makes fun of Gerard Butler doing his Scottish accent for the entire movie.
Like Russell Crowe kept his own accent through Gladiator…
June 27th, 2007 at 11:18 amholy crap, making it possible to leave comments was by far the worst change made to this website. its like going to a movie theater and hearing everyones running commentary during the film.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:02 amThis idea of having a comment/blog after every script isnt working well Rod. Remove it. I mean I come here to enjoy ur awesome scripts - and in the end when I see baseless comments - I lose interest in what ‘ve just read. So think abt it.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:33 amDude, no way. This site is actually getting comments on a regular basis, so they’re my favorite thing now because otherwise there’s no new content. Maybe there can be an RSS feed just for the comments!
June 29th, 2007 at 10:30 pmMichael,
Because graphic novels are usually drawn to look as cool as possible, and in this case I think historical accuracy, at least as far as costumes go, would have actually looked a lot cooler… The Greeks may have liked to depict warriors in the “heroic nude,” but they weren’t crazy enough to actually fight that way. Historically, it was the Spartans’ heavy armor that gave them significant staying power versus the lightly armored Persians. In the movie it’s often the opposite. But besides, I just think they would have looked cooler in full armor instead of fighting it out almost naked. But that’s just me. *shrug*
-Scorp
June 30th, 2007 at 11:50 amYour scripts always make me laugh.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 amJust for the record, while the Persians used soldiers from all over their empire, they themselves were in fact caucasian. I don’t think the producers or the director really care anyway, but it is historically correct.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:35 amI agree with many earlier posts, that depicting the Spartans as fighting for personal freedom is pretty silly. Sparta was ruled by group of noble families that would never have tolerated any of the lower levels speaking up.
I don’t know the scrpt kinda misses that fight between GERARD BUTLER and the gigantic funny looking persian mutant, where GERARD almost looses an eye. I mean, jeez that tall bald guy looks ridiculous.
PS Rod, good point there about the pixelated blood(one of the things that really freaked me out during the entire movie)
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pmThis movie sucked. I loved how frat-boy/jock like it was. All the “good” guys were muscly, hairy men and all the “bad” guys were femine or mutant. And I love that when the wife gets raped, its from behind (further pointing out that GAY = BAD!). Score one for homophobia!
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 amPure genius.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:21 pmWhoa, Thor, I had no idea that such a homo-supporting semantic could be hidden in a raping, especially of a woman :)
July 4th, 2007 at 3:36 pmWell at least this scene wasn’t all CGI and fake sweat(Queen:”Oh my God, I’m being raped by a flash game character”:) )
Hilarious except for that line about the Persians being Caucasian. I’m pretty sure almost every Persian in the film was African-American (like the novel except in this case the film was so simplistic that it ended up being a little racist).
July 5th, 2007 at 5:09 amHaving said that in real life most Persians I know are actually Caucasian so I was wondering why they didn’t use actual Caucasian Persians instead.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:33 amI don’t get the Persians as Caucasians thing either, because they all looked African, Arabs and Mongols to me.
As for the “historicity” of this, please! It’s a fantasy. It’s *based* on a historical fact, but it’s still a fantasy. I doubt Frank Miller researched the real battle, and he didn’t have to. Comics and movies are always historically inacurate anyway, to the point that we actually expect them to be this way. See how no one commented about the Spartans’ excelent teeth, for instance. We grew to expect that good guys in movies will have clean, pearl white teeth, even if it’s not historically acurate.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:47 amActually, even though I’m the main one fussing about the historical accuracy thing and I’m not a big fan of Frank Miller anyway, I think you’re doing the guy an injustice, Joao, by assuming he didn’t research the real battle. I recall reading that he actually researched it thoroughly, and then merely stylized it to his own whim (unfortunately). So I wouldn’t make such assumptions.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:13 amSaber, what I was trying to say was that he didn’t have to, because art/enternainment doesn’t have to be acurate in any sense. The purpose of the comic book, as of the movie, was for people to have fun. If people thought real history without any embelishment was fun, they would read a history book instead of reading Miller’s work. As for Miller having or not done research, it was a wild guess on my part. If it was wrong, I take it back.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:44 pmalso the battle was just one day.
July 15th, 2007 at 7:40 pm” I’m pretty sure we’re going for the “closeted homosexual” demographic. ”
After seeing 300, I can say that truer words have never been spoken in the history of language.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:03 pmIndeed Saber is right, not only did Mr. Miller research the historical event, he is also very much aware of how shockingly important that battle, and the war following, were to modern Western Civilization. Had Greece fallen prey to the Persians, our world would be very different than it is today. But I can see how Joao would assume Miller didn’t research his source material, not many people really do these days *cough*Transformers*cough*.
They left out the Thespians too, which made me sad :( I rather thought their exchange of cloaks and vow to be allies would be something cool to see, but then again since he left out the other 2,700+ warriors fighting it is not really surprising.
I ENJOYED the movie, but I think the actual historical account is much cooler.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:22 ampeople yelled alot, and often for no apparent reason.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:02 amhe didn’t leave out all of them…there was 15 seconds of some greek guys jumping around and fighting while david wenham called them juvenile. then they ran away.
August 5th, 2007 at 3:39 pmSpartans Huh?
August 6th, 2007 at 11:39 amAll of that harsh conditioning, constant training and badass reputation but which Greek state conquered the known world? The Macedonians. Something to do with strategic and tactical brilliance. Something very lacking in Sparta. A bunch of idiots really.
ITS A FREAKING MOVIE FOR GOD SAKES!!!!!!!! stop trying to take it apart bit by bit.. if every movie had to be 100% correct we would have very long boring movies.. did anybody complain about Titanic being unacurate noooooooooooo. so all you losers who like to dis movies you try and make one your self so we can all insult it… E-mail at orangeboy82290 if you have a problem with what i just said
August 7th, 2007 at 6:25 pmDid anyone have complain about Titanic being unacurate(sic)?
August 8th, 2007 at 12:40 pmYeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
4/5 stars, eh? Extra points for tits and slow motion?
August 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pmNote to all who have commented:
MOVE OUT OF YOU MOTHER’S HOUSES, GET JOBS, GIRLFRIENDS, AND LIVE IN THE FOREST WITH A GROUP OF HAPPY CARTOON ANIMALS!!!
October 26th, 2007 at 2:04 amGreat parody!
I feel I should point out the stupidity of complaining about historical truth when the entire story is actually being retold by David Wenham’s character. Although, if you left before the last scene, I don’t guess you’d know that…
November 16th, 2007 at 3:08 amPretorian64 Says:
Note to all who have commented:
MOVE OUT OF YOU MOTHER’S HOUSES, GET JOBS, GIRLFRIENDS, AND LIVE IN THE FOREST WITH A GROUP OF HAPPY CARTOON ANIMALS!!!
The last part is the one I
December 29th, 2007 at 6:28 pmhave a problem with.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:28 pmIt turns out we just don’t “get” 300: http://www.brainsnap.com/editorial/511/why_film_critics_dont_understand_300
January 16th, 2008 at 2:23 amWhere can we find the complete script for the movie 300?
January 21st, 2008 at 4:37 amMOVE OUT OF YOU MOTHER’S HOUSES, GET JOBS, GIRLFRIENDS, AND LIVE IN THE FOREST WITH A GROUP OF HAPPY CARTOON ANIMALS!!!
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-pout- happy cartoon animals?
I’d rather not live in ‘Bambi,’ thanks, the whole fire-scene freaks me out, and I always get teary-eyed with his mom get’s her guts blown out.
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Not your best script on my opinion OO: Hilarious on the Gerard-Accent though, but I’m not gonna complain because I find Irish accents beyond-sexy and enjoy them whenever possible =[
April 8th, 2008 at 9:23 amI thought it was a good movie, even if it did look like a vide-game comercial, and they were all probably having buttsex through those diapers they wore. (and hiding it behind those capes!) I can’t imagine those capes were very conveinent for war-attire D; just made them look even more flash than they already did.
Well, the Persians kind of ARE caucasian, so, the Persians in the movie being caucasian would make sense. Except that in the movie they are mostly black for some reason. I hate to nitpick on historical accuracy, but I think the movie would actually look cooler with more accurate costumes. The artistic liberties taken in the movie only make Xerxes look like he should be sitting atop a float in a gay pride parade. If they were trying to make him look regal and intimidating, the flowing robes and luxurious beard would have done the trick quite nicely.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:13 amA. They aren’t fighting for freedom, they are fighting for reason, thought, and enlightment, and against mysticism and supersttions. Thats why they go against both his own pristes and xerxes’ claim he is a god.
B. Leonides doesn’t accpet the misshapen sheperd to his army not because of his pride, but becuase he can’t fight as a team with the rest of his men. He cant lift the shield to protect the person next to him, and would cause his death. He does bid him to stay and help the wounded, and the sheperd decides to jump off the cliff and eventually desertes becuase he belevies that not letting him be a warrior is humiliation somehow, when its actually based on his inability to fight like a spartan.
C. Its not supposed to be historicly accurate, its supposed to be told as a myth, and as such, larger then life.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:51 am“This idea of having a comment/blog after every script isnt working well Rod. Remove it. I mean I come here to enjoy ur awesome scripts - and in the end when I see baseless comments - I lose interest in what ‘ve just read. So think abt it.”
That’s why they’re at the BOTTOM, dipshit. No one’s forcing you to scroll down AFTER YOU’RE DONE READING THE SCRIPT and read the comments.
Dumbass.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm