History Film / ThreeHundredRiseOfAnEmpire

** You may have a hard believing that the Persian Empire had a female as commander of its navy, but Artemisia was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_I_of_Caria a real person]].
** Xerxes really built a bridge out of ships to cross into Greece. In fact, after his first attempt collapsed, he ordered the ocean to be ''whipped'' in a symbolic act.

''300: Rise of an Empire'' is the film sequel to ''Film/ThreeHundred'', directed by Noam Murro and written by Creator/ZackSnyder and Kurt Johnstad. It was released on March 7, 2014 after lingering seven years in DevelopmentHell. It is based on ''Xerxes'', the yet-unpublished sequel to the ''300'' graphic novel, both written by Creator/FrankMiller for Creator/DarkHorseComics. Music/JunkieXL composed the soundtrack.

* BloodierAndGorier: Make no mistake, [[Film/ThreeHundred the first film]] was already extremely bloody with all the relentlessly violent battle sequences and constant blood spraying, but this film takes it UpToEleven. The violence is much more disturbing and graphic than that of its predecessor, the deaths are far more detailed, and the battles are a lot more brutal than ever before.

* RapeAsBackstory: Artemesia after being MadeASlave.

* AGodAmI: Artemisia tells Xerxes he must become a god to defeat the Greeks -- cue AwesomeMomentOfCrowning for the Persians.

* CerebusRetcon: Team Persia gets back stories, which have really weird implications for both this movie and its predecessor. Xerxes is Greek. The emissary killed in the famous “This is Sparta!” scene provided weapons training to Greek children. The Persians themselves effectively went from invading monsters, to cogs in what amounts to a Greek civil war. It pretty much removes any real sense of agency for the actual Persian ‘empire.’

* MightyWhitey: Xerxes is revealed here to be Greek, not Persian. The Persians themselves are effectively taking orders from one Greek to attack Greece itself.

* RaceLift: The good news is the Persians are no longer portrayed as actual monsters. Bad news... Xerxes, “The God King of the Persian Empire,” was retconned to being white and Greek. He didn’t start looking ethnic until he was “corrupted by evil powers.”

* BattleEpic

* ConspicuousCG: This is pretty much pretty much a given for the franchise, but the horse riding scene is virtually indistinguishable from a certain game series set in ancient history that involves assassins and ships.

It covers the Second [[UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars Greco-Persian War]] in the aftermath of the battle of Thermopylae, with particular focus on Xerxes, his ally [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_I_of_Caria Queen Artemisia]] (Creator/EvaGreen), [[LadyOfWar the female commander]] of the Persian fleet, and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis naval battle of Salamis]]. It also introduces [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themistocles Themistocles]] (Creator/SullivanStapleton) and the Athenians, and Callisto (Creator/JackOConnell). Creator/RodrigoSantoro, Creator/LenaHeadey and Creator/DavidWenham all [[RoleReprisal reprise their roles]] from the first film.

MightyWhitey: Xerxes. He’s Greek, not Persian. The Persians themselves are effectively taking orders from one Greek to attack Greece itself.

CerebusRetcon: Team Persia gets back stories, which have really weird implications for both this movie and its predecessor. Xerxes is Greek. The emissary killed in the famous “This is Sparta!” scene provided weapons training to Greek children. The Persians themselves effectively went from invading monsters, to cogs in what amounts to a Greek civil war.

%% * MightyWhitey: Xerxes. %% Zero Context Example

%% * CerebusRetcon: Team Persia gets back stories, which have really weird implications for both this movie and its predecessor. %% Zero Context Example

* CerebusRetcon: Team Persia gets back stories, which have really weird implications for both this movie and its predecessor.

* MightyWhitey: Xerxes.

* RaceLift: The good news is the Persians are no longer portrayed as actual monsters. Bad news... Xerxes is now no longer ‘Persian’ but instead, white and Greek. He didn’t start looking ethnic until he was “corrupted by evil powers.”

''300: Rise of an Empire'' is the film sequel to ''Film/ThreeHundred'', directed by Noam Murro and written by Creator/ZackSnyder and Kurt Johnstad. It was released on March 7, 2014 after lingering seven years in DevelopmentHell. It is based on ''Xerxes'', the (as of 2017) yet-unpublished sequel to the ''300'' graphic novel, both written by Creator/FrankMiller for Creator/DarkHorseComics. Music/JunkieXL composed the soundtrack.

* AgeCut: In the flashback of his transformation, an emaciated Xerxes enters a ritual pool in a cave of hermits in the desert before emerging triumphally from his palace's bath turned into the god-king and surrounded by prostrated slaves. It is a subversion, however, abecause while there is presumably a substantial age difference between both scenes, the cut is used to underline Xerxes's mental growth rather than physical (although he does seem to be much taller after the transformation).

* AbsenteeActor: Even though Leonidas appears in archive footage and is mentioned as being an important figure in the story, no new footage is shown of the character. In spite of this, most of the characters from the first movie end up reappearing in flashbacks of their own. Gerard Butler was actually offered to come back and reprise the role of Leonidas but he declined.

** At one point, an Athenian calls the Spartans "boy lovers".

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Pretty much everyone, but most notably Artemesia.

* AdaptedOut: In real life, one of the key figures in the battle of Salamis was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicinnus Sicinnus]], Themistocles' BattleButler and TheSpymaster, who served a crucial role in Themistocles' strategy. He is absent from the movie, where his role is conflated with another historical character named Scyllas.

* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Both Gorgo and Artemesia, though aloof is a pretty ''tame'' word to describe [[AxCrazy the latter]].

* AmbiguousSituation: The film shows flashbacks of Xerxes being subject to mystic rituals and literally metamorphosing into his god-king persona in a sacred pool. Whether these scenes are meant to be taken symbolically (or perhaps as Xerxes's own hallucinations during the process) or as a sign that he is really a supernatural being (essentially a [[Series/StargateSG1 Goa'uld]]) remains unknown. Perhaps naturally, he seems to be convinced of the latter.

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: King Xerxes' claims of being a GodEmperor are shown to be literally true, with him originally having been an ordinary-looking Persian prince before he went on a pilgrimage where he was reborn as something superhuman.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The Persian empire is on the receiving end of this again. Also It's doubtful that Queen Artemisia was this psychotic in real life where she just happened to be the queen of one of Xerxes satraps who took his side in the Greco-Persian wars. Another mention must be made of King Darius I, who invades because of his hatred of Athenian freedoms, not because he was getting a mite sick of Athenian-sponsored revolts in his home town as per reality.

* ThePurge: After Xerxes becomes a God-King after his journey to the desert, Artemisia kills off all of Xerxes's former allies and councilmen to remove anyone else who could influence him besides her.

* AdaptedOut: In real life, one of the key figures in the battle of Salamis was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicinnus Sicinnus]], Themistocles' TheLancer, BattleButler, and TheSpymaster, who served a crucial role in Themistocles' strategy. He is absent from the movie, where his role taken by original character Scyllas. (Even although the battle has different circumstances in the movie compared to real life, it surprises the producers chose not to simply name him Sicinnus and throwing him into the narrative like fellow character Aeschylus.)

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Like the original comic and film, it's loosely based on true events as reported by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus.
** Darius didn't invade Athens because he was "annoyed by Greek freedom"; he did it because he was rightly fed up of having to deal with Greek-backed revolts in his territories. Similarly, he wasn't present at the Battle of Marathon and certainly was not killed by Themistocles. He died well after it and in different circumstances, so Xerxes didn't invade Greece by the desire to avenge his father.
** The Athenians running into Marathon in a Celtic style open field charge with double-headed battle axes is notable because Athens won the Battle of Marathon by doing exactly the opposite. Very much like the Spartans at the Hot Gates, the heavy phalanx-based Atehian hoplites overpowered the light Persian infantry and provided no room for the Persian cavalry to maneuver on the crowded beach (though they did break formation and charge in order for their slow-moving phalanxes to not be picked apart by Persian archers). Had the actual battle been fought like the one in the movie, the Athenian forces would have likely been swarmed and obliterated. It's somewhat justified by the narration saying that Themistocles has the Greeks charge while the Persians are still unloading their troops, leaving them without their horses and without a lot of their troops being able to get off.
** Like in the previous film, the real Xerxes was a Zoroasterian, meaning that he would have considered the idea of declaring himself god-king blasphemy. His court of magi and priests being ordered to "turn him into a god" would have been even more shocked, if not downright confused at the request.
** The real Artemisia wasn't a warrior brought up from slavery, but the queen of Halicarnassus. Also, while she really served at Artemisium and Salamis, and was in fact in charge of a relatively huge part of the Persian fleet (the forces of Cos, Nysiros, Calyndos and her own five personal ships), she was not the fleet's supreme commander. Her role is apparently [[CompositeCharacter conflated]] there with Persian general Mardonius.
** The film version of Xerxes burns Athens to the ground, which is in historical sources, but modern historians greatly theorize that it might have been Greek propaganda, as Xerxes had no reason to destroy a city of significant strategic value. ([[LampshadeHanging Something noted by Artemisia]].) On the other hand, Herodotus himself claimed that burning the city was the entire objective of the campaign, a punitive action over Athenian mercenaries interfering in a Persian rebellion, which is why Xerxes withdrew with most of his forces shortly afterwards.
** This movie restores Themistocles's instrumental contribution to the Battle of Thermopylae after the first film completely left him out. In real life, the Athenian navy under his command managed to prevent the Persians from simply sailing past the Spartan army and outflanking them. On the other hand, the real Themistocles actually held at the straits of Artemisium where Leonidas failed, only retreating once the pass had been taken and defending the nearby sea became irrelevant; in the film, the Athenian fleet is destroyed in Artemisia's suicide bombing, and they only avoid a Persian victory because Artemisia's own fleet is affected too by the attack.
** The scene with Artemisia insisting that she be allowed to pursue the Greeks to Salamis, with Xerxes trying to dissuade her and noticing that it's tactical suicide, portrays both characters exactly backwards from how it was recorded in the histories, where it was Xerxes who wanted the big push to crush the Greeks. Ironically, given their characterizations in the film, the historical version would have been more in-character.
** In real life, it wasn't Sparta which saved the day with their fleet at Salamis. At the time, Sparta had almost no navy and their contribution to the Greek fleet was less than 5% of the forces present according to Herodotus (ironically, Sparta wouldn't have a proper fleet until [[{{Irony}} the Persian themselves]] gave them one in order to fight the Athenians during the Peloponnesian wars). Instead, the Greek fleet simply capitalized on the Persian ships's cumbersome navigation and ignorance of the straits's maritime conditions to pin them down and destroy them.
*** Actually, if one discounts the Athenian ships, almost half the force at Salamis belonged to the Peloponnesian League, which means the Spartans could have led them to battle... with the Corinthians as the de-facto commanders.
** Artemisia [[spoiler:didn't die]] during the Battle of Salamis. In fact, she escaped from the battle by attacking the ship of a Persian king under her command to trick the Greeks, something that would even be perfectly in-character for her portrayal in the film.

** In real life, Artemisia [[spoiler:didn't die]] during the Battle of Salamis. In fact, she escaped from the battle by attacking the ship of a Persian king under her command to trick the Greeks, something that would even be perfectly in-character for her portrayal in the film.
** Sparta didn't save the day with their fleet at Salamis. At the time, Sparta had no navy and wouldn't have one until [[{{Irony}} the Persians gave them one in order to fight the Athenians during the Peloponnesian wars.]] Herodotus only mentions 16 Spartan-controlled ships at the battle, less than 5% of the Greek forces present.

* DirtyOldMan: The guy who raped the [[{{Squick}} then 8-year-old Artemesia]].

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The Persian empire is on the receiving end of this again. Also It's doubtful that Queen Artemisia was this psychotic in real life where she just happened to be the Queen of one of Xerxes satraps who took his side in the Greco-Persian wars. Another mention must be made of King Darius I, who invades because of his hatred of Athenian freedoms. Not because he was getting a mite sick of Athenian-sponsored revolts in his home town as per reality.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The films shows a trippy sequence in which Xerxes becomes a god by passing a ritual on a strange cave in the desert. While it is outrigthly stated by the UnreliableNarrator to be an hallucination, we never are told whether it really was or not.

* WouldHitAGirl: Artemesia always gets the receiving end of this. First the Greeks who killed and raped her family gave her a bog boot before being sold to slavery. Then in the FinalBattle, Themistocles gives her a solid hook, ''again'', to the face.

* YourSizeMayVary: Xerxes' height varies quite a bit in the series. In the original ''300'' he was unusually tall, but his height was still reasonable for, say, a Harlem Globetrotter. In ''Rise of an Empire'', he's a good 10-12 feet tall, which is much taller than humanly possible and seems to be due to the film establishing that he really is a god-like being.