3. Leonidas Doesn't Let Ephialtes Fight 300
Again, this is just one of these films that has to be in an article like this it's just so glaring that it has to be addressed. Leonidas' error is simple resource management. As any good manager knows, you have to make the best of everything you've got, whether that material or men. For the most part, the bearded shouty one does this rather well he knows the area, he knows what his men can do, and proceeds to use both to slaughter hatloads of Persians. Yet when he comes across his first real problem beyond chargey-chargey-stab-stab, he screws up stupendously, and puts his story/plot into an easily avoidable legend. As I'm sure you all know, that problem is Ephialtes. Ephialtes is graphically deformed, so his parents raised him away from Sparta and its strict Eugenic laws. However, he's still got a warrior's spirit and really wants to fight, but because he can't raise a shield and be part of a phalanx, Leonidas turns him down. Being honest, he's right to do it, if the Phalanx was the fighting involved. Yet obviously, it doesn't as the Spartans make clear during their forays away from the phalanx wall, there's plenty of space for twirling swords like a loon in the open. This would suit Ephialtes down to a tee, both in fighting style and worldview. Remember, it's the ultimate honour for a Spartan to die in battle and the hunchback is particularly blood-thirsty, so if you just stuck him out there and told him to kill to his heart's content, he'd probably jump at the chance. Sure, he would've easily been killed, but I'm sure taking one casualty from a soldier you didn't expect to have would be far better than the eventual betrayal. Yet it's thanks to Leonidas' unneeded ostracising that 300 is pitched as a gaudy military tragedy, rather than a week-long film of how a group of Spartans kicked all the Persian ass, unhindered by the would-be turncoat who died early on fighting for the home team.