I’ll never forget going to see the movie 300 in the theaters. Cuz I was a huge fan of the book The Hot Gates of Fire so anything involving the battle of Thermopylae I’m there for. But I knew nothing about Steven Frank Miller, and of course I knew nothing about Zack Snyder. And admittedly things were looking bad when they were all you know not wearing armor, but there was a second right when the battle started that gave me so much hope. Because for that one second you know they say push and they all push forward together like an actual phalanx battle for a second. I was so excited . Finally a movie showing actual Greek battle . And then of course the rest of the movie 300 happens.

Now don’t get me wrong as the movie progressed I realized oh this is something else and I was silly to ever expect anything different. I was able to enjoy it for what it was. But I’ll never forget that crestfallen feeling for that one moment.

The Last Kingdom did such a good job showing how

1. Mundane medieval warfare was since it really wasn’t often grand scaled. Post Roman Europe was mostly small skirmishes with occasionally large scale warfare, but it was few and far between until probably Charlemagne (citation needed. I am NOT a military history guy.)

2. Brutal. There was no even match up. It was either a one sided slaughter or the battle didn’t happen.