Hacker Cinema
Spartacus
2010 · TV series · 53 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Steven S. DeKnight
Torn from his homeland and the woman he loves, Spartacus is condemned to the brutal world of the arena where blood and death are primetime entertainment.
3 positive1 mixed6 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
> For the volleyball scene for both Top Gun movies, the men spent months in the gym.
Don't even start me on the insanity of the physical regimen for the actors in Spartacus (the TV show): https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/spartacus-strong-cast-of-spartacus-got-in-gladiator-shape.html
The Spartacus miniseries had female gladiators, and they tried pretty hard to make it work, but it didn't look very convincing. Being bigger, stronger, and having a longer reach confers an enormous advantage.
While it makes some good points, I think a lot of it depends on what content you are consuming.
I feel like there used to be a lot of family oriented shows in the past. There may have been some innuendo for the adults, but nothing really sexual, no vulgar language, etc. It seems incredibly rare to find a show like that today. Think Brady Bunch vs Modern Family.
There are plenty of shows available today that are highly sexual, but most of them have moved out of the mainstream because you can cater to the niche more than if it were for a general audience. Sex Life, Spartacus, etc has lots of sexual content. I'm not sure if Game of Thrones fits with the author's take or mine, but there are likely examples of each depending on the scene. We don't really need this content in blockbuster movies when we can get even more graphic content through these shows.
What's interesting that you see this come up in places in cinematic period pieces like Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi remake, Oliver Stone's Alexander, the shows _Rome_ and _Spartacus_ on HBO. We _should_ have seen this in Zack Snyder's _300_ as well (Spartans allowed for same-sex relations in older/younger male mentorships in their warrior-aristocracy training, much of the lifestyles of Spartan citizens would be prohibited from being depicted) but that movie chose to be a historically inaccurate Triump of the Will of the straightest of straight male masculinity.
The miniseries Spartacus (recommended!) decided to pit women gladiators against male ones. Both the men and women were obviously highly fit and ripped. Try as they might, the filmmakers simply couldn't make it look like a fair fight.
The Spartacus TV series is over the top and stylized, but nobody can accuse it for lack of vulgar language and too little sex.
Spartacus is a TV show that did it respectfully and sucessfully IMO. Do you have an example of a show or movie where it was a complete disaster?
recommendation is a good concept if you have things to recommend. Netflix current catalog is seriously lacking. We were in the middle of watching the TV show Spartacus when it was taken off (due to licensing problems).
Well, guess I have no choice but to subscribe to starz.
Oh wait, their network is pretty much irrelevant to me, I have watched a few of their movies on netflix and I like Torchwood (although parts of this season have sucked) and Spartacus. Other that I honestly couldn't care less and I won't be spending a dime on their second rate premium channel.
When does their deal with Disney and Sony expire? Can't imagine they would go with starz over netflix.
Yep, they're even streaming TV shows as they come out like Spartacus.
I really admire Netflix as a company but would probably not bet on them succeeding in the long run. I would never bet against them either.
Years ago, we had Moviefone which controlled the cinema ticket distribution biz, it aggregated almost all American theaters and had superior technology. Eventually, the cinema owners decided to cut out the middleman and came out with Fandango, their own distribution arm. This pretty much busted Moviefone.
Similarly, I think Netflix faces a tough spot. I think their moat comes from already having a massive customer-base who is willing to pay and has their credit card information installed for recurring payments. Still, online distribution is an area that's much easier to enter and compete on than with mailing DVDs through the postal system.
So I have to wonder if the Studios will decide to try to cut out the middleman and offer their own instant streaming products. Starz is set to re-negotiate their contract soon and I believe they'll get a rate that is more in line with the Epix deal. I can imagine that the studios will press for more money, so Netflix's margins might not actually increase. Instead the money they save on the shift from postal to streaming will go towards content acquisition expenses.
The big benefit I see Netflix offering is the ability to aggregate content that is separated from the studios... it's a third/neutral party. We saw a bad example of what could happen when Fox pulled their content from Hulu for Cablevision customers because of a contract dispute over rate hikes for Fox's television networks.
What I wonder is whether Netflix will ever start distributing original programming. If you look on the premium cable networks (HBO, Showtime, Starz) they all started out as just ways of distributing movies. Eventually though they branched out and started distributing original content -- HBO really pioneered this when Chris Albrecht was leading (he now runs Starz which is bankrolling new shows like Spartacus: Blood and Sand). Offering original content helps add value and increase the moat a bit.
Or, maybe Netflix should use some of their overvalued stock to acquire controlling stakes in studios that have rich content libraries and try to control their own destiny.