Blood and Sand from Starz

Starz Entertainment released a Spartacus Prequel of the highly watched Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The prequel serried has 6 episodes titled “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena”. This prequel was created to delay the production of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand Season 2”. This was due to health diagnosis of the actor playing the main character. He is undergoing cancer treatment and his character will only appear briefly on the last part of the prequel, at episode 6. The plot of the story centers on the House of Batiatus when he is not yet the head of the gladiator training school. New characters will be added as the story acts as a flashback, Gannicus is a lovable champion of the gladiator arena will emerge prior to the arrival of Spartacus. There are numerous intrigue and action that took place before the arrival of Spartacus in the gladiator training school. The young Batiatus waits for the opportunity to overthrow his father to be able to take control in the operation of the gladiator arena school. Using alliances of the best skilled gladiators and the loyalty of his wife Lucretia, they planned on strategies such as seduction for deception and power.

“Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” is the most awaited Spartacus Prequel to the highly watched “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” is a story revolving around, the original champion of the gladiator arena school owned by Batiatus,  The Prequel Gods of the Arena are more shocking than the first Season as there are load of gore scenes and even sexual activities. After all the settings is on Ancient Rome and its surrounding controversies including drugs and orgies of a new character named Gaia, a friend of Lucretia. Gaia provided seduction in order to achieve the mission allocated to her by Batiatus for the purpose of gaining power through deception. The production researched on the ancient sexual practices and sexual positions to be credible. It was made in a way that it depicts a drug-induced montage where orgy and sexual acts happen.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena Season 1 Episode 1 to 6 are the following:

• Episode 1 - Past Transgressions. A son of Batiatus was appointed to be in control of his father’s gladiator school, the skills of the best fighters made him won favors over the management of the arena.
• Episode 2 – Mission. Through the devious team up with Lucretia, Batiatus recruits more slaves for Oenomaus to reclaim the top gladiator rank.
• Episode 3 – Paterfamilias.  The young Batiatus was unprepared with the return of his father which prevented his attempt to gain power over those over his level.
• Episode 4 – Beneath the Mask.  A power struggle between the elder Batiatus and the young Batiatus, his wife Lucretia helped in a risky plan to maintain leadership.
• Episode 5 – Reckoning. The elder Batiatus organized a tournament in order to determine the level of stability of the gladiators. Crixus was trapped in the power play within the arena.
• Episode 6 - The Bitter End.  Batiatus seeks vengeance from what transpired to him, he opened a new arena for a bloodier and deadlier battle.

{ 0 comments }

Those who find satisfaction while watching programs of oppressed people fighting for freedom, then they surely like Spartacus, a television series from Starz Entertainment. The show is very popular due to the slave uprising in the Roman Empire. The story begins with the involvement of unnamed Thracian in the Roman auxiliary as a campaign against the Getae (Dacian tribes that occupied the south regions of the lower Danube which is known today as northern Bulgaria and Lower Danube in Romania) under the command of Claudius Glaber. The Getae often raid the Thracian’s lands thus they were persuaded by Glaber to join the Roman service as supplementary support. However, due to the provocation of Glaber’s wife to seek higher recognition, Glaber break off from the agreement with the Thracian to attack the Getae. Feeling betrayed, the Thracian and his wife Sura lead an uprising against Glaber, however they were captured the next day.  The unnamed Thracian was condemned to die in the gladiator arena while his wife Sura became a slave. The Thracian killed the four gladiators assigned to kill him thus his punishment was reduced into slavery. The unnamed Thracian was later named Spartacus because he fought like a cruel Thracian king.

The power and strength of Spartacus was understandable being previously serving Romans as a soldier that became a prisoner and finally sold to a gladiator. He was then trained at a gladiator school together with other fugitive. When more slaves came in, they formed a group within themselves and Spartacus became a leader. The group was involved with several battles with the Romans, most of which were won through the leadership of Spartacus. As expected with most story plot, the greatest challenge for the main character was when Crassus became the leader of the eight legions of Roman soldiers. The numerous modern military equipments used by the Roman soldiers greatly affected Spartacus and his group. This resulted to their defeat and it was presumed that Spartacus died in the battle.

Watching closely the television show, the historians on the Roman era noticed some historical deviation in the show “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”. Not all important events are clear and the braveness of the main character was not all captured in the story. Although the producers and writers admitted omitting some plots, they claimed that the television series was well researched and accurately recorded the historical event. For those who failed to catch the television series, Spartacus can be obtained in DVD form.  Other option is to watch it online by searching links over the internet. Various websites offer reviews and online watching for free. I warn you though that the quality of the show might be affected as the best high definition video playback can not be well capture on free sites.  For best viewing quality, watch it online for a minimal subscription fee. But don’t expect online watching on full high definition as most internet video streams are unreliable. Blame this on downloading time and the optimization of compute efficiency. Nevertheless, it would be appreciated rather than not being to watch the television series which also means missing the thrill.

{ 0 comments }