Is it a lesson for us? 

VDH money quote for me :

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

Last month, the film’s director Zack Snyder fended off idiotic, editorially-slanted questions from the European press.

Just so long as you don’t ever, ever offend the other and balance your perspective with his (or theirs), then I guess you can talk about freedom all you want.  Doesn’t matter if they want to enslave you and act out their Zod fantasies.  Hey, we all want the same thing, right?