There's a sample of what to expect in the battle scenes and a gorgeous scene of Persian warriors riding across the fields supposedly towards Spartan. A lot of the scenes are shown in slow-motion, but Snyder also uses this neat trick of speeding up and slowing down the film speed to make it look rather surreal. The teaser showed a longer scene showing Leonidas pushing the Persian messenger into the pit in Sparta, followed by a steamy sex scene between Butler's Leonidas and Queen Gorgo, played by Lena Heady, as well as a glimpse of the Oracle, wearing a rather revealing robe.
The rest of the teaser was made up of short shots of the other characters from the book, scored to Nine Inch Nails to give it a modern feel, including a shot of the Persian king Xerxes (played by Brazil's Rodrigo Santoro), the blind Persian executioner with swords for arms, a couple shots of the hunchback Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) and a brief glimpse of a new character designed just for the movie, a Persian giant played by the big actor who faced Brad Pitt in the opening sequence of Troy. There also was a brief glimpse of a severed head flying through the air, probably also Leonidas' work, and an armored rhino.
The most impressive scene in the teaser was probably the final battle sequences that show the Spartans in action against the Persians, with one memorable exchange being a Persian telling Leonidas that their "arrows will block out the sun" and Leonidas responding that they'll "fight in the shade." (Another memorable scene from the book present in the teaser shows the Spartans fighting a bunch Persian warriors towards and over the edge of a cliff.)
The teaser was a great synopsis of the historic tale with many scenes looking exactly like the way they're depicted by Miller in the graphic story. Although Snyder said that a lot of scenes were unfinished, the crowd ate it up, cheering and applauding until they agreed to show it again. (...)"
