Main > The Library

Robin Hood - the latest Hollywood treatment

<< < (4/4)

Sir Edward:

--- Quote from: Paladin on 2010-11-08, 15:01:42 ---Back on topic, I watched the Costner rendition (again), Prince of Thieves yesterday...I must say, that one is my favorite Robin Hood movie of all the ones I've seen.

I find it funny that people look for the historicity in Robin Hood when it can't even be proven whether or not he actually existed.  LOL

--- End quote ---


Right, just like the Arthurian stories, the Robin Hood legends are mostly stories as well. What has been passed down over the centuries are ballads and poems. And even if there's some truth to it, there's no real way to know if the stories are truly about the same person. Robin Hood was a common name at the time, and in fact was often used the way we'd refer to a "John Doe" or something like that when someone's real identity isn't known. Records show marriages, convictions, and the like of Robin Hoods in almost every region from back then. Even the supporting characters (Little John, etc) usually only appear in one story, or a small handful of them, which probably indicates that a lot of the stories originated separately. And like the Arthurian stories, later writers attempted to weave them together and make it coherent.

We finally had a chance to watch the movie this weekend. We liked it! Yes, lots of inaccuracies, big and small (out of period helmets, Richard the Lionheart was speaking English instead of French, etc). But overall we though it was a clever alternate origin story for Robin Hood and his men, one that was woven in with one of the existing legends (Robert of Locksley). I have to agree on some of the nit-picks of course, like firing that wet shot, the confusing uselessness of the boats crashing together in the climactic battle, calling the armor "chainmail", and so on. But there were nice little details too that they might easily have overlooked, such as cutting the wine with water at dinner. The year was correct for the death of Richard the Lionheart, and even the circumstances of his death, though historically it took a long time for him to die of his wounds.

It did seem odd, the whole "stone cutter" reference and the inscription hidden under the stone. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for something that was a minor plot point.

Sir William:
Awesome....thought I was crazy for a while there because I liked it. lol

There were some nice touches that, now you mention it, really did add to it.  The watering of the wine I took for granted, even tho I can't recall ever seeing that occur in a major film before, very cool.

Sir James A:
I just saw "The Real Robin Hood" on the History Channel, and was going to post about it filling in some of the spots of the movie that didn't make sense to me. I did a quick search and found this thread (http://modernchivalry.org/forum/index.php/topic,557.15.html) about the show. For those that haven't seen the movie or that show, I'd suggest watching the movie first, then the show - as the show had clips from the movie and spoils a bit of the plot.

I may go back and watch the movie once more to see how it does or doesn't pull together, knowing the extra background on why they diverted from the "classic" tale, especially with "remakes" of old movies being such a popular thing the last decade.

Sir William:
Well, I've seen it again since then and I still like it...but I still stand by my earlier statement that it is not my favorite RH rendition, but as a medievally-themed movie from Hollywood, it was very good.  I can't ever get enough of knights in armor clashing with one another.

I just got a bootleg of Season of the Witch...it was pretty bad but from what I could gather, I think I'm going to like this movie...if for nothing else, the fighting!  It was hazy and not well rendered, but the action scenes I could discern looked exciting...and of course, woefully inaccurate or should I say, overblown?  You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it, but I'm guessing it is for the wow element in action sequences, you know?  I know I said wow.  lol

I did not watch the whole thing because it was pretty bad and I want to see it clearly.  Can't wait for it to come out on DVD.  Ever since we've gotten that big screen, we've not seen the inside of a movie theater!  lol

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page