When I was a teenager, I went to see a movie in theatres. I'd only ever seen Robin Hood as a cartoon, the Disney movie. This one featured Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Alan Rickman, Christian Slater, and a bunch of other cool people, and it had Robin Hood light an arrow on fire and shoot loose it. (That's in the IMDb trivia for the other one. Archers are ordered to "shoot" but they would have said "loose" in Robin Hood's day.) So it was cool as hell. It became and, for many years stayed one of my favourite films, warts and all. The lead actor, for example, Kevin Costner, could not get his English accent right, so the director let him use his American accent. Everyone else around him used period accurate accents but Robin of Locksley talked like an American. I don't care, the movie was still awesome.
The movie was popular enough to quickly become the target of a Mel Brooks parody, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which I must admit, is a pretty good Robin Hood movie in its own right. And I still like the Disney one. And the 1938 one. Everything after Men in Tights sucked, though — at least in my opinion. I hated the 2010 one, and the more recent one with Taron Egerton was just okay.
Then I heard there was a second Robin Hood film released in 1991. It's not great. I just watched it. I mean, it's a solid 6/10, but the pacing is all over the place, the lingo is just bad (Robin refers to cash, soldiers are called thugs, and other modern lingo), you see a car in the distance at one point, at another point Will Scarlet stumbles into a stone wall and it buckles like cardboard... it's low-budget AF. That said, it's a solid Robin Hood movie. It's just not a great movie. It's better than the 2010 one and the Taron Egerton one. I haven't seen the newest one, The Death of Robin Hood. I've heard bad things... as a Robin Hood fan, I'll see it, for the same reason I just watched this one: it's Robin Hood.
Of course, the best Robin Hood is the Director's Cut of Prince of Thieves, as it expands upon Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham, who's really the best character in the film. Sure, you root for Robin and Marian, as you should, and Christian Slater steals every scene he's in as Will Scarlet (as he did back then), and Morgan Freeman is never dull, but we're all just watching for Alan Rickman... right? And nearly all of the Director's Cut's added half hour is dedicated to Rickman and his character. It really changes the scope of the film, it's no longer Robin's movie, he's just a byproduct of the corruption of the Sheriff's involvement with a Satanic cult, and bribing Richard the Lionheart's enemies against him.
But, the other 1991 Robin Hood ain't bad either. It's just not good. But if you like the legend of Robin Hood and his merry men... you can do worse.
Edit: Topic title is kind of a lie. I was alerted to the presence of the one I linked a month or so ago here on Lemmy. So if you remember telling me about it and you're thinking "you didn't learn about this just today," then thank you.
23 Comments
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 7 pts · 22d
Lol, nope
njm1314@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 22d
Yeah I don't think Christian Slater even possesses Accents in his repertoire.
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 1 pts · 21d
Though we obviously don’t have any recordings of voices from the 12th century, the English language itself shifted considerably and we have a fair idea that most English accents became non-rhotic from the 15th century on. So Slater’s drawl might even be closer to a 12th century outlaw than a modern actor doing RP!
He did the “sherbet” bit in Austin Powers anyway, so that counts as an accent maybe.
njm1314@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 21d
Christian Slater was in Austin powers?
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 1 pts · 21d
https://youtu.be/bhuOIbg-hM0
njm1314@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 20d
What was that a deleted scene? I can see why they deleted it. However I still don't think he's actually doing an accent there.
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 0 pts · 19d
It’s in the superior international cut of the movie. There are also two skits about the friends and family of henchmen receiving the news of their deaths. Basically the best jokes were taken out for the US release, which then bombed.
njm1314@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19d
Austin Powers didn't bomb. Did very well. That's why it got sequels. In fact it did significantly better in America than it did in the rest of the world.
Though if they left this bit in i can see why it didn't do as well internationally.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 22d
Prince of Thieves is fucking great. If anyone disagrees, I’ll cut their heart out with a spoon.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 22d
But why a spoon?

tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 5 pts · 22d
It’s dull, you twit. It’ll hurt more.
SavinDWhales@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 21d
GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 21d
I see someone's played knifey-spooney before.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 21d
"Why a spoon?"
happysplinter@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 20d
I liked the TV show on BBC that was three seasons and done.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 22d
"cash" as a term isn't all that egregious, it's use as a term meaning money-box or large purse dates back to the 1600s. But otherwise yeah, the movie was pretty mid.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 22d
Robin Hood takes place before the 1600s though.
I didn’t think it was egregious, it was mentioned in the Goofs section of the trivia on IMDb.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 22d
Well sure; all I'm saying is that it's not distinctly modern slang.
njm1314@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22d
Everything after the Gutenberg Bible is modern.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 22d
Alright. Only ever seen that called the early modern period, personally, but if you'd like to use another definition that's fine too - just be aware that's not the norm.
^edit:^ ^formatting^
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 20d
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 20d
It's more like the introduction of the name for the color we now call "orange" - The term "red" used to describe both groups (red and orange), but now "red" and "orange" describe two very different groups, and using "red" to describe both is simply no longer considered correct by the majority of people (ignoring some holdover terms, like "red hair")
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 20d
Sorry. I was wrong. I deleted my comment accordingly.