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© Companions of the Longbow
Robin Hood Goofs - Episode 1
Episode 1. “Will You Tolerate This?"
Overview: Robin returns home from The Crusades and discovers the oppression of the new Sheriff of Nottingham. He sees Marian again, who he used to be betrothed to, but left for the Crusades instead.
Sheriff versus an Earl
On the order of social scale and power an Earl outranks a sheriff by several orders of magnitude and yet the whole starting episode revolves around the fact that the sheriff can, and does, boss around Robin Earl of Huntingdon along with all the other nobles. Why? No one really knows. Maybe it’s because …
Robin Earl of Huntingdon – The Poorest Earl in the Whole of Christendom
In “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, Kevin Costner’s Robin returns to England alone (bar of course Azeem the Saracen) because that Robin had been captured and had to escape back to England. In this version this Robin returns to England after serving honourably in the Holy Land. Bearing in mind the whole feudal system relies on men being granted land, titles and wealth in return for supplying trained men to fight for the king, and near the top of the feudal hierarchy is the rank of Earl, all this Robin has with him is one man servant. When he gets home he doesn’t appear to own much either. Particularly anything in the way of the paraphernalia needed for the martial life. He doesn’t even seem to have a castle. He has a house and within the house are some ageing servants and that’s it. No wonder the sheriff gets to boss him around.
“Eee by gum, lad!”
For this show the nobles don’t speak period Norman French and the commoners don’t speak period Middle English, which is fair enough because today’s audience doesn’t speak Norman French or Middle English either. However there is a clear difference between the way the nobles speak and the way the commoners speak. The nobles all have Received Pronunciation accents (i.e. no clear regional accent) and the commoners all speak with regional northern England accents. Except Robin and Sir Guy. They speak like the commoners. We don’t know Sir Guy’s full background in this version, but as knighthood was earned rather inherited it’s not unfathomable to imagine Sir Guy to having a less than advantaged start in life. Robin on the other hand is an Earl. An Earl that it’s made clear grew up to be an Earl. Why does he have a northern English regional accent like the commoners?
Homage or Ripoff? Alan A Dale of Sherwood
Remember the start of the 1984 Robin of Sherwood where in that version Robin and Much are caught poaching a deer and they get chased by soldiers through the forest? Alan A Dale does all this in the same way at the start of the BBC’s version of Robin Hood.
How Old Is Your Dad?
The Chinese silk merchant Robin and Much help dig a ditch for is incredibly young to have a grown up daughter. (Okay, he’s not really a Chinese silk merchant, his entire cloth dying business just looks like something out of Hero or House of the Flying Daggers). Was it because we can’t really have our hero Robin fighting an old guy with a white beard? Or was it because you can’t have Robin ending up snogging an underage teenage girl?
Slow Motion Backward Flip Leap Off the Platform
I don’t think it’s cruel to call Robin’s slow motion backward flip leap off a ledge a bit off a party piece. He does it again later in the series and both times it’s (a) done in super slow motion, (b) filmed from three different angles at once so we can see it over and over and over again and (c) is a totally pointless manoeuvre. Someone wants to cut you down with a sword, you’re on a ledge, wouldn’t it just be easier to jump off rather than doing a back flip like you’re in an Olympic high diving team? Obviously not.
Homage or Ripoff? My Name is Maximus Robinus Hoodius
Remember the bit from 2000 film Gladiator where Russell Crow’s character imagines running his hand across the wheat in his fields at home? Robin actually does the same thing when he first arrives in Locksley.
How Bad Is Your Archery?
Six archers facing two horses riding towards them, each horse is burdened with two riders on their backs. What sort of bad archery day does it have to be for all six archers to shoot high and miss their target? Unbelievably bad I reckon. Literally, it is unbelievable. This clip has more fudge than Dairylee.