The Real Robin Hood (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

Robin Hood and his Merry Men

[La-Luz · 7/10 · 10 September 2020]

Interesting documentary that poses a few questions about the legend of Robin Hood. Released around the same time as the 2010 Robin Hood movie, it includes clips as well as comments from the director of the movie (Ridley Scott) and also the star of it (Russell Crowe).

Following a few comments from those two, the information presented in this then about Robin Hood is quite good. It may or may or not be totally accurate? But as information on Robin Hood its ok and serves its purpose. It talks about where he really might have came from and when, triest o pinpoint the actual person's name from records, and that he may have been a middle class yoeman of the time. Questions his reasons for being an Medieval outlaw living in woodlands, which apparently according to this was happening all across England, not just with Robin Hood and co. in Sherwood Forest.

It goes on to talk about all the usual stuff associated with the story: Richard the Lionheart, King John, the Sheriff of Nottingham and so on. Talks about the ballads that were written and when these characters first became part of the canon. Then it goes to profile these so called merry men in the stereotypical choronological order (1. Little John, 2. Will Scarlet, 3. Friar Tuck, etc.) Some of the information given on the 'merry men' is pretty ok to learn about. It also shows the dungeons of Nottingham Castle, which look pretty scary but would be cool to actually visit as a tourist I think.

Maybe the best part of the documentary though is the information from the person who talks about battle tactics, warfare and the arms used at the period. He seems to know his stuff, provides tough guy style demonstrations and shows that he is a crack shot with a longbow.

Overeall, I think this is a good documentary about Robin Hood, especially as a starting point on the subject.

Definitely not the "real" Robin Hood

[yawn-of-death · 4/10 · 27 September 2010]

This was less a documentary to find the real Robin Hood, and more a justification for the contortions the legend underwent in Ridley Scott's movie.

Mike Loades, a military historian, said Robin lived between 1180 and 1280, giving absolutely no reason for this, and the program continued based on his dates. J. C. Holt, the leading Robin Hood historian, says in his book that, due to social circumstances described in the ballads, it is VERY unlikely Robin was active before 1200. Also, the earliest record we have of outlaws starting to use the alias "Robin Hood" comes from a 1262 Easter Memoranda Roll. Assuming that they were emulating an original Robin Hood, the program should have been looking between 1200 and 1262. Except then the Third Crusade (Richard set out in 1190, peace was reached in 1192) would not have rated inclusion, and the Third Crusade was a big part of the movie.

None of the ballads says Robin went on crusade. The one ballad that mentions Richard I does not mention the crusade, or John, or Magna Carta. (Which was not about equality under the law but, among other things, protecting the nobles' inheritance from a corrupt king.) Why was Mike Loades saying Friar Tuck could have been on crusade, when we know Tuck was not a part of the original legend, but added in the sixteenth century, like Maid Marian, through the May Games? The original Friar Tuck was most likely Robert Stafford, a thief active in 1417.

Information was not well presented. For example, one man said that Scarlet was the "fop" of the group. He did not say that this was because "scarlet" used to refer to an expensive fabric. Another historian stated that "Scarlet" was derived from "Scathelocke" or "Scarlock," meaning to break locks (an obvious outlaw alias). But no one put these two statements together to explain that Will was not actually a fop (or necessarily a red head - scarlet evolved to mean red because this was an expensive dye), but only collected these traits because of later corruptions of his name.

One historian said that Marian's character has changed over time to mirror how society has viewed women. It would have been interesting to hear how the seventeenth century ballad about Marian's hour-long sword fight with Robin factors into that theory.

The quarterstaff demonstration was interesting, but irrelevant. Neither Robin nor his men were said to use staves until the eighteenth century.

Graham Black of Nottingham Trent University shared, in my opinion, the best information. He talked about J. C. Holt's best Robin Hood candidate, outlawed in 1226, who was then completely ignored for the rest of the program.

Most of the documentary was spent talking about the history behind the movie, not the man. (And that history was not always accurate.) Russell Crowe should stop saying that giving to the poor was the legend's core value and why it survived. That value was not added until the sixteenth century, along with Richard I and rumours of Robin's nobility. If the documentary were objective, it would point out things the movie got wrong, like almost everything about how Richard I died, or the fact that John's Isabella was twelve or younger when he married her.