I don’t know why some of your posts are being flagged, but rest assured within a few hours I do find them and publish them when that happens.

And BTW, regarding this:

“Hey, you’re poor, here’s a gold piece.”
*poor person crosses the threshhold of poor and rich*
“Oh, now you’re rich.”
*kills him*

Sounds like a variation on the current administration’s point of view.

Vic

This film looks like it’s trying to be more realistic. The old RH movies were meant to be unrealistic, corny, and a bit campy, so we accepted it, but try to put the same old storyline into a more realistic movie and you’ll start to see the flaws of it.

“Hey, you’re poor, here’s a gold piece.”
*poor person crosses the threshhold of poor and rich*
“Oh, now you’re rich.”
*kills him*

Well let’s keep in mind that the wealthy of today (who built their own fortunes) are not exactly equivalent to the inherited wealthy of hundreds of years ago. I’m sure they DID take awful advantage of those who lived under their rule.

Vic

But unfortunately in these times, people won’t just give in like sheep, people who are wealthy would fight to keep their money and would probably be senselessly slaughtered by Robin Hood and his gang. Their only crime in the majority of the cases would be that they were more successful than others. Even if these individuals might have given money to the poor or have tried to help, all Hood and his gang of theives would see is the fact that they are still well off.

If you can still call this guy a “hero” by rationalizing to yourself that other characters considered heros are also technically considered criminals (ignoring the type of crime that makes them criminals), then fine, we all know how romanticized this whole Robin Hood concept can be to some people,I’m just not one of these people. If he intentionally kills innocent people, regardless of what crime he considers these people to be guilty of, he’s a murderer, not just a thief. I would be happy with the movie if this was the case if he is killed in the end without glorification.

On the issue of Robin having to kill people, yeah don’t doubt it and that’s precisely what may help to contribute to the character. Here is a guy with good intentions overall but with questionable means. I feel Sir Scott might just be the first director to give us an accurate picture of those times (albeit through the eyes of a fictional character such as Robin Hood). Those were times when there were no nations, just contested kingdoms, dukedoms and fiefdoms all with fuzzy overlapping borders and all vying for power while the people on the ground suffered terrible poverty and injustices. It was a time when war, either from within a kingdom or from without, was only a whisper away. Put into this backdrop the character of Robin Hood, a Yeoman in the army of Richard Coeur de Lion, returning from the Crusades. Here we have a veteran soldier (possibly of noble birth, but it would make more sense, given he’s a bowman, that he’s not) who decides to do what he can for the impoverished masses. The thing is, given that all he knows is soldiery, the only way he can see to do this is through fighting, looting and raiding. And of course anything he loots from the nobility must be distributed among the poor after all his is a noble mission isn’t it? He’s not fighting for his won personal gain… but who does he fight? Are the well-to-do upper classes to blame, or is it a far deeper problem, one much more ingrained in society one which a lowly bandit can never really hope to suppress? I see it as a story of a failed anti-hero, the man who would be liberator…

That all being said historical veracity is not going to be anyone’s main concern (as opposed to grounding the story in a realistic historic background) because Robin Hood did not actually exist (he’s probably based on a compendium of real bandits with a truckload of exaggeration and fanciful elaboration thrown in for good measure).

Regardless of the story I can’t wait to SEE this film. Ridley’s films are incredible visual feasts and this promises to be no exception…

Oh and in response to Ken J, be wary of drawing in black and white. Technically Batman is a criminal regarded as a hero, and how any traitors and terrorists have come to be known as patriots and heroes? Robin Hood would no doubt have been regarded as a criminal by those he robbed, but what of those whom he helped? If he was real he wouldn’t be a hero. Real life doesn’t give us heroes… It just gives us people, all flawed in some way like us all, who occasionally aspire to and achieve heroic ideals… the rest fail to do either and become regarded as villains.