Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, when thieves steal Marianne's grain, she says the word "bastard". However, the word "bastard" didn't originate until the second half of the 1200's.
Corrected entry: The grain to be planted was corn. In England at the end of the middle ages corn was unknown. It came from America more than 100 years later.
Correction: In Great Britain, where the movie is set, the word "corn" does not refer to maize (which is called corn in the USA), but to a grain, such as wheat. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corn.
Corrected entry: When Maid Marian goes to see what is happening outside of her farm at night, she strings her longbow by bending it against the ground with one hand. It is difficult enough with the correct method (using your legs as a lever, and bending the bow with both hands). To string a 6 foot English longbow from that time the way Maid Marian did would be impossible.
Correction: Wrong, this was the real bow, and what she did with it was absolutely possible, and really not that difficult to do.
Corrected entry: SPOILER: At the end of the movie, the French invasion fleet lands in craft which would be more at home in Saving Private Ryan. The first example of a specialized landing craft of any sort appeared in 1920, over 700 years after the events in the movie take place.
Correction: This is incorrect. In 1229 Jaime I, King of Aragon, invaded the Balearic Islands using armoured troop transports towed by galleys. These vessels had bows that opened to release troops directly onto the beaches. It's conceivable the French could have used the same technique around 25 years earlier.
Corrected entry: For the final battle, the French troops arrive on the South Coast of England - Robin Hood and company ride quickly to intercept them and despite being the other side of England appear to be the first troops to arrive?
Correction: They are shown meeting up with other Barons as well as King John along the way (Director's cut). It's not a matter of being the first to arrive, as being part of a unified army, all arriving at the same time.
Corrected entry: As Robin and his men first ride into Nottingham, just prior to meeting Friar Tuck, they ride past a large tree stump, cut very low to the ground. This stump has been smoothly cut with a chain saw, not with an ax, as would have occurred in Robin's time.
Correction: Or with a two man saw, such as they did have in that time?
Corrected entry: Near the end of the movie, just before the fight in the beach, Robin is riding his horse on top of the cliff. In the next shot, just a few moments later, he is in the beach leading the attack. There is not enough time for him to go down the cliff.
Correction: The charge to the beach is not shown in real time.
Corrected entry: English archers repelling the French Army landing are lined up, single file, along the cliff's top edge. Wrong. One, they are shooting arrows into a prevailing on-shore wind, therefore, highly unlikely that their arrows would reach the French at water's edge; two, the archers are congregated into a block so that their arrows would arrive in a thick "hail"; and three, after launching their arrows, archers were expected to join the fray, something that they could not do in a timely manner.
Correction: So what are you claiming the mistake is? Poor tactics? Because that does happen. "Highly unlikely" is a poor choice of words for a mistake - it shows that this is an opinion on your part, which is not an acceptable basis for a mistake. Just because you feel that the battle should be run differently, that doesn't make it an error. You have to justify why this is a movie mistake and not just poor decisions by the characters.
Corrected entry: French Army landing: Horses get sea-sick and the English Channel is a very rough body of water - therefore, it's highly unlikely that knights would be able to ride their horses off the landing barges into battle.
Corrected entry: Right after his coronation, John calls out to his mother. Eventually saying that she supported him at all times, even during his four-year imprisonment in the Muslim lands. These four years however, where just two. 1192 - 1194.
Correction: Counting 1192, 1193, 1194 is three years, he just likely rounded up.
Corrected entry: When Prince John and his French girlfriend are discussing politics, she uses French and a French accent to indicate her Frenchness. But in 11th or 12th century England, French was the language of royalty. That is all of the royal family spoke French as their first language. Thus we get Anglicized words like royal, viscount, earl and food words like beef (instead of cow), pork (instead of pig) etc, etc.
Correction: They all spoke French, but not necessarily as their first language. His girlfriend speaking with an accent is just a movie convention to emphasize she is French. Movie language is also produced for the mass audience to understand without having to read subtitles. There's no mistake here.
Corrected entry: In the teaser trailer as the Frenchmen are attacking the beach, one of them has a shield that is visibly flapping, as if it is made of wet cardboard rather than wood.
Corrected entry: When Robin and the boys are being rowed up the Thames, the captain tells Robin "we dock in 20 minutes." Mechanical clocks weren't in Europe until the 1300s and they were cumbersome affairs. No one could have told time by the minute on-board ship in the 12th century.
Correction: Since there were no clocks, the captain could have called out any amount of time within an hour, and no one could dispute him. The fact, though, is that people can estimate time without a clock pretty easily, especially in times when people didn't rely on clocks. If they docked in 24 minutes instead of 20, no one would complain.
Since there were no mechanical clocks, there was no use for minutes, therefore captain would never use minutes to estimate the time of landing. Minutes were only added in 14th century, when quarters of an hour became insufficient.
Correction: As with all fictional, semi-or historical films set in an era other than modern, modern vernacular is usually used to make the movie understandable for modern audiences. It's a standard movie making convention, not a mistake. Particularly since nearly all the vocabulary of French and English in this period would be incomprehensible to a modern English or French speaker.
rswarrior