Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Revealing mistake: When Robin Hood is fighting the sheriff's men under the tree, Robin throws a crossbow at one of the men. You can see the plexiglass, which is protecting the actor, get marked up and shake from the impact. (00:18:02)

Revealing mistake: When Friar Tuck hits his head on an over-hanging branch whilst on his cart, it is really obvious his head comes into contact much earlier than the added sound effect and his eventual reaction would suggest. Plus the branch bends and flexes backwards an awful lot - it's not resistant enough to knock someone out as depicted.

Andrew Upton

Revealing mistake: When Robin crashes through the stained glass window to save Marian and fight the sheriff, the panes of glass flutter in the breeze, revealing it to be fake glass.

Revealing mistake: When Robin gets attacked by Marian, Robin pushes her towards a stone wall several times, and the wall moves from the impacts.

Revealing mistake: The fallen tree from which Robin gives his inspirational speech about freedom has obviously had several branches removed with a chainsaw. It may be hard to see the marks of the blade on a copy of the video, but in the cinema they were pretty obvious.

Revealing mistake: This happens at the beginning of the battle with the Celts when Robin runs up the hill to fire a few arrows at them. When he kills the first one, you can clearly see he leans back on his horse as if struck by an arrow, before the arrow actually hits him in the chest.

Plot hole: The Bishop in the film is performing the duties you would expect of someone in his position (giving mass, hearing confessions, performing weddings etc.) He has his own private chambers in the cathedral, refers to Robin as 'the boy I knew' and talks about hearing his Father's confession four months earlier; so he's been around for a while. The problem is the credits refer to him as the 'Bishop of Hereford'. No explanation is ever given for why the Bishop of a city 100 miles away is living and working in Nottingham rather than looking after his own diocese; or why the Bishop of Nottingham isn't around to look after his. (The Bishop of Hereford was an enemy of Robin Hood in the original ballads, and it's likely the filmmakers just gave that name to the Bishop in the film due to its familiarity, without thinking about the plot hole this creates).

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Trivia: There was a series made in the UK (and very popular in many other countries) in the 80's called Robin of Sherwood. One of the characters was a Saracen called Nasir. He was not originally supposed to be one of the regulars, but the actor (Mark Ryan) got on so well with the rest of the cast, the decided not to kill Nasir, but keep him on as one of Robin's men. When Robin Hood Prince of Thieves was in development, a character called Nazeem was written because the writer thought that the Saracen was a traditional part of the legend (along with Little John, Will Scarlet and Marian). The name was changed to Azeem because they found out that the character was unique to Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood. So, thanks to a random piece of casting in the UK in the 80's, we were given Morgan Freeman's Azeem.

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Question: Mortianna is seen practicing some sort of magic, and in the extended addition we see the Sheriff "praying" (I think) in front of an upside-down crucifix. And he assures Mortianna that his true faith lies in the "old ways." I'm trying to figure out: Is this art Mortianna and the Sheriff practice supposed to be Devil worship? Black magic with no real base, that they just invented for the movie? A form of pre-Christian religion, e.g. something like the Druidic religions of pre-Roman Britain? For the life of me, I can't put my finger on it.

Answer: The white robes, reference to "the old ways", and pentagram across the map when the Sheriff meets the Barons suggests per-Christian Druidism; the upside down crucifix certainly implies Devil-worship. These two spiritual paths are, by nature, mutually exclusive. In short, a fictional pseudo-witchcraft invented for the film, yes.

Answer: It is a type of witchcraft which involves devil worship, yes.

Phixius

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