The new Robin Hood trailer

A fleeting glimpse of Cate Blanchette doing a St. Joan of Arc imitation?

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Steven Greydanus, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and Hollywood Revisionism

"The laws of this land enslave the people to its king."

I watched the Superbowl ad for Robin Hood and was struck again by this line. Does Ridley Scott turn Robin Hood into a [liberal] democrat, an overturner of the feudal order? Will it feature the signing of the Magna Carta?

On the Magna Carta:

The document conceded by John and set with his seal in 1215, however, was not what we know today as Magna Carta but rather a set of baronial stipulations, now lost, known as the "Articles of the barons." After John and his barons agreed on the final provisions and additional wording changes, they issued a formal version on June 19, and it is this document that came to be known as Magna Carta. Of great significance to future generations was a minor wording change, the replacement of the term "any baron" with "any freeman" in stipulating to whom the provisions applied. Over time, it would help justify the application of the Charter's provisions to a greater part of the population. While freemen were a minority in 13th-century England, the term would eventually include all English, just as "We the People" would come to apply to all Americans in this century.

While Magna Carta would one day become a basic document of the British Constitution, democracy and universal protection of ancient liberties were not among the barons' goals. The Charter was a feudal document and meant to protect the rights and property of the few powerful families that topped the rigidly structured feudal system. In fact, the majority of the population, the thousands of unfree laborers, are only mentioned once, in a clause concerning the use of court-set fines to punish minor offenses. Magna Carta's primary purpose was restorative: to force King John to recognize the supremacy of ancient liberties, to limit his ability to raise funds, and to reassert the principle of "due process." Only a final clause, which created an enforcement council of tenants-in-chief and clergymen, would have severely limited the king's power and introduced something new to English law: the principle of "majority rule." But majority rule was an idea whose time had not yet come; in September, at John's urging, Pope Innocent II annulled the "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and fear." The civil war that followed ended only with John's death in October 1216.

The Text of Magna Carta
Medieval Sourcebook: Magna Carta 1215
The Magna Carta 1215

It is a Ridley Scott movie

Why expect that he would suddenly become a different movie-maker?

Originally Scott wanted to do a revisionist movie about the Sheriff of Nottingham (who becomes Robin Hood?), but he decided to do a more "traditional" tale about Robin Hood instead. I was actually looking forward to a story that focused on the Sheriff, who decides he must pretend to be an outlaw in order to right injustices--though now that I think about it, it does sound too much like Zorro.

Anyway, I watched the UK trailer for Robin Hood -- it is better than the US one, but it also features a Cate Blanchett fighting and donning armor. Please don't tell me her character was inspired by St. Joan of Arc, who, according to Hilaire Belloc, never took up arms except to protect herself,

or that Ridley Scott is making up for what was lacking in Lord of the Rings. Give me the Audrey Hepburn Maid Marian any day.


At first I thought Robin Hood would not be as PC as Scott's Kingdom of Heaven; this bit of feminist fantasy is on par for Anglo-American movies today, and it's not entirely new to Ridley Scott. (Alien.) But if he was going to aim for realism, why put this in? (I believe the same claim of realism was made about Kingdom of Heaven as well.) In this respect, I suspect it is like the most recent BBC series (which is probably worse overall in catering to the PC orthodoxy of the BBC).

In both trailers Robin Hood makes the sign of the cross. Will Scott show a greater respect for the Catholic religion and its influence on the period than he did in Kingdom of Heaven? There's no mention of the Crusades, or Robin Hood going to the Holy Land with King Richard the Lionheart--instead the story begins towards the end of King Richard's reign. The French make an appearance as the enemy of the English, and Robin Hood's credentials as an English national hero are established.

The populism of Robin Hood does remind me a bit of Mel Gibson's Braveheart; does it refer to the republicanism of the Anglo-American political tradition (with its appeals to the Magna Carta?), or to the modern democratic spirit? Russell Crowe's speech-giving as Robin Hood is identical to his speech-giving Gladiator and Master and Commander. Not a good thing.

I will probably see the movie, but the experience will not be free from annoyances.

William Lind on cultural Marxism. (See also "Who stole our culture?.")

AICN: Ridley Scott's NOTTINGHAM Is Now...(Drumroll)...ROBIN HOOD!!

IGN: Ridley Scott's Robin Hood Cast

If the movie is completed, I think comparisons may be made with Kingdom of Heaven... and Robin and Marian? Robin and Marian was one of the first movies that we saw on videotape--I can't remember if we got it from the library or from a video store. It is available on DVD--perhaps I should rewatch it some time...

*spoiler warning* The biggest problem with the movie, as I remember it, was the ending, which was rather objectionable from a Catholic point of view. Marian poisons herself and Robin Hood, and in her explanation/defense of her action, she tells him that she loves him more than God. Maybe that sounds right to certain Romantics, but it is 'offensive to pious ears.' (I remember a Catholic posting at a blog how angry and offended he was that he was supposed to love God more than his wife. How bizarre.)

robin hood: robin and marian (1976)

IGN: The Baroness of Nottingham
Sienna joins Ridley's Robin Hood reimagining.