Latest Updates - Mike McShane

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Still the best Robin Hood movie!

I hate the two extremes filmmakers try to do with legendary / mythological figures these days:

Either they try to "update" the figure for a modern audeince, without even attempting to evoke the spirit and essence of the times: modern haircuts, clothes, vernacular and modes of speech, because they think modern audiences (especially the younger ones) won't "understand" or get into the movie - which in itself, is profoundly insulting, not only to the source material, but also to the intended audience: "You're thick, and can only understand something equivalent to the world in which you now live" - makes me want to wretch!

(I'm looking at you Guy Ritchie!)

...Or, they try to place a figure of legend and myth in "history", in order to make them "real" people who actually might have lived - historians, and other egotistical asshats of this ilk are primarily responsible for this: "Well, if such and such a figure actually existed, in this time, he / she would probably have worn this, and said that, been just so..."

Completely wrong on both counts!

The whole point of these characters / figures is that don't or might not have existed, and at the very least, not been numbered among normal men, living normal lives, as normal bods - that is their power, and the point of their existence, as symbols to inspire, and who's ambiguity is the very instrument by which they do so, and why they have endured.

When you do either of the above things to such figures, you diminish this, and dilute that power, as well as displaying to everyone you do not understand the source material, or have respect for it.

A good Robin Hood movie, therefore, should go with the spirit of the character - swashbuckling adventure, engaging, larger than life, even preposterous, and fun (remember that word?)

Anyway, gripe over :)

It should be required that everyone should watch this for Alan Rickman's villain alone.

(Costner deserves credit too, for not trying to compete with him in acting, as he'd have been blown off the screen, and looked a tool into the bargain)