Nothing a little October ale can't fix.
Universal released the Robin Hood trailer the other day, and --- I say this as someone who has thought about this movie more than you have --- it was a bit unexpected.
Most of the blogs I read were quick to sass its choice of music and write it off as trying too hard to convey A Different Sort Of Robin Hood Movie --- but a) it's an important point to make to shake off the grim specter of Kevin Costner's mullet, and b) it is a total success at conveying A Different Sort Of Robin Hood Movie. It starts with a slasher flick feel that dead-ends in Normandy-with-Normans. I have no idea what the hell it is about, but regardless of its relevance to my interests, I'm curious to see where the thing is going.
And I am most curious about what is implied by the brief glimpse we get of King Richard.
Soon to be more perforated than not.
King Richard is the deus ex machina of most every excercise in Hoodery. Robin can pants as many nobles as he wants, but the fact of the matter is any moment now Richard is going to drop on by and bring him in from the woods.
How a man living la vida Robin can suddenly become a noble and rub elbows with those he so recently pantsed is a theme glossed over in the stories, but just as glossed over is what happens when Richard eats it. The Lionheart gets a crossbow bolt to the neck and all-to-recently poxed Phoney King of England gets to go legit.
A handful of plots have focused Robin's antics in this sort of context, and it's a guarenteed tone-changer. There is no happy ending when you have effed with the king of your country. The only film to tread this ground was Robin and Marian, and while I really appreciated it following the logic of an outlaw growing too old for this shit to its inevitable conclusion, I can't see Russell Crowe charging into a dick-measuring contest to the death.
This movie's synopsis hints at something a touch more crowd-pleasing:
With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.
With Richard and his get-out-of-execution-free card out of the picture, there's only one happy ending for Robin that has anything to do with the glory of England. And it's another thing that very few Robin Hood stories bother to touch on.
King John signed the Magna Carta, a stepping stone to all sorts of wacky personal rights and freedoms. A subject very much so relevant to Robin's interests.
Initial here, asshole.
Granted, I am absolutely prepared to be talking out of my hat here. Only one book I can think of ties Robin to the Magna Carta, and I imagine more folks haven't bothered to explore it because it's unspeakably boring to have Robin hang up his bow and go a-lawyering. I doubt the trailer is depicting Robin arguing with not-Stanley-Tucci about Habeas Corpus while he punches him in the mug.
But those are the two endings I see to this story --- unceremonious death, or the Magna Carta --- and I'm pumped to see what Ridley Scott has wound up going with.
What I am trying to say here is that Death and the Magna Carta may be my new band name.
