Corrected entry: The mistake pretty much all Robin Hood films make is to have the Sheriff of Nottingham simply called 'Nottingham' by his friends/ peers. This would only be the case with the Earl or Lord of Nottingham who, coincidentally, would have lived in Nottingham Castle (since it would have been his family's). The Sheriff didn't live in Nottingham as his duties covered the whole shire ('shire-reeve'= 'Sheriff'). It'd be like confusing the Governor of California with the Mayor of Los Angeles.
Corrected entry: When Costner escapes after slashing Rickman's face, Rickman starts beating up the guard at the gate who let him get away. The shot is at right angles to Rickman throwing the last punch so we can see that his fist misses the guard's face by miles.
Corrected entry: At the end when King Richard makes a surprise appearance at the wedding, Marian calls him by his first name, and remains standing while everyone else bows. It's unlikely that she would show so little decorum, considering he's the king. Being a semi-distant relative would not give her the right to be so casual with him, especially in public, and at a time when sometimes kings' immediate families addressed them as "Your Majesty."
Correction: But considering he's a fictionalized version of Richard the Lionheart, and he seems remarkably informal with her in return, it is a more than safe assumption that the matter has been addressed long since, with Richard asking, if not telling Marian not to be so formal with him. Much like Elizabeth Swann asked repeatedly of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Corrected entry: In the hanging scene, the executioner steps out in public and THEN puts on his hood. The idea of the hood was that people would not know who he was, but his face is visible to the crowd gathered, so there was little point in him putting on the hood after all.
Correction: This is a character mistake at best. In many medieval communities, people knew who the local executioner was regardless of whether he covered his face or not (often, criminals were sentenced to being executioners, or people could figure out his identity based on bodily distinctions). If the crowd knew who the executioner were and what he looked like, the hood would be used more out of tradition, and not to hide his identity. So it is possible that the headsman in this movie simply did not care to hide himself.
Corrected entry: When Robin and Marian descend on the rope together, when they are on the ground the rope should be completely firm from the counterweight, but instead it is dangling loosely.
Correction: The firmness of the rope would depend of how the system was made so when the rope is at the bottom it might not be firm.
Corrected entry: At the beginning when the prisoners have escaped into the city, they come out through a manhole cover, now I doubt that Jerusalem would have had manholes that far back.
Correction: The Indus Valley civilisation had covered sewerage systems in their cities as early as 2500BC, a mere 3500 years before the events of the film. The ancient Romans had them, too, and they were responsible for much rebuilding in Jerusalem - it's hardly likely that they would have left out their sanitation methods while doing so.
Corrected entry: When the survivors of the Sherwood battle decide to go to Nottingham, Friar Tuck calls them all "daft buggers." It is very clear that his mouth is not moving.
Correction: John Little says "daft buggers" not Friar Tuck.
Corrected entry: When Robin has just stolen the Sheriffs horse he picks up a bag of food, which he hits a soldier with. When he rides out of the gates (in the same scene) he throws the bag behind him. However, in the next scene, back at the 'hide-out' he has the bag of food with him.
Correction: He doesn't throw the bag behind him, he carries it over his shoulder. What he throws off is the disguise he's wearing.
Corrected entry: When Robin shoots Will through the hand the arrow clearly misses by a mile and passes off screen, Will already has the arrow in his hand and you can see both at the same time.
Correction: It's not the arrow that you can see, it's the dagger thats in Will's hand that falls down screen from his hand.
Corrected entry: This is only relevant to the extended version DVD. At the start of the bonus scene where the Sheriff finds the hole, the scribe writes on a blackboard "How is your bride?". The "s" looks like it does today (i.e. snake shape). Until the early 19th century, the "s" was written to look more like an "f."
Correction: The "long" s (that looks like an f) was only used in the middle of a word. The familiar "short" s was used at the end of a word.
Corrected entry: When the Celts storm the forest hideaway, Costner kneels down and fires at the horsemen. He fires the first arrow into a man's chest. The second arrow goes into the same man (posing as a different one) from a different angle and he falls off.
Correction: It's not the same man. The only reason it looked like the same man was because all the Celts had that design painted around their eyes.
Corrected entry: In the extended version where the Sheriff finds out Mortianna the Witch is his mother, something doesn't make sense. Mortianna says she killed a baby from the castle and replaced it with her own (the infant Sheriff). What would that achieve? As far as anyone in the castle is concerned it would be the same baby and there'd be a new mad old crone hanging around saying it was her charge. She'd be burnt as a witch. Alternatively, they'd realise it was a different baby and Mortianna would still be burnt as a witch and a murderess. Either way, it doesn't make sense that Mortianna would have managed to have stay with the Sheriff whilst he grew up.
Correction: You are assuming that Mortianna had told her story to others. If she never told anyone that she had had a baby, nobody would know, and her child would grow up in a richer and better household than she could provide. She only tells him when he is grown up. In addition, Mortianna has the protection of the Prince. This makes it very difficult to have her burned, and as we can see it lets her practice her witchcraft quite freely.
Corrected entry: In the shot when Robin Hood, dressed as a beggar, enters the chapel during mass, look in the lower right hand corner. You will see the sheriff in the foreground, slightly out-of-focus, smiling very broadly and uncharacteristically to someone off camera.
Correction: He could have been smiling at a nobleman or someone else he would like to have a good relationship with in order to get his way with them.
Corrected entry: 98% of characters mentioned or featured in this film are entirely fictional, so saying that they didn't exist isn't really a mistake. However the Sheriff of Nottingham is called 'George' at one point. The Sheriff in 1194 and up to the 1200's was Eustace of Edwinstowe. I'm not making that up, even the flimsiest historical research will uncover that fact. The film-makers obviously thought it too much trouble.
Correction: Yes, almost all characters are fictional, and the entire story is a work of fiction. In fiction you can have whatever name you wish for the sheriff. Kind of how you can make a movie set in 2002 with a president main character who isn't named George.
Corrected entry: Before the hanging at the end, a boy drops Will's sword. Will walks without picking up his sword. Still, the Sheriff's soldiers find him with the sword on him.
Correction: The boy is never actually holding Will's sword, so he doesn't drop it. It seems to be fastened around the back of Will's waist, and when Will spins around, it just falls back against his bum. There is the sound of metal hitting something, so if it was indeed supposed to hit the ground, there is still plenty of time Will is offscreen that he could have picked it up.
Corrected entry: At the beginning, Peter shouts at the dead Arab: "That's for five years of Hell." The year is 1194, so he has been locked up since the beginning of the Third Crusade which was between the years 1189-1192. He cannot have been locked up from 1189 because King Richard I arrived in the Holy Land only in 1191.
Correction: It is possible that he was either generalizing (as it had been close to five years) or had lost track of time since he had been locked underground for that long of time. Plus it just sounds more dramatic than 3 years 2 months and 5 days.
Corrected entry: The small poacher climbs the tree on Hadrian's wall to escape the men chasing him. If you notice we don't see him climb up the trunk of the tree. That's because it's impossible, there is nowhere to put your feet or hands.
Correction: We do see Wulf climbing the tree, at least in the Two-Disc Special Edition, at 0:16:11 and a few shots afterward.
Corrected entry: During Robin's fight with the men at Hadrian's Wall, there is a shot when he fires a crossbow and then immediately tosses it away. In the very next shot of Robin, he suddenly has the crossbow again.
Correction: Robin retreived 2 crossbows from the saddles of the soldiers' horses. There is a shot of him sneaking between the horses during Guy of Gisborne's "game bird" speech.
Corrected entry: In the scene near the end when the villagers raise the gates into the next courtyard, the aerial shot shows a villager picking up a sword from a dead soldier's body. How did the soldier die in the middle of an empty courtyard?
Correction: Robin and Azeem killed him while they were trying to save Marian and stop the Sheriff.
Corrected entry: There's a scene where they are drinking Madeira wine. The island of Madeira wasn't found until the early 15th century, and wine started to be produced long after...
Correction: It's not wine they were drinking it was mead. And it didn't come from Madeira. John Little told Robin that he made it himself.
Correction: This isn't necessarily a movie mistake. It sounds more like arrogance on the part of the sheriff, expecting his associates to call him "Nottingham." His enemies do so only because that is what they are accustomed to hearing him called.
Phixius ★