I enjoyed the new Robin Hood. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff they got wrong, but I really enjoyed what they got right, or in some cases, attempted to get right.
There's a scene where Robin is drinking from a glass that's clearly patterned off of a 13th century example. I loved seeing the rushes on the floor of Lord Loxley's castle, and the hounds by the fireside. It was also cool to see Robin leaning over to remove his mail when Marion is unarming him, as we see depicted with David in the Maciejowski Bible:
http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images...amp;d.gif. It was also great to see a peasant plowing in the fields, even if there should have been a whole team of peasants with him, since such an activity was ubiquitous in medieval Europe.
My biggest complaint plot-wise was the whole Magna Carta thing. Honestly, the idea that Sir Walter Loxley and any of the other barons would support a document that would give more priviledges and rights to common men is nonsense. Moreover, the filmmakers clearly bought into the whole myth of Magna Carta, a myth where men believe that the document says what they want it to say, wherein it is a great protector of liberty and justice for all of the realm. Obviously, this was not the case when it was drawn up.
Another moment that stretched credibility for me was when John stripped William Marshall of his offices. If that had happened historically, you could be that Marshall would have gone into revolt, with a good portion of the earls and barons along with him, rather than meekly acquiesing to John as he does in the movie. "Meek" is not a word I would use to describe Marshall.
In terms of arms and armour, since that's what this forum is about, they obviously should have gone with
mail armour, including chausses and gloves for knights; Norman spangenhelms or early flat topped helms; kite
shields (with mostly flattened tops); Type X, Xa, XI, and XII swords with either disk pommels or tea cosy/brazil nuts; bows; crossbows; spears/lances; clubs; staves and perhaps an axe here and there.
Get rid of the
great helms, sallets, kettle helms, the "ring mail", the scale armour- in fact, anything other than mail armour, Robin's warhammer, and the silly maul that Little John carries. Also, I'd probably remove the daggers from the movie, keeping things like knives and
seaxes, since there's a lot of uncertainty about the carrying of daggers, as we'd recognize them, in this era.
As far as warfare goes, have the swordsmen deal vertical and diagonal descending strikes, rather than the unterhauen and weird middle cuts- I guess you could call them mittelhauen- that are commonly seen in the movie. I agree that we should see way more usage of lances by the cavalry, and the cavalry charge, particularly in the final scene of the movie, should have been tighter. I also agree that the mail needs to have more protective value- we should see guys riding around with several arrows stuck in them. Also, where were the infantrymen in the final battle? The French seemed to have a few- although it wasn't clear if they were simply knights who had not mounted yet, but the English force seemed to be comprised entirely of mounted knights and mounted archers.
For the sieges I'd remove the exploding bladders, and the sequence where Godfrey's knights kick open the gates to the town with their destriers, and replace both with more conventional, and accurate, siege engines.