What's up with the first 10 minutes?!

King Richard I really did die of blood poisioning after being wounded by an arrow at a siege. It's not known who fired or threw it but it makes a nice irony that (for the sake of this film) it was a one-eyed old man at a pointless attack on an empty castle, doesn't it?

Lastly, what's up with the snippy attitudes between Robin and Richard? When I last saw them in the the Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), they were all buddies. What gives?

It was twenty years later - Robin had seen what a bastard Richard really was.


"The hour is come but not the man"

It is a historical fact that Richard I(Richard the Lionheart)was killed by an arrow that pierced his shoulder during the sieging of a castle near the French town of Chaluz. While I doubt that the arrow was thrown by a mad old man with one eye, I thought that worked very well in this film. It plays up to the abruptness(even absurdity)with which death can strike even the most powerful and seemingly omnipotent: the King is hit by an arrow which logically shouldn't even have reached him, and there really wasn't any reason for it to be fatal, and yet it is.


And, as the previous poster has mentioned, Robin has come to see what a "bloody bastard" Richard is. He believed in him at one point in time, as he observes to Little John( "I took him for a great king"), and has stayed with him throughout the years out of this original loyalty. But by the time that the film begins, he just won't take it any more; he will not attack an undefended worthless castle with women and children inside just because Richard orders it.

And, it perhaps goes without saying but "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is a very different film from "Robin and Marian" and comparing them probably isn't best.


I tried to dance to Britney Spears/I guess I'm getting on in years

I took the catapult thing as a humorous gag on the pointlessness and futility of medieval siege weapons, the weariness of men, and generally the ridiculousness of that whole scene. I mean they don't even know whether there are actually people in the castle...they've just been told by Richard to lay siege to it and get the damned statue.
I mean really...when the film opens with some dudes looking at this barren ground...digging up a rock that I could probably have lifted myself...their bucket-sized helmets clanging together, them shuffling awkwardly to the catapult, heaving it up, and after all that effort the damn thing doesn't even reach the damn wall. It's passively hilarious! And then Robin's line "Do you think it's deserted"?
It's subtle humor from the get-go...while still being serious and dealing with the tragedy of war, death, and all that.

Robin had just witnessed Richard slaughter a bunch of innocent women and children. I'm amazed Robin was as loyal as he was to the old psychopath after that.