#isn't that right Allan A Dale

[little-peril-stories]

Happy STS! What’s a random piece of backstory about one of your OCs that you’ve never shared, either in the story or elsewhere?

Oooh thank you for the ask! Happy STS!

Good question!! Umm, however... I honestly have zero good answers here. I'm sorry in advance!

Let's talk about Allan Armstrong Dale because, with the exception of Geoff, the backstories of the TPOT characters have been explored and I stuffed them all into the story, lol.

(Geoff still won't tell me anything about his history, so...)

Allan isn't exactly from a rich background like Colette (or, early in her life, Bree), but his family was relatively secure in terms of finances when he was growing up.

He can sing and play piano!

He has living parents somewhere in the unnamed TPOT city, but I'm not sure if they're on good terms. I think it might be a "no"? Or maybe they're just not that close? Who knows.

Sorry it's kind of a ridonkulously boring answer!

[litcityblues]

"I am NOT a Merry Man!"

I had to work Christmas this year-- the Day Job has a rotating schedule and some years fortune smiles and some years it doesn't and this was actually the first Christmas I had worked in a few years. But being Christmas, the phones weren't ringing that much (a good thing for the Day Job-- weirdly one of those jobs where if I'm having an exciting, busy day somebody else is having a bad day) so we kicked up our feet and ended up having a Ridley Scott triple feature: Gladiator II (pretty solid and not that bad, IMO), Kingdom of Heaven (excellent as always) and after a brief dalliance with The Martian, we decided to stay on theme and threw up Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe.

Now, I did not know this movie existed and I was only tangentially aware of the Taron Edgerton/Jamie Foxx Robin Hood that followed a few years later. Having watched it, I can now safely say two things: one, this wasn't the film that Ridley Scott should have made, and two, it didn't dethrone any of the current Robin Hood Triumverate.

I think that's the key when approaching Robin Hood. Not only do you have to make a good movie that's going to make the studio some money, but you have to make an adaptation of the source material that's going to dethrone one of the current Robin Hood Triumverate. We've got three amazing Robin Hood adaptations on the board: Disney's animated version, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and Robin Hood Men In Tights. If you're going to make me watch a Robin Hood adaptation, those are the three I'm grading it against and by golly, you best be bringing your A-game, because it's going to take a lot to shove one of them aside.

This one doesn't get the job done- but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad movie. What makes it frustrating is that there is the outline of a really interesting movie just sitting there that Ridley Scott would have made a beautiful historical epic out of. (True story: I had just finished The Plantagenets, so having been immersed in this period, I was annoyed watching this movie.) Ridley Scott is really good at making historical epics that have just enough history and names right that they come across as very plausible.

And that's what is frustrating. Go pick up even a basic history of the Plantagenets. There is family drama for days. Go watch The Lion In Winter-- it's not that far off the mark. Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of history's most formidable women and is begging, begging to have a movie made about her. It was messy. Go from the Shipwreck, through Stephen and Matilda and the weird civil war and the rise of Henry II and it's just perfect. It's got Oscar bait written all over it.

This self-important, 'let's make a historically accurate Robin Hood movie' thing does not.

That's not to say that Ridley Scott isn't very good at what he does. Richard II did die at Chalus Castle, as the movie shows. Not immediately, of course-- his mother made it to his bedside. And King John did piss off his barons-- eventually. Not right away, of course, and we do get the Magna Carta out of it. So in the broad outlines, Scott isn't wrong, just... early. And mashing a bunch of historical events on the same timeline into the period of a movie.

Was there a Robin Longstride in the army being badass with his buddies Will Scarlett, Little John, and Allan-A-Dale? Who knows. Does Robin get in trouble for telling the truth when the King asks how everyone's doing and he pretty much says, 'Boss we're tired, real tired, and wanna go home.' So when the King dies, they make a break for it but find Robert of Loxley, a loyal knight who, with his dying breath makes Robin promise to carry the crown back home to tell them that Richard II is dead. Robin does so and then continues the charade all the way back to Nottingham where he meets Maid Marian (Cate Blanchett) and Robert's father Walter (Max von Sydow).

Turns out, people are heavily taxed and it sucks. Friar Tuck brews his own ale on the side and it's good. There is a gang of orphans who dress like Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins and run around the woods. The French are about to invade and the barons are pissed off at King John, it turns out Robin's father was a stonemason/philosopher who dreamed of a Charter of Rights, so the people could be governed by laws and not just the whims of a King.

Y'all know where this is going, right? There's a big battle on the beach. Robin saves Marian. He has a bad-ass shot of him pulling back his bowstring ready to shoot someone and does. Everyone goes home happy- save for Robin, who has pissed off King John with his demand for a charter of rights so he declares him an outlaw. But it's cool because he and Marian are going to live in the forest and take care of the creepy little gang of Batman-villain orphans.

Can I tell y'all something? I didn't realize that Matthew Macfadyen was in this movie until I read the Wiki page. And while Eileen Atkins made a solid Eleanor of Aquitaine, they were apparently looking at Vanessa Redgrave, who withdrew following the death of her daughter Natasha Richardson- so think of what could have been! (And that's gotta be a tough role to step into given the fact that the last major portrayal I can think of is Glenn Close in the remake of The Lion In Winter or before that Catherine Hepburn) The cast is stacked. It's legit and it's good. As a historical period piece, this movie is not uninteresting-- but as a Robin Hood adaptation, it just falls flat. No one is having all that much fun. Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett are great actors, but their chemistry with each other is honestly wooden.

Overall: Turns out you can make a historical epic. Or you can make an adaptation of Robin Hood. But you can't really do both- as nary a mustache is twirled and no one is particularly merry. If there is to be a Robin Hood, he needs to have his merry men. Ridley Scott should have made a different movie- the Plantagenets and this time period is fertile territory for high drama, swords, and blood. This movie also serves as a warning for those contemplating bringing Robin Hood to the screen- yet again. You can be as historically accurate as you want to be, but you've got to remember to have a little fun with it. This is joyless, overly serious, and generally not worth it. My Grade: ** out of ****