#may ellen

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kisses and almost kisses of my version of Robin Hood

i think you can see my background improvement over the year so far with these eheh

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My own version of the Robin Hood cast all lined up :)

If you care to notice who looks related, in my version of the story: Much and Midge are twins, Ellen and Will are cousins, and Tuck is Robin’s uncle. Midge and Much were originally the same character with multiple names and I took the name Midge as a reason to add another woman. Also she’s trans (so is Robin).

Only one person here is straight if anyone wants to guess who ehehe

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Hi ! So I'm planning to watch every single robin hood movie ever (and possibly shows if the movies go well)

And I'd like to rate them, but I'd also like to keep as much of my personal tastes out of the rating as I can so I'm hoping to come up with a fair rating system

So I'm reaching out to fellow tumblr users who are also Robin Hood enjoyers to ask what you think makes a good Robin Hood adaptation, like what you think should be included in an adaptation and what shouldn't and etc

Or any other thoughts you would have as to how to rate Robin Hood movies

Oh hello! Sorry I missed this ask for a while. I’m (quite slowly) doing the same thing with Robin Hood media myself. I will be upfront that part if my rating system is my personal enjoyment of each piece of media, lol

I consider quite a few factors:

How well written the are story and characters outside of being a Robin Hood story?

How good is the movie/book are at capturing the caring and rebellious spirit of the Merry Men as a whole (some shockingly do this pretty badly)? Relatedly, I can’t stand it when they send Robin on the Crusades willingly and just generally when they have him be loyal to King Richard, historically, Richard overtaxed England to go on those Crusades, sooo… idk why Robin would be a fan.

Does it feel like a Robin Hood story at all? (I know this question is weird but I am vaguing a particular movie. I’ll put this under the cut in case you don’t want to know.)

How well does the movie/show/book write Marian? Marian (or Matilda, whichever name they use for Robin’s wife) is written a few main ways from what I’ve seen— either they keep her tomboy qualities and her act of running away on her own to be with Robin, or they mesh her story with May Ellen (Allan a Dale’s wife), who’s more feminine and has an arranged marriage rescue plotline. Either one can technically be fine but movies just. Fail to write women well a lot of the time so both of them can also be done badly. Plus, I generally the act of mushing Marian and Ellen into one character to be in poor taste but it’s not like one person can be pointed to for this because the Robin Hood myth is is so old and the plot points survive partly through oral tradition, so.. yeah. Still Hollywood etc should do better.

How many of the named Merry Men do they include? Do they let them be a little gay with it? (This is a personal taste thing, but also Robin Hood is a very like. Homosocial kind of story and certain movies are scared of that fact.)

How good is the costume design/set design/general aesthetic (or illustrations where applicable for books)? (There’s two movies I hated the story and writing of but the visual aesthetic of them was good and passable respectively.)

Did I like it? This one is subjective of course and I put it separate from trying to have an objective take on the Robin Hood-ness of it all.

My personal rankings have turned out too complicated to do a proper tier list on but I may do that anyway with custom tier names?? Anyway, hope this is useful to you, asker!

Robin Hood (2010) is the movie that doesn’t feel like a Robin Hood story at all to me. That one and Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993) are terrified of the gay shit in different ways. (2010 ignored it so pointedly the Merry Men don’t even feel like friends, and Men In Tights… you hear the name.) Both of their aesthetics do them a few favors for me— the Men In Tights one is way better which is the only compliment I’ll give that movie. I was expecting to like it because I liked Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride (1987) but noooooooo that movie is like all 90s bigotry turned up to 11 and placed in medieval england. Cursed.