if you recall from my robin hood: prince of theives post, i had all but decided that the kevin costner vehicle was the supreme robin hood movie but admitted that a clear winner could not be decided until having watched disney's take. well, ladies and gentlemen, im happy to say i did just that and i feel like i can now make a final assessment. but it's not going to be easy.
when looking at the movies you have to factor in a few key things: storyline, entertainment value, nostalgia level, characters, and song quality. so i went through and compared the two movies based on these criteria. i know there are probably some that i'm missing and if you feel particularly disgusted by the omission of a certain choice topic please feel free to drop some knowledge on me in the comments section. otherwise, lets get on with this hoedown.
now when i say storyline that has a few criteria of its own. you're talking about faithfulness to the original story but you're also talking about reinterpretation/originality and overall presentation. obviously the kevin costner version has more going for it in terms of depth (you're talking 144 minutes versus 83 minutes worth of story development here), but the disney version is comprised 100% of anthropomorphic talking animals. unfortunately, looney tunes beat out disney on this idea by about 15 years with robin hood daffy (which is a great little short). so i'm going to give prince of theives the nod on this one.
(thieves: 1, foxes: 0)
entertainment value is another tricky one. its kind of a vague catch all but really it boils down to how sustained the overall excitement was. and again, tough call. disney's running time was a real asset to it this time. the death knell for prince of thieves was the admission of my friend that he had fallen asleep about half way through and only caught certain bits of the "slow parts." that same friend made it all the way through disney's robin hood. point to disney.
(thieves: 1, foxes: 1)
nostalgia was probably the real reason for watching both of these. i remember them both fondly from my childhood and wanted to see if they would be just as memorable on a fresh viewing. also, what sort of feelings would they spark up? with the disney version i found myself surprised that i remembered certain parts, but with the costner version it wasn't just parts of the movie that i remembered - there were surrounding bits of life that came back with it. where was i watching it? on the couch in the house i grew up in with my dad. what else? recreating scenes on the massive fort at my elementary school. making bows and arrows out of twigs and string in boy scouts. definitely prince of thieves on this one.
(thieves: 2, foxes: 1)
obviously the characters are the same so i guess what im talking about here are the actors. prince of thieves had an all-star cast: kevin costner, morgan freeman, alan rickman, christian slater, etc. but disney had god damn talking animals. game over. disney.
(thieves: 2, foxes: 2)
and so it comes down to songs. i knew it would. and they both have strong contenders. on one hand you have bryan adams' powerhouse of emotion (everything i do) i do it for you and on the other you have the simple folky fun of oo de lally. both great, but one must be the victor. for all the marbles. whose it going to be? (drumroll, please)
...
come on, how can you deny bryan adams on this one? that song made that entire movie. that song is canada's greatest export. that song wins. hands down. prince of thieves, your robin hood winner.
final (thieves: 3, foxes: 2)
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