When Robin delivers the deer to Nottingham, it can be clearly seen that he has only five arrows in his quiver. In the fight scene that follows, he fires 12 arrows, and the number in the quiver never decreases.
When Robin is standing on the gallows, he notices that his merry men are scattered throughout the crowd waiting to rescue him. One of the people he notices is Friar Tuck. But, moments later when Robin escapes, Friar Tuck is blocks away, driving a wagon which he uses to impede the progress of Robin's pursuers. Robin could not have noticed him from this great distance.
During Robin's escape from the banquet Sir Guy passes through the door twice.
In the final duel, Robin pushes Guy of Gisbourne off the stairs and Guy loses his sword which slides down the steps. Robin jumps down the side of the stairs and gives Guy back his sword, which now is lying at Guy's feet.
When Robin and Marian are eating in Sherwood, Robin slices a small piece of mutton off of the leg and starts to eat it; the angle switches to Marian, but when the camera switches back to Robin, he is holding the whole leg to his mouth. Another camera cut to Marian, and now Robin Hood's mutton leg has been eaten down clean to the bone.
The card in the opening reads: "Based upon the ancient Robin Hood legends". Maid Marian (or Lady Marion) - a major character in the film - was not mentioned in the earliest Robin Hood ballads and was not integrated into the legend until she appeared as Robin's wife in "The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon" by Anthony Munday (1598). In it, she is the daughter and only child of the title character who flees England after his botched assassination attempt of King John, whom Robert believed tried to seduce Marian. In Adam de la Halle's "Le Jeu de Robin et Marion" (c. 1283), Marian is a shepherdess and Robin is a shepherd, yet there is no proven link between it and the Robin Hood legend.
The film plays very fancifully with real history. Even the opening title is full of inaccuracies: King Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, ruled England in his stead during the time the film is set; royal authority was represented by chief justiciar William de Longchamp until he was deposed and exiled in October 1191.
At the banquet, Prince John announces that the Saxons will be taxed "not two gold marks in the pound but three!" A mark was two-thirds of a pound, so there aren't even two marks in a pound, and a tax of three marks per pound is a 200% tax.
When Robin visits Maid Marion in her chambers to thank her for aiding in his escaping the gallows, he exits through her garden window. As he walks to the window to leave, he passes an animal skin rug thrown over a bench. The animal skin is clearly a tiger (unknown in England at the time, of course!).
In the archery competition a person recording the arrows is shown standing about three feet to the right of a target. Even for archers as expert as they were, a person would never have stood in that position.
Prince John is shown to be very greedy and an enemy of the people. There is a myth that, contrary to this, he later gave rights to the common folk by signing the Magna Carta. In fact, while it did reduce the powers of the King, it did so in favor of the Barons and the Church. It did not help the commoners. And in any case, neither side kept to the agreement. In John's time, the Magna Carta was just a failed attempt to broker peace between the crown and the aristocracy. While the details of his character are fictionalized, there is truth in the fact that he was relatively unpopular and was constantly was trying to usurp his brother.
At the time of King Richard the Lionheart's reign, the syllable "Fitz" was always added to the name of an illegitimate child of royalty. Marian Fitzwalter is referred to as "Lady" even though illegitimate children could not inherit titles. However, it's obvious that a title was created for her father Robert Fitzwalter, whom, as the last name denotes, was the illegitimate son of a royal (perhaps Richard's father, Henry II, which would explain why Marian is Richard's ward).
When a soldier is shot in the back and the arrow that hits him also puts out a candle, the arrow goes nowhere near the flame. However, it's the gust of wind that puts out the flame - a popular trick among marksmen and bullwhip artists.
There is a mistaken rumor that Prince (later King) John Lackland was illiterate. In fact, he had a church education in letters.
Why was Robin deemed the winner of the tournament? During the final round, Philip of Arras's arrow hits dead center. Robin then shoots, and his arrow split Arras's arrow and Robin is declared the winner. Technically, both arrows hit the exact spot, so why was Robin declared the winner?
The tournament was staged for one reason: as a trap to capture Robin. Even had Arras bested him, Robin would have been declared the winner.
The tournament was staged for one reason: as a trap to capture Robin. Even had Arras bested him, Robin would have been declared the winner.
The lute carried by Will Scarlet throughout the film obviously has no strings at all, despite Will's "strumming" it from time to time.
In the final fight after the coronation, Robin's sword is seriously bent. It would have buckled or broken if he tried to use it.
In many instances, when Robin's men engage the soldiers carrying pikes and halberds, the "metal" points are seen to wobble back and forth wildly, revealing that they are actually made of rubber.
When fighting Robin, Little John, using his staff, supposedly hits Robin on the top of his foot, causing him to fall into the stream. However, the end of the staff actually misses the foot by a very wide margin, hitting only the log.
Right before Robin kicks the sheriff at the archery tournament, the footage jumps from another take.
A car can be seen in the background when Will Scarlet gets off his horse to go to the aid of Much (who has just fought with Dickon Malbete).
When the Bishop of the Black Canons puts his shoe back on in the tavern scene with Richard, it is a shoe for the left foot. Shoes which fit individual feet weren't invented until the 1800s. In 1191, shoes were the same for each foot.
The film takes place in 1191 and opens with a town crier announcing King Richard's capture in Austria. In 1191, Richard was in modern-day Israel fighting in the Third Crusade to wrest control of Acre from the Muslims. He was captured by Leopold V, Duke of Austria (who fought with Richard at Acre) in December 1192.
During the archery tournament, Robin's final shot splits his competitor's arrow. The arrow split was made of bamboo, a material unknown in England at the time.
In the archery contest, when the arrows are shot they have old-fashioned metal tips, but when the arrows hit the target they have modern metal tips.
Camera shadow is visible on the row of halberd tips at the execution, as the camera pans in towards the dignitary seating area.
At 01:06:57 loudspeakers are visible behind Lady Marian in the background.
Bess sees Marian arrested and then runs to tell Much about the assassination plot and Marian's arrest. Much kills the assassin, but when he reports to Robin and Richard, he says Marian has been "condemned to the block." He couldn't have known that from what Bess told him, because Marian was condemned after Bess ran to warn Much.
Richard suddenly turns up in England at the Boar's Head Tavern without any explanation of how he escaped, or why he is there (the explanatory scenes having been cut from the movie prior to its release).
Richard creates Robin Baron of Locksley and Earl of Sherwood and Nottingham. He then calls Robin "Baron". As an earldom is a superior rank of peerage, the King would always refer to Robin by that title, never by the barony.
Not knowing he is speaking to Richard, Robin tells him that the king should be in England instead of fighting in the Crusades. If Richard's subjects shared Robin's opinion, they kept it to themselves; saying so publicly would have been seen as disloyalty or even treason.
Robin and Little John finish the fight on the log and sit down. Little John asks him his name, and Robin tells him "Robin", however previously before they fought, Will yelled to Robin "Let him pass Robin, it's much too warm to brawl with such a wind bag." John had heard his name before the fight.
At the banquet in the early part of the film, Robin brings a deer (presumably the one shot in front of Sir Guy) but it has not been field dressed. It shows no sign of ever being shot at all.