Why didn't Costner even bother to speak the same English as everyone?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
al666940 — 10 years ago(December 27, 2015 11:25 AM)
If you listen to the rest of the (British) cast, everyone uses clear and obvious British slang and words typical of England but not of USA.
So having Costner not only with a clear California accent but also lacking even one single British slang ("bloody", "bollocks", "mate", etc), it makes him sound like he's from another country entirely (he's supposed to be British also), even from another movie.
What was the point?- Was Costner too much of a prima donna back then to even try to blend in and make an effort?
- Was is to make him sound distinctive? He's supposed to be from the same place everyone else is!
I don't care for the right/proper accent/speech/language of the time (nobody would be able to understand them), but having people from the same place (in the movie) sound so clearly different makes no sense at all!!
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al666940 — 10 years ago(December 29, 2015 09:35 AM)
They explain a RUMMOR, and only for the accent, not the lack of British slang.
And they can only mention Connery there as well, who spoke about 30 words tops, and at least had Scottish accent (still British if not outright English). He still sounded right. -
RearEchelon — 10 years ago(January 14, 2016 05:25 PM)
Funny thing about Connery's casting, since we're talking accents: he was ~25 years older than Richard would have been when this took place (1149 if I remember correctly), and Richard Coeur de Lion was French and didn't speak very much, if any, English.
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degree7 — 9 years ago(May 28, 2016 01:47 PM)
I have reason to doubt this. Robin Hood in his time (or whoever he's based on) would have spoken either Middle English or some other dialect native to the modern day East Midlands/Yorkshire region, which would have sounded more like a cross between Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) and Scandinavian.
Kevin Costner's generic Midwest accent was developed over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.
So really, instead of complaining about the lack of appropriate accents, we should instead be pointing out that none of the actors are speaking Middle English tongue.
~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.