Legolas from The Lord of the Rings

And now, Legolas Greenleaf! Everyone’s favourite elf! Teenager-girls’ day dream, Orlando Bloom, knows pretty well how to shoot with a bow, but there are some issues with the character of Legolas.

Mistakes:

1. The most frequent issue is that Legolas shoots sideways. Many times, not always, but a lot, as these pictures show. I calculated the angles he holds his longbow, and I put the pictures in order from the straight vertical (90º angle from the horizon level) from almost completely horizontal position of the bow (25º angle). I don’t know who’s fault is this, maybe the directors’.

2. At the picture A Legolas has very amateurish grip, as if he weren’t instructed at all, and this would be just some promotional photo before the actual archery training started for the actor. I don’t know about that, but he has the arrow on the wrong side of the bow, and he holds it between his index and middle fingers, which is going to hurt (and possibly effect the missiles flight) when the arrow is released.

3. At the same picture Legolas also draws the string with only two fingers, instead of the “standard” mediterranean grip of three fingers. Three is better, more stabile. Four is too much, and two is too less.

4. At the picture D our Mirkwoodian shoots two arrows at once. I wonder why would anyone do that? Since the arrows will hit pretty much the same target. What are two arrows going to do what one can’t? If my physics calculations aren’t way off, the power of the bow now transfers to two different arrows, rather than putting all the pushing force into one missile, thus decreasing the effect of the arrows by half! That’s actually worse than shooting just one arrow. If one arrow penetrates the armour of the enemy, that’s enough. If the target is not wearing any armour, one arrow will kill it, if the aim is right. No need for two arrows. The double arrows are less likely to penetrate an armour, since the halved force. This is more Hollywoodian than Mirkwoodian.

5. I don’t know what happens in the picture F with his gripping hand, seems like an idiotic photoshop error, but anyway his grip is too far away from the face. Otherwise Bloom’s archery form is excellent (if the bow would stay upwards all the time, but he’s probably been asked to do it sideways). In the picture G you can see how the bowstring will hit his hanging sleeve, because of this unnatural position.

6. Back quiver. But almost everyone in all the media has it. It was rarely used, sometimes, somewhere, somewhen. Maybe. It is possible to draw arrows from a back quiver if it’s made and positioned right, but it would be much easier and practical to draw them from a hip quiver. Tauriel has it, why not you, Legolas? “Why not me, you ask, because I’m too good for that, it doesn’t give me any challenge! It’s too easy to kill orcs anyway, it get’s boring. The back quiver gives me a little extra, when I have to calculate how much I have my infinite arrows left, since I can’t see them.”


Not an error, but…

In the movies Legolas shoots extremely fast. It is in fact possible to shoot as fast as he do, but with a different method. It requires the arrows to be held in hands, either in the bow hand or the string hand. Thus can be shot four to five arrows at the same speed rate as Legolas does. It is not possible to draw them from a quiver at that rate. But this is not an error in Tolkien’s universe, since Legolas is supposed to be superhumanly fast, because he’s an elf!

And elves are the best.


Good:

Bloom has learned his archery well, since his form is in most cases perfect, although many times the bow is held sideways. He has also helped to popularize archery to modern youth, of whom many has started the hobby because of that.