Uruk-hai archery from Lord of the Rings

A reader of mine (should I call them fans, I don't know?) asked me to make a blog post of Lurtz from the film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Naturally I got interested, since this was one of my favourite movies when I was growing up. Can't believe it's almost been two decades from it! Lurtz is the leader of the Uruk-hai, the "super orcs" created by Saruman in Isengard. He is not in the books of Tolkien, so he's invented for the movie. In Lord of the Rings book Boromir is killed by orc archers, "pierced by many arrows".

The scene is very powerful, the last stand of Boromir against countless Uruk-hai horde. Lurtz, their leader was more fearsome than Azog from the later CGI-ruined Hobbit-trilogy for sure. I want to make several points about his archery though:

1. Reverse grip. There is very little evidence that this style was ever used historically anywhere in the World. There are no added benefits of reversing the Mediterranean grip like this.

2. The reverse grip has lead Lurtz to cant his bow, but this is in limits of reason, so it's not a mistake. What is though, is that the back of the bow has a clear edge on it. Bow backs should be (near) flat since that makes them structurally stronger. A wooden selfbow is made from a split tree trunk so that the back of the bow is made from the outer layer of wood, and belly from the inside. The bow is planed so that the back is formed of a single grain, and not sawn cross-grain, since that would make it weaker. Making a bow with a triangular shape like this would make the single grain back of the bow very thin.

 Longbow cross sections. The back of the bow (pointing outwards of the archer) is on top of these pictures. As you can see, the back is always pretty flat.

Composite recurve bows are also pretty flat on their backs since it's easier to glue flat pieces together and there would be no added benefit of this kind of edge on the bow. Some composite bows however turn towards this trriangular back shape near the end of their limbs, in the siyahs. That makes those parts less bendy, which is a desired effect there, but not in the lower limbs on the bow. Lurtz's bow is triangular everywhere on its back. I guess orcish things have to be black and edgy, like their souls (if they have those).

Cross sections of a limb of a composite recurve bow. The limb is more or less flat (to make it more bendy) until the siyah (left in the picture) which is triangular to make it bend less. It wouldn't be a really good idea to make the whole bow triangular on its back.

3. Our poor fallen hero Boromir is redeeming himself here, making the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of the hobbits Merry and Pippin from the orcs. He continued fighting after Lurtz shot two arrows straight to his upper body. The third one dropped him to his knees. Is this believable?

The first arrow struck to the upper left pectoralis major muscle (big chest muscle), behind which at this spot is the left lung. A human will die of arrow punctured lung if not given medical treatment, but the death doesn't come immediately, it can take minutes up to half an hour maybe. The second arrow struck Boromir to his lower left abdomen, where there are intestines. Punctured guts will also lead to death without treatment, but not in an instant. Boromir continues fighting exhausted even after these two shots.

Panting breath results from the punctured lung, and he only uses the right hand for swordfighting, except for one powerful blow where he uses both hands. The first arrow to the left chest muscle have probably made moving the left arm difficult and painful. The third arrow drops Boromir on his knees again for the last time. This shot hits straight in the middle of his torso, where the stomach and liver are. This is also a deadly shot, but it will take awhile for him to die. All and all I think the death of Boromir is depicted fairly realistically, the weariness and woundings are really taking a toll on him and finally he collapses. Beautifully filmed and painfully sad at the same time.

Something I want to say about the armour though. Boromir is wearing a mail shirt (a 'chain' before a 'mail' is completely redundant) under his sleeveless leather coat and short-sleeved fabric tunic. Those garments over the top of the mail shirt are not armour, just clothes, since they wouldn't provide much protection from weapons. But the mail shirt (of which we can only see sleeves from under the tunic) is real armour, and capable of protecting its wearer from arrows pretty effectively. A widely spread misconception regarding mail is that it's good against slashing attacks, but weak against puncturing hits, such as thrusts and arrow hits. This is not entirely true. While mail protected obviously better against cutting attacks (like all armours were), an expensive good quality mail (which all historical mail was, unlike most modern mail used in reenactment) did stand a chance against arrows too. Only specifically designed "mail piercer" arrowtips of long bodkin type (needle bodkins) shot from powerful bows could penetrate it.

Arrows Lurtz are using do not seem to be (long) bodkins, as shown on the right.

Lurtz's arrowtips are not shown in focus to the camera at all, but they seem to be like "standard" arrowheads of leaf shape, generally quite small, which is good. But they do not seem to be bodkins, at least long ones. Would those penetrate mail armour? Probably not. And Lurtz's arrows struck something like halfway through Boromir, his armour and clothes and all. Lurtz is supposed to be an exceptionally strong warrior, even for an Uruk-hai, so maybe his bow is super strong?

But then again we see in close-up shots that Boromir's chest skin is showing between the lapels of his tunic, and that indicates that there is no mail underneath the torso (another possibility is that his mail shirt also has a wide neck hole). And in fact in the costume of actor Sean Bean there are only mail sleeves attached in his undertunic (done for saving production time of course).

Boromir's costume only included mail sleeves sewn onto an undershirt, instead of a full mail armour. On the right an example of European 16th century arming doublet with sewn on mail sleeves. This would have been worn under full plate armour, and the breast and backplates would have covered the parts were there are no mail in this arming doublet.

While this was done historically in the 15th century and later when plate armour was used by knights and men-at-arms, the pieces of mail that were sewn to an arming doublet were used at those points were there were no plates, such as armpits and inside of elbows. Those who didn't have plate armour, had mail shirts covering their torso and arms. Since Boromir doesn't have any plate armour with him on the travel with the Fellowship, it is reasonable to suggest that he should have an entire mail shirt under his outer garments, and not just sewn on sleeves. Since nobody would use mail (or any armour) to protect the arms before the torso.

Lurtz is shown here executing the last deadly shot, which he ultimately fails due to Aragorn's interruption. This is the first time we see his bow fully. And it is indeed an interesting piece of weaponry. The general shape of the bow is strange, like an inverted recurve bow, without the siyahs though. But this shape of bows are known from a few places and times in World history, ancient Egypt and the Near East coming to mind first. It's a perfectly functional design for a bow, yet a peculiar one. Suits the orcs well I think, since it's so different than the bows of the elves or men of Middle Earth. However, some things I consider mistakes here.

On left, a recurve bow of Turkish early modern period form, on right an angular bow of ancient Egyptian form of the Bronze Age. The orcish bow resembles a mix of these two.

4. This Uruk-hai bow has two blades attached to over and under its handle. This is stupid, since nobody would use a bow as a hitting weapon. Not even the orcs. There are some pretty stupid things said about the Uruk-hai and orcs in general in the supplementary material to the trilogy of films by Peter Jackson. I remember reading as a child from the book "Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare" that the boots Uruk-hai are using were nailed to their feet! why on Middle Earth would anybody do that? It would make their walking painful, probably causing severe effects due to bleeding etc. Even though the Uruk-hai apparently don't feel pain it would still be very counterintuitive and idiotic thing to do. Why not just walk without boots then, since the purpose of boots is to protect the feet?

The same kind of thinking applies to other design about the orcs, everything have to be crudely made, look very worn out (even though it's shining new), everything is very angular and spikey, and looks painful to wear. This is true for the bow too, which have the weird angle at its back which I talked about earlier. It also has these blades that are never even used in the movie. Since they're useless. It's like a knuckle duster in a sword fight, that means an obvious loss. Lurtz picks up a sword after Aragorn falls him down since even the moviemakers realised it would look stupid if he fought with using the bladed bow as a knuckle duster, and it would be too easy for Aragorn to win against that.

5. This bow makes a very creeky sound when drawn. This would be a design mistake applied to orcish bows specifically if it wouldn't be a mistake applied to all bows in historical films! Bows do not make a creeking sound when drawn. If they do, they are probably somehow broken and in danger of snapping or splitting at some point in near future. And don't tell me this is an old bow, since it's brand new, like everything the Uruks have, as well as themselves.

What else is good about this picture is that Lurtz has a hip quiver! Not the ubiquitous back quiver that Legolas has. And everybody else in movies. But nobody in real World Middle Ages, the obvious inspiration behind Middle Earth.

Avatar cosplay

This time reviewing archery of some Avatar cosplays I came across from the Internet. No more Avatar related stuff for awhile after this, I promise.
This first one should really use a real bow. This is a stick with a string. It obviously doesn't bend since she cannot present a full draw. But what would be the point anyway, if she doesn't have an arrow? The leather bracer is on the wrong arm too. Did Na'vi use sandals by any chance?

How did they get leopard print in Pandora? I don't think leopards live there. And what's with those flip flops? The bow is again just a stick with a string, not a reall working weapon. Arrows are missing again. And that's an uncomfortable place to wear your knife!

 I always appreciate good body paint over printed leotards. What I would also appreciate is using a straight arrow. This is a branch taken out of a bush when lining into Comic-Con. Please buy a wooden dowel from a hardware store next time, doesn't cost much. Sideways shooting is also bad.

This seems like a real photographer took it, maybe not the best one, but someone who really hobbies it with a real camera and all. Sadly the bow is horrible, and even more horrible is the way she's holding it. she should've grabbed the bow one fist width higher. This is really bad for the wrist too. The drawing technique is different from the Na'vi of the film.

What's with this leopard print again!?!
This bow is a cosplay bow, cannot shoot arrows very far. The usual mistakes of cosplay bows apply here: handle and mid part are too long and unbendy. She's holding the arrow between the fingers of her bow hand, which is very bad. That will hurt a lot when the arrow is released. Or would if the bow would have any power. Which it clearly doesn't since she only use the tiniest amount of strength of her fingertips to draw the bow in this photo. The drawing technique is different from the movie and she's shooting right handed unlike the Na'vi.

I saved the worst technique last. From the same photoshoot than the previous picture comes this monstrosity. The bowstring goes OVER the bowarm here. That is wrong on so many levels I can't bring myself even to begin the sermon all over again. I've talkerd about it many times before, this is one of the worst mistake you can do. Usually I see it depicted on drawings, rarely if ever by real people, since it will hurt a lot when you release that string and it hits your forarm. But then again this cosplay bow is not meant for shooting anyway and doesn't hold any real power. Sideways shooting is wrong anyway. Suddenly she's left handed for this photo, mirrored image perhaps?

Avatar merchandise and fan-art

By Googling images of Avatar again for the re-review I came across a bunch of toys, fan-art and cosplay related to it. Most of it depicted archery and bows very poorly. I thought it could provide some fun reading, so here they are: Avatar merchandise and other descendants!

The first two pics above are of toys (or action figures = toys for adults, but not "adult toys"). You can rearrange their limb positions, and you should do so, since they are both horribly wrong. The first one on the left holds the bow sideways, even though it is in drawn shooting position. The hand has been put to grab the string over the arrow. Nope.

The second one on the right has two bows at the same time! Or then the bow has four limbs in an X-pattern! In either case, really NOPE! The string arms elbow should also be higher.

This manga-ish fanart drawing is right handed, even though all Na'vi are left-handed in the film. But that's not the biggest concern here. This Na'vi also uses a kind of Mediterranean grip (unlike all Na'vi in the film), but the string goes only under the index finger. No, it should be held with three fingers (maybe two in Na'vis case, since they only have four). The arrow doesn't seem to be nocked on the bowstring at all, and the fletchings are way too back since they touch the string hand. The arrowtip is too large and it's attachment looks non-secure. It looks also blunt. By the look of the shadow of the arrow, that arrow is floating on the air and not resting on the bowhand of the archer.

This sculpture by Emma Joyne is apparently made from rice crispies, which puts to shame all the contestants on Nailed It! Incredible job really. But the bow is really strange. Na'vi in Avatar have very long bows, and they certainly do not curve this much. And neither do real bows. When making a bow short it is often good to make it recurved so that the siyahs (end of the bowlimbs) turn outwards from the bow. That's how it can be overdrawn like this without the bowstring slipping off the nocks. Of course that's only a side product of a recurve bow (primary reason is to make a bow stronger), but it works like this nonetheless.
This Na'vi also holds the bowstring only by the last bones of her digits, and this tells that the bow is not very powerful at all. A more powerful bow would need the fingers curved more tightly around the string, not in a fist of course, but a little more than this.

This drawing shows a Na'vi in a very strange position for shooting. The arrow is too thick and heavy for her and that bow, it's tip not attached properly, but asymmetrically. The arrow is held between the fingers of the bow hand, which is always wrong. The bow is bends too much at the end of the limbs and not enough elsewhere. The string would slip off the nocks even though it is unnecessarily attached to six points instead of the needed two.

This bow is again very different than the ones used by Na'vi in Avatar. It is much shorter, but in Earth it would probably be a working bow. The arrow is on the left side of the bow, like is usual in European archery, but the Na'vi use in on the side of the thumb. This Na'vi/Avatar is also right handed, unlike Na'vi in the film. The fingers of the string hand are not tight enoughly secured around the arrow, it would fall off the string. The Na'vi here also aims with the arrow close to the eye, which is both unnecessary, and the Na'vi never do it in the film, they shoot much lower, below the chin level. This arrowtip is also way too large.

This bow is horrible, it has angles that it shouldn't have and it doesn't bend. Looks like it is just a stick with a rubber band attached to it. Beginner's drawing mistake regarding bows.

Avatar revisited

In continuation to my update of the archery review of Hunger Games, I decided to re-review James Cameron's Avatar, since that blog post had already got recent comments criticising my critique of it. I'm always glad that my blog posts stir comments, so keep them coming! Here it is for this time:

Avatar (James Cameron's)

This is a shortened version of the blog post from five years ago I did concerning archery on James Cameron's Avatar (2009). Nothing of importance is removed. You can read the original blog post here.



Avatar’s archery is depicted all wrong.

Mistakes:

1. The beginners bow grip mistake, holding the arrow with an index finger. It keeps there without holding if you’re calm, and this only hurts your hand, damages the fletching of the arrow and can effect the flight of the missile.


2. This string grip is reversed. The moviemakers apparently thought this would look more “alien” to us, but it looks stupid. It is impractical and unnecessarily hard form, which no bow hunting people (on which the Na’vi are based) have ever used on Earth, because it’s just not good. This hand just shouldn’t be upside down.


3. The string should go here where this circle points, close to the face of the archer. Now the bow is way overdrawn, since the string is about half a meter back from the face. This makes aiming much more difficult, since the end of the arrow is not close to the archers eyes.


4. The fletchings of arrows in this movie are made either from feathers, or from insect wings. That is not a mistake, since fletching can be made of different materials (although feathers would be best), but the number of feathers on these arrows are. Based on the screencaptures I can only see two feathers (or bug wings) in the arrows. An arrow needs three feathers in order to rotate around itself in three-dimensional space, after releasing of the missile. This rotation makes the aim more accurate, two feathers don’t do anything.


5. The distance between bows arc and string, called fistmele or brace height, should be the length of the archers fist and a protruding thumb (thumbs-up-hand). This bow is way overcurved, since the fistmele is as long as Neytiris entire forearm! That is the reason behind the mistake in point 3. I’ve drawn there a longbow with good proportions for scale.

Some of the comments were disagreeing with my criticism, and here they are (some dissected into several parts for clarifying different arguments):

Freeyutube: "But using only two fingers should work fine also (we can read that medieval english archers used only 2 finger to draw their longbows)."

No, medieval English archers mainly used three fingers to draw their bows, not two. This is a popular misconception spread around in history books and populistic publications that do not check their sources. Most pictorial evidence from the middle ages show three fingered grips and there are historical sources to tell this is the way they shot. A powerful war bow benefits from the use of the third finger, and it would be disadvantageous to use two fingers to draw it.

Freeyutube: "And about using a "reversed grip" with the arrow on the usual side of the bow, the russian Seregedel's school shows it is feasible."

Yes, I've seen that video of Iza Privezenceva shooting with a reversed grip (which I will discuss in a separate blog post), but there has to be a reason why they didn't do it historically. There is close to zero evidence that this technique would've been used historically. If it was somehow better surely it would've been used at least somewhere. It is entirely possible to practise yourself to be good at this technique, but it doesn't mean it would be better technique than some other, or that it would've been used historically somewhere. I think this technique is heavily related to the use of back quiver, since it's difficult to draw arrows quickly from the back. Maybe the Russian woman use this technique to somewhat counterbalance the back quiver hindrance. When really the solution would be to use a hip quiver or when wanting to be extremely quick, to hold the arrows in the hand while shooting.

Matthew: "Just because you don’t like the way it looked and haven’t done your research, doesn’t mean that method wasn’t used. If you do your research you will find that several cultures throughout history have used this method for war and hunting. If you reverse everything in the picture to show right handed shooting you will see that the placement is a lot more correct then you realize."

I have done my research, thanks for asking. The reverse grip method is not well documented anywhere in the World. There are few sketchy pictorial pieces that might or might not depict that, and I will discuss them in a later blog post. If it was done somewhere historically, it must've been so insignificant an instance that we don't know much about it. More probably it wasn't done in any significant scale, since it's unintuitive and doesn't offer anything that a regular grip couldn't. If you know some evidence that reverse grip was indeed used by "several cultures throughout history" "for war and hunting" please show me the evidence. Pictures would be nice. But I don't think this evidence exists. If it does, I'm more than happy to correct myself. It's not that I would be preaching the ultimate truth, I just look at the evidence and make deductions based on that.

Matthew: "About the fletchings you say it needs 3 fletchings to fly properly but they only used 2 and that is completely native style, and the avatars are more like natives on steroids if you will. You are focused on the European style archery and are closed minded to other styles both historical and current."

It is indeed true that some arrows were made using only two feathers for their fletching. In worldwide scale this is really rare, but for example some native American peoples did use two fletched arrows, you are right in that. However their arrows are usually fletched a bit differently than the CGI ones used for Na'vi in the film. In Avatar, the two fletchings are straight opposite of each other, and form a flat surfice, they are not curved at all. When actual native Americans (for example Cherokee) did their arrows with the two-fletch style, they often curved the feathers helically around the arrow shaft, and/or formed the feathers very differently than this. I will make a blog post of those in the future too.

Arrows in Avatar have two fletchings, forming a two-dimensional plane. While this is possible to do and the arrows will fly of course when shot from a bow, it would be more beneficial to have either three fletchings, or the two fletchings turned helically around the arrowshaft like in the third picture, ot cut differently from the feathers like in the fourth picture. The photos represent some Native American (Cherokee) style fletchings.

Matthew: "You have drawn a longbow there but not all cultures used the longbow like the bow that the chief that have his bow to Navi when he died is similar to a horse bow there is even proof of some South American style bows made that way."

I only drew there a long bow, not meant to be "the English/Welsh/European Longbow". It is there only to show that the fistmele of the Na'vi bow is huge. But there I have actually made a mistake by looking at the picture. I thought five years ago that in this picture the bow in undrawn. But now when I look it closer I see that the arrow is on the string and while Neytiri doesn't draw the arrow and string back with her string hand, the bow is still drawn to a degree, and she just holds the arrow there with her bow hand. This can be seen by the fact that the bowstring makes an angle at the arrow nock, which I didn't notice before. This unproves my criticism of the too big fistmele, since we can see from other pictures that the fistmele in this bow is in the limits of possibility.

Upon closer inspection I noticed that the bow is in a semi-drawn position, the string making an angle at the nock of the arrow (strengthened with a red line).

But now when inspecting the bow again, I want to talk about another point regarding to it. This is the ceremonial bow of the Na'vi, owned by Neytiris father, until she inherited it from him. It is different from the regular Na'vi bows by the fact that it has these blue blade-like objects stuck in it. From the picture above you can see that the bow limbs are bifurcated so that the blade-part goes between the halves of the limb. The bowstring is then split into two near it's end and both ends are attached to the bifurcated bow limbs.

This design is absolutely ridiculous. There is no point of making a bow like this. It might look cool to some modern viewers, but this whole construction would make the bow weaker both in shooting power and in integral strength. Also a lot heavier with those large blades, and more cumbersome and difficult to carry around. I admit it's a ceremonial bow, but it's been seen used for shooting in the film, so it is clearly also intended for hunting/combat, not just as decoration.

There's a reason blades were never attached into bows. Bows are delicated weapons, if they are used to hit things they might break. That's why archers usually had a back-up weapon in case they got into close combat or otherwise couldn't use their bow anymore. In Europe that usually was a sword, dagger or an axe, could've been something else in pre-Columbian America, on which the Na'vi are based. Anyway, nobody in history used their bows to hit things, since the bows could break, and there were more useful things to hit people with than bows. So blades were never attached to bows anywhere in the world.

Integrating these huge blades in the centre-line of the bow has resulted in the bow limbs being cut in hald, since they have to bend and travel through the blades. That makes the bow limbs structurally weaker, they might break more easily, and it also diminishes the power of the bow. Attaching the string becomes extra hard, since it has four nocking points instead of just two, and a bowstring needs to de detached when the bow is not used, since otherwise it will strain the power out of the bow in the long run.

So, I like to present the updated version of my criticism of the archery in Avatar as follows:

Mistakes and updates:

1. The beginners bow grip mistake, holding the arrow with an index finger. It keeps there without holding if you’re calm, and this only hurts your hand, damages the fletching of the arrow and can effect the flight of the missile.


2. This string grip is reversed. The moviemakers apparently thought this would look more “alien” to us. It is unintuitive and unnecessary form, without much precedence in the real history of the World, although some modern archers have emplyed this technique more or less succesfully.


3. I originally draw this circle here to point where the arrow is traditionally drawn. However an overdraw isn't always a mistake, and longer arrows can indeed be "overdrawn". Neither does the anchor point of the arrow be near the eyes, it can really be anywhere.


4. The fletchings of arrows in this movie are made either from feathers, or from insect wings. That is not a mistake, since fletching can be made of different materials (although feathers would be best), but the number of feathers on these arrows is unusual. Based on the screencaptures I can only see two feathers (or bug wings) in the arrows. Most arrows have three feathers giving it a good spin. This rotation makes the aim more accurate. Two-feathered arrows however do occur in the real World, but they are rare and often times contructed differently than these.


5. The distance between bows arc and string, called fistmele or brace height, should be the length of the archers fist and a protruding thumb (thumbs-up-hand) for a longbow. For recurve bows this can be greater. I originally misinterpreted the image so that I though the fistmele was way too big. It's actually not.
6. The Na'ci ceremonial bow has huge blades stuck right in the middle axis of it, splitting the bow limbs in half. This design, while it might look cool, is highly impractical and dminishes both the bows integral strength and it's shooting power. There is no reason anybody (human or alien) would ever construct a bow like this.

With this I will close this case for now. Have a nice day everybody and thanks for your comments!

Hunger Games revisited

One of the earliest posts on this blog of mine (the fifth one to be exact) was a review of archery of Hunger Games (the first film probably), based on one picture of the character of Katniss. That blog post was written over five years ago in Janyary 2015, and it got a comment now in 2020. Because of the comment that heavily criticised my critique, I decided to do a revisit to that blog post and look the source material again. So here it is, a revisited Hunger Games archery review. Yes, based on the same picture again, I don't want to actually watch the movie.

Here is a little bit shortened version of the original blog post. Nothing of importance is removed and the original blog post is still there if you want to read it.

 

Mistakes:

1. Katniss is supposed to be extremely skilled with a bow, but still in this photo she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. The first mistake which causes other errors, is that she has nocked the arrow too high on the string. The arrow should be as close to the center point of the bow string as possible. It cannot be in the exact center, since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center. But that’s not much. In this picture the arrow is way too high, which makes the whole bow tilt backwards, as you can clearly see. The red arrow number 1 shows where would be the correct nocking point on the string for arrows.

2. The red arrow number 2 shows where the shaft of the arrow should lie while the bow is being drawn. Something has just happened here, and it’s bad. The arrow has fallen from atop the bow hand and now the archer has no control over where the arrow will fly. She has even tried to guide the arrow with her index finger, which is a beginners technique, but it failed apparently. Maybe it’s because the bow is so backwards tilted that she has difficulties trying to keep it straight with her bow hand.

3. The arrows are made for men with longer arms, and not particularly measured for the actress in question. The red arrow number 3 shows where the arrow could end for her. The longer arrow allows bigger draw, but that requires more length to the arms of the archer.

4. What is this fletching? It’s quite damaged. Maybe these arrows have been used many times for shooting in thick bushes or something similar which would damage the feathers.

5. Back quiver is especially bad for hunting in thick woods, since if you try to be quiet and unobtrusive, drawing the arrows from a back quiver has a high probability to bump with tree branches and other forestly matter, thus creating sound which would alert animals, and humans too, if you’re hunting with your own species like in this example perhaps. A hip quiver would be more practical, as always.


In the second picture I’ve drawn the proper alignment of the longbow and it’s arrow nocked in the correct point on the string.


This was the comment I got:

Pixa Pirata: "You are incorrect, and should stop talking out your backside. If she were to shoot your way, the arrow would immediately go up at a 20-30 degree angle give or take a few degrees upon release. With the tips of the bow straight up and down, the arrow needs to nock level with the rest, which typically puts the arrow well above the center point. Long arrows are fine, and the fletching is feathers, which is typical for someone who made their own bow and arrows as her character did in the movie. Back quivers are for people that move around, not like people who stand still and shoot a target indoors, like you pretend to do. You are just utterly wrong on every point here."

Now I do appreciate all feedback, but when it is misguided and hostile, I don't appreciate it as much as when it is benign and constructive criticism. Let's deconstruct this comment in order to get the points from there.

"If she were to shoot your way, the arrow would immediately go up at a 20-30 degree angle give or take a few degrees upon release."

I disagree and I'll show you why in a moment.

"With the tips of the bow straight up and down, the arrow needs to nock level with the rest, which typically puts the arrow well above the center point."

I know this and I acknowledged it in the blog post. I said: "It [the arrow] cannot be in the exact center [of the string], since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center." Maybe this was badly worded, since English is not my native language, but I think I made it clear that the arrow will be nocked above the center of the string. Not by much though. Katniss have nocked it way too much above the center here. Now I will demonstrate.

I made this new diagram to better illustrate how poor Katniss' form really is. I turned the image for better viewing and replaced the missing limb of the bow (from outside the picture frame) with a copy of the other limb of the bow. I put the bow inside a rectangle so you see it's level and symmetrical.
There's one red line marking the centre of the rectangle (and bow inside it). I never claimed the arrow should be at the exact center of the bow and string, since that is not the case. Archer's hand will hold the bow from the center, so the arrow has to go above the bow hand. That's why it's also nocked above the center point of the bowstring. I estimated the proper point for nocking to be 46% of the length of the string from the upper nock of the bow. That leaves 54% of the string under the arrow. This is about the point I showed in the original blog post too.

Now Jennifer Lawrence has nocked her arrow at approximately 38% of the length of the string from the upper nock of the bow, leaving 62% of the string under the bow. This is way too much, and by looking at the picture I would estimate the arrow should be about ten centimeters lower on the string. Nocking the arrow too high causes serious problems with shooting. If Katniss is supposed to be an expert archer, this is a very poor image to illustrate that. She looks like a total newbie. I wonder why on Earth did they choose that failed picture as a promotional still for the film?

Let's continue to other pieces of criticism.

"Long arrows are fine"

Long arrows are used in some native cultures for hunting fish for example. There is no added benefit for this long arrows in a scenario Katniss is put in. While she obviously can use these very long arrows, shorter ones would be easier to use for her, and this just makes it look these arrows were made for somebody with much longer arms. Those long arrows would be extremely difficult tu pull out of a back quiver too. In order for that to succeed the arrows cannot be much longer than the outstreched arm of the archer.

"and the fletching is feathers, which is typical for someone who made their own bow and arrows as her character did in the movie."

I didn't say that feather fletching wouldn't be fine. I said that these feathers look very worn out. Maybe she uses arrows that have been shot many times already? Maybe there's an explanation for this in the movie, but probably they've just been used for practise of the actress.

Look at that fletching, it is in terrible shape compared to a new one.

"Back quivers are for people that move around, not like people who stand still and shoot a target indoors, like you pretend to do."

Historically there's very little evidence for the use of back quivers at all. There is no grounds for a statement that a back quiver would be for people who move around. I think hip quivers are exceptionally better for moving around than back quivers, for several reasons. Most peoples in history have used hip quivers, both on foot and on horseback, and most archery used in actual warfare was pretty mobile. Not at all like the stationary sports archery of today (where they do use back quivers). And I didn't pretend to do anything. I mostly shoot outdoors anyway.

"You are incorrect, and should stop talking out your backside. [...] You are just utterly wrong on every point here."

As I just demonstrated, I was actually right on every point I made. You also didn't comment on mistake no. 2, since you knew I were right on that one too. It was about the arrow falling off from the top of her hand. Here:

Pretty terrible. Beginners mistakes.

I think that's all for this time. Thank you all for commenting. I do this for you. ;)

Arrow cam in movies

Reviewing the archery of Disney's new Mulan reboot trailer, I got an idea to talk about spinning arrows. Arrows don't fly straight, they spin. This is a desired quality for an arrow since spinning the missile around its axis makes it fly more straight, so it makes the projectile more accurate. The same mechanism works in bullets that are shot from rifled firearms.

The spinning for arrows is enhanced by the fletching, the three feathers at the back of the arrow. Some flething is glued and tied parallel to the arrow shaft, but some are attached slightly twisting around it, so that they form a kind of propeller. This is called helical fletching. This guides the air flowing between the feathers to turn the fletching, and thus also the arrow, away from it's path, and so the arrow spins.

Now, I'm not a physicist, but to my knowledge, all arrows spin in flight. I've seen it with my own eyes. If the fletching is helical, it accelerates the spin (slightly decelerating the arrow) thus making it more accurate, but straight fletched arrows also spin. Here's a picture of straight and helical fletching.

There is a video by the Slo Mo Guys that (as a by-product of a stupid experiment) shows clearly how much the arrow spins. Their arrow has four fletchings instead of the standard three, but it doesn't matter. Here you can see the arrow in flight in slow motion. From looking at the video I would estimate the arrow to spin about 15 rounds in the circa 10 meter distance between the two guys. This is a lot. I was surprised how much it spins. Maybe some arrows spin more, some less, but they all spin.

Some of the arrow's flight physics is beautifully explained in this video by Smarter Every Day. It mainly deals with the so called archer's paradox, but also shows arrows flying (and spinning) in slow motion. Really a great video.

Now, many movies have emplyed a so-called arrow camera. There's a whole TV tropes page for the arrow cam. These shots are abviously all done with CGI, so no actual arrows were shot (neither with a bow or with a camera). That has lead to some mistakes. Usually these arrow camera shots are used when depicting awesome feats of archery, shooting the bad guy from really far away really accurately. Most common mistakes done in post production are that the arrow has no arc, but flies straight to the target. The producers of this shot in Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring said that they tried it but it caused motion sickness to the viewer. I believe them and thus it's a good decision. But making the computer generated arrow spin doesn't cause motion sickness since that doesn't affect the way the digital camera is moved. It just follows the arrow. But often times the arrow doesn't spin, or spins only slightly. While the distance shot with the arrow is usually pretty long in these shots, the arrow should spin many many times before hitting the target.

Let's take a look at different movies handling this arrow cam shot.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

The trope might have been invented in Kevin Costner's movie, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991, at least that's the first example listed in TV tropes. The arrow cam shot was initially cut out of the movie, but was included in the film's trailer and proved to be so popular that the editors put it back in the movie. It's used at least twice in the film. I think the first time it was done with CGI in this movie. Only the tip of the arrow is visible under the camera. It works otherwise well, but the arrow doesn't spin, instead it wobbles as if to spin but then rotates a bit back to the other direction. An arrow will never do this, it's impossible. In computer graphics the spin would be easy to do so I don't know why they didn't do it. Watch it here. Later Robin Hood shoots two arrows to cut a rope, latter of which is shown in sideways arrow cam. This is done mechanically and looks better. Now the arrow does spin many times around itself, which is correct. Watch that here. It is a bit strange why they didn't make the arrow spin in the first arrow cam scene, when they obviously knew it should, since they made it spin in the second scene?

Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

A few years later Kevin Costner's Robin Hood film was parodied with Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which really is an awesome and funny movie. I've already rated some of its quirks before, but now I watched the trailer, which copied the arrow cam straight (well, not exactly straight, you'll see) from Costner's Robin Hood. The arrow is attached to the camera here as well, and as previously, doesn't spin at all. Watch it here.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when the fellowship is in Moria, goblins shoot at them. Legolas of course shoots back, much more accurately, and with an arrow camera shot bullseye's one of them between the eyes. This was one of my favourite scenes in the entire film, which is full of my favourite scenes, so it says a lot. The computer generated arrow is shown wholly in camera, and it does spin, but only about one full round, while an arrow at this great distance should have spinned many many rounds. Watch it here. But at least it spins!

The Avengers (2012)

In Avengers Hawkeye shoots (with dubious technique) many arrows. One he shoots at Loki is shown in arrow cam, first from the tip, then at the side. The CGI arrow spins vigorously as it should, yay! Watch it here.

Mulan (2020)

Just when one could hope that time has corrected this mistake, that movie makers wouldn't fall for the Robin Hood trap anymore, and make arrows spin like they did in the Avengers, came along the new Mulan reboot. Arrow cam is featured in the trailer and it follows the arrow from behind which has now become a standard. The arrow however does not spin at all. There is a slight rotational movement, but it doesn't spin even half a turn during a very long distance shot. Watch it here.

Summa summarum:

All in all The Avengers faired the best in this arrow cam test, since their CGI created arrow spins a lot. LotR takes the second place since Legolas' arrow spins slightly, but not enough. None of the rest show spinning of the arrow at all. So, try to remember moviemakers of future: arrows do spin. A lot!

There are several movies and TV series including the arrow cam that I couldn't find footage of now, so they are not reviewed in this blog post. If I find videos of them in the future, I can add them. These include at least the following: Army of Darkness (1992), Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995–1999), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010).

For the light end note there's a really funny scene in the parody Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), where Charlie Sheen's character uses a chicken as the arrow, and we get a chicken cam shot! And no, it doesn't spin, but I don't know how chicken fly when shot from a bow. Watch that here to conclude everything.

Archery in the new Mulan film

I just watched the trailer for Disney's live action Mulan reboot. Years ago I was forced to watch Mulan 2, which was a nightmare. Compared to that, this cannot fail, but I really hope it will be better than those other completely unnecessary live action reboots of animated Disney classics. I saw the original Disney Mulan in 1998 in the movies, and I really liked it. Shan Yu, the leader of the evil Huns was a terrifying baddie, I really feared him as a child. And the avalanche scene was awesome!

After some googling around I found out that for some reason Shan Yu is not featured in this reboot (replaced by a random witch in stupid clichéd fantasy costume). This reboot also lacks Mushu, the Cricket, and captain Li Shang (who would've made men out of you all)! Apparently (as the producer of the film stated), the moviemakers fealt that having a superior officer of Mulan felling in love with her is "inappropriate" for this age we're living. As if it would've mattered in ancient China! Seems like I don't need to go to see this movie after all. Sad.

At least the film looks cool. I really love the colours used in this movie. Why is it that ancient and medieval China get's to bee colourful (as it was) but ancient and medieval Europe doesn't (it was too)? Could we get colours back to European historical films also, please!

Costumes in this trailer looked pretty good, especially for a Disney movie! They feature actual Chinese helmet and armour designs from almost the right time period (a few hundred years too new compared to when the story of Hua Mulan was originally set, but then again it's a fantasy story not based on real characters, so it doesn't matter as much).

Archery features heavily in this trailer, and got me excited, so let's get to it!

While not delving into too much detail, let's just say these recurve bows with long siyahs (the unbending parts at the end of Asiatic composite bows) were often used in China from the Han dynasty through the Yuan dynasty (206 BCE–1368 CE).
What is also good is that the archers start their draw from a level above their heads, which is done in East Asian archery, such as Japanese kyūdō.

 Mistakes:
1. All soldiers wear leather bracers. If these are meant to be archer's bracers, then only the archers should wear them, and only in their left arm. And they should be smooth side inside the arm, not like shown here. Leather bracers were not a part of traditional Chinese armours.
2. These bows make a creeking sound when drawn. If a bow creeks, it's somehow broken. I hope not all of these bows are broken. A standard movie cliché, a mistake nonetheless.

Other good thing was that the commander shouted: "Release!" instead of "Fire!". "Fire" was never shouted before the invention and/or widespread use of firearms. Bows don't shoot fire, but arrows, so English language commands to shoot with a bow were most probably "shoot", "loose" and "release". This was really excellent to hear from this trailer.

Now I changed the language in the speech bubble to Chinese since Chinese didn't historically speak English. I don't know Chinese, so according to Cambridge Dictionary this 发射 means "release". More specifically: "Release; to fire a bomb or a missile (= flying weapon), or to allow it to fall". They have used the word "fire" there also, so I don't know if this would be correct term regarding arrows, but someone who knows Chinese can correct this.

 Mistakes:
3. Archers are shooting upwards to create a rain of arrows.

Arrow rain is often depicted in popular media, such as films, games and books, but there is insufficient historical evidence of it being done, at leat regularly. Archers did not stay stationary on battlefield and launch arrow rains after another, but instead they were an inseparable part of the armies, they moved around the battlefield, often among infantry soldiers searching for targets to shoot. The used trajectories of arrows were much flatter and the distances shot much shorter than often imagined by modern people.

4. Mulan here is shooting with a Mediterranean grip. And that is also erroneous, since she's using all four fingers, instead of the regular three. This is anyway not the style of shooting prevalent in Asia, instead she should be shooting with a Mongolian thumb grip. I hope this was just one scene, and she uses the thumb grip in the rest of the movie. Otherwise the archery coach is to blame for this.

5. We have an arrow camera stolen from TV tropes storage of clichés. But it's not a bad cliché, I like it a lot, since it's fun to look at. That's not the mistake. But the arrow flies a long distance (nothing wrong with that either) without spinning. Arrows have those fletchings at their back to give the arrow a spin in the air. This works the same way as rifling on a gun, which makes the bullet spin around it's axis. This spinning makes the projectile fly more accurately. This arrow doesn't even make half a spin during this flight. It's impossible.

Legolas did it better in the The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. His arrow spinned somewhat, while still too little, it looked more believable than Mulan's arrow in flight.

All and all the new Mulan trailer faired exceedingly well compared to many other travesties of archery I've seen during the last few years on screen. Good job!

Compare here how this reboot fairs against it's predecessor regarding archery. I think this new one did a better job in that respect (easier to do it alive than to animate, and some of the mistakes of the animation is due to the exaggerated characteristics of cartoons, not suitable for live action, so it is understandable). It seems I gave both versions of Mulan the same amount of mistake points, but I had more good to say about archery in this live action one.