On Sunday night, TikTok user @theshannonduke0 noticed something strange when she tried to stream Ridley Scott’s 2010 cinematic version of Robin Hood on Amazon Prime. The prologue text was removed for this particular streaming version. The text reads as follows:
In times of tyranny and injustice when law oppresses the people, the outlaw takes his place in history.
On Monday morning, I confirmed on two separate devices that Amazon had indeed removed this text from the American streaming version of Robin Hood. I then rented the movie on Apple TV and noticed that the text had not been elided over there.
I have also learned from a TikTok user in Ireland that the “seditious” text appears there on Amazon without any problem. He sent me this screenshot:
Additionally, this Reddit user reports that the the text is available on Amazon Prime in the UK.
We have thus have established that the only place where this text is not available is on the American streaming version available at Amazon.
I have left phone calls and emails to Universal (the film’s distributor), Amazon, and Scott Free Productions. As of 11:00 AM Eastern time, I have not received a reply. Should I receive any comment from any party, I will update this story.
This support thread likewise contains numerous users reporting that they are not able to see the text on any device, which rules out any “technical issue” on Amazon’s end. The version of Robin Hood that Amazon is streaming in America has quite possibly been censored.
This strange and inexplicable move, for which Amazon has yet to issue a statement, is suspiciously timed, shortly after Trump announced a 100% tariff on non-American movies. (The Hollywood Reporter has noted that this idea was instigated by Jon Voight.)
If Amazon is censoring Robin Hood, are they censoring other movies that contain “anti-tyranny” text? Did Universal or director Ridley Scott authorize this? Others have speculated that this could be a technical glitch from Amazon. Until we have a solid statement from Universal, Scott Free, or Amazon, the question of the missing text remains a mystery.
DEVELOPING.
5/5/25 5:30 PM UPDATE: I was able to get in touch with Ridley Scott’s people at CAA. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said an assistant, who promptly hung up on me. As of this writing, I have not yet heard back from Universal, Scott Free, or Amazon.
Time to check in on V for Vendetta!
Isn’t it much more likely that they mistakenly published a text less master version of the film? Also, you mention timing but we don’t know when this happened, do we? When is the last confirmed American viewing of the film that contains this text?
There are lots of totally plausible explanations that make a lot a lot more sense than “fascism!”
This was apparently mentioned in a tweet several years ago:
https://x.com/markapolinar/status/1500916156173008901
I had actually looked at the comparison today and decided to start the BluRay of the movie. I noticed at the 4 minute mark there is another title card, so I went back to Amazon to see if they have removed that one as well.
Lo-and-behold, within the past 60 minutes, Amazon has quietly updated their copy to an unedited version!
Now we will never know if the previous version was censored or simply a localization issue. If the 4 minute-mark card was also missing, it was likely the latter. However it is now impossible to find out.
I wonder if Amazon will address their quiet update?
As of 1:50pm pacific time on May 6, the text appears as normal when streaming the movie off Amazon Prime in the US. At least, it does to my account.
The text has been missing for for years you can find tweets talking about it from 2022