2012: The Year of the Arrow

This article started out as a "Best Archery Movies" List in celebration of the much-ignored bow and arrow finally getting mass recognition through movies like The Hunger Games, The Avengers, Brave, and even the upcoming TV show "Arrow" based on comic book hero Green Arrow. I hit a snag though; the only other archery movies seem to have a combination of "Robin" and "Hood" in the title. I mean, the best non-Merry Men thing to happen to the weapon in the last century of filmmaking was Avatar, since the earthy Na'vi used the device rather than modern arms.

Before this year, archery never really got its moment to shine in Western history. Sure the bow and arrow is the second-oldest designed weapon in human history, but its always played a support role to the highly mythological sword or whatever big stick the army was carrying. Granted arrows were bigger in many Eastern cultures, but the archer wasn't as cool or glamorized as the knight. By the time Europeans figured out that long-range warfare was far more efficient than up-close melee (around the end of the medieval age), gunpowder was soon discovered and archery fell by the wayside.

The result of this was only one archery legend, Robin Hood (sorry William Tell), which has seen around a dozen big screen incarnations from the legendary Errol Flynn version to the not-so-memorable Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Aside from that, archers were secondary characters meant to support the charming soldier with the sword, like Orlando Bloom's character Legolas Greenleaf in The Lord of the Rings movies or Star Wars' Chewbacca. Aside from that, there was Mulan (from Asian culture) as well as little known movie where a Nicolas Cage character finally snaps and decides to carry a bow and arrow so people stop messing with him (The Weather Man).

So, what's the deal with this archery boom? Well, it's anyone's guess after great mind's think alike. What I do know is that the renewed interest in archery has spiked profits for archery schools everywhere as it lets girls be Katniss and boys be the only plausible hero from The Avengers.