New Sherlock Holmes movie Watson still isn't fat

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 4:15pm

Originally Posted by Bneterasedmynam

So my question is this was Sherlock Holmes really suppose to be a martial artist the way they are depicting him in this movie?? I have not read any of the books, so my question is to those of you who have.

I have read most of the Doyle stories.

Holmes is, in fact, a fantastic empty handed fighter but also a master of several weapons. He's an expert with sword and cane, etc.

Ninja? Maybe the Victorian period's closest thing to it, given the combination of mental and physical skills, not to mention of course that Holmes is a master of disguise and escape.

Other than whipping the ass out of his opponents whenever fisticuffs start in the books, he's also given commendations from various prizefighters and toughs in a few stories.

In one early story The Sign of the Four, he has a conversation with a bruiser named McMurdo who might have been the inspiration for the Irish brawler that Holmes defeats in the first movie, I think. Who knows. He was not a professional boxer IIRC, but fought (well) with them for charity events.

And of course he credits defeating Prof. Moriarty with "Japanese
wrestling" which in the book he calls Baritsu, after the real world art Bartitsu which there are many BS.net threads about.

But generally Holmes was definitely more action figure than 70's/80's movies may have suggested.

Holmes was NEVER any sort of bookwormish, meak detective...he's the Brawny, Brainy Detective.

On cocaine...which makes him way more like this guy than the Hardy Boys, any day:

**Sri Hanuman** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 4:22pm

He was the 1800s Tyrone Biggum with a detective's degree.
And on coke instead of crack.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 5:13pm

So what you're saying is that Robert Downey Jr really was perfectly cast for the role?

**Coach Josh** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 5:37pm

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is free on iBooks and a good read of short stories of Holmes and Watson.

The portly stature of Watson and the coolness of Holmes on the TV are suppose to be in their later years.

ASH gives you a good feel for what Ritchie is trying to do with the characters.

As a long time fan of Holmes I can honestly say these movies are great. I love the action and the actors are all great. Everyone in the first one was amazing and Jude Law was fantastic as Watson.

Rachel McAdams is my current I would cheat on my wife hottie(Anne Hathaway is still there and after Catwoman she will be imprinted in my skull for a long time).

RDJ has and will always be one of my favorite actors. Less Than Zero is a must see.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk please ignore typos.

**thrutch** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 6:20pm

The Holmes books are well worth a read for those who haven't. I read them all in my teens, and returned to them not long ago (20 or so years later) and enjoyed them just as much.

Holmes was a fighter. There's a few instances of him beating one or more men off.

And yes, he was a coke user who was also known to hang around in an opium den, but then who doesn't?

**Middlefinger** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 6:42pm

Originally Posted by thrutch

And yes, he was a coke user who was also known to hang around in an opium den, but then who doesn't?

I think the opium den was from one story where he was doing surveillance. He admitted to smoking some to fit in though. Also, Watson had a gambling problem. His check book was kept locked in one of Holmes' drawers.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 6:46pm

A common theme throughout the Holmes books is that he displays signs of what today would be known as a type of ADHD. I'd say he stops short of full-on Asberger's because he does, in fact, show a lot of empathy for other characters, particularly Watson.

He's a highly functioning savant but he also craves constant psycho-stimulation and gets that in the form of constantly learning/reading/experimenting. That does affect his social affairs and he often finds himself doing better in disguise or working with his crew of street hoodlums, the Baker Street Irregulars, than dealing with real people who can hardly keep up with him.

But yes, when bored and and short on cases and other things to keep him interested...he starts experimenting with the stimulants and narcotics.

And good old Watson, knowledgeable of that fact, hides the cocaine from Holmes whenever he can.

**PointyShinyBurn** · Posted On: 12/07/2011 8:27pm

Originally Posted by CNagy

Holmes does cocaine when he is bored. Excerpt from The Sign of Four: "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?" So yeah, shooting up a cocaine solution.

Of course, we're talking the late 1800s, and the attitudes towards drugs were quite different. Hell, cocaine was seen as mostly harmless for much of the last century; it only got huge in the 80s.

His addiction is explicitly portrayed as destructive, actually. It's part of the running theme in the earlier books about his extreme rationality coming at terrible cost to his humanity (Conan Doyle was a massive Romantic, he was all over psychics, fairies, contact with the dead etc. etc.) Watson gets him off it between cases before the later stories where Holmes turns into an arbitrary superman, by then they were just being written for the money.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 12/08/2011 9:13am

Agreed, I always got an "idle hands/mind are the Devil's playground" feel from the more insightful Holmes tales. Holmes' intensity is also his downfall in this respect.

If the Devil finds a Man idle, he'll set him at work

- old Scottish proverb

Maybe Doyle was trying to teach us something about himself? I think Holmes' personality quirks were often attributable to Doyle himself, if I recall the annotations correctly.

Doyle was, after all, a brilliant Knight. He even wrote about science and science fiction around the same time as Jules Verne did, but isn't known for that.