217 replies to this topic

[korak]

Conan the Destroyer was not a great film by any means, but to me it was an improvement over a lot of these other '80s S&S flicks because it had more of a fantasy world ambience-- the matte painting of Shadizar, for example, something sadly lacking in the Milius film; the palace of the queen was well done and fairly fabulous; the crystal castle of Thoth Amon was also fantastic and magical. I liked the part where Conan had to swim a long ways underwater in order to enter the castle. I liked the strange underground temple, too, and it was quite Howardian for them to show Conan racing up winding, clautrophobic tunnels and getting sealed in.

The princess was a babe, who can deny that? Much more beautiful and sexy than Valeria was in the first movie. I just thought that overall it was a more colorful exciting film than CTB, but that obviously is not saying much.

[nutopian]

My opinion of 'Conan the Destroyer' is one of resentment.
I say resentment because this is yet another example of Hollywood using a method to the contra of their previous success.
If we compare CTD to CTB we see that the sequel falls badly short in every catagory.
Firstly, CTD has a much smaller budget compared to CTB's fat $20 million and as such looks like a 'B' movie.
The film is also very camp as the terrible director insisted on filming a live action comic book and employed all the cartoon cliche's which is completely opposite to the method of the original.
A good example of this is that John Milius had Swarzenegger train for years in Iado under a master of the art and he was told to tone down his workout because the size of his muscles hindered any kind of authentic swordmanship and real swords were used for the film.
For the sequel however, Swarzenegger was told to beef up and wear just a loin cloth to show off his muscles and was given fibre glass swords.
Authenticity went straight out of the window.
The script was excruciating and belonged in a saturday morning cartoon and lacked the seriousness and the allegorical maxims of the original.
The set design and artistic direction was bland and conventional and looked more like Star Trek than Conan.
The acting was of course, abysmal, but I will refrain from blaming the actors as if one takes into account the pathetic script and primitive direction then one has to absolve them.
Even Basil Poledouris it seems, could not be bothered with this laughable skid mark on the pants of movie history and just rehashed his earlier far superior score and injected a few mediocre new tracks into the ensemble.

It speaks volumes that on the films own commentary the film itself is hardly mentioned and more time seems devoted to Superman 2.
Along with Highlander 2, this film is not only a contender for worst sequel of all time, but is also a complete travesty in its own right.

Overall I would say that there is enjoyment to be had here for children, but offers nothing for the over 12's.

Not a patch on the first, but then it is a hard act to follow.

[Bighammer]

My father took me to see CTD on the night it opened and it was his first exposure to the character Imagine being a kid trying to convince your dad, who grew up on westerns and John Wayne, that this guy who runs around with a sword fighting wizards is worth giving a second look after that flick. Fortunately, I had greatly underestimated my father's capacity for new ideas, but that movie almost cost me big time. Even as a Conan-crazed teenager I felt cheated when we saw it. I don't know that I have ever been more disappointed by a sequel in my life. I refuse to own a copy of it to this day

Edited by Bighammer, 30 May 2005 - 02:12 AM.

[Servant of Crom]

"laughable skid mark on the pants of movie history"

That's Conan the Destroyer all right!

[Servant of Crom]

" I refuse to own a copy of it to this day"

Me too!
I saw it for 99p the other day and still was not tempted to buy it.

Well....maybe a little tempted just so I could smite it with my axe!

[korak]

The only good Robert E. Howard film ever made so far was Whole Wide World. All four of the others-- Red Sonja, Kull, CTB, CTD--- just four rotten eggs all in the same worthless basket. Throw in the Conan TV show box too. Nice smell coming out of there.

[jusko911]

Maybe it's because I was so close to the source material when the Conan flicks came out, since I was painting the SSOC covers and rereading the books, but I hated both of them. Actually, the first one grates me a little bit more because of the "groveling" scene. Conan is writhing on the floor whining the immortal lines "You killed my mah-dah, my fah-dah, my pee-pool!"

Gimme a break!

I was writhing in my seat. Still can't watch it today because of that scene.

[Jaybird]

I don't see that scene as grovelling as much as him setting the record strait as to who Thulsa-Doom really is, compared to how he was acting at the time. Like calling B.S. on a politician.

Edited by Jaybird, 30 May 2005 - 03:25 AM.

[jusko911]

That scene just makes my skin crawl. There's just way too much angst for it to be consistent with Conan's character. I know they were trying to get some depth into the performance, but I feel it was totally antithetical to Conan's make-up.

I don't see that scene as grovelling as much as him setting the record strait as to who Thulsa-Doom really is, compared to how he was acting at the time. Like calling B.S. on a politician.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[korak]

Jusko writes- Maybe it's because I was so close to the source material when the Conan flicks came out, since I was painting the SSOC covers and rereading the books, but I hated both of them. Actually, the first one grates me a little bit more because of the "groveling" scene. Conan is writhing on the floor whining the immortal lines "You killed my mah-dah, my fah-dah, my pee-pool!"


Ha ha ha! Good one. Really, if you think about it, CTD and the Moeller series were both based upon that original foundation of sand, so it stands to reason that they wouldn't stand either. If the first film had been based upon the solid rock of Howard's fiction, then they could have gotten a lot more mileage out of sequels I bet.

[Ironhand]

Jusko writes- Maybe it's because I was so close to the source material when the Conan flicks came out, since I was painting the SSOC covers and rereading the books, but I hated both of them. Actually, the first one grates me a little bit more because of the "groveling" scene. Conan is writhing on the floor whining the immortal lines "You killed my mah-dah, my fah-dah, my pee-pool!"


Ha ha ha!    Good one. Really, if you think about it, CTD and the Moeller series were both based upon that original foundation of sand, so it stands to reason that they wouldn't stand either. If the first film had been based upon the solid rock of Howard's fiction, then they could have gotten a lot more mileage out of sequels I bet.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This whole downhill slide of CTD, Red Sonya, and the TV show is an example of a phenomenon known as "copy error", where, instead of making many copies from the original, you make a copy from a copy, and then another copy from that copy, etc, so that all the flaws in the first copy are reproduced, and additional flaws are introduced with each copy. In other words, Korak, you are absolutely right.

As for the grovelling scene, the only excuse for that travesty is that it wasn't the real Conan, but instead a Clonan who had been trained to submission and obediance. The real Conan would have been standing astride the broken bodies of TD's goons, and, as he advanced on TD, would have been saying "You killed my father, you killed my mother, you killed my people, and now, you snake-worshipping bastard, you're going to die, and you can try to make your hypocritical explanations to my parents and my people when you meet them in hell!"

[dr Bo]

"You killed my father, you killed my mother, you killed my people, and now, you snake-worshipping bastard, you're going to die, and you can try to make your hypocritical explanations to my parents and my people when you meet them in hell!"

Wow, well said Ironhand!

[Kieran]

Maybe it's because I was so close to the source material when the Conan flicks came out, since I was painting the SSOC covers and rereading the books, but I hated both of them. Actually, the first one grates me a little bit more because of the "groveling" scene. Conan is writhing on the floor whining the immortal lines "You killed my mah-dah, my fah-dah, my pee-pool!"

Gimme a break!

I was writhing in my seat. Still can't watch it today because of that scene.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To be fair it's not really grovelling. Doom is being holier than thou, making it look like he is the wounded party so Conan tries to shatter that illusion. The reason it sounds like whinging is beacuse Thogrim and Rexor are busy beating the **** out of him at the time.

Edited by Kieran, 31 May 2005 - 10:07 PM.

[Ironhand]

Maybe it's because I was so close to the source material when the Conan flicks came out, since I was painting the SSOC covers and rereading the books, but I hated both of them. Actually, the first one grates me a little bit more because of the "groveling" scene. Conan is writhing on the floor whining the immortal lines "You killed my mah-dah, my fah-dah, my pee-pool!"

Gimme a break!

I was writhing in my seat. Still can't watch it today because of that scene.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To be fair it's not really grovelling. Doom is being holier than thou, making it look like he is the wounded party so Conan tries to shatter that illusion. The reason it sounds like whinging is beacuse Thogrim and Rexor are busy beating the **** out of him at the time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Conan never whines. He never even sounds like he's whining. Face it, it was bad writing. I can do better; see my post above.

[nutopian]

You are wasting your time, Kieran.

It is quite obvious that many bashers of CTB would have preferred a one dimensional, cretinous and super invincible Conan.

It is to these very people that I suggest watching Ang Lee's "Hulk" instead.

[korak]

The Arnold movies "germanized" the character of Conan-- Howard was a Celtophile (and a Pictophile) who saw the Cimmerians as the ancient ancestors of the Gaels and Celts. So Howard's Conan is a lot of basically British style barbarian, which is why I liked Barry Smith's interpretation so much. He made him look like Timothy Dalton or someone. To turn Conan into a heavy handed German fairy tale the way Milius tried to do, by making the whole movie like a Viking movie, greatly distorts the very spirit and atmosphere of Howard's dark ages fantasies. It is easy to get confused and think that Conan is a Germanic Viking, until you read a lot of REH's historical horror tales about Cormac and Turlogh, etc. That is my impression at least. That is why the "spirit" of CTB was wrong, on top of the other considerations. A lot of guys think that even though it was a bad adaptation, it still somehow captured the spirit of Conan, and I really don't think so.

[Ironhand]

You are wasting your time, Kieran.

It is quite obvious that many bashers of CTB would have preferred a one dimensional, cretinous and super invincible Conan.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is Milius' Conan who is cretinous. Are you saying that Howard's Conan is one dimensional, cretinous and super invincible? Howard's Conan bleeds, experiences nausea, and suffers defeats. But he never gives up, never whines, never makes excuses. Never admits defeat even though he suffers defeat.

[Ironhand]

The Arnold movies "germanized" the character of Conan-- Howard was a Celtophile (and a Pictophile) who saw the Cimmerians as the ancient ancestors of the Gaels and Celts. So Howard's Conan is a lot of basically British style barbarian, which is why I liked Barry Smith's interpretation so much. He made him look like Timothy Dalton or someone. To turn Conan into a heavy handed German fairy tale the way Milius tried to do, by making the whole movie like a Viking movie, greatly distorts the very spirit and atmosphere of Howard's dark ages fantasies.  It is easy to get confused and think that Conan is a Germanic Viking, until you read a lot of REH's historical horror tales about Cormac and Turlogh, etc. That is my impression at least. That is why the "spirit" of CTB was wrong, on top of the other considerations. A lot of guys think that even though it was a bad adaptation, it still somehow captured the spirit of Conan, and I really don't think so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Milius wrote about some other barbarian, with some other spirit. The spirit of Milius.

[korak]

quote_ It is quite obvious that many bashers of CTB would have preferred a one dimensional, cretinous and super invincible Conan.


Anyone who likes invulnerable cretins should check out my Horhay series!


Seriously, I agree with IH--- Howard's Conan is no cretin, nor one-D. He is a very lucidly realistic character, in fact. He is not exactly the German bodybuilder type, though, and Arnold should have been forced to do some acting, instead of the part being written for him.

Conan has all kinds of responses and reactions to his circumstances, and those kind of delicious literary details were entirely ignored by the CTB script. From a literary standpoint, and intellectually/aesthetically this film should have been an exercise in making a film statement about a literary character, there was little or nothing for a Howard reader or scholar to relate to in terms of the Conan stories. MIlius may have come up with some clever ideas, albeit highly tangential to Howard's themes, with his "German fairy tale" plotline, but if he were REALLY clever he should have been able to add his own concepts without heavily and needlessly sacrificing essential REH material in the process. That was NOT clever, you see, because that is the trick to making a literary movie adaptation. So MIlius wasn't so clever after all, and I was painfully aware of that while I sat in the movie theater the very first time I watched it back in 1982 or whenever.

[Strom]

"You killed my father, you killed my mother, you killed my people, and now, you snake-worshipping bastard, you're going to die, and you can try to make your hypocritical explanations to my parents and my people when you meet them in hell!"

IMO, this is too wordy and inappropriate for the situation. Conan was getting tortured and in the movie cut right to the chase explaining his motive for revenge to his enemy. Millis?s short dialogue - delivered by an inexperienced young Arnold - was only missing his declaration of revenge. If Arnold would of said, "You killed my mother, you killed my father, you killed my people and I will kill you!" That would've worked better. Perhaps Milius was hampered by Arnold's lack of experience - for all we know what we saw were the best takes.

Also, James Earl Jones dominated this scene - it was his big scene in the movie. All on all, he didn't have that many and perhaps Milius wanted to limit Arnold in favor of Doom for this scene.

Edited by Strom, 01 June 2005 - 03:22 AM.