I can't agree with that. I'd been reading REH for 15 years when the movie came out and was highly disappointed. Arnold played Conan like he was a moron.
Yeah... but... would of had busted the budget to die his hair black?!?!?... but, it's the first Conan origin story...be honest, James Earl Jones saved a pretty average script
While not without it's flaws, Conan the Barbarian is a criminally underrated and underappreciated film with one of the greatest soundtracks of all time... which is also criminally underappreciated.
Good to see Richard E Howard get the mention he deserves, as he is right up there with other literary greats such as Arnold Conan Doyle, Mike Twain, Enola Blyton, and Warren Shakespeare.
Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, and why we died. All that matters is that today, two stood against many. Valor pleases you, so grant me this one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, the HELL with you!
I LOVE this scene. You can fault the movie for not holding to Robert E. Howard's works to the letter but this scene captures the essence of his Conan stories so well. The notion that humans don't need to wait around for divine intervention, we can make things happen now!
Warlord: Conan! What is best in life? Conan: To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women. Warlord: That is good! That is good.
I STILL quote this.......my childhood was when this came out. It is still easily one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. I do own it, but when I'm flipping through the channels and see it, I leave it
Basil Polrdouris’ score for this film is perhaps his best work. It’s my favorite of his and I love Robocop’s score too. This movie has inspired me for years. It’s a masterpiece to me. Thanks Minty!
Yes!! I was hoping for this comment! I love everything about these two movies, but at the top of my list is the soundtrack. I used to listen to it on a cassette. Basil Poledouris also did Lonesome Dove. He was an absolute musical genius.
I love Poledouris, but I've recently discovered that Poledouris's work is greatly inspired by a century-old classical composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Poledouris basically lifted whole parts from RVW's pieces like "Fantasia" etc.
Conan was one of my favorite movies as a kid, still watch to this day, I’m in my 40s...for the longest time, I thought young Conan was Joey Lawrence...I think I was in my late 20s when the internet revealed the truth to me...
@@jaysonraphaelmurdock8812 It was strictly supposed to focus on her hence the name and Arnold's character was there to obviously increase the box office sales
Seen it in the theater as a kid and was mind blow, still one of my all time cult movie favorites. Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women!
Read the book's, not so much the original Howard one's but the book's that were written in the 60's that were paperbacks and had the Frazetta paintings for the covers, they're good and it's more that version of him that the movie is based on more than the original Howard writings.
The swordmaster who trained the three stars of the movie had little good to say about Sandahl Bergman, said that Arnold did reasonably well, but stated that given a little time, he could train Gerry Lopez into a master swordsman. Gerry quick reflexes and balance, honed from years of surfing professionally were perfect for what was required to become a master.
His name is Kiyoshi Yamazaki and he taught Arnold, Sandahl Bergman & Gerry Lopez books.google.com/books?id=2tsDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA20&dq=kiyoshi%20yamazaki%20conan&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=false
@Hugh Jassel Whiney little fear filled RightWingNutsTM hate change because they are driven by fear. Our nation was created by liberals, the fear driven conservatives stuck with King George.\ And yes you are huge Ahole. The one thing you managed to get right, troll. Ethelred Hardrede
@Hugh Jassel The "left" is trying to tear "our" country down? Who are these so-called "leftist"scum who want to tear the country down? I bet you can't name one person with the explicit goal of tearing the country down, let alone a "leftist". Both parties in the US serve their campaign contributors.
@Hugh Jassel "o I take it you support Yep you sure do an appropriate name, Troll For Trump. You are so inept you have to make up lies to attack people with because facts are just not used with people so stupid they believe anything from Trump. Ethelred Hardrede High Norse Priest of Quetzalcoatl Keeper of the Cadbury Mini Eggs Ghost Writer for Zeus Official Communicant of the GIOA And Defender Against the IPU Ask me about donating your still beating heart to make sure the Sun keeps rising
@Hugh Jassel " french fry deep fryer" You are projecting you deepest wish on others. You long for such a job, the sort I had 40 years ago. But no on will hire you and you live under a bridge. Ethelred Hardrede High Norse Priest of Quetzalcoatl Keeper of the Cadbury Mini Eggs Ghost Writer for Zeus Official Communicant of the GIOA And Defender Against the IPU Ask me about donating your still beating heart to make sure the Sun keeps rising
I saw Conan when I was just a boy and it had a huge impact on me. So when you say some people didn’t like the story I just don’t understand. Conan is a story of perseverance and triumph in the face of the ultimate adversity. The actions you take in life make you the person you are. It’s not about the destination but the journey. It’s in my top 5 and pretty close to number 1 movies of all time. And I am the cable guy literally the tv raised me along with cinema.
The only people I've ever heard complain about r neckbeard Robert E Howard purest who's all like "that's not even a conan story" or "they're mixing the lore"
When I was stationed in South Korea, it turned out that everyone in my unit was a fan of this movie. So whenever we got a new guy, we asked him "what is best in life" and "what is the riddle of steel". He got both answers wrong lol
The riddle of steel is never actually explained by any characters in the movie, only shown. Thulsa was wrong and so was Conan's father. The answer is not that you can trust in steel, or that flesh is stronger than steel. The answer is WILL. It is the unbreakable will of the Warrior, that wields both flesh and steel to achieve victory. Conan's father told him the sword was the answer, but the sword he made broke, Thulsa said it was flesh, but all the power in his being didn't stop that broken sword from cutting his flesh. It is will that is strongest, this is what is displayed at he end when Conan holds Thuls'a head in one hand, and his father's broken sword in the other.
@@johndarcangelo6893 You are correct Steel can turn brittle than break, Flesh turns old and dies but it is human will that is the strongest Because it can be unbreakable.
@Joe Blow As in "ARYANS", which was a group speaking an Indo-European language, long BEFORE the Nazis decided that "Aryans" were their mythical "master race"
Some additional details you may not know: 1. The main plot of the finished script was based on the Kull story, "The Shadow Kingdom." 2. The "Wheel of Pain" set was built to be a functional grain mill, and it actually worked! The large, stone, wheels grind the grain down, and the angle of the wheels push the flower into the mound below to be collected. 3. Sandahal Bergman (Valeria) was such a boss that she finished the entire scene even after having lost the first joint of her finger at the start of the scene.
The sequel is “fun” but the original is brilliant. I’d rank it in the top ten film milestones of the entire 80s. It’s up there with DUNE, Aliens, AND any of the mad max movies.
The biggest problem I've always had with the sequel was its a PG move. Conan is bloody. If they had matched the intensity of the first it would have been so much better.
@@itsallaboutthatbass8558 My question marks were concerning why anyone would think that. Its a clusterfuck of a movie with a big budget, a terrible lead actor and a banal plot based in the weird pulp fiction if a mentally ill recluse. What makes it a movie masterpiece for anyone? what does the OP (and you?) mean by that? What philosophical values in the film is he referring to?
Just play the opening music while taking any flight path in world of Warcraft. You will have the most epic flight you’ve ever seen but more importantly heard!
I am SO glad that Oliver Stone's futuristic, mutant filled abomination of a script idea was not embraced and used. Conan was already an established character, even though not widely popular, and it is an absolute classic, and probably a top three of the sword and sorcery genre, if not the best of all.
As weird as it sounds, a post-apocalyptic, mutant-filled setting wouldn't have been out of place, though it definitely shouldn't have been a futuristic one: Robert E. Howard's Hyborean Age setting was built on some post-apocalyptic stuff, in that it was set after the fall and destruction of Atlantis and the slide of its civilization into barbaric savagery in a landscape full of humans fallen so low into animalistic barbarism that some were devolving into mutant ape men and even primordial serpent-creatures.... The Hyborean Age technically shares a universe with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and as such it would have been a world dotted with the crumbling ruins of antediluvian civilizations built by alien ancient astronauts, sometimes still inhabited by their corrupted, hybrid, sub-human cults.... The conceit of both authors would have been that the Earth is indescribably ancient, and human history terribly old, having gone through forgotten cycles of prehistory in which human civilization advanced to great sophistication only to fall into post-apocalyptic decadence multiple times, after replacing a long series of inhuman monster precursor races that had risen to even greater heights and fallen to even lower depths over longer periods of time than humans could ever dream of.... With a little vision, that post-apocalyptic script might have been reworked into at least a decent Conan adaptation, but it definitely sounds to me, based on that snippet from the script, like Oliver Stone was not a fan of Weird pulp literature, didn't understand Robert E. Howard, and probably didn't have the vision to do anything more with the post-apocalyptic concept than make a Conan-in-name-only Star Wars-meets-Mad Max knockoff! It might still have been entertaining - hell, 'Yor, Hunter from the Future' was pretty entertaining, and ran on pretty much the same concept that Oliver Stone was working with!- but Oliver Stone's vision almost certainly wouldn't have been Conan the Barbarian!
@@pietrayday9915 Thanks for taking the time to flesh that out, very interesting. I guess my issue wasn't as much as with what Stone would have done with it, per se, as much as the fact that it would have meant that the Conan so many of us grew up watching and enjoying would not have been.
I caught the gaffe as well, being a old Conan fan who read the books years before the movies were made. Mr. Minty, I sentence you to read the biography of Robert E. Howard in order to present more accurate videos in the future. Lest the wrath of Crom doth smite thee upon thy shaved pate, as he would an emoji. 😀
@@johnpaul4597 same here we use this and Pink Floyd's Symphonic done by the New York Philharmonic for playing D! As we all lovingly call it. "Let's play some D!"
When I was in high school I didn't study for a history test (well...I didn't study for any tests...) and one of the questions was something like: "In battle what were the Hittites main goals?" Every other question on the test I had 0 confidence in the answers I gave, but this one question I knew I nailed it. My answer was clear and concise and I knew I was 100% correct. I wrote "To crush their enemies, see their enemies driven before them and to hear the lamentations of the women." The teacher gave me full credit for the answer wrote a note next to it that simply said "Great answer!". You're goddamn right it was a great answer.
There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.
Here's a tidbit for whoever made this video: Conan's creator was Robert E. Howard, not "Richard" E. Howard, as you mention at least twice in this video. This may sound petty, but considering Howard's literary legacy and his legions of true fans (excluding those in Hollywood who have repeatedly butchered his work), we certainly would have appreciated you getting this very basic fact right. Otherwise, a good and informative video.
Thank goodness someone pointed this out. I can't believe he kept saying "Richard" when referring to REH. I finally had to stop watching after he said it again, and it was obvious that he didn't mis-speak the first time.
He actually does say Robert E. Howard in the beginning but he then says Richard twice later on. Yeah... Doesn't even talk about Sandahl Bergmen, Valerie Quennessen, Ben Davidson, Sven Ole Thorsen and good old Franco Columbu.
@Matthew Frueh lmao Too bad it was Republicans that caused a violent insurrection and murdered a cop while trying to overthrow the duly elected government.
About 11 years ago when I started dating my wife we sat down one evening to watch "Conan the Barbarian," which she had never seen before. When the opening scroll comes up I begin reciting it with the perfect intonation and at the end she's looking at me like how in the world do you have any space in your brain for the science you need to know. It also might be the point where she fell in love with me I'm not sure.
The fact that she could and would sit through Conan the Barbarian with you makes her instant marriage material on the spot. Lucky man, you got a good one!
She couldn't resist a man who can recite the intro to one of the manliest movies ever! That was when your 'man card' got dipped in GOLD! You da man, man! (bows down humbly)
Aside from being such a badass action classic , the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is excellent. I had it on CD in the 90's and played it to death. My cousin and I were movie buddies and this was a top pick, for sure.
Arnold and Conan always held a special place in my heart. There is just something about that story and the music that makes me feel energized, motivated and passionate. Almost like if someone is powerful and focused enough anything can be achieved, even the darkest of motivations. I truly hope they make a final sequel, that recent Conan did it no justice. Also I have always considered Red Sonja to be Conan 3.
"Conan, the mighiest warrior ever! His quest: to undo the spell of living stone cast upon his family by driving the evil serpent men back into another dimension and vanquishing their leader, the cruel wizard Wrath-A-Mon". That opening(as well as cartoon itself) was so epic with me being a kid. (and still is)
I loved it, it perfectly symbolized Conan's triumph over Thulsa Dooms mind control and I think that sound is what finally snapped the cult members out of their trance.
That's crazy, I was having heart problems and my nephew brought the series over while I was sick. To this day I don't know why my heart started hurting, I was only 36, but Conan cartoon got me through it, helped relax me. Shame to hear about your Dad.
The Legend Of Conan would've made for an interesting film: Seeing Conan as a King and reflecting back on his life and the events that lead up to the setting of this movie
"strike while the iron is hot." then stop. And bury it. Let it rust. Then talk about it. Then drop it. Then forget it. Then realize it's too late to continue when it should have continued when the iron was hot. So much for Conan.
About time minty been waiting for this for ages My favourite quote is Crush your enemies, seem them driven before you and hear the lemendation of the women 😁😁
Related to point number five, the child actor who plays little Conan is called Jorge Sanz and went to be a major name in acting here in Spain during the 90's (even though he wasn't very good haha) There's even a comedic documentary in Netflix about him! ("Qué fue de Jorge Sanz?") Greetings from Barcelona, Minty!
I loved this movie. I need to rewatch. -- I'll admit I nicknamed it "Gonad the Barbarian" when college friends and I watched it. ;) We all loved it. I can't remember if the same friend group rewatched Terminator 1 or Predator, but we did watch Commando, which was entertaining if not so brilliant.
I think we all went through a "Gonad the Ball-barian" phase back then, probably while debating who was stronger - Gonad or the great Greek hero, Testacles (pronounced "Test-a-cleez", to rhyme with Hercules!) "Grow up", they'd tell us, but I don't think it helped, I can still chuckle at it 35 or 40 years later....
A couple years prior to Conan, he was in an Old West comedy, The Villain, with Kirk Douglas and Ann-Margaret. If you've never seen it, it's worth your time; very corny and over-the-top in a Looney Tunes sort of fashion. Hercules in New York came out in 1970, before anyone had even heard of him. I have the version that uses his actual voice, which only makes it marginally more watchable than the dubbed version...then again, maybe not. :-p
My wife is a Doctor, I'm a country boy. As a result I end up at a lot of academic functions with many PhD's and the like. Once I was asked What do I find best in life by one of them. Your post was my answer.
We read my buddies older brothers Black & White Comics of Conan & I remember asking my parents to take me to the movie but they said it was too violent to watch. Two years later they took me to Dune & I was like, "CROM how is this okay for me & not Conan?" I was mad for years at my parents for not taking me & one Christmas they gave me the VHS Conan Movie. Now there's a Christmas movie for ya! I finally got to see it in theaters in 2022 for the 40th Anniversary re-release & it was well worth the wait! Thanks Minty!
In actual fact the movie had a great response do't know where you got your info at the premier people where lined up around the corner they actually had to open up more theaters bikers even showed up and when Arnold first showed up on the first 1 the theater went wild.
@@daviddoyle8956 I wasn't referring to the initial release of Conan The Destroyer in theaters. I'm talking about fans since its home video release. I've personally encountered a lot of American fans who don't like the sequel. It's too fantasy driven, and not as gritty as the first one was.
As a kid in the 80's, one of the best things to come from "Conan The Barbarian" was the live action show at Universal Studios (California). Even though the live show's story varied from the film, it was still a lot of fun and exciting to watch, especially at the opening, when a scantly clan woman warrior would drop down from the ceiling on a rope (which always inspired plenty of cheers and wolf-whistling) and onto the set that was designed to look like the inside of some ancient cavern. By the way, Minty, you failed to mention the little known 'Conan' sequel: "Conan The Librarian." ;-)
"Conan the Destroyer" was a fun movie, but it never came close to the quality of the original. ... Also, "Conan the Barbarian" is unique in the way that is relies heavily on music and narration with minimal (but memorable) dialog. ... I also really like how the ending is a juxtaposition of the beginning. ... In the beginning Thulsa Doom's men attack Conan's village taking his people by surprise. They kill the adults, enslave the children and burn the village to the ground. In the end Thulsa Doom's men attack again, but this time Conan and his friends are ready, and it's Thulsa Doom's men who are killed. Conan then kills Thulsa Doom, frees his "children" and burns his temple to the ground.
I remember I couldn't wait to see this at the cinema. Went with a group of fellow fans of the comic and we were not disappointed! Shame it did drop off with the sequel and Red Sonja but I still watch the original on DVD from time to time !
Loved “Conan The Barbarian” ❤️ Whenever my mom and I watched it I used to proclaim, “look mom, it’s cannibal’s soup!” when the scene where the dump out the soup came on. What can I say? I was really young.
I met Arnold a year or so before Conan was released in the UK, I was already a big Conan fan reading the books, comics and collecting the artwork. but was also into bodybuilding and this is how I came to meet him, he was doing bodybuilding seminars around the UK and he appeared at the Ritz in Manchester he looked great although he didn't pose, I think it was Bill Grant who guest posed. I asked him about the movie and if he was excited about it's release? Anyway it was good to know that I met Arnold before he really hit the big time and he was just as funny, engaging as his hollywood persona went on to be. Personally I think the way to make a Conan film successful is for it to be ultra violent and realistic with no regard for PC scripting, unfortunately the way Hollywood is today I very much doubt that would ever happen
Thindar the Barbarian! The ideal of Conan being in a rundown future sounds like it got recycled to be one of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid. Thundar the Barbarian. In that a meteor passed between the earth and moon that ripped the moon in half and almost destroyed the earth. Earthquakes, giant tidal waves and volcanoes destroyed modern earth. In a post apocalyptic earth Thundar wonders the earth with a band of human and mutant freinds helping people along the way. There are a few reoccurring bad guys that try to get ride if Thundar. It was awsome!
I forgot about Thundar! Edgar Rice Burroughs probably did it first over a century ago, with the John Carter / Barsoom stories, which were sort of a sword-and-sorcery thing set on a post-apocalyptic Mars dotted by the decaying ruins of technologically advanced Martian civilizations. You could see John Carter's shadow being cast over a whole lot of '80s fantasy in particular, with "Masters of the Universe' being a pretty obvious John Carter knock-off, and the likes of 'Dune', 'Star Wars', and 'Flash Gordon' borrowing pretty heavily from John Carter as well. John Carter also set the template for a lot of superhero stories, starting with Superman as a sort of John Carter clone (John Carter was an Earth man who travels to Mars where he discovers that Earth's heavier gravity gave him super-strength compared to the Martians - Superman simply turned the equation around and brought an alien with super-strength to Earth!) A couple lesser-known examples of this odd mix of fantasy and sci-fi that I can think of include the Arco 'The Other World' toy line from the '80s (rubber fantasy action figures on wire frames packaged with glow-in-the-dark plastic weapons - most of the figures were pretty blatant copies of John Carter characters), a wonderfully schlocky '80s sword-and-laser movie called 'Yor - Hunter from the Future' (featuring a sword-wielding barbarian fighter in a world populated with dinosaurs, cave men, and an alien dictator leading an army of robots - pretty kooky stuff, but nothing that wouldn't have been routine on Edgard Rice burroughs' Barsoom!), and an odd original '80s era Dungeons and Dragons adventure module, 'Expedition to the Barrier Peaks', in which a party of the usual wizards-and-warriors fantasy adventurers sneak into a "dungeon" in the form of an ancient crashed spaceship filled with alien monsters and deranged robots.... In Edgar Rice Burroughs' own time, the 'Planetary Romance' sci-fi subgenre copying John Carter was pretty big business, with Burroughs himself recycling the idea for stories set on Venus and elsewhere, many pulp authors copying the basic formula, and newspaper comic strips, comicbooks, radio plays, and film serials borrowing the basic idea (with Flash Gordon being among the more memorable remnants of that era!) Sadly, it seems like Burroughs' weird blend of fantasy and science fiction fell pretty hard out of fashion over the years, and even the (underrated) 'John Carter' film adaptation from a few years ago slipped under the radar of most fantasy and sci-fi film fans, who - not realizing just how old the story really was - in many cases mistook it for a 'Star Wars' rip-off! I'm pretty sure that Oliver Stone wasn't very familiar with Conan the Cimmerian, and definitely wasn't a fan when writing his script, but was instead drawing from John Carter in scripting that post-apocalyptic futuristic sword-and-sorcery setting. It might have been interesting to see the results, and might even have ended up a fun and well-loved fantasy film in its own right, but it definitely wouldn't have felt much like a proper Conan adaptation! (Then again, Robert E.Howard's Hyborean Age setting for the Conan stories WAS a sort of post-apocalyptic setting in its way - not necessarily futuristic, but it was set after the fall and obliteration of a relatively sophisticated Atlantean civilization, in a world that hid more than a few weird monsters and devolved mutant ape-men and serpent-people! I doubt Oliver Stone realized that, but the post-apocalyptic thing wasn't completely unsound.....)
Bonus fact: Arnold had gotten himself into such good shape for the film, and when it was delayed, he figured “I didn’t get in this shape for nothing, might as well compete one last time in bodybuilding.” He returned and won his 7th Mr Olympia in 1980, and this story was featured in a smaller scale version of Pumping Iron called “the comeback”, which is available on RU-vid.
He did Conan at 215ibs pretty light for him but he got so lean that he looks bigger than you'd guess he packed on about another 20lbs. for the Mr. O but let's be honest he didn't deserve that win.
@@faz6877 what year was Conan, wasn't it 82? his last O was 80,I think? anyway, I remember hearing him say in an interview that Dino told him that he needed to gain more weight for the role and that he laughed at him, but went from 210 220,to 240? Either way, no way he deserves to win the last time, other competition was furious
Monty Monty Monty, you only got it right ONCE in the beginning. ROBERT E Howard, mate, NOT Richard. (Yeah,... I know it’s “Minty”,.... see how aggravating it is?)
Fun fact about Robbie Howard, he was best friends with Lovecraft. You can see tons of inspiration from Lovecraft's works in Conan's OG S&S Weird Tales works.
One scene in the movie that I was a little disappointed in was when Conan entered the cave with the dead giant King on a throne in that he didn't come to life , that scene was actually in one of the Conan books and it came to life. I was a disappointed it didn't rise up.
It was _supposed_ to (if you look close enough, you can tell it’s prosthetics and makeup on someone), but whether it was the budget (as I believe CtB was @ $30 million in 1982 money) or a time/pacing issue. It could also have to do with Millius wanting to downplay magic and monsters to some element of believability.
@@TheRealNormanBates .... Yeah I kinda figured it was probably monetary and with the special effects of that time it probably would've been difficult to do it right. When Conan was about to leave and the giant moved slightly and Conan turned to it , I thought here it comes and nothing happened , I thought......damn. lol
Dreams of snow oh, I’m sure they could have done it (with the lighting... have a short fight... etc), but I think it was more about _time_ and _pacing._
William Johnson that makes sense. But also, they come from across the world and every anglophone country has it’s ways. I think it’s saddest when Ozzies and Brits try to sound like septics because they’re the larger audience.
I wish they'd come out with other fantasy characters from that era of my life when I was reading Conan pulp fantasy novels. I'm still waiting on an Elric movie.
The Kull movie is acceptable, the Doc Savage movie is pretty much unbearable terrible. The Shadow (if you accept that as fantasy) is imho a great movie, Rocketeer (if to you that is fantasy) is also quite neat and The Phantom was acceptable. Not sure if there were a lot more 30"s pulp stars/comic heroes that made it to the movies (well The Spirit, but that wasn't fantasy, but just horrible).
A friend of mine dressed as Elric one year for Halloween. At this big party we went to, I think only my sister knew who he was, as no one else had read the books.
Oh sweet black Buddha! I hope Hollywood NEVER attempts to make an Elric movie. They'd screw it up worse than what was done to Solomon Kane. Hollywood would try to make him a good guy. And they'd cast a bodybuilder to play him.
Totally agree, the soundtrack is one of the legit most epic fantasy scores ever. It literally drives the film. It allows the space to build the world and set the tone.
The Soundtrack was composed by Basil Poledouris and is one of the best I have ever heard. Watch the opening sequence when Thulsa Doom's hoard attacks the village and you will see how perfectly the music, choir and instruments coincide with the action on screen.
During the raid on Mount Doom, when they abducted the princess, there's a point where Conan kind of leans in close to someone after he slices them open. If you listen carefully, you can hear him say "Are you alright?" very faintly.
As a kid I loved both movies, but Destroyer was my favorite. Years later, and many rewatchings of both movies, and Conan the Barbarian is my favorite. The movie is just brilliant. Destroyer as many have said is a "fun" adventure movie, good guy vs bad, and you know he will win the day sort of film. Conan the Barbarian is a masterpiece in visuals, story teller, and style. As you watch it its clear, Conan is not your classic good guy that will win the day. Hes a flawed character, that goes on a revenge quest. Your never sure during the movie if it will pan out in the end. And the ending leaves Conan with much to consider. A character reflecting on thier own journey, and what will come after. And lets not forget the music... OMG the music. This would have been an entirely different feel to the movie without the music score. Still to this day, I listen to my Conan the Barbarian CD. Conan the Barbarian goes on my list of 10 movies that defined my childhood.
Bonus unfun fact: THUNDARR was set for a second season, but the guy who produced HAPPY DAYS wanted the time slot on Saturday morning to replace it with a HAPPY DAYS cartoon. At the time, he was the producer of many super successful shows, so whatever he wanted he got.
This is really interesting. When was the timeline for stone’s script. Did he get mad and sell it for a cartoon as a FU. Did someone see Thundar and get inspiration for a script. If Conan went forward with this script I THINK it would have bombed as a cartoon ripoff. Cancelling Thundar for whatever was uncool. Everyone in fifth grade was in agreement that Ookla was some kind of Wookiee. It really had a Han/chewie feel to it.
Isn't it odd the video fails to mention that? Arnold couldn't/wouldn't do it and Sorbo didn't want to step into an already established character so Kull was born
Heck, I still do! I know, she's way older now, but to me she'll always be Valeria. She and Virginia Hey from The Road Warrior were my first big screen crushes; even when I was six.
Conan was also a direct descendant of Kull of Atlantis. When escaping the wolves the tomb Conan finds is King Kull's... it''s Kull on the throne and the sword is Conan's birthright.
Really. I wasn't aware of all of that, but the entombed giants were certainly meant to be Atlantean kings, and Conan was meant to be the descendant of doomed Atlantis! I believe the movie's script follows a story from the Marvel comic books based on Robert E. Howard's creations, and so the comics would be the first place I'd look (I'm pretty sure the movie isn't based directly on any particular Robert E. Howard story, and as far as his own work is concerned, the Atlantis angle is mostly "all there in the manual" in essays that REH wrote about his character, which Marvel's writers would have referred to for the comic.) That Atlantean background is what makes Oliver Stone's unused script sound tantalizing and vaguely frustrating: Robert E. Howard's Hyborean Age actually WAS a post-apocalyptic setting, following the sudden fall and destruction of a relatively sophisticated (but not precisely "futuristic") ancient Atlantis, and Howard's Conan stories were actually canon for H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, where alien monsters and subhuman mutants actually were a thing - they popped up all the time in Robert E. Howard's stories, including a few examples in the Conan stories, and very similar Bran Mak Morn stories set in the same universe, in Roman-era Britannia ("Worms of the Earth", for example, is as fine a sword-and-sorcery cosmic horror story as any ever written, with some pretty darned terrifying mutant creatures in it!) But, Oliver Stone's script does NOT sound like a proper Conan story - I don't think Oliver Stone was very familiar with Robert E. Howard or Lovecraft, and his futuristic post-apocalyptic world doesn't sound like it would have been grounded in the Theosophical "deep history" angle that weird fiction runs on, so I'm pretty sure Stone's script would have gone pretty wide of the mark, coming off sounding something more like a John Carter adaptation in spirit than a Conan adaptation - not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it could still have been a fun fantasy movie - but it wouldn't have felt much like Conan, by the sound of it! Anyway, the tomb Conan finds is absolutely a post-apocalyptic remnant of the fallen Atlantean civilization, of whom the Cimmereans - and ultimately Conan - were some of the last survivors.
