Crowley Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 9 hours ago, BlazingTornado said: I dunno, maybe I'm more lenient because the Conan I grew up with was Conan The Adventurer, a terrible cartoon that basically involves a black-haired He-Man hanging around with the new Masters of the Universe and fighting King Hiss and his Snake Men with their magic weapons that, instead of maiming, just banish the snakes to the touch. That was my first Conan too. And probably because of that, I'm pretty happy to enjoy all of the movies, including Red Sonja. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 A thing I have never understood about Conan adaptations is why we have to kill Conan's family. They did this nonsense in half the sword and sandal films ever made, including the bulldada classic Sorceress, and it's completely unnecessary. In the books, Conan headed south because he was curious, because he wanted money, and because he figured he could make his way among these decadent Southerners. A reiver, an adventurer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, yadda yadda. The evil sorcerers didn't show up until later. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 Probably for the same reason why Disney movies always kill at least one parent, if not both. It's probably supposed to create pathos. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knarthex Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 I still wonder why they didn't do the fight with the skeleton in the first Arnie movie.....(when he gets the sword after leaving the slave pits....) Would have been cool..... There are too many references to the books for them to have NOT read at least some of them before writing the script.... Biting the head from the vulture while crucified was from another story as well.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranky Dog Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Though the Conan the Barbarian movie is cheesy in many ways, I like to think about it as being "fine" cheese. Despite its cheesiness, you know you want to savor it. Basil Poledouris' score put the movie in a league of its own. Incidentally, my first Conan experience was Conan the Destroyer (saw it during its original release) which really felt more like a typical D&D adventure: Quest given Random bunch of heroes and characters gather: barbarian, thief, monk, wizard, princess, fighter, sorceress, camel, etc. Dungeons, wizard towers, evil hidden cults, sewers and secret passages. Epic fight against corrupted god. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowley Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Oh yeah... that music!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 1 hour ago, David Brawley said: Oh yeah... that music!! The music I will grant you - makes fine background for gaming. One thing that has annoyed me with the vision of Conan from the eighties was that he was completely fearless... yet in the original stories he was definitely prepared to give his feet the chance to take his body out of danger. (That's a freakin' giant! Run!) Mind you, he would then gather some buddies, and come back with reinforcements.... The Auld Grump 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Basil Poledouris was generally awesome, and with his music, even the mediocre could soar. But I still wanna see someone do "Tower of the Elephant" or "Red Nails." TOTE in particular had everything a good Conan story was MADE of, except the cowering blonde in gauze, which these days is enough of a cliche we could do without it. Giant spiders! Attack lions! Evil sorceror! And an Elder Being who turns the ending inside out! And so far, only the comics have seen fit to adapt this. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 I was also a fan of Howard's Cthulhu Mythos stories - and even... The Challenge From Beyond. The Auld Grump - a round robin story shared by C. L. Moore, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long - with none of them planning it out ahead of time. Silly stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Seems to me that a pretty good Conan movie... or TV series... could be made of how an extremely capable, if callow and arrogant teenager, could, in time, be forged into the guy who became king of Aquilonia. None of the movies have ever really had much of an idea WHAT to do with Conan's personality, which I guess is why we have to kill his family... to give him a motivation for being a grim avenger with a sword and thews of steel and so forth. ...as opposed to the motivation he had in the stories: money. With which to buy wine, women, and song. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loim Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Red Nails is probably my favorite Conan. I'd love to see someone do it right. I also dislike how Conan is often times portrayed as a bit simple. In the stories he was pretty smart. He wasn't a "good" guy really. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auberon Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Hollywood likes simple motivations that a producer believes an audience can intuitively grasp. Things like vengeance fall into this category, which is why it comes up so often. It's unlikely that your entire family has been killed off by an evil villain (my sympathies if anyone reading this has) but most people have felt unjustly wronged at some point and wanted a little get even. Sure, there are complex characters and motivations in movies, but they are rare in the summer-action-blockbuster genre. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 3 hours ago, Loim said: Red Nails is probably my favorite Conan. I'd love to see someone do it right. I also dislike how Conan is often times portrayed as a bit simple. In the stories he was pretty smart. He wasn't a "good" guy really. Yes, exactly. He was motivated by self interest ... several stories, he was trying to steal something, or signed up as a mercenary or pirate... but he wound up doing the right thing, often as not. He was a barbarian, not a fool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 6 hours ago, Dr.Bedlam said: Basil Poledouris was generally awesome, and with his music, even the mediocre could soar. But I still wanna see someone do "Tower of the Elephant" or "Red Nails." TOTE in particular had everything a good Conan story was MADE of, except the cowering blonde in gauze, which these days is enough of a cliche we could do without it. Giant spiders! Attack lions! Evil sorceror! And an Elder Being who turns the ending inside out! And so far, only the comics have seen fit to adapt this. Tower of the Elephant was adapted incredibly faithfully in a single issue of the Marvel comic. It would need an incredible amount of padding and expansion to fill a movie's running time. It'd be perfect for an episodic Conan TV series/cartoon format. Which could be doable in today's world of Netflix and Crackle original shows as well as more mature-oriented cartoons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skippen Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 I am still keeping hopes alive for a Thundaar the Barbarian RPG. :D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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