The new Conan... where do I start?

[ThirstyStirge]

I can just see it as if in a vision, circa 2074: as we peek into a window of a lecture hall of some ivy-clad building, what do we discern being taught in the class? Well, I'll be damned! It's the hallowed Tomes of The Gygax, Creator of Worlds! Those volumes are required reading -- esteemed alongside the classics of the great American writers Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber -- for all university degrees in every country.

They are now used in the United Nations to settle disputes, and the Secretary General serves as the referee! However, the Wondrous Writ of the EGG is not only the prized possession of heads of state -- even commoners use it to decide all manner of mundanities! Why, pear-shaped, suburban Midwestern housewives (who a century ago had dreaded the hideous clatter of dice in their sons' bedrooms) now roll a d20 to determine the week's menu!

Welcome to THE FUTURE!!!!!

"Oh. My. God. She rolled a one! Save vs. Meatloaf!!!"

[Badmike]

The list is long for scribblers who were thought of as trash during their lifetimes only to be properly appreciated by future generations. These include Edgar Allen Poe, if you want to read something funny look up some of the reactions to his work in the 19th century, "crap" is a polite word for what most critics thought of his writings. I don't think it's far-fetched that the PHB and DMG find an audience in the future that elevate it beyond just "game lit". Certainly a lot of the pulp writers mentioned are already expanding their audiences and circles of appreciation.

As for rolling dice: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 93492.html

Mike B.

[T. Foster]

As a depiction of Howard's character it's an utter failure on every single level. Every.....single.....level.

What about as a filmic representation of Frank Frazetta's iconic Conan paintings? Because except for Arnold's hair being the wrong color I'd say it was pretty damn successful there. And, let's face it, at the time the movie was made (1982) those paintings were a lot more definitive in the potential audience's mind of "what Conan is" than Howard's texts (which were only available in de Camp & Carter's adulterated versions) -- if anything I think Milius et al. deserve a lot of credit for using Frazetta as their visual touchstone and going with his dark, bloody, R-rated feel over the more sanitized version seen in the Marvel comics (which is, essentially, what we got in Conan the Destroyer).

Also, I re-watched the first half-hour of the movie last night, and think the complaints about the infamous "mill" sequence are overrated -- it's a visual shorthand to show the passage of time and establish continuity between the kid and Arnold as representing the same character and is not to be taken literally (at even the most basic level he's wearing different clothes when he's pulled off the mill as an adult then when he's placed on it as a child, so although we only see him pushing the mill during all that time it's clear he must've been taken off it at at least some points). Furthermore, it's clear within the context of the screenplay that Conan spent considerable time as both a pit-fighter and in the Khitan school and was not yet fully "grown" when pulled off the mill -- it doesn't look that way in the movie because Arnold is the actor in all those scenes so he looks the same age in all of them, and ideally they would have hired one or two more "intermediate age" actors for those scenes and only had "adult Conan" (i.e. Arnold) appear at the end of that sequence (in the "what is best in life?" scene, presumably) but there are obvious practical reasons why that wasn't done. At a guess, I'd say Conan was intended to be maybe 11 when his village was wiped out, 14 when taken off the mill, 17 when sent to the Khitan school, and 20 when he escapes from it.

So, in summary, anybody who bases their dislike on the movie on the stupidity of Conan having spent half his life pushing a mill around a circle needs to get over it.

[Matthew]

The John Milius Conan movie is phenomenal -- the cinematography and locations (all in Spain, IIRC) are great, the production design, sets and costumes are all gorgeous and look exactly like Frazetta's art, the screenplay (heavily modified (i.e. pretty much totally re-written) by Milius from an original screenplay by Oliver Stone) is one of the purest expressions of Milius' career-long thematic obsessions (see also Dirty Harry, Jeremiah Johnson, The Wind and the Lion, the "Indianapolis" monologue in Jaws, Big Wednesday (one of my all-time favorite movies), Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, and HBO's Rome for other examples), and last but not least the score by the late great Basil Poledouris is literally one of the best movie scores ever written. Yeah the acting by everybody except James Earl Jones and William Smith (in his two scenes at the beginning as Conan's father) is weak (Arnold was a bodybuilder, Sandhal Bergman (Valeria) a dancer, Gerry Lopez (Subotai) a pro surfer, all with minimal prior acting experience and presumably hired for their looks (and Milius' coke-fueled ego thinking "I don't need any fucking actors; I'm John Fucking Milius!")) and the story isn't true to Howardian canon (though IMO it's as true to Howardean themes as it needs to be) and Arnold doesn't look like Howard's descriptions (though he does look like Frazetta's art), but those are quibbles, and there's much much more good about this movie than there is bad. It is one of my favorite movies of the 1980s.

Conan the Destroyer is not nearly as good (note: John Milius had nothing whatsoever to do with this movie), but it is a lot of cheesy popcorn fun (IMO it's probably the closest a movie has ever come (and probably ever will come) to feeling like an AD&D adventure -- I don't think it's any coincidence this movie came out right when D&D was at the height of its popularity and TSR had just licensed "Conan" AD&D modules with Arnold's pic on the covers) and it still looks pretty good (same set and costume designers as the original, and cinematography by the late great Jack Cardiff) and the score is still pretty good (still by Poledouris, though he obviously wasn't trying as hard the second time around). I was 9 years old and had just gotten into D&D when this movie came out, and I loved it -- I didn't see the first Conan movie for another couple years, because it was rated R, but this one was PG. 15 years earlier and with the main character named Hercules instead of Conan it could've been a drive-in B-movie classic.

Red Sonja, alas, is 100% unmitigated shit.

I would go along with most of that, though I am probably harder on Conan the Destroyer and less hard on Red Sonja, as well as feeling the design work was closer to Frazetta than the execution. Still, more or less agree.

[fingolwyn]

I think that THIS:

I recently read an interview with one of the screen writers behind the upcoming Conan film and he actually answered this question. His answer made some "sense," even if it pained me: when Hollywood shells out $100 million for a film, they want to ensure that it's accessible to as large a potential audience as possible. So that means marrying a recognizable "brand name" to an original story that spells it all out for those who know only the name and nothing more.

Explains why we will never see THIS:

Why don't we just make a list of the bare minimum it would take to make a "Howard" Conan flick acceptable?

For me it would be:

The Conan that was a noted warrior since a young age (no "Conan the Slave", or "Thulsa Doom is my father", or any other ridiculous bastardization of what we know of Conan's past) and is about middle aged, having served as a mercenary, pirate, brigand, rogue, and is becoming well known for his escapades;

A Conan that is not a bodybuilder;

A Conan that is not a stupid brute, but shows intelligence and cunning to win battles and solve problems;

No love interest (except for Belit he never really had a long-term relationship before he became king);

At least an attempt to follow the outline of a great Howard tale;

A Conan that is wandering the world seeking his fortune, and an explicit theme comparing the softness of modern pampered society with the "triumph of barbarism over all";

Some interesting sidekicks that aren't Fantasy Cliche #1, #2, #3, etc

No one in Hollywood is going to risk $100 million on a movie that incorporates these sorts of things. No love interest? You just lost 50% of the potential audience (women). No brutish bodybuilder? That's what most non-Howard fans think of Conan. Follow someone else's story? Sans cliche characters the kids will love? Hollywood doesn't work like that. We may hate it, but just as with everything else aimed at a mass audience, we don't really matter.

LotR and Harry Potter were different. LotR is FAR better known than Howard's Conan, and the Harry Potter movies had bazillions of very recent book sales backing them. Conan is kinda like Tarzan...who (other than fans of ERB) remembers him as an educated British lord instead of the vine-swinging, clipped English-speaking jungle man of the Weissmuller movies?

[James Maliszewski]

Conan is kinda like Tarzan...who (other than fans of ERB) remembers him as an educated British lord instead of the vine-swinging, clipped English-speaking jungle man of the Weissmuller movies?

And, also like Conan, his name is constantly mispronounced

[Random]

Conan is kinda like Tarzan...who (other than fans of ERB) remembers him as an educated British lord instead of the vine-swinging, clipped English-speaking jungle man of the Weissmuller movies?

And, also like Conan, his name is constantly mispronounced

I would absolutely adore you if you would post a pronunciation key.
People have always said those names around me in completely different ways, so I'm not sure what's correct.

[James Maliszewski]

I would absolutely adore you if you would post a pronunciation key.
People have always said those names around me in completely different ways, so I'm not sure what's correct.

Conan and Tarzan are actually pronounced similarly, with the accent on the first syllable, not the second as many are prone to do. Likewise, the "-an" ending in both use a neutral vowel sound rather than a short a. So, it's "CO-nun" (as in Arthur Conan Doyle's name) and "TAHR-zun" rather than "Co-NAN" and "Tahr-ZAN."

[Random]

I would absolutely adore you if you would post a pronunciation key.
People have always said those names around me in completely different ways, so I'm not sure what's correct.

Conan and Tarzan are actually pronounced similarly, with the accent on the first syllable, not the second as many are prone to do. Likewise, the "-an" ending in both use a neutral vowel sound rather than a short a. So, it's "CO-nun" (as in Arthur Conan Doyle's name) and "TAHR-zun" rather than "Co-NAN" and "Tahr-ZAN."

Whew! So I am correct and everyone I know is silly.
I always pronounced it Conan like in Conan O'Brien.

[James Maliszewski]

I always pronounced it Conan like in Conan O'Brien.

Precisely. And, in case anyone asks, we have it on pretty good authority that this is how Howard pronounced it. His one-time girlfriend, Novalyne Price Ellis, for example, expressed confusion as to why so many people said it "Co-NAN," since she never heard Bob Howard say it that way in all the years she knew him. As for Tarzan, Burroughs's daughter, Joan, is recorded in several places to have said that her father was dismayed by the way his character's name was pronounced in the MGM serials with Johnny Weismuller but not enough that he bothered to correct them on this point.

[BlackBat242]

Conan the Destroyer is not nearly as good (note: John Milius had nothing whatsoever to do with this movie),

I would go along with most of that, though I am probably harder on Conan the Destroyer

You could never be hard enough on CtD.

The ONLY good thing in that movie was Grace Jones and the character she played!

[Badmike]

As a depiction of Howard's character it's an utter failure on every single level. Every.....single.....level.

What about as a filmic representation of Frank Frazetta's iconic Conan paintings? Because except for Arnold's hair being the wrong color I'd say it was pretty damn successful there. And, let's face it, at the time the movie was made (1982) those paintings were a lot more definitive in the potential audience's mind of "what Conan is" than Howard's texts (which were only available in de Camp & Carter's adulterated versions) -- if anything I think Milius et al. deserve a lot of credit for using Frazetta as their visual touchstone and going with his dark, bloody, R-rated feel over the more sanitized version seen in the Marvel comics (which is, essentially, what we got in Conan the Destroyer).

Also, I re-watched the first half-hour of the movie last night, and think the complaints about the infamous "mill" sequence are overrated -- it's a visual shorthand to show the passage of time and establish continuity between the kid and Arnold as representing the same character and is not to be taken literally (at even the most basic level he's wearing different clothes when he's pulled off the mill as an adult then when he's placed on it as a child, so although we only see him pushing the mill during all that time it's clear he must've been taken off it at at least some points). Furthermore, it's clear within the context of the screenplay that Conan spent considerable time as both a pit-fighter and in the Khitan school and was not yet fully "grown" when pulled off the mill -- it doesn't look that way in the movie because Arnold is the actor in all those scenes so he looks the same age in all of them, and ideally they would have hired one or two more "intermediate age" actors for those scenes and only had "adult Conan" (i.e. Arnold) appear at the end of that sequence (in the "what is best in life?" scene, presumably) but there are obvious practical reasons why that wasn't done. At a guess, I'd say Conan was intended to be maybe 11 when his village was wiped out, 14 when taken off the mill, 17 when sent to the Khitan school, and 20 when he escapes from it.

So, in summary, anybody who bases their dislike on the movie on the stupidity of Conan having spent half his life pushing a mill around a circle needs to get over it.

Milius does a great job of creating a generic barbarian hero, and the film is successful on that level. But remember I said a depiction of "Howard's" Conan. Frazetta's Conan, while evocative, is not Howard's Conan (although as you said is the version most closely associated in casual fan's minds when they think of Conan). Perhaps the closest visual representation I know of is Barry Windor's Smith's Conan of the first 20 or so issues of the Marvel Conan the Barbarian comic of the 70s; when Buscema took over the art after Smith for the next 150 issues or so he immediately went to the Frazetta/muscle bound version (more of a superhero look, as befitted his background as a Marvel comics artist). As for the "Conan the Slave", it just doesn't appear in any way, shape or form in any Howard novel, so it's created out of whole cloth and I'd say it was intended to create a sort of origin since Howard never explicitly states a sequence of Conan from childhood to young adult. It doesn't fit Howard's character at all and I was disappointed with it the first time I saw it in the theater. It's as if the LOTR movie started out with Aragorn being trained as a ninja warrior or something, it's that jarring if you're familiar with Howard's Conan. The obsession with showing an "origin" isn't a modern one, apparently, as Hollywood thinks if we were to begin a story in medias reas it would stop our brain.

Ironically, the writers of Conan the Destroyer (Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway) were gifted comic writers and Thomas was a huge Howard/Conan fan as well as scripting the first 125 or so issues of the Marvel Comic. It's odd to me that such a mess came out of this, but I wonder how much the screenplay writer or director may have put into the final product.

Mike B.

[Falconer]

Earlier generations also gave the second syllable of “robot” a neutral vowel.

[Matthew]

I always pronounced it Conan like in Conan O'Brien.

Precisely. And, in case anyone asks, we have it on pretty good authority that this is how Howard pronounced it. His one-time girlfriend, Novalyne Price Ellis, for example, expressed confusion as to why so many people said it "Co-NAN," since she never heard Bob Howard say it that way in all the years she knew him. As for Tarzan, Burroughs's daughter, Joan, is recorded in several places to have said that her father was dismayed by the way his character's name was pronounced in the MGM serials with Johnny Weismuller but not enough that he bothered to correct them on this point.

The tendency to pronounce "man" as something approaching "min" or "mun" when ending a word is pretty widespread, possibly because it requires less effort when speaking, but I am not sure it is a big deal to pronounce these syllables "hard" or "soft", it is just different. On the other hand, the presenter introducing Watchmen the other night did pronounce the "men" part "hard" and it sounded odd indeed, but not to him I suppose. As an analogue to this sort of thing, I was watching American Dad last night and noticed that the voice actor pronounced "coup de grace" phonetically, rather than as "cu de gra", not to mention the advert for learning foreign languages that continually pronounces "pronunciation" as "pronounciation", always funny but obviously not of concern for the vast majority of listeners. Anyway, bottom line is that I enjoy knowing that "Conan" is pronounced something like "Conin", but nothing is likely ever going to prompt me to pronounce it differently, but if I did then I expect only a very few people would even notice (maybe my wife).

It doesn't fit Howard's character at all and I was disappointed with it the first time I saw it in the theater. It's as if the LOTR movie started out with Aragorn being trained as a ninja warrior or something, it's that jarring if you're familiar with Howard's Conan.

As jarring as the birthing sequence for the orcs or Aragorn saying "lets hunt some orc" as the final lines in Fellowship? Let us not pretend that those movies sacrificed a lot on the altar of mass appeal.

The ONLY good thing in that movie was Grace Jones and the character she played!

Ha! I thought that was one of the worst elements! C'est la vie!

[Badmike]

As jarring as the birthing sequence for the orcs or Aragorn saying "lets hunt some orc" as the final lines in Fellowship?

Well, that was just dumb movie writer dialogue writing, it didn't change the basic tenets of his character. Having Conan be a slave goes against everything Howard wanted to express with Conan's character and showed an agenda that Milius was telling HIS story about HIS barbarian, that just happened to go by the name Conan. Wouldn't a scene about Aragorn being a slave of the orcs, then escaping them and ending up at the Inn of the Prancing Pony been a head scratcher?

BTW, is there anything anywhere about what parts of the script were Stones, and which were Milius'? This was in the old days when Stone was writing classics like Salvador, before he flipped out.

Mike B.