Conan The Barbarian (2011)

[Evil Agent]

This is one of those movies that was stuck in development hell for years. I first heard about it back in 2002, when there was still some hope that Arnold Schwarzenegger would reprise the role. This year the film will finally be released (August 2011), but Conan will be played by Jason Momoa.

Ever since Arnold was officially out, I've had low expectations for this film. Momoa will also be featured in the upcoming Game of Thrones (playing a warrior chieftain named Khal Drogo) but that's still six weeks away, so I have yet to see him in action. The few Conan set pics that were leaked online didn't look very promising.

Still... there's a small part of me that hopes this turns out to be a pleasant surprise. Particularly since I finally got around to reading some of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories a couple of years ago.

I'm also posting this today because a new "motion poster" for the film was just released. I have to say, the poster is pretty awesome.

Not too thrilled about the title, though. Calling it Conan The Barbarian again? Not sure whether this can top the original film (which I love).

[spaziocain]

Great poster. Looking at the pictures of Jason Momoa I think he looks awesome for the role. Thank God he's in pants and not a loin cloth. This could be so so good if they get it right. And surely it can't be any worse than Conan the Destroyer?

[saintjon]

I like what I'm seeing so far. I don't have so much of a love affair with the old Arnold movie either. Special effects of the time are what they are but I have a hard time believing they couldn't find a good fight choreographer.

[Daddy Darth]

I am certainly game for a reboot, though I do have a real fondness for the original. I liked the story which was so enhanced by the soundtrack. Arnie rocked that one out. It really seemed liked the first one had more of a genuine vibe whereas Destroyer felt to campy for my tastes. Too bad b/c I would have liked more Arnie Conan movies till he became the king.

I like that poster of Conan standing on the skulls.

[Lagomorph_Rex]

I am certainly game for a reboot, though I do have a real fondness for the original. I liked the story which was so enhanced by the soundtrack. Arnie rocked that one out. It really seemed liked the first one had more of a genuine vibe whereas Destroyer felt to campy for my tastes. Too bad b/c I would have liked more Arnie Conan movies till he became the king.

I like that poster of Conan standing on the skulls.

It's not actually a reboot.. beyond a few superficial similarities.. it has a totally different story from the 1982 movie. It wasn't even originally going to be "Conan the Barbarian" but just "Conan".

This is getting a bit more right than the Arnie movie, which really had very little connection to the Robert E. Howard stories.. At least Conan is going to have Blue Eyes from what we know.. but Hollywood still seems to be having difficulties figuring out that they can.. actually base a movie off a book and have a semi-faithful translation of it..

I'm not going to get my hopes up, but if it does well I should like to see them actually adapt one or more of Robert E. Howard's stories for the sequel.. none of them are really long enough to adapt individually.. But I'd really like to see Tower of the Elephant done better than when the T.V. series did it.

[Daddy Darth]

I did not realize till very recently the movie was not based on the books. I have been reading some of the original Howard Conan lately and they are great action stories with amazing settings. What I have not really found in the Howard stories though is a real emotional hook. Conan goes from one adventure to another, slaying, plundering and theiving. That is why the first movie was successful, you gave a **** about Conan and his relationship and the motivation to kill James Earl Jones (what was his name). But I got a lot more Conan to read so there may be more of what I seek later on.

So its a redo - I look forward to it.

[Ocajnik]

I did not know of this! Yes! Conan is one my favorites. I will definitely be watching this.

[Lagomorph_Rex]

the original Conan stories are uneven. Howard was writing to get paid, and so turned out some fairly mediocre tales in an effort to send a constant barrage of stuff to his magazines in order to aggregate an income. But some of them, especially say, Hour of the Dragon, has a really strong emotional hook where you see Conan fighting against overwhelming odds to resume his kingship, not for his own good, since he could just as easily go back to being a pirate.. but for the sake of his people. Queen of the Black Coast is another really strong one. The best way to look at the Conan stories is, imagine you're in a bar, and this old guy is telling stories. You aren't 100% certain what stories are true and Conan really did and what the old drunk codger telling the stories made up. But you buy him a drink every so often to keep the stories coming.

If you were to arrange the Conan stories with book ends like Rothfuss's Name of the Wind.. the Episodic nature of them would cease to be a problem.. but Howard never had the chance to organize them into collections, and L.Sprague DeCamp crammed in as much of his own work as he could. He even edited stories that didn't need to be edited just so he could put his name on it as a co-author.

That was the biggest problem with the 80's Conan movie.. It took more bits of the L. Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter stories into account than it did the original author's.

[Daddy Darth]

I will have to see if I have either of those ones you mentioned. Thanks for the info.

[Loerwyn]

Wasn't the first Conan film based on a Kull the Conqueror story, and vice versa for Kull (Because they couldn't get Arnie)?

Kinda half-semi-looking forward to this, though.

[Lagomorph_Rex]

The first Conan movie used the name of the villain from a Kull story, Thulsa Doom.. but the James Earl Jones one is nothing like the one in the novel.. who is a bit more like Skeletor.. and dosen't mutate into a snake.

The Kull movie roughly adapts the story "By This Axe I Rule!" which Robert E. Howard, upon it's rejection, re-wrote into the first Conan story "Phoenix on the sword"..

[Jon Sprunk]

I am cautiously anticipating this movie, too. I loved R.E.H.'s stories. And the first movie, while taking a ton of liberties and including some really sub-par acting, did capture the essence of Conan for me. Steel and muscle.

The less said about The Destroyer, the better . . .

[DailyRich]

See, I'm the odd guy who, despite acknowledging that it's an inferior film, thinks Destroyer feels more like a Conan story than Barbarian. It's Conan simply being Conan, drafted to do what he does best -- kill and steal. No Freudian revenge story, no Nietzschian angst, just sword and sorcery. Except really poorly done.

[Jon Sprunk]

I agree that Destroyer was more like a Howard story as far as the surface plot, it didn't have the feel. Way too campy. The acting actually got worse. It was more like a Conan satire than a tribute.

[DailyRich]

Yeah, the bones were there for a good Conan story, but boy did they botch it. And how sad was it that they re-used the music from the orgy scene in the first film in a completely different scene, but didn't bring back "Anvil of Crom" (perhaps one of the greatest signature tunes of all time)?