Conan the Letdown

Let me start by saying that I am a huge Robert E. Howard fan. I love his characters, his horror stories, his connection to the Cthulhu mythos and his descriptive writing style. His work on paper is nothing short of amazing, but when his creative properties make the leap to the big screen they are butchered. That isn’t to say that some of the media is bad, but they certainly aren’t of the REH variety. The original Conan the Barbarian, made in 1982, is still one of my all time favorite movies. It barely resembled the character, but it was one of the most well made movies I have ever seen. Since that time we’ve gotten the atrocious Conan the Destroyer, and generic (but still enjoyable) Solomon Kane. Back when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for Governor, he decided to do so in place of making King Conan: Crown of Iron (a script which eluded me for a decade, but I finally found a copy and loved it). At that point my hope of seeing Conan again was crushed. So imagine how excited I was in 2007 when it was announced that Nu Image/Millennium Films purchased the rights and planned to make a faithful adaptation of the source material. Would it be more REH than Destroyer? Well after 4 years of waiting I’m here to explain why Conan might be better suited to stay on the page.

First of all, Conan is a bad motherfucker. “Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” Whether it be the black giants from “The Pool of the Black One” or Belit from “Queen of the Black Coast,” nobody stands a chance in war or love. We’re talking about a guy who uses his brain, and not some half-wit with a sword. Where was this in the reboot of Conan the Barbarian? As I sat in the almost empty theater, I kept wondering that. I saw a glimmer of hope every now and again with lines lifted straight from page (“I live, I love, I slay, and I am content” or “I will tear apart the mountains to find you. I will follow you to Hell”). Unfortunately, these moments were too far and few between. When they did happen, it was awesome. For example, in one of the earlier scenes in was mentioned that Conan ascended the Tower of the Elephant and slayed Yara. I was hoping for more of these little nods to REH, but they rarely ever came.


Beyond that, it was a pretty uneven experience, but did it have to be? I mean come on, how hard is it to screw up a movie based on Conan? Did director Marcus Nispel have any clue as to how much source material was already written and waiting to be adapted? Apparently not because in the end he decided to make a movie that rehashes the old “revenge for murdering my parents storyline” that John Milius already tackled in 1982 when he made the first (and superior) adaptation. A storyline which isn’t even from the books, by the way. What do we care where Conan comes from? So we're stuck with a movie about Conan and his friends, which is odd because in the books he doesn't need any, going after a cut and paste villain. What a shame.

For some people, Arnold Schwarzenegger has always embodied what Conan should look like. For me, it is a mixed bag. I think Arnold is great in the role, but it had been so long that I knew what this franchise needed was a fresh start. People needed to forget about Arnold in the same way people need to get over Christopher Reeve as Superman. When Jason Momoa was cast, I was in the dark because I had never seen his stint on Stargate Atlantis. He was eventually cast as Drogo on Game of Thrones, and it is here that he won me over as Conan. The character of Drogo is similar to Conan in a lot of ways, so it was a great role to show fans what he had in store. Too bad none of that was brought to the table when filming Conan. Now I’m willing to place the blame on both Nispel and Momoa here. Nispel explained the character as “more like Sean Connery’s version of James Bond.” In a way, this is true. Conan has always been a charismatic, likeable character who is also capable of very dangerous things. What ultimately ends of happening is that Momoa plays it too lighthearted in certain places. He’s not angry enough. Not by a long shot. He didn’t command the attention and respect of people in the way that the character does. The only thing he really got right was the look of Conan and his love for war. I could easily buy into this guy as the Cimmerian King.

Finally, the new adaptation had nothing iconic about it. Sure, the original had Arnold, but he wasn’t the icon back in 82 that he is now. Arnold was practically a new face who had appeared in Pumping Iron and little else. I remember the original movie for so many reasons: the soundtrack by Basil Poldouris that I still listen to today (as I write this actually), the design of the swords by Ron Cobb, the narrative by Mako that fueled the movie, and of course my personal favorite, Ben Davidson’s enraged “You…” dialogue. What did new Conan have? A forgettable soundtrack, recycled and generic sword designs, the biggest WTF moment when I realized that Morgan Freeman was the narrator, and throw away dialogue (the good dialogue was written in the 30s by REH).

Conan the Barbarian opened to mostly negative reviews and a terrible box office take. This is for the best as I for one don’t want to sit through another Conan the Destroyer of a sequel, which is to say watered down, poorly directed and marketed for children. I wanted to like this movie so much, and I was so excited going in, that it didn’t really sink in for a few days that I still don’t have a definitive version of one of the best characters ever written. It took just shy of 30 years to get this far, so I’m not holding my breath for something faithful anytime soon. If anyone looking to see the new movie, I’d say don’t bother. I recommend picking up any story by Robert E. Howard instead. “Queen of the Black Coast” is a great starting point and is often pointed to as one of the greatest stories that Howard ever wrote.