So I just watched: Conan-athon

Alright so today me and a friend did a Conan-athon, Conan the Barbarian modern version, Conan the Barbarian 1981 version and Conan the Destroyer.

Now my friend has never seen any of the Conan films so I thought it would be fairly interesting to hear what he thought.

When I asked him what he thought and to compare the two Conan the Barbarian films his response was quite interesting.

"They're two seperate sort of films, one doesn't really compare to the other, I kind of enjoyed them both but for completely different reason."

He enjoyed the modern Conan and the original equally while we both agreed that Conan the Destroyer was worst out of them.

Points bought up on the modern Conan the Barbarian:
1) The main villain was kind of rubbish, infact the Daughter of the main villain should have been a villain in her own right without the father since we both enjoyed her preformance more.

2) The Origin story is much clearer in this modern version which he prefered, the original leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

3) Why does Conan only ever armour his arms and shoulders, constantly leaving his chest bare (apart from the 'for the ladies' factor). At one point he's wearing arm and shoulder armour in one scene and has taken it off in the next when he gets into a fight.

Otherwise it was a standard 'entertaining' (a term used for when a film certainly isn't a classic but it is rental worthy at the least) film.

Points bought up on 1981 Conan the Barbarian:
1) You can't really go wrong with James Earl Jones as the villain, he can switch from calm and reassuring to a cold insanity at a moments notice.

2) The supporting cast was the best, Max von Sydow as King Osric and Subotai, Valeria and especially Mako's Akiro were much better characters than anything in the modern version.

3) He made a point that the film was good enough that you could take out Conan's origin story and quest for revenge and still have a really good film.

4) While the special effects (namely the giant snake) had dated, the use of practical effects and huge sets really helped give the film a physical sense of scale.

5) Since the point of protection was raised in the original, he noted that it was cool seeing Conan actually dress for battle (in chainmail/Leather) when a straight fight was going to occur but then lose the armour for stealth when needed.

6) Arnie was a surprisingly good actor in this film and he liked him more as a character, he seemed well rounded more.

7) The film is surprisingly long (two hours and five minutes) and took a good hour to finally get going but he felt it didn't really lose anything.

I won't go too much into Conan the Destroyer because...well...we all know it's the crappest out of all of them. He did point out that despite the story being more structured and shorter it somehow lost something, the supporting cast apart from Mako were very weak and the special effects (thanks to the two monster fights) had aged really badly.

Of course the 1981 version is my favorite but it's nice to see someone elses point of view who'd never seen the films before.

The modern Conan felt like a Deathstalker remake to me for some reason.

Personally I rather enjoyed the Jason Momoa Conan.....it felt like he was the right choice to pick up the Conan mantle....while Schwarzenegger was good for the time, I would still pick Momoa overall (sacrilege in some circles I know), still he is more along the lines of what I think of when thinking of the sort of ethnic background Conan would have.....

Granted the role of Rose McGowan as Marique could possibly have been the "big bad" all by herself it still added to the story that she was the daughter of Khalar Zym who was essentially a power hungry madman intent on resurrecting his dead wife through magical means was interesting as a plot device....

It was interesting that Ron Perlman played the part of Conans father....I hadn't expected that and was quite suprised....Perlman (under appreciated IMHO) is one of my favorite actors and generally gets involved with movies that turn out fairly well.....

overall I would give the movie 3 out of 5 on a ratings scale.....Not the worst movie ever made, however not really the best....to me its one of those types of movies that will develop a cult like following down the road....

Another vote for Olivia d'Abo! She may have been 15 at the time, but I was 14 and very happy to see her on that screen.

WARNING: I bold names.

Another thing we noticed was the music.

Neither of us could remember any of the music from the Modern Conan after we'd finished watching it but the themes of the 1981 version were far more memorable.

Lions ate him.

I always wanted to play d'Abo at Quarks on deep space 9.




d'Abo!!!

I have a long and enduring crush on Olivia D'Abo from that movie, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about lusting after her in it.

1) She really doesn't LOOK 14 or 15.
2) When I saw it, I was 10 or 11.
3) She's now 42 (and still gorgeous)