Ok, so I saw this movie.\u00a0 And afterwards I find myself asking, in the immortal words of William Hurt, \u201cHow do you fuck that up?\u201d<\/p>\n
First some background:<\/p>\n
Conan the Barbarian is a \u201cpulp\u201d character created in the 30\u2019s by Robert E. Howard.\u00a0 His tales were usually told in short story format with the occasional novel length story popping up.\u00a0 The setting is an ancient world with medievalish technology and lots of giant monsters and warlocks and the like (your basic fantasy setup).\u00a0 Conan is from a mountain tribe who dwells in a vaguely Teutonic forest.\u00a0 He is supposed to represent the raw force of man before he was civilized.\u00a0 Nobody really goes into Cimmeria (the forresty hills) because the tribesmen will kill you; and the Cimmerians rarely leave their homeland.<\/p>\n
Conan is a Cimmerian who is unusually interested in the outside world.\u00a0 He leaves Cimmeria as a young adult in search of adventure.\u00a0 His people\u2019s natural bloodthirstyness has gifted him with (to a civilized eye) near indomitable fighting abilities (he claims that among his own tribe he is at best a middling warrior).\u00a0 His adventures take him down many career paths.\u00a0 He has been a thief, a mercenary, a pirate, a general, and a king.\u00a0 In his long life he has been some of these things many times.<\/p>\n
After Robert E Howard\u2019s death, several others have written Conan stories.\u00a0 Ignore these.\u00a0 They are watered down diet soda.<\/p>\n
The first Conan tale, The Phoenix on the Sword<\/em>, tells of a story of a late-middle aged Conan who has become a king.\u00a0 The story is of an attempted coup.\u00a0 Several men plan an ambush in the palace akin to the one that felled Julius Caesar.\u00a0 Conan, despite suffering injury, survives by tearing a decorative axe from the wall and maiming most of his attackers.\u00a0 The survivors he flings from his balcony to the adulation of his subjects.\u00a0 The most interesting Conan stories take place while he is king.\u00a0 So of course they\u2019ve never been used in a movie.<\/p>\n Conan in this movie is played by Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones<\/em>).\u00a0 He plays a very similar character in Game of Thrones<\/em> on HBO; Khal Drogo.\u00a0 He is great at Khal Drogo.\u00a0 The problem is the film\u2019s Conan is nothing like Khal Drogo and therefore nothing like Conan.\u00a0 Early in the film we see Conan raiding a slave trade outpost because \u201cno man should live in chains\u201d.\u00a0 Robert E Howard\u2019s Conan owned slaves on several occasions.\u00a0 He would have no patience with those who allowed themselves to become enslaved.\u00a0 He would only have raided the slave outpost for profit.<\/p>\n The desire to make Conan a sympathetic character is the film\u2019s first failing.\u00a0 He\u2019s not a sympathetic character.\u00a0 His morality is that of a jungle cat.\u00a0 If he saves the damsel in distress it is because he has been promised money or her virtue.\u00a0 When he is king he rules with his subjects’ interests in mind because he deems it a superior long term tactic to tyranny.\u00a0 Conan is an anti-hero.\u00a0 If he\u2019s on the side of right and virtue it is because they have something he wants, or because the bad guys have betrayed him.<\/p>\n So the film fails on that very basic item.\u00a0 It is not a Conan film.<\/p>\n And next, even if they were faithful to the spirit the stories; the movie would still suck.\u00a0 What\u2019s at stake isn\u2019t ever clear.\u00a0 Characters are not given motivation to actually do anything.\u00a0 And the evil relic that all the good guys are trying to keep from being reassembled doesn\u2019t actually do anything.\u00a0 Or else it didn\u2019t come with an instruction manual.<\/p>\n And all this is a shame because they clearly had a special effects budget and a decent (not amazing, not good, but decent) cast.\u00a0 The special effects were highly unimaginative and the cast was given nothing meaningful to do.<\/p>\n You can skip this movie.\u00a0 I recommend picking up a collection of Conan tales.\u00a0 Make sure they were written by Robert E Howard; there are many posers.<\/p>\n If you do feel you need to see this film; don\u2019t see it in 3-D.<\/p>\n 3-D is retarded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ok, so I saw this movie.\u00a0 And afterwards I find myself asking, in the immortal words of William Hurt, \u201cHow do you fuck that up?\u201d First some background: Conan the Barbarian is a \u201cpulp\u201d character created in the 30\u2019s by … Continue reading