A lot better than the 1982 version

And I just don't see why people hate this one for being cheesy, when the original is just as.

The first one is cheesy in a comedic way. It's an almost typical 80s Arnie flick. The new one is more like a bad joke that no-one laughs at - It's just not funny.

Also, the hatred for the new one seems to be because it was touted/advertised/suggested as being a far more accurate and true-to-the-book version than 1982... what we got was a Summer flick action-fest of a now cliched Xena style, with only a vague resemblance and a couple of mis-contextualised half-quotes from the books.

This latter point that people often stress to me is no different than Gandalf saying, "Oh, there's one all powerful ring", rather than the whole "One Ring To Rule Them All" verse - You need the full passage for it to have the same impact.

Expectations were high, mainly due to pre-release misrepresentation and the results were disappointing for many. I've sat through some dire fantasy films, including both Yor and the Barbarian Queen series - Conan 2011 has a bigger budget, but is still on the same level of sophistication.


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Love Excalibur by the way, so I didn't mean to imply you have bad taste in movies, just that these two are absolutely nothing alike in intent, tone, or pacing.

What I meant is that the new movie seemed quite a bit more...comic bookey, if that makes any sense. Again that was probably the intent, but for my personal taste, for this story I preferred the more serious tone of the 1982 version. I'm comparing these as individual movies and could care less about the books.

The scene with the birth was the first standout. Then Ron Pearlman, who I typically love in movies, seemed totally out of place, and he looked as if they threw every pelt on him that they could find for the sole purpose of making him look more leader-ey. Then whatever young Conan encountered in the wild were roaring at him, and seemed less terrifying than contrived and silly. Then of course there is the 'poor misunderstood' young Conan who shows up late, the outcast who defiantly goes out and shows everyone that he is better than him by showing up with a bunch of severed heads. The sensibilities are all extremely modern ones that we see OVER and OVER and OVER in movies nowadays. The hero always has to be the poor misunderstood outcast who for no reason whatsoever is imbued with superhuman abilities, and I just don't think it makes for a very compelling story.

I think there was something a little more intangible at play here for me as well, because it is hard for me to describe, but the original just seemed less like EVERY village you ever see in an action movie, and more like a real primitive little tribe that you might stumble on in the middle of a forest. It didn't focus on Conan and his super abilities, or on the same rite of passage we see in countless movies, it just showed people living and working. It focused less on the fact that Conan was destined to become some legend, and more on the fact that Conan would have had a normal, peaceful life. Instead he was ripped from that and cast into brutality and slavery for years. A lot more interesting than just...MAN IS BORN LEGEND, WAITS FOR LEGEND TO BEGIN, which is what the 2011 one felt like.

As for you thinking the original Arnold Conan was less barbarian like, I would have to say that I think you are just holding him to your idea of the modern superhero character. Being a barbarian just means that you are brutal, uncivilized, cold, and primitive. That you think he should also be a lithe, acrobatic, warrior has more to do with your modern sensibilities I think. 2011 Conan freed a bunch of slaves from their owners, then fell in love with some pretty priestess and ran around trying to save her. 1982 Conan almost left Subotai chained up, and only let him go after he made him laugh. Then when he DID fall in love, he just flat out left her, and then didn't even shed a tear when setting her funeral pyre. Again, the sensibilities in the 2011 version are very, very modern, whereas the 1982 version seems more in line with what a barbarian might actually act like. I agree that Arnold is less athletic looking than Momoa, but I felt the superficial difference was less important than the psychology and sensibilities driving each character.

As for the villans, it isn't that I think you are wrong, but rather being a bit reductive. My gripe with the 2011 villains is that they seemed incredibly one dimensional and boring, they were caricatures devoid of any real character depth. The mother and daughter were just...crazy, and the guy just seemed like an AH who was half drunk on power, half obsessed with his wife. And that was it, just 'YES MORE POWER HAHAHA!' It would be like if I told you to sit down and speed write whatever popped into your head about a bad guy for a movie, you would be like...'he likes killing uhhhhh and hes evil uhhhh and his wife looks scary and is a witch, and there is a magic mask that gives you power over everything'...and that's where the development stopped, none of it ever changes throughout the movie.

In the 1982 version, Thulsa Doom was very philosophical. When he first razed Conan's village to the ground, he wasn't seeking power (he already had it), he was possessed with finding the answer to a question; the riddle of steel, the meaning of power. One can infer that he had already begotten himself armies and vast weaponries, and suddenly found that it meant nothing to him because he realized the emptiness of the kind of power he had. Years later we find that he has found the answer he was looking for, because he isn't still doing the same thing. Rather than a warlord running around killing, he sits in his Mountain of Power, and pilgrims are flocking to him to devote themselves to some kind of religion that he has created.

He says to Conan, "steel isn't strong, boy, FLESH is stronger...what is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this!"

And what you realize with his final speech to his followers is that he has found the ultimate power, and it isn't some magic mask, it is the ability to make people follow you to the point where they would set themselves on fire if you told them to. It becomes apparent that he does NOT want to control the world, it is that he has likely become tired of people, these people he sees as evil;

"All that is evil, all their allies: your parents, their leaders, those who would call themselves your judges, those who have lied and corrupted the Earth, they shall be cleansed."

He is almost like Smith in the Matrix. He once had power over people but has become disgusted by them and what they do to everything around them, and has decided that the best use of his power is to free the world from their corruption.

I won't keep going on and on though. Like I said in an earlier post, I can give you dozens of reasons behind my liking the first movie better. It is just that while the 2011 version was entertaining and fun, it had none of these interesting things that I see in the 1982 version. To me, the one movie was a comic book movie, and the other was a film that just happened to have elements of high fantasy in it, very much like Boorman's Excalibur.

Anyway, enjoy both movies either way! We're all free to like what we like, after all.

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