MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Conan the Barbarian" (1982)

"Between the time when game reviews had no editing and the rise of the Beat Sabers, there was an age undreamed of. And onto this, MadCap, destined to wear the metaphysical crown of Z-List Internet Celebrity status upon a troubled brow! It is I, his editor, who alone can tell you of his story. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

Conan the Barbarian was originally a pulp sword and sorcery character as written by writer Robert E. Howard.  Hailing from the pre/early history (and fictional) Hyborian Age, Conan of Cimmeria was many things in his time - a warrior, a thief, a gladiator, and a king. By using influences from the real world in terms of society and technology, Howard was able to craft a world similar to the historical one we know here on Earth, but without needing to spend a lot of time explaining anything and allowing for anachronisms (such as, say, Krull). It's pretty genius and lends itself to us caring more about the story than we do the minutiae.

Which brings us to 1982's Conan the Barbarian. One of the first feature films of the future Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is set in that world of low fantasy, high adventure. It's considered a cult classic and has made an obscene amount of profit every time it's been released on home media. However, here's the question of the hour...is it good?

Well, yeah. I figured that'd be obvious.
The film begins with a sword being forged. A father tells his son - Conan - a story about the secret of Steel, something that the gods once had but was lost to them. It fell into the hands of man, who used it. Conan is told of the Riddle of Steel. If he does not know the answer when he dies, his god - Crom - will cast him out of Valhalla and laugh at him.

"Who the hell is Sarah Connor?"

And then, as is a contractual obligation in all fantasy stories that start with young children, a wizard named Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) brings an army that kills everyone in the village save for Conan himself and burns it to the ground. His father gets torn apart by dogs and his mother beheaded by the wizard, leaving Conan to be sold into slavery. Made to push a wheel around and around and around for twenty years turns out to be one hell of a full body workout as Conan grows from the waifish boy into the Austrian Man of Steel, being a gladiator for a brief time before being freed by his remorseful master.

Taking up an Atlantean sword, Conan sets out to find the wizard who killed his home village. He will bring to his side allies such as the archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez), Akiro the Wizard (Mako), and fellow warrior and his lady love Valeria (Sandahl Bergman). Short of a cleric, Conan's got himself a great Dungeons & Dragons adventuring party. I can say this with the film, before anything else, that the main cast is absolutely fantastic. There are only a few moments of character between each, and the acting is more than a little hokey in some places, but the main cast is absolutely sublime.

Also, Max von Sydow as King Osric. Pretty awesome.

The acting talents of Mako and James Earl Jones cannot be given enough praise. Mako has a great turn as the wizard and James Earl Jones is as terrifying as Thulsa Doom as he is voicing Darth Vader, if not more so given the hypnotic gaze of evil that he utilizes. However, even Schwarzenegger and the rest are fantastic. Conan and Subotai in particular have great chemistry together and are completely believable as a duo who have traveled together and fought alongside each other for some time. While we aren't given the full time scale of their travels together, it's amazing to see what just a few short scenes can do to get one invested in characters.

The setting is one of low fantasy, so magic either seems more mundane or is done with minimal extravagance barring one particularly infamous scene near the end of the film - Disco Ball Armor, anyone? - so the special effects are not front and center here as they are with many fantasy epics. That being said, there is the one scene where the group battles a giant snake that looks a little silly by today's standards, but was pretty impressive for its time.

Also, there's one point where Thulsa Doom turns into a giant snake at an orgy. Not the same giant snake, but it's still pretty nifty nonetheless and the effect is pretty good for the time. I'm not 100% on what the orgy was for but hey, if you're a wizard who has near-total control over the world through your snake god cult, you deserve to live it up a little.

The special effects - or, more accurately, the use of mysticism in special effects - were something largely shied away from by director John Milius, who wanted to have less reliance on the supernatural. Baring one particular scene where the heroes use magic to aid an endeavor, he pretty much stuck to that idea through the entire film. Someone more clever than I might be able to extrapolate that into a theme - Thulsa Doom uses magic for his own ends, signifying magic as bad, whereas the heroes only use magic the once for a great need and otherwise put to use only their physical and mental attributes.

Oh, look at that. I was cleverer.

Rule #34 of the Evil Overlord List: "I will not turn into a snake.
It never helps."

The violence was considered controversial for the time, but seems amusingly quaint by today's standards. Blood and gore were not shied away from in this film, but they also were not heavily glorified as some critics accused the film of doing. Ironically, however, many fans of the Howard stories did not believe the violence was enough, creating an interesting polarization within the world of critics. My view on it is that gore really only works when it serves the story, and I'm pretty alright with what we got versus what some people were expecting, though that's just my two cents. As I said, it's absolutely quaint by today's standards and there are far, far more excessive uses of it by other films.

Whether or not one agreed with the choices, there was no way to deny the film was a hit when it was first released. As I said before, the film has been a profit for each release, and this included the opening. On a budget of around $16 million, the film made almost $9.5 million over the opening weekend alone and went on to make around $130 million at the box office in all. So, naturally, there was a sequel - Conan the Destroyer.

I'm not gonna lie, I don't have the patience or inclination to sit through Conan the Destroyer again any time soon, but I'll eventually get to it.

Conan the Barbarian, however, is a classic. It's everything you'd ever want in a high fantasy, sword and sorcery adventure. Memorable characters with quotable moments, good action, and an emphasis on the adventure above all else! It's a cult classic, and it stands the test of time as one of the better examples of the genre. However, there are many other examples that are bad. I mean, really bad. Will we be getting into them more as 2020 goes along? We'll have to wait and see...

That fake beard, though!

"So, did MadCap review the cult classic of Conan the Barbarian. And having no further concern, he and his companions sought adventure on the Web. Many games and many movies did MadCap review. Honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a king by his own hand. And this story shall also be told..."

Conan the Barbarian is brought to us by the Dino De Laurentiis Corporation and Universal Pictures.

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