I have to say those are my two favorite films as well , although the 1982 Conan did lead me to the works of Robert E. Howard , the creator of Conan , and while the movie uses a lot of his concepts ,there has never been a faithful adaptation to screen of any of Howard’s stories save for a little short story called Pigeons From Hell that was adapted for a 1961 tv show Boris Karloff’s thriller. I love the movie regardless , would just love to see a direct adaptation of a Howard Conan story . Conan was never a slave and would never have gone quietly.I even made a fan edit of the movie showing how I believe the movie could have skewed a bit closer to Howard’s work which you can see here…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iZSC3LMTw8
Thanks for the link - really interesting take on it all. I must confess I absolutely hated Conan 2011, but I like what you’ve done there. Marvel’s Conan movie adaptation is my favourite comic book of all time (particularly the painted Super Special version) so I loved how you cut between the book and the movie scenes.
I guess where I part company with my fellow Conan-lovers is on the subject of fidelity to Howard. When I discovered Conan in the early 80s I had little sense of where Howard began and ended, diluted as it all was by DeCamp and Thomas and so forth. It was only when Del Rey released their volumes in 2003 that I finally read ‘pure’ Howard. What struck me the most was just how deeply I felt Milius had nailed it. But for me it’s not about the minutiae of Conan’s origins or fidelity to the exact stories so much as it’s about capturing Howard’s attitude. Indeed, it seems to me that the Conan character was really just a foil for Howard to tell a bunch of different stories - from swashbucklers to mysteries to pirate tales to westerns and so on. Conan’s almost a side-character in many of these. He also comes into it all more or less fully formed. There’s no real arc beyond his growing from young upstart to leader of men (and finally King) - which is perfect for the haphazard short stories Howard was telling, but not so great for a movie hero. So I think it was entirely appropriate for Milius to give Conan an arc - an origin and a driving purpose.
I also feel that other writers were scared of REH. DeCamp certainly was. Roy Thomas smoothed out many rough edges to make Conan more heroic and noble (and he completely destroyed Belit IMO). The 2011 film seemed to think that extra violence and nudity was the key - which is juvenile. I think Milius really got Howard. I think he got the essence of Howard, the deep passion and melancholy (and mirth!), the pure love of storytelling at a primal level, the mythic quality. There are some great nods to Howard’s other works in the film - even while the film strays in ‘canon’ terms - and overall I think the movie captures the keynotes of Conan’s life really well. A proper sequel would have had Conan reaching Argos and heading for the sea, very much in keeping with his post-thief career. But alas, we got Conan the Destroyer…
I’m no Howard scholar by any stretch, so I may be well off base here. I think capturing Conan’s character is such a subjective undertaking. Dark Horse’s determination to make a truly Howardian Conan in 2004 (and beyond) was fun but still didn’t feel like Howard to me, even though they ticked all the canon boxes.
Sorry about the rambling! And thanks again for the link - really interesting stuff. May the Crom be with you…
you’re welcome . And speaking of capturing the essence of Howard’s stories , I thought the movie Solomon Kane came the closest .