Paying homage to a certain movie I love and a fascinating world created by a fantastic author of the beginning of the XXth century.

 

Way better with the awesome music from the movie. Right clic and open on the image link just below before going any further

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwords :

 

I discovered the Conan universe very lately (at 25). Friends always told me it was gross, but in the end I understood that like most people they based their opinion on the few pictures of Schwarzenegger they had seen, and not on the actual 1982 movie (they never watched it) and even less on the books.

 

So I watched the movie from 1982 in french a few years ago and while I had to admit it had its flaws I was immediately entranced by the barbarian but at the same time very lyric atmosphere the director John Milius had been able to create in the movie. The intro and outro are absolute masterpieces, this simple idea of a father talking to his son at the top of a mountain, and the shots on the clouds and the moutains ... it has a raw feeling to it that no cgi could achieve today. The music makes easily 50% of the movie quality, actually Basil Poledouris refered to this movie as a "Barbarian opera" because the characters have very few dialogues, especially Conan. The music is gorgeous. Among other pieces, the most remarkable are Riddle of steel Riders of doom, Anvil of Crom, Atlantean sword, Funeral Pyre and Orphans of the doom.

 

French people like me have also the chance to get a dubbed version with better voices than the english ones (Conan with the austrian accent of Schwarzenegger is ... special). One guy even did a full restoration of the 1982 movie, with 1080 HD images and better sound and sync corrections. You can get it here at the bottom of the page : http://indianagilles.blogspot.fr/2014/07/repack-conan-le-barbare-hd-vf-mono.html

It's not a torrent so it requires patience ... buit it's seriously worth the wait if you like this movie I can tell you.

 

 

 

Talking about the books, I started reading the original novels from Robert Howard 2 years ago. They are simply incredible and while i was wondering if it was right to buy this the first time, after reading the first volume I just wanted to read the others two. Howard writing is intricated and vibrant. During action scenes it's as if the author's pen were giving off sparks, and the sceneries are at the same time sublime, full of hidden danger, and out of this world. Women can be dangerous or despaired but always seductive and shapely (if you're fed up with nowadays political correctness and feminazi this is for you). The vocabulary is complicated to the say the least but not as much as what you could find in Lovecraft novels, so it's a good read to learn some advanced english if you like to write Skyrim fanfictions.

 

 

I'll just borrow the words from Men's Health:

 

"This is pure Pulp fiction from the 1930's, before political corrctions and focus group dictated the direction of our art. Swords spin, entrails spill, and women swoon."

 

 

My prefered tales would be The Hour of the Dragon, The Tower of the Elephant, A Witch Shall be Born, Queen of the Black Coast and obviously ... Red Nails.

 

 

 

 

The books have also lots of illustrations. One every 3 or 4 pages with illustrators from the 50's. My prefered one would be Gary Gianni. Best illustrations are black and white, they have a rougher feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some colored panels are still worth it sometimes :

 

 

 

 

One final word about the 2011 movie. In short: avoid it. I watched it, It's more faithful to the original universe created by Howard but it's a bad movie. Directors often mistake making a good adaptation and adapting novels line after line. There is a difference between a novel you will read in 5 hours and a 2 hours movie. Overwhelming the viewer with action and cgi stuff is not the best way to make your audience enter your world. You have to be generous and offer the world you built to them, give them a few scenes where nobody talks and a beautiful score to listen to. This way they can relax and enter your universe. For example that's exactly what Peter Jackson did with the Lord of the Ring and we all know how good his trilogy was ...

 

 

ps : And I love Sandahl Bergman as Valeria (this actress has a very weird filmography ...).