Conan-Past and Present

In preparation for the new Conan film that will open in theaters this Friday, let’s take a look at the history of the character thus far. Conan is best known through two popular adventure films from the eighties, but there’s a wider history to the character.

Robert E Howard.

Robert E. Howard created the Conan character on a vacation in southern Texas. Howard began to dream up the mythical “Hyborian age” during his vacation, a time period that lies just before recorded history. Howard did loosely base his writings on some knowledge of ancient history to a degree; the picts show up in his short story Beyond the Black River for instance. The stories also seem to take place in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Conan’s world is intended to be a shadowy forgotten era of our own world, not a distant planet or a concrete historical period.

The first Conan story was The Phoenix on the Sword and it appeared in Weird Tales magazine in December of 1932. Weird Tales was a popular magazine that featured short stories which broadly spanned the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Magazines such as these are often called pulp magazines and famous for outlandish, and then scandalous, pictures of monsters, muscular heroes, and scantily clad women. The heyday of the cover art for dime novels and pulp magazines came a little later, and inspired a genre of art called fantasy art to this day.

Other Conan stories followed in weird tales, and Howard eventually made a carrier from his writing. He was responsible for other heroic characters as well, such as Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. Howard also wrote westerns and horror stories in addition to the fantasy work that he is most known and loved for. Unfortunately, his life came to a tragic end. Howard committed suicide upon the knowledge that his mother would die of cancer, and his mother died the next day. Howards’ work has been made available in several collections of short stories after his death. A film had been made about Howard entitled The Whole Wide World.

Other Conan Literature

Other writers used the Conan character after Howard’s death, including some huge names in Fantasy such as Robert Jordan and R.A.Salvatore. Several series of novels have been published about the character, including a popular Tor books series.

Comic Books

There have been several popular Conan comics Conan the Barbaraian (1970) and Savage Sword of Conan (1974-1995) were published by Marvel. Dark Horse also published the comic Conan beginning in 2003.

The Art of Frank Frazetta

An enormously talented artist, Frank Frazetta became famous for creating the cover art for books; as well as doing movie posters and comics. His depictions of Conan for book covers are legendary amongst fans of fantasy art. His vivid depictions of Conan and Howard’s Hyborian Age are still remembered today, and inspired the work of great talents such as Boris Vallejo and Louis Royo. The entire genre of Fantasy art owes a great deal to Frazetta. Frazetta worked on the film Fire and Ice with Ralph Bakshi, and it’s probably one of the best sword and sandal movies of the eighties.

Conan the Barbarian

Conan is best known from the 1982 Blockbuster hit and cult phenomenon, Conan the Barbarian. The film was directed by John Milius, and the original script was written by Oliver Stone. Milius made several major revisions to the script that Stone was not happy with. Ultimately, Milius used his version of the script, and gave both himself and Stone credit as the films writers. Of course, the real star of the film is obvious. Conan the Barbarian launched the carrier of a charismatic young Bodybuilding champion from Austria, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In this version of the story, young Conan’s village is destroyed and plundered by the sorcerer Thulsa-Doom, and his cult of snake worshiping fanatics. The child see’s his parents murdered before him in an incredibly well done and disturbing scene. He is sold into slavery, where he builds a great physical strength, and a desire for revenge. Conan eventually becomes a gladiator, and then a mercenary before being freed mysteriously one day by his owner. He then begins a quest for revenge against Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) and an epic adventure full of action, love, and vengeance ensues.

Conan the Destroyer

Conan the Destroyer followed this film’s popularity in 1984, and faced stiff competition at the box office from eighties classics such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Therefore, the film was less economically successful than Barbarian. While I defend Barbarian as a good, perhaps even great film, Destroyer was guilty of a lot of the sins Barbarian was accused of. Conan the Destroyer is significantly less complex and a lot more comic-bookish than Barbarian. It’s still an enjoyable film to fans of the genre, and has it’s lovable moments.

In this film, Conan must escort a princess with mystical powers to steal the horn of Dagoth, a jeweled horn that is part of a sacred statue. Unfortunately, the evil queen Taramis has plans to sacrifice the girl to her god after she returns so she can inherit the god’s powers, and assassinate Conan once he steals the horn. Of course, on the quest Conan must face monsters, warriors, cannibals, and the like to get the horn in the first place. This film was just fun to those who love sword and sorcery, as opposed to a critically unappreciated great film like Barbarian. However, fans did notice the drop in quality and substance from the first film. Interesting note; the official trailer below was actually not completely true to the actual film's plot.

Conan the Adventurer (animated TV series).

This show was a well done animated series that was essentially a toned down version of Conan the Barbarian. In this series, Conan’s family is turned to stone by the wizard Raphimon, who is basically a reinterpretation of Thulsa Doom. Raphimon controls a cult of snake people who worship set, an evil snake god also referenced in Conan the Barbarian. In this version, Conan has a “star metal” sword that vanquishes the snake people to another dimension when it hits them( so, no need for animated snake guts). The genius of this series was that it successfully turned Conan into a G rated adventure; something hard to do, and never done since.

Conan and Friends (animated TV series). This show was a continuation of Conan the Adventurer which I never had the chance to enjoy.

Conan. (live action TV Series).

A live action TV series that was sadly not very good. In the early nineties, action adventure shows abounded including Highlander, Hercules: The legendary Journey, Walker Texas Ranger, La Femme Nikita, and Renegade. A distinct genre of fantasy adventure series followed the success of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. These shows included the spin off Xena: Warrior Pricness, Beastmaster, Sinbad, Tarzan, Jack of All Trades, and eventually Conan.

It’s disappointing, since Highlander had been translated into an outstanding TV series, and with the right talent Conan could have been pulled off as a well produced adult action series. This series seemed to be targeted toward teenagers or young children, which was a mistake. It’s hard to really “tame” the story of a barbarian whose parents were murdered, and hacks up bad guys with a giant board sword for revenge. The series looked rather cheaply produced, and trudged along like a dull combined rip off of Masters of the Universe, Conan the Destroyer, and Hercules, the Legendary Journeys. The computer animation was not very good, the acting cheesy, and the plot a rip off once again of Conan the Barbarian.

In this version, Conan’s parents are killed by the wizard Hissazul, and he is then enslaved, gets out of slavery, finds a magical “Atlantean” sword and seeks revenge against Hissazul (whom is a ruling tyrant instead of a cult leader in this version). This series has it’s enjoyable moments to hard core fans and small children only; otherwise it’s laughable. I still think it’s a tragedy that the writers and producers behind the Highlander series did not make a Conan series. Maybe there is hope for that after the latest version is released in theaters.

Conan (XBOX and XBOX 360). A pair of enjoyable a Conan games were released for the Xbox and Xbox 360. They used the music of Basil Poledoris from the eighties version, but drew more from the dark horse comics and the novels than the Arnold movies. I think a video game version of the Arnold film could have been done; since they did develop video games of Ghostbusters and From Russia with Love. Perhaps the world was already getting ready for an Arnold-less Conan.

Age of Conan (Online Role Playing Game).

An enormously popular role playing game online, in which one becomes a character in Howard’s Hyborian age. One can easily guess that the popularity of this game led Hollywood to produce another Conan film.

Conan the Barbarian (2011) The most recent version of the Conan story stars Jason Mamoa as a leaner version of the Barbarian, and sports the latest special effects. The film’s producers claim they returned to the original Robert. E Howard stories for inspiration. Director Marcus Nipsel is known for getting remakes right-he has previously directed a successful remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the latest film in the Friday the 13^th series. While remakes are unoriginal there is an art to reinterpreting a good story to be enjoyable for a new generation. Perhaps Niepsel can work his magic on this version. Although this film does not claim to be a remake, they interestingly did not bother to change the name of the film which would not have been a hard task (Conan the Mighty, Conan the Conquer, etc), and they went to Hollywood’s number one “remake guy” for this one. Hmmm, we shall see.

The Conan’s that almost where:

King Conan: Crown of Iron (unfinished)

Arnold had planned to play Conan several times in his carrier, and since Barbarian, the films were intended to be a series where Conan finally becomes “king by his own hand.” Unfortunately, Arnold never finished the series. John Milius wrote a script for a third film King Conan: Crown of Iron that was going to be produced by the Wachowski brothers, known for The Matrix. This project fell through the cracks as Arnold chose to do a third Terminator instead, and then became governor of California. This may have been a better business decision due to the popularity of the Terminator films however, Arnold left the story of the character that made him famous incomplete in favor of a sequel that did not have to be made, and was not very good. I guess this was to be the first of some bad and disappointing decisions that he would make in his late carrier. If the new version fails, maybe he’ll be forced to do this one for money (more speculation on that later).

Conan: Red Nails (unreleased). A computer animated film based upon one of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories.