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Conan the Barbarian\u00a0 <\/strong>(1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Action-Adventure-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 129 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong graphic violence, nudity, strong sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Milius\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Milius and Oliver Stone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Basil Poledouris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Duke Callaghan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 14, 1982 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, Max von Sydow, Ben Davidson, Sven Ole Thorsen, Mako, Valerie Quennessen, Cassandra Gaviola, William Smith, Nadiuska, Jorge Sanz, Luis Barboo, Franco Columbu.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $39.5M (US)\/$68.8M (World)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0One tends to recall significant dates in their life. It\u2019s human nature to remember important events- e.g. birthdays, anniversaries, college graduation, etc. Falling into the \u201cetc.\u201d for me is May 15, 1982. It was a Saturday. Why do I remember it? It\u2019s the day I saw Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>for the first time. My dad took me to the 1pm matinee at the City Line Theater. About two hours later, I emerged from the theater a changed Movie Teen. It became my all-time favorite movie. Yes, you read that right and I\u2019ll gladly repeat it for those in the cheap seats. Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>is my all-time favorite movie.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the title character in John Milius\u2019 (Big Wednesday) adaptation of Robert E. Howard\u2019s sword-slinging hero from his pulp tales of the 30s. It opens with young Conan witnessing the brutal slayings of his parents at the hands of evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom (Jones, voice of Darth Vader). He\u2019s taken into captivity and chained to the Wheel of Pain where he grows into an extremely muscular adult with only one thing on his mind, avenging his parents. After a successful stint as a pit fighter, he\u2019s freed by his master. He begins his quest with the help of his companions, thief\/archer Subotai (surfer Lopez) and thief\/warrior Valeria (Bergman, All That Jazz).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0When Conan and his cohorts break into a large tower to steal a priceless jewel called the Eye of the Serpent, he finds a jade necklace in the shape of the standard carried by his family\u2019s killers. It belongs to a snake-worshipping doomsday cult led by Thulsa Doom. They\u2019re brought before King Osric (Sydow, Flash Gordon) who offers them a huge fortune to retrieve his wayward daughter (French actress Quennessen, Summer Lovers) who\u2019s fallen under Doom\u2019s power. Conan leaves his companions behind to continue his mission of revenge alone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Thanks mainly to Conan the Barbarian<\/strong>, I developed a love for sword-and-sorcery flicks. There were quite a few in the early 80s- e.g. Excalibur, Dragonslayer, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Ladyhawke and cheap knock-offs like Sorceress and The Warrior and the Sorceress. Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>is the absolute best of them. It\u2019s part of an elite group of movies that have NO bad parts. Every single frame of it is GREAT! It\u2019s also Schwarzenegger\u2019s debut as a leading man. Although critics weren’t too keen on his performance here, I thought he was an excellent choice for the role. I don’t know what other actor could have portrayed the warrior more convincingly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0One of my favorite aspects of Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>is the eclectic cast selected by Milius. In addition to respected actors like Jones and Sydow, he hired several athletes and bodybuilders with little to no previous acting experience. Besides surfer Lopez and dancer Bergman, he cast former football star Ben Davidson and bodybuilder Sven Ole Thorson as Doom\u2019s main henchmen Rexor and Thorgrim. William Smith (Any Which Way You Can) plays Conan\u2019s wise father in the opening scenes. His mother is played by Italian softcore queen Nadiuska (Spanish Fly). Japanese actor Mako (The Sand Pebbles) plays the wizard Akiro, an ally of Conan\u2019s. I LOVE this cast! It\u2019s a sign of their brilliance that they make the frequently dopey dialogue work.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0In addition, Milius strikes the right tone right away by opening Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>with a quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: \u201cThat which does not kill us, makes us stronger.\u201d Yep, that pretty much sums up Conan\u2019s life. Basil Poledouris\u2019 stirring score is perfect. It\u2019s one of the few soundtracks I owned as a teen that wasn\u2019t a Top 40-type deal like Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Flashdance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>also boasts terrific special effects like the 36-foot animatronic snake Conan fights in Doom’s temple. What an amazing sight! It looks so real. The scene itself recalls the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy carefully tries to remove the idol without setting off another booby trap. Similarly, Conan tries to snatch the jewel without incident only to wake the snake.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0What really impressed 14YO Movie Guy was the amount of bloody violence in Conan the Barbarian<\/strong>. At the time, it was the bloodiest movie I ever saw. It was more than people getting stuck with swords, grabbing their sides and falling. There is a lot of spurt and splatter in Conan the Barbarian<\/strong>. People are decapitated, disemboweled, impaled and castrated in raids on secret lairs and battles amidst tombs and skeletal warriors. Action is one thing this movie isn\u2019t short on. It also has cool scenes like Conan\u2019s sexual encounter with a witch (Gaviola, Night Shift) that turns into a wolf and Doom transforming into a snake to escape an attack by Conan and his companions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0If one\u2019s favorite movie is determined by the number of times they\u2019ve seen it, Conan the Barbarian <\/strong>wins hands down for me. I must have seen it at least 100 times since that day in May \u201982. I have zero complaints about any of it. In my not-at-all humble opinion, it\u2019s perfect and impossible to top. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ADDED NOTE: Don\u2019t bother with the lame PG sequel Conan the Destroyer or the horrendous 2011 3D remake. Stick with the original.<\/p>\r\n Conan the Barbarian\u00a0 (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Action-Adventure-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 129 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong graphic violence, nudity, strong sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Milius\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Milius and Oliver Stone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Basil Poledouris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Duke Callaghan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 14, 1982 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, Max von Sydow, Ben Davidson, Sven Ole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-these-are-some-classic-flicks","category-kick-ass-actioners","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Conan-the-Barbarian-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8925,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/8925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Conan-the-Barbarian-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C930&ssl=1\")
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