New Conan trailer doesn't make me embarassed to want to see it!

This was fucking DIRE.
Where do I start? How about the fact they look like actors in dressup as opposed to barbarians. Could the acting be any more phoned in?
Then we get to the whole concept - a fucking 'test' top become a warrior? WTF? This is supposed to be a barbarian village, when you come of age you become a hunter and if the village comes under attack you pick up arms and fight. You don't get recruited for that shit. "A Cimmerian is thins, a cimerian is that, blah blah" - what a bunch of self aware bullshit. That type of dialogue belongs in the recruitment section of Starship troopers, not here.

And that fight? Are you kidding me? For all the "we are going to be faithfull to the books" BS the producers have been feeding us it got thrown out the window in these 3 minutes. Since when was Howard's Conan a suicidal idiot? He is unarmed, outnumbered and a third of there size yet he charges towards them? AND WORRIES ABOUT NOT BREAKING AN EGG DURING THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE?? Fuck off, Conan was never that dumb even as an adult. Conan use to sneak around if he could and flee if things were hopeless. Here he is shown as a nerdtypical "invincible barbarian badass who aint araid 'o nothin'" out of a power tweekers D&D session.

Bring back Milus.

There will never be a proper Conan movie. The first one was cool, probably my favorite fantasy movie of all time but they stray way off from the stories and do totally their own thing. That's fine as they did manage to get some of the essence of the character but there was clearly no attempt to make it faithful. This new one might be an ok action movie, that's possible, but it won't be Conan, just give up that hope right now. You want Conan, there's a ton of great stories and some pretty fucking cool comics. You want barbarian fantasy stuff. There are some movies, one that is awesome.

But it hardly matters. I don't need a faithful translation of the stories since I like them just fine in their present condition and no director can fuck those up since they are done.

Mr Skeletor wrote: This was fucking DIRE.
Where do I start? How about the fact they look like actors in dressup as opposed to barbarians. Could the acting be any more phoned in?
Then we get to the whole concept - a fucking 'test' top become a warrior? WTF? This is supposed to be a barbarian village, when you come of age you become a hunter and if the village comes under attack you pick up arms and fight. You don't get recruited for that shit. "A Cimmerian is thins, a cimerian is that, blah blah" - what a bunch of self aware bullshit. That type of dialogue belongs in the recruitment section of Starship troopers, not here.

And that fight? Are you kidding me? For all the "we are going to be faithfull to the books" BS the producers have been feeding us it got thrown out the window in these 3 minutes. Since when was Howard's Conan a suicidal idiot? He is unarmed, outnumbered and a third of there size yet he charges towards them? AND WORRIES ABOUT NOT BREAKING AN EGG DURING THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE?? Fuck off, Conan was never that dumb even as an adult. Conan use to sneak around if he could and flee if things were hopeless. Here he is shown as a nerdtypical "invincible barbarian badass who aint araid 'o nothin'" out of a power tweekers D&D session.

Bring back Milus.

Man...I'm still going to see this movie, and really, I want to enjoy it, but it is getting easier to take apart.

If Conan is really this bad ass of a fighter where as a boy he slaughters five grown, armed warriors, they would have known about it long before this little egg test were he gets to prove that he's not just the village scamp.

Now, I think REH may have alluded to him being a top fighter even at 14, 15, 16 or so, so I'm not saying that's against the character. I'm just not on board with how they're revealing it.

Jeff White wrote: Now, I think REH may have alluded to him being a top fighter even at 14, 15, 16 or so, so I'm not saying that's against the character. I'm just not on board with how they're revealing it.

Yeah, in some movies the character is just over the top to be over the top. Like Yoda in one of those terrible episodes where he hopped around swinging a lightsaber like a monkey...Uggg. Yoda was a jedi mystic, who had full facilities of the force, he wouldn't need to have the physical theatrics.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Robert Downey Jr's Shelock Holmes, and I remember how everyone complained about the fact that he was this kick ass fighter with ninja skills and how wrong that was in comparison to the literary version. But all I was thinking was..did you read the books. Sherlock Holmes was a prize fighter that knew crazy martial arts. I think people had it in their minds previous movies and how he "should" be.

Conan's youth is pretty much non-canon no matter how you bake it. We do know that Cimmerian's were tough to begin with. SO my complaint isn't the portrayal of Conan's youth being over the top as much as the rest of his clan and his homeland being portrayed as so..non-cimmerian. When I picture Cimmeria, I seriously picture a world of darkness and endless war, and a people gaunt, callous and tough as nails with a continual 1000 yard stare. A Laconic people, a mix of Spartans and Fremen who's only purpose in life is to survive. Men closer to neanderthals than human. Animalistic in nature. I would have liked to see more "Quest for Fire"(Which interestingly also has Perlman) kind of feel. Misty, dark, dirty, primal.

That is not the feeling I got from that scene....But it was fun to watch.


I remember
The dark woods, masking slopes of sombre hills;
The grey clouds' leaden everlasting arch;
The dusky streams that flowed without a sound,
And the lone winds that whispered down the passes.

Vista on vista marching, hills on hills,
Slope beyond slope, each dark with sullen trees,
Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up
A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye
Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill,
Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers.


It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.


It was so long ago and far away
I have forgot the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmera, land of Darkness and the Night.


Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,
How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
- REH.

Chapel wrote: On the other end of the spectrum, we have Robert Downey Jr's Shelock Holmes, and I remember how everyone complained about the fact that he was this kick ass fighter with ninja skills and how wrong that was in comparison to the literary version. But all I was thinking was..did you read the books. Sherlock Holmes was a prize fighter that knew crazy martial arts. I think people had it in their minds previous movies and how he "should" be.

This. If you read the original stories, this trailer was not that far off from Howard's depiction of him. When Conan was involved in the raid against Vanaheim that led to his being captured by the Hyperboreans, he was 6', 180 lbs., and all of 15 years old. This kid is younger than that, but it's far from outrageous that he can fight that well given what is supposed to be Conan's exceptional skill (that Howard cited again and again.)

And I didn't see "suicidal idiot". I saw a brash kid, which is what Conan was early in his life. Who else would scale the Tower of the Elephant without knowing a thing about what he was getting into? Hell, they even co-opted that for the Milius movie.

Anyone taking the rather stripped-down Milius movie as canon is making a mistake. It's not. It's a hodgepodge of Howard's and Lin Carter's work. If you read Howard's work, the trailer is different only in tone; whereas the original stories were almost universally grim, this is a lot more light-hearted in approach. Given that some of the best Conan stories have been adaptations of the originals, I can live with that.

Chapel wrote:

Jeff White wrote:

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Robert Downey Jr's Shelock Holmes, and I remember how everyone complained about the fact that he was this kick ass fighter with ninja skills and how wrong that was in comparison to the literary version. But all I was thinking was..did you read the books. Sherlock Holmes was a prize fighter that knew crazy martial arts. I think people had it in their minds previous movies and how he "should" be.

[/i] - REH.

I rather liked the steampunk slant of Sherlock Holmes with the martial arts angle thrown in.

Two words: Fuck Yeah.

That is what Conan is about. thanks, Loter!

I think if nothing else, it's a huge sign of improvement that we can now argue about the merits of what's going on with this. Much better than the universal disapproval and embarrassment we had with the first trailer.

You know Conan was a bad-ass in the books but he was always smart too. Had he hidden and gotten the drop on these guys one or two at a time it would have shown the cunning aspect without taking away from the fight, would have made more sense and shown a more interesting character.

They blew the egg thing. He should have just walked on by the Chief, empty handed and all bloody and bruised saying, "I dropped the egg." The Chief turning away from everyone and smiling his ass off would have been priceless, funny as hell and painted a picture of Conan's greatness even at a young age.

Still, compare this to the John Carter trailer that looks like it was done on a $5000 budget. At least these guys tried.

S.

What I really want is action scenes with random slow motion and rotating camera array shots while "Down with the Sickness" plays. Man that'd be sweeeeet.

This. If you read the original stories, this trailer was not that far off from Howard's depiction of him. When Conan was involved in the raid against Vanaheim that led to his being captured by the Hyperboreans, he was 6', 180 lbs., and all of 15 years old. This kid is younger than that, but it's far from outrageous that he can fight that well given what is supposed to be Conan's exceptional skill (that Howard cited again and again.)

1 unarmed kid. 4 armed season warriors.
You can spin it any way you want but I have never come across a howard story that fucking absurd. Your example comes no where close.

And I didn't see "suicidal idiot". I saw a brash kid, which is what Conan was early in his life. Who else would scale the Tower of the Elephant without knowing a thing about what he was getting into? Hell, they even co-opted that for the Milius movie.

You mean the tower of the elephant story where he was ARMED? And Snuck in? And shit himself when he bumped into lions?
If that story went through these movie writers (based on the trailer) he would have ripped out the front door with his bare hands, strode in and killed all the guards with a wooden spoon because he is a 'bad ass'.

Anyone taking the rather stripped-down Milius movie as canon is making a mistake. It's not.

Milius understood the spirit of Howard and Conan far better than the majority of nerd nation does. Just because he gave him an origin story (which this film is now doing as well) doesn't mean it wasn't faithful.
Look at he openings.
Here we have some douchebag explaining what a pack of bad asses they all are. "We must be fearless blah blah." I hate this self aware rubbish, no one speaks like that.
Milius has Conan sit with his father, who tells him of crom the asshole god he worships, and of trusting no one but your sword arm (not man, not woman, not beast - this you can trust!) and the riddle of steel. You can tell this kid is going to grow up pure iron just from that quiet, NATURAL scene alone. No utterly absurd superman fight. No self aware "look son, you are going to be a bad ass" dialouge.
Fuck, I'm getting chills just thinking about that film.
The dead king 'handing' Conan his sword. The tree of Woe. His mother's beheading. "He doesn't cry, so I cry for him." My balls that's not a character straight out of the short stories. Arnolds prayer at the end alone is the greatest summation of Conan that has ever been written.

Flesh is weak - the mind is strong. That's Conan. Not taking on 4 mowhawk men with exploding blood without swallowing an egg. Crom that scene gets dumber every time I think about it.

And I was rooting for Momma too.

Much better than the first trailer, but I also noticed the exploding fake blood nonsense.

If the first trailer hadn't existed this second one would have me optimistic about a decent flick in the making. Right now I would just hope that they cut all the scenes of Conan as an adult because those are going to be gawd-awful.

The first movie was a classic. This won't be remembered past the opening week.