Hello there

Let me start by saying I'm a relative newb to REH's Hyborian Age tales. But even before then, from talking to my older brother(who has been a Howard fan far longer than I've been alive), I knew something was wrong with the way John Milius' 1982 film depicted Conan, just from faint rumblings from the online REH fan community. And then I read "Beyond the Black River," and realized how terrible this awesome movie is as an adaptation of REH's work, and how most of all, Arnold Schwarzenegger sucked as Conan. The damage this movie has wrought upon the public perception of the character continues to this day, and with a new movie on the horizon for release next year that will likely compound this, I figured it was time to write this.

I plan to hit on a few points:

1. Overused tropes that Hollywood insists on working into movies(not just Conan), such as the murdered family, angst, and the fate of the world being at stake as opposed to a more intimate story.

2. The idiocy of some of Milius' ideas (I prefer to think of them as more fairy tale like than REH's sword and sorcery), such as how pushing a wheel every day for over a decade will give the Nietzschean a bodybuilder physique while killing the weaker ones.

3. How terrible Arnold was as Conan, not the least of which was his size (I've heard some people actually use the fact that he was too muscular to properly wield a sword when cast in this movie as a point in his favor!)

4. How this movie has left people with a distorted perception of the character, and what REH wrote.


Frankly, I am willing to bet Al Harron's "Blog That Time Forgot" probably covers the same ground in much broader strokes; Al also discusses misconceptions about the man himself oftentimes as well, as well as the sword and sorcery genre as a whole. But I'm going to focus more on the Arnold movie. Sometimes it will only be a quote from the movie and a quote from the source material (like where Conan says only fools would pray to Crom) to contrast, some days I will go more into depth. But I have much to say on the matter, so stay tuned.

Al's Blog