And this weeks Friday night movie has been....Conan the Barbarian!
Once again, this is a movie that i finally see having only experienced the effect (as opposed to the cause). I know that Conan the Barbarian is a benchmark of heroic fantasy; I know that this movie, along with the artwork of Frank Frazetta, played a major role in bringing Conan to a wider audience than previously; I recall seeing the sequel Conan the Destroyer when i was ten (or thereabouts) and, later, the cartoon Conan the Adventurer; I know Conan inspired similar IP (Golden Axe anyone?). But in spite of all that, it's only now that I've seen this movie.
As for the movie itself, I'm likening it to the evil twin of the Lord of the Rings movies: It is cheaper, nastier, dour, reliant on a different approach to SFX, has a lot of bare flesh, offers a scenario that is far from heroic and thrives on being something of a power fantasy.
Still, this movie is easy to see how it made Arnie a star (that is until The Terminator) and the score is incredible to say the least. And as a Low Fantasy it works rather well.
So in the end, it's a nasty piece of work but the good kind of nasty. If that makes any sense
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