Conan: Legions of the Squid Hat

There had been movement on another Conan film for a long time before this saw the light of day. After all, we are in the age of reboots and remakes, and there had not been a Conan movie released since the disappointing Conan the Destroyer in 1984 – that’s 27 years between releases, and these days, when every conceivable property is being made into a movie or a TV show, an unexploited IP like Conan is just sitting there going to waste. Thus, in 2011, Hollywood forces gathered and spent $90 million making a new Conan the Barbarian, and it's easily the worst Conan movie ever made.

There is almost nothing here that is not just painfully bad. The only aspect that works at all is Momoa, who has the right look and the physicality to make for a great Conan, but is given almost nothing to work with. He glowers, he spends most of the movie shirtless, and he throws himself into the action with a lot of gusto, but he is surrounded by levels of incompetence that are almost absurd.

On a surface level, there is already so much wrong here. The art direction and costuming are flat and boring, with all the actors save the leads wearing painfully cheap-looking wigs. The prop weapons are thick and awkward-looking, resembling plastic props you’d buy at a costume store. The fight choreography is bad, with a lot of shaky-cam and quick-cuts meant to stand in for action, and director Marcus Nispel seems addicted to slow-motion. If you look at movies made by Zack Snyder (which Nispel clearly has), you can see how slow-mo can be used to enhance action, but here it deadens it and slows everything down. The editing is shameful, often so bad that you literally can’t tell what is happening or where people are in relation to one another.

Some of the digitally-painted vistas used for backgrounds look quite evocative and cool, but most of the actual set dressing is just bad. One of the signal questions you have to ask yourself, when watching a Sword & Sorcery film, is: Does this look better than an episode of Xena? Sadly, between the cheap costumes, bad wigs, and bland set design, this does not look any better than any given episode of Xena. The special effects are also poor, with digital monsters that have no weight and obviously are not really there – the CGI seriously looks like a relic from 2001, rather than 2011.

Director Marcus Nispel clearly had no idea what he was doing. Some people saw Pathfinder and thought maybe he could do a good job with this, as Pathfinder is a very good-looking movie. But we see the same problems he had in that film, magnified by having $90 million fucking dollars to throw at them. The pacing is slow, the action killed by terrible editing and ill-advised slow motion. A graphic artist, Nispel can create some very cool images and knows how to frame a shot, but he hasn’t got any idea how to direct action or maintain tension, and the actors all show signs of being given no real direction by the person who had that as their fucking job. This is what happens, I guess, when you give a big-name franchise to the guy who used to direct music videos for Mariah Carey and C+C Music Factory.

The characters all speak in a melange of random accents, and nobody has any real good stuff to work with. Stephen Lang seems to be having fun, and Rose McGowan actually manages to find a character in her creepy witch, capitalizing on her weird hair and really leaning in on a strange, alien way of speaking and moving. Momoa is left with his broad American accent and a lot of anachronistic dialogue. Remembering how iconic and forbidding he was as Khal Drogo just makes this all the more painful to watch, because you can imagine what we could have gotten.

But the real disaster is the script, as if it were any good at all maybe this could have been salvaged, but it is fucking terrible. Nobody usually pays attention to screenwriters, but I am going to shame them here: This script is by the team of Thomas Donnelly and Josh Oppenheimer, with some additional work by Sean Hood. Now, Donnelly and Oppenheimer were responsible for the cinematic turd of A Sound of Thunder, and Hood’s biggest credit at this time was for Halloween: Resurrection, so we are not dealing with any real big talents here. This is scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as writers, and it shows.

The first misstep is the movie wasting like 30 minutes showing us Conan as a kid, and even though this was carried over from the original film, I will say right here that I don’t give a fuck about what Conan was like as a kid. We don’t need to see his mom and dad, we don’t need to see his stupid home village. Just, don’t do it. Plenty of characters get introduced in movies without needing to start us with them in the fucking womb.

So then we get to Conan as an adult, and he leads some raid on someplace we don’t care about and which never comes up again. Now we’re like 45 minutes into this movie and it has gathered no momentum at all, and now the story is kind of, sort of, going to get moving.

Like in the 1982 film, Conan here is driven by REVENGE, since Stephen Lang killed his whole village. Lang is looking for the pieces of this mask that looks like a squid and doesn’t cover your face, but rather seems to sit on top of the head. You know, like a mask. I know this character has a name, but I just watched this movie an hour ago and I can’t remember it, so who cares. The dude wants to reassemble his Squid Hat and with it he will have the power of some ancient necromancers and can bring his dead wife back from the grave. I guess this would be bad, but it’s not really made clear why.

So, he found the last piece of the Squid Hat in Conan’s village and now, some 20 years after, he is finally getting going on his Evil Plan. Nice of him to wait while the protagonist grows up, I guess. Maybe he could have moved faster if he was not traveling around in a ship his army drags around on land. No, really. The evil dude travels in a ship that has no wheels or anything, his guys just drag it everywhere, and this is never explained or even mentioned. Nobody seems to think it is weird.

Now he is after Rachel Nichols as “Tamara” - and can we pause to appreciate just how modern-sounding and immersion-breaking that name is? That’s a name for someone who owns a yoga studio, not a character in a Conan movie. Anyway, she is the “pure-blood” descendant of the ancient necromancer kings, and so Steve will use the powers of the Squid Hat and her blood to resurrect his wife and then something something he’ll be a god. Like, we are specifically told that his wife was burned alive because she was so evil, so I don’t know why he thinks she’ll do any better this time around. And when he finally puts on the Squid Hat it just seems to. . . do nothing at all, really. Conan rescues the girl, throws him off a bridge, roll credits.

That’s largely it, the running time being filled out with loooong sequences that are supposed to be action set pieces but just drag on and have no interest and don’t have anything to do with the story. There are a bunch of elaborate fights in this movie that are just there – they don’t change anything, they don’t develop character or advance the plot, they just take up space. The worst one is when Conan and his goofy thief sidekick infiltrate the evil palace, have a massive and tedious battle with CGI tentacles, and then find that Evil Stephen has already left. They look over the battlements and the thief guy says – he really says this - “Looks like he’s going to the skull cave.” And sure enough, there’s a cave on the horizon shaped like a skull. So the whole sequence and everyone in it was utterly pointless.

The whole movie is pointless. There are so many characters and elements that serve no purpose at all and go nowhere, and the movie wastes so much time doing useless crap that when you strip the story down to the bare bones it is really just nothing. It has no respect for the actual history or locations of the Hyborian Age, no respect for Conan’s story or his character. The original Conan was a $16 million movie that made $100 million. This is a $90 million movie that manages to look like $16 million, and the great mixed blessing is that it flopped as hard as it did. On one hand, bad filmmaking should be punished. On the other, the failure of this probably means it will be another 27 years before Conan gets another shot.

Fire in the Sky

Tathar led his eagles to the sign of war. The pillars of smoke marked where the land was scarred by the advancing armies, and he smelled death on the high, cold wind. The sun was just beginning to rise crimson over the far horizon of the sea, and here the light would touch soonest, before it sullied itself upon the cursed earth.

A dozen birds flew behind him in a wide formation, ready for battle, for he expected to draw blood today. For weeks now they had seen the signs of warfare as the armies of the empire pushed into the hills on savage raids. They sought out the villages and hiding places of the tribes that dwelled there and slaughtered those who resisted, enslaved the rest and dragged them away. The hill and forest peoples were no friends of his, but he would not allow the enemy to advance any closer to his home.

He thought of their lovely island, so remote and guarded by the sea, the perfect eyrie, and now their home. Suara was there, guarding their daughter and newborn son. Though she had wanted to come on this war band, she had remained behind, and he was both glad and wished she rode with him.

They stayed high, watchful. He knew the enemy army would be guarded by their new Skylords, but he did not know how many. He had taught his riders as well as they could be taught, telling them to aim for the riders with their heaviest arrows. He feared to face the lances of the enemy, for his people had little defense against such weapons.

Now they saw the trail of the enemy formation, the black scar upon the earth like the mark of red hot iron. He saw the smoke and knew they had finished their strike, were now burning the hovels and stores they found to leave nothing behind. Were they lower, he knew he would see the heads mounted on sharpened stakes, and was glad he could not. He had thought to leave all such wanton cruelties behind him.

Zakai shifted and growled, and he knew the eagle saw something he had not. He felt the lance light and ready in his hand and urged his steed downward, trading height for speed. He wanted to be above the flying enemy when he saw them, to dive upon them and strike before they could react. His warriors might kill a few of the riders, but it would be up to him and his lance to strike the heaviest blows, and he must do it before the enemy could bring their own lances to bear.

Conan the Destroyer

I decided it was time to address the “other” Conan movie, (and I suppose I may have to get around to the more recent Jason Momoa version as well) and so I have taken the dive and present here the disappointing follow-up to the defining Conan the Barbarian. Two years after that movie made the Cimmerian a household name, we were presented with 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, which pissed away whatever goodwill the franchise had, and set the stage for its absolute nadir in Red Sonja the following year.

John Milius did not return to direct this one, so Dino De Laurentiis handed it off to Richard Fleischer, who had directed such old-fashioned adventure flicks as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Vikings, so it might seem that he would have the chops for this. However, he did not have the same dedication Mulius did to keeping things violent and grim, and so he went along with De Laurentiis’ desire to tone the movie down and make it more family-friendly. I mean, the original Conan had only made $100+ million against a budget of $16 million, why would you want to replicate that?

The script for this was originally written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, but their draft was heavily revised, and the final script was by Stanley Mann, a studio hack who had worked on such duds as Meteor and The Omen II. Thomas and Conway were so unhappy with the final film they would later adapt their original story for the comics.

You can see the studio hands all over this in the scholcky fantasy-quest storyline and the severely disappointing fight choreography. There’s a lot more pro wrestling in the big, slow, stupid moves than the badass swordplay of the original. Plus, the film has to find excuses for Arnie to flex and lift heavy things, so we don’t forget he’s a bodybuilder. The story steals liberally from some of the original stories like “A Witch Shall Be Born” and “Black Colossus”, as well as the battle with the robed ape from “Rogues in the House”.

In short, Conan gets recruited by Queen Taramis to escort her niece on a stupid quest to get the horn of a statue that is apparently a sleeping god. They have given Conan a wacky sidekick for comic relief, and saddle him with a crew of companions that don’t really add anything – even the great Mako is criminally wasted, being called upon only to point at things and make car noises to indicate he is casting a spell.

The sets and costumes still look pretty fucking good, with the palace of Queen Taramis looking especially cool. The showdown between Conan and Toth-Amon in the chamber of mirrors has bad choreography and terrible editing, but the set looks amazing. The special effects – like the rubber monster face and the giant puppet of the arisen god in the climactic battle – are pretty fucking terrible, and look cheap even by the standards of 1984

The casting is a strange mix of inspired and bewildering. Sara Douglas gets great outfits and is a preening, prowling villain whenever she’s onscreen, which is not nearly enough. Olivia d’Abo – only 14 when this was filmed – is cute as a button and actually manages a little gravitas in a thin role. Grace Jones is. . . Grace Jones. She’s having a good time, and you have to admire how she throws herself into this, but it’s impossible to forget who she is. Casting Wilt Chamberlain was a bad idea, as he’s no kind of actor at all, and next to his seven-foot height, Arnold looks absolutely puny. Tracey Walter as Conan’s wisecracking thief sidekick Malak is just kind of inexplicable. It is nice to see Pat Roach get an actual speaking role, and as a wizard he is cast way against type.

This is not as bad as Red Sonja by any stretch, but it completely bastardizes the grim, violent mood of the original movie, and inserts far too much goofy comedy, complete with anachronistic banter and that embarrassing scene where Conan gets drunk and makes a fool of himself. The pace is glacially slow, and scenes seem to drag on and on – far longer than they need to. Basil Poledouris reprises his music from the original film, but he reworks the familiar themes into lighter, jauntier versions to the point where it almost seems like he is parodying himself. The dialogue is rote and tedious, and nobody here, besides Sara Douglas, is any good, really. The action scenes are bad, and the editing is consistently poor.

This didn’t exactly bomb when it came out, but it made less than a third of the hundred-million-plus gross of its predecessor, and the reviews were pretty bad. The experience soured Schwarzenegger on the Conan character, and since his contract was up with De Laurentiis, he refused to take part in the projected third film. It would be twenty-seven years before another Conan film saw the light of day, and as that was a massive bomb (that I will get to soon) this film can be largely blamed for the failure of Conan to make a comeback to this very day.

The Slave Mind

Banners flew from the walls of Irdru, and the sea was alive with hundreds of warships as the armies trod upon the ancient roads. The towers shook with the cries of bells and the sounding of war-horns, and crowds gathered to watch as the queen herself took up her armor and her sword, and led her legions upon the march toward battle.

She rode on a high saddle upon the back of her dragon, now draped with armor and with crimson silks. Well-fed and well-groomed, he was glad to be once more on the move, and the sun glowed on his golden-tipped tusks even as he left a trail of fire behind him where his flaming venom dripped from his jaws. The crowds cried aloud when they saw him, and he lifted his great head and roared in answer. Ashari stood tall in her saddle and held up her gleaming sword of shining glassteel, and she felt their adoration sweep over her like a wave.

In her wake came her legions of foot. Company after company of mercenaries all well-armed and armored with the best her wealth could buy them. They had lived well for years as her palace guard and city watch, now they would lift their swords in war for her cause. She left enough behind to secure her city and led thousands in her train. They drew behind them the wagons of supply and the war engines that would form the anvil of her strategy.

As they left the city and set forth upon the wide savannahs, they met the force that would be her hammer. The Horane peoples in their clans and war-bands, thousands and thousands of them all come to her call. She had spent years making alliances with them, making them welcome in the markets and bazaars, forging peace between the myriad tribes and lineages. Now they came in answer to her, and they came in a mounted horde that stunned the city-dwellers, who had never thought to see so many of them at once.

The earth shook as they followed and surrounded the army of foot. Keeping pace with the mercenaries was easy for the riders, and they laughed and galloped and chanted their battle songs beneath the rising red sun. Ashari moved on her path to war at the head of fifty thousands, and she was well pleased.

She had worked hard to forge the alliances that built this army, and now her efforts were rewarded. As queen of Irdru, she now stretched forth her hand, and she would close it into a mailed fist to strike at her enemy. Horane riders went forth ahead of her to scout the path, and she knew no ambush would escape them. She would meet the army of Kurux in battle, and he would find she still possessed her sting.

Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories

Conan has been adapted into comic form a lot, okay, a whole lot, and probably every single Conan story ever put down has been done in the comics at some point. Comics, after all, are produced on a relentless schedule, and that can make them voracious devourers of content. For many, many years the license belonged to Marvel, and they produced both the cleaned-up Conan comic and the much more artful Savage Sword of Conan series. Their license expired in the mid-90s, and the property was fallow for a while.

In 2004 Dark Horse started a whole new Conan series, unconnected from the old Marvel continuity. Like all the comics, it mixed straight adaptations of Howard stories with interpolated bits meant to fill in the blank spots in Conan’s biography. This first collection gathers issues #0 to #7 in this new run, and showcases the work of new writer Kurt Busiek and new artist Cary Nord.

Busiek is an Eisner-Award-winning comics writer who has worked extensively on well-known characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Aquaman, and a four-year run on Avengers. Even before he was a pro, he is credited with the idea that the Phoenix was not really Jean Grey, and so is at least partly responsible for the character’s resurrection.

Handed the keys to Conan, Busiek does a creditable job. He fits “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” into a larger story arc about Conan traveling through the northlands, teaming up with and fighting the Aesir and Vanir, all the while looking for Hyperborea – the mysterious land of sorcerers behind the north wind. The plot has some nice twists and turns, and does some good characterization of the hero without weakening him. Busiek’s character is aggressive, surly, and prone to violence at the drop of a coin – the way he should be. In fact the only problem with the arc is that Conan visiting Hyperborea seems like something he would remember and mention later on, and as such it doesn’t match up with the original stories.

The real star of the show, however, is artist Cary Nord. A comics professional who has drawn almost any character you can think of, most notable for his run on Daredevil, Nord won an Eisner Award for his work on this very series right here, and it’s easy to see why. A lot of Conan artists have walked in Frazetta’s shadow, and Nord is not really any different, but he seems less influenced by Frank and more by the built-up visual vocabulary that decades of artists have created, making the Hyborian Age as familiar as the Shire.

What Nord really does best is atmosphere and evocation. His faces and action shots are excellent, but it is really when he breaks out into a wide vista of the imaginary world that he takes your breath away. He has a touch with misty distances and suggested details with simple color washes or broad sweeps of the brush. Under his eye, the age of Conan seems to live and breathe in a way it rarely does in art. Too many artists focus on blood and gore and monsters, and Nord does not lack for those, but it’s the way that he pictures the world that really catches the eye – the way he paints the age undreamed of as a place both absolutely real and yet brimming over with mystery and magic.

In later stories, Nord seemed to lose his touch a bit, and turned in work that seemed rushed and not as clean as this, but here he is clearly fired up and excited about what he is doing, and the result is one of the finest visual renderings of the world Bob Howard created so many years ago. The best art, for me, is like a window you want to step through, and Nord succeeds in that beyond almost anyone.