Tuesday 7 June 2011

Mo reasons to love Momo

Arnold's Conan did a few impressive things.  He lifted a giant bowl of green soul.  He pushed a giant wheel.  He... *sigh* knocked out a camel with a punch.

He didn't, however, rip a man's tongue out through his own throat.



I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honour. The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs. The rain will fall on your rotting skin... until nothing is left of you but bones.

You'll notice Drogo doesn't even seem to register the flesh wound on his chest from the khopesh (and we seriously need a moratorium on those, they're getting like the katana for the 21st Century), treating it with no more concern than a nettle sting.  Also, that he drops his two tiny knives during the fight: he is Khal Drogo, he doesn't need weapons to kill a man. And to top it all off, he goes all Ken-"Fist of the North Star"-shiro with a final quip.



As with the last showcase of Momo's talent, I really hope Nispel and the gang gave Conan a scene remotely as badass as this one.  Literary Conan certainly had his share of highlights, and it would be nice to have one that doesn't involve animal abuse or lifting heavy things, and hopefully not just rip off one of those moments from the stories.  If there's one thing we can probably depend on, though, it's ingenuity in gory fight scenes.

* I will note that the scene isn't perfect, for the same reason the last one wasn't: Dothraki extras in Game of Thrones suck.  They really suck.  Suuuuuuuck.  In the last video, they didn't seem nearly as fired up as Momoa, reducing the impact of the scene entirely.  I've already talked about how I hate their visual design.  In this case, it's Drogo's "opponent" - more like Drogo's victim.  That guy who challenged Drogo looks like no threat whatsoever to Drogo: surely if you want to show how badass Drogo is, you give him an opponent that looks like he could pose a challenge?  Then, when Drogo defeats him he looks even more dominant? I wasn't remotely worried about Drogo here, and arguably we probably got that point - but that doesn't make it a fight, that makes it butchery.

When Conan fought someone, they were usually treated as dangerous threats.  Howard wrote about their victories, size, deadliness, prowess.  Sergius of Khrosha, Zaporavo, Baal-Pteor, Shah Amurath, the Adventurer, Olgerd.  Conan defeated them all, and while the difficulty of those victories varied, Conan either came out more imperssive because he made them look like nobodies, or because he just barely managed to survive against a truly formidable opponent.  This guy fighting Drogo's a nobody, Drogo defeated him like a nobody, and all I thought during the fight was "how's Drogo going to defeat this nobody?" I'm not going to recall this fight scene as "do you remember when Khal Drogo defeated that challenger to his rule," but "do you remember when Khal Drogo owned that cocky little punk?" Considering we'll (probably) never see Khal truly fight in the series, it's a shame this one fight scene wasn't what I was hoping for.  Ah well. 

7 comments:

  1. that was hilarious!In a badass sort of way of course! over the top scenes of exaggerated violence at its best! makes me wish I had hbo again!he's good, and again he looks bigger here than he does in conan, and he still moves quick.-Mario

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  2. An excellent clip of unnecessary violence.

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  3. He is growing on me more and more as a character as is Daenerys Targaryen.

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  4. Awright, I gotta ask a question--what's with Momo always wearing eyeliner? He's doing it in the alleged Conan movie AND in Game of Thrones, so I was wondering if there was some kind of significance to it. I mean, WTF?!!?

    Tex
    (this Maybelline the Barbarian crap's gotta come to an ass-grinding halt)

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  5. From my understanding, eyeliner was developed to help block out the sun.

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  6. Brutal unarmed combat is the rage in thrillers nowadays, but will we have Conan engaging in some? Will we have improvised weapons like stools? Or will it all be swordplay?

    Also, like you said in an earlier article I'm all for "non-Western" swords other than the katana appearing on film, so more of the khopesh is fine with me (where else have they appeared recently [within a decade]? Only Egypt-themed movies come to my mind).

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  7. I'd prefer it if they used some sort of saber that would work well from horseback rather than a Canaanite weapon that went out of style once they realized it wasn't very good for stabbing.

    The look of the Dothraki is pretty bad in the series, but you're right about Momo.

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