If there's a scene like this in the upcoming film, we can forget all about Arnold.

Let's look at the most famous scenes in Conan the Barbarian.





Much as I like those scenes in their original contexts, they're not Robert E. Howard's Conan. The next video is closer to Howard's Conan than every alleged "Conan" film, television show or cartoon to date combined. If Momoa's Conan is given a scene like this performance in "Game of Thrones," then I think the ghost of Arnold may be dispelled at last.

"And to my son, the stallion who will mount the world, I will also pledge a gift. I will give him the iron chair that his mother's father sat upon. I will give him seven kingdoms. I, Drogo, will do this. I will take my Khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride wooden horses across the black salt water, as no Khal has done before. I will kill the men in iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak. This, I vow, I, Drogo, son of Bharbo. I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness.


As the stars look down in witness."

Don't leave me hanging, bro!

Allow me to jump into Conan week late.

It’s now Saturday morning in the UK and this fits perfectly. I was going to write a post explaining that I have serious problems with Robert E. Howards’ Conan stories and with most subsequent sword and sorcery stories that were inspired by it. I was also going to mention that they’re all a bit crap. 

Whoa-ho-ho-ho-hooo. This oughta be interesting.

*Cracks knuckles, poises fingers on keyboard, prepares to read about these serious problems and allegations of partial craptitude*

Instead you are getting this.

... Aww. Well, alright, what're we getting?

Conan the Adventurer is how I first discovered the character of Conan. It aired on the BBC after school and I was probably eight. Unlike homework it didn’t bore me and unlike Australian children’s TV didn’t agitate my childhood fear of clowns. You can go on about the two Arnold Schwarzenegger films and the riddle of steel and camel punching, but this is better.

Yes this is also terrible. It’s just a better league of terrible.

Dude, come on.  I feel so played.

This chap, Will Ellwood, got my hackles up for nothing.  Here I was, fingers poised on the keyboard, eager for a chance for me to debate.  Debate is good.  If he had honest, understandable problems with the Conan stories that I'd have to work to address, that'd be great: it'd force me to really assess the Conan stories, and maybe discover something I hadn't noticed before.  If he came up with a bunch of garbage about how Conan always got the girl, always beat the wizard, always got the treasure and so on, then I could be further inspired to finish those entires in the Beginner's Guide refuting those silly myths.  But no, Will does the old bait-and-switch and goes for the easy target of Conan the Adventurer.  Oh, you cad, Mr Ellwood.

I don't begrudge people having different tastes. I just don't think you can leave people hanging on proclamations on what you were going to write, make pretty strong statements about "serious problems," and then not follow up on them. Bit of a tease, is all.

Legolas IS in The Hobbit, to the surprise of absolutely everyone for some unfathomable reason

I just had to comment on this.

Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas. I’m excited to announce today that we’ll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I’m thrilled to be working with Orlando again. Funny thing is, I look older—and he doesn’t! I guess that’s why he makes such a wonderful elf.

And of course, the news sites act as if this is some impossible-to-foresee event, that Tolkien purists will only now be outraged.  As if Tolkien fans were fine with everything up to this point.

Only now.

Again, this is from the people who:

 - Added entire sequences from whole cloth
 - Rendered Sauron as a floating eyeball
 - Made Aragorn renounce his kingship so he can Go On A Journey
 - Cut out Glorfindel and replaced his role with Arwen
 - Invented an entire secondary antagonist only for Aragorn to kill him
 - Rearranged the entire plot structure of the middle third
 - Put Elves in Helm's Deep
 - Have Frodo dismiss Sam and Sam abandon Frodo
 - Completely warped Faramir, Denethor, Theoden and others
 - Have the Oathbreakers save the day in the most contrived way possible
 - And much, much more

And in the upcoming film already:

 - Are expanding a self-contained single story into a two-parter using supplementary material
 - Have invented a peppy female elf warrior
 - Have already stuck in Saruman, Galadriel and Radagast despite them not appearing in the book

Really, any Tolkien purists who are only now starting to get the idea that they might have problems with the upcoming film have no sympathy from me.  The idea that all the many divergences from the stories were perfectly alright, but inserting Orlando Bloom - no, that's a step too far.

I really doubt there are any Tolkien purists thinking that, though: more likely the media just seems to imagine their own things.  After all, fantasy fans are still easy targets.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy may be among the most Oscar-blessed films in history, The Harry Potter series may be among the highest-earning series, and A Game of Thrones may be one of the most popular TV shows in recent years, but heaven help the guys who still read those musty old tomes.  They're still fair game.

I truly don't foresee The Hobbit films being substantially different from the trilogy.  They're going to get some things pitch-perfect, they're going to do some things very well, they're going to do some things that aren't in the book but work well in context, and they're going to do some things that have Tolkien fans tearing their hair out.  Orlando Bloom's Legolas isn't going to doom or save this film: it's fate has already been sealed in the minds of Tolkien fans, for good or ill.

The Second Scottish Invasion of Cross Plains

Since I still haven't gotten around to reporting on the last Scottish Invasion, I figure perhaps it would be better to do occassional updates from the field. I'm currently reporting from Philadelphia, waiting for my connecting flight to Phoenix, Arizona.

I've been falling a bit behind on both blogs, so I really hope I can get back on track in the downtime between dinosaur hunting and skyborne trekking.

I'll try to get a more substantial post up when I get to my relatives. Till then...

UPDATE: Well, no internet connection where I'm set up, however, my relatives have gratiously allowed me access to their internet connection. Infuriating considering there's a lot of Conan movie news and such to get through (as well as me leaving half my work at home) things are going to be unfortunately quite sparse round these parts for at least the next week: when I get down to 36 West with the internet connection, then things should pick up a bit.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Requiescat in Pace

I got the very sad news from Terry Allen that Jeffrey Catherine Jones, artist extraordinaire and the person Frank  Frazetta called the greatest living painter, has departed for the worlds beyond worlds.

I haven't spend nearly enough time talking about JCJ's fantastic work, but the blogosphere has not let the death of a modern legend go by unnoticed: Bill "Indy" Cavalier, Mike Cane, Matt at Ferrett Press, and no doubt others have paid their respects.

This video by Maria Cabardo says it all, and I think it's of comfort that JCJ at least found peace and acceptance before the end.

Maxim are either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid

In the June 2011 issue of Maxim magazine, there is a brief "fast facts" snippet about Conan and Robert E. Howard. I have to parentheses the facts portion as "We" all know better.

Amaron's post over at the Robert E. Howard Forums piqued my interest, but further developments are just too good to leave alone. I'll just replicate what I said over there.

It says, Conan debuted in 1932, making him older than Superman but younger than Mickey Mouse.

Cool factoid: Solomon Kane's older than all three!

Mickey Mouse first appearance: November 1928
Solomon Kane's first appearance: August 1928

Conan was born in the fictional Hyborian Age in Cimmeria, thought to be modern-day Ukraine - (Funny, that is the first time I have ever heard that one.)

I think they're getting it mixed up with another Cimmeria: the historical Cimmerians lived in the area of modern Ukraine. I've heard it a few times, usually when people try to justify the Austrian accent. ("Austria's right next to Ukraine!")

At least they didn't say "Hyboria," though.

Howard described Conan as 6'2", 210 pounds, supposedly the authors own weight and height.

AAAAAAAARGH.

Conan's an orphan: His mom was decapitated and his dad was eaten by dogs.

Figures. Strange they don't mention Thulsa Doom, though.

Officer Aggro scanned in the page, and there's a delightfully ironic bit in the top right corner:

"Incredibly Untrustworthy Source" indeed.  One wonders if that was intentional on their part.

The Main Problem with the Conan the Barbarian Trailer (and film in general)

I've been holding off on revealing my opinion on the Conan trailer for a while, mostly because I think I've finally achieved the last stage of the Kübler-Ross model.

Stage 1: Denial
Date: 23rd February 2009
Trigger: the Latino Review Featurette
"Let's not be hasty, guys, the Latino Review might have gotten their facts wrong, or perhaps someone's screwing about with them. No way is this script outline real: "Khalar Singh"? Conan's tribe being wiped out yet again? Acheron being a significant plot point in what's chronologically the first Conan story, but never gets mentioned again until the very last? Come on, guys."

Stage 2: Anger
Time: 23rd October 2009
Trigger: Moviehole character casting sheet report
"I am vexed. After almost 80 years, we're going to get Another Made Up Origin Story just like the one we had 30 years ago.  It is extremely difficult to amply convey my deep and resolute exasperation at this turn of events."

Stage 3: Bargaining
Time: 12th September 2010
Event: Encouraging reports on Blackman's script for the sequel
"OK, OK, maybe there's another way of looking at it: if this film does well, then can we get an actual Howard adaptation? If this film does well at the box office, maybe we'll finally get a Howard story on the big screen. Maybe Blackman's script really is a pretty close adaptation of one of the original Conan tales - come on guys, this could be our chance!"

Stage 4: Depression
Time: 12th March 2011
Trigger: Conan the Barbarian teaser released

Stage 5: Acceptance
Time: 17th May 2011
Trigger: This post
"You know what? This is happening. It can't be stopped. It can't be changed. It can't be helped. We just have to figure out what we're going to do from here."

It's a source of constant amusement to me that there are several folk on various boards who think I'm somehow not a "real" Conan fan because I have the audacity to try and give the movie the benefit of the doubt.  Some even seem to think I've gone soft, that Sean Hood's outreach has given me some sort of about-turn on the project, and that I've said the formerly heinous script was now awesome (Wikipedius, he say: "citation needed.")  As far as they're concerned, I'm now the project's number 1 fan, and I brush off all criticisms with a "hey, at least it isn't Ahnold." They have no idea how very, very wrong they are. What they don't know is that giving the film that benefit of the doubt is the only thing that's keeping me sane.

Conan the Barbarian Review Reviews: Roger Ebert

(Note: you'll notice that I've not been keeping up on the blog. Part of it's stuff for Conan Movie Blog, part of it's the book, another part's getting ready for Cross Plains. And gremlins. As consolation, here's a Review Review I put on the backburner due to its contentious subject matter, but considering I'm pretty sure Ebert's going to do a review of the upcoming Conan film, I figure I may as well.)

Ah, Roger Ebert. Doug Walker, a fan of Siskel & Ebert, has a tribute to the pair which illustrates nicely the nature of the man and his work. While I can appreciate his popularity and contributions to film studies, I'm not a fan. I find that he's too quick to apply a perceived agenda to films, and can be derisive of films not adhering to a script 3-act structure made in the past 50 years. He also tends to make a few factual errors, which is one of those things only nitpickers like myself are really bothered with.

However, nothing bothered me quite as much as his review of Conan the Barbarian. The reasons will be self evident.

This is why you shouldn't block me.

Because I can't correct this minor error on Filmshaft:

I don't think it's unfair for me to say that there's more than a few fans out there who are overly cautious about Millennium Pictures' long awaited reboot of Conan the Barbarian, and with good reason too. It has taken the project several years to get off of the ground, with production dates being pushed further and further back as a result. Also, to be fair, the original films, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger are hardly classics, so what could be worth looking forward to in the reboot which crashes into cinemas later this year?

Well to start with, you may (or may not, take your pick) breath a sigh of relief to find out that the new film, directed by Marcus Nispel, is NOT based on Arnie's movies, but rather the Robert E. Howard comicbooks.

Of course, I can't comment, because evidently Martyn Conterio is still peeved that I patiently and helpfully corrected him, and...

And unless some other good soul corrects Craig Sharp, his article will continue to reflect poorly on him.

Grant Morrison and Barry Sonnenfeld MUST SUCCEED.

Deadline have reported this... transcendent news:

EXCLUSIVE: Barry Sonnenfeld, finishing up his third Men in Black film, has come up with a new spin on the alien film genre. Sonnenfeld is at the center of a publishing/movie deal with Liquid Comics and producer Arnold Rifkin and his Cheyenne Enterprises. Sonnenfeld will team with comic book writer Grant Morrison to develop a graphic novel and movie under the title: Dominion: Dinosaurs Versus Aliens. Morrison, whose comic book work includes Batman and The Invisibles, will write both the graphic novel and the script. Sonnenfeld will direct the film.

While Sonnenfeld has scored his biggest commercial successes with aliens, he's also a dinosaur fanatic who sparked to the idea of combining them. "Growing up, my fascination was all things dinosaur, and as an adult, I've had some success making films about aliens, so this is a dream come true," said Sonnenfeld, who first met Liquid Comics founder Sharad Devarajan when he wrote a forward for one of Liquid's graphic novels. "We've been trying to do a project ever since."

The graphic novel will chronicle a secret prehistoric world war battle. When an alien invasion attacks Earth in the age of the dinosaurs, the planet's only hope is the giants that roam the planet with, it turns out, a lot more intelligence than previously realized.  Sonnenfeld, Rifkin and Devarajan will produce, while Liquid cofounder Gotham Chopra will be executive producer. WME will package the film.

The graphic novel will be published later this year in print and digital formats. Artwork will be done by Liquid's Mukesh Singh, who teamed with Morrison on 18 Days. Morrison's repped by ICM.

Normally this is where I'd call up 8-year-old-Ally, but frankly, 27-year-old-Ally is just as demented at this news.  Grant Morrison and Barry Sonnenfeld.  Working on a film that involves a war between aliens and dinosaurs.

Hollywood, listen to me very carefully. Whatever it is Grant Morrison and Barry Sonnenfeld need to make this film - money, wine, women, men, drugs, Fabergé eggs, their own sovereign country - let them have it.  Give it to them.  Make this happen.

MAKE.  THIS.  HAPPEN.