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Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian
(Originally printed in Knights of the Dinner Table #126)
A Review by Noah Antwiler
For me, Conan is the man who defines epic fantasy. It ranks right up there with Tolkien as a major artistic influence on everything swords-and-sorcery from illustrations to fiction to movies. He's the man who epitomizes the Hackmaster lifestyle, the walking definition of hack-and-slash and the gold standard for badassery. And there's even a little something for d20 System fans to love in Conan. After all, he's the original multiclasser. I can't even begin to list all the different class levels Conan took in his decades of adventure: barbarian, thief, assassin, fighter, gladiator, pirate... was there anything Conan couldn't do?
He's what I think of when I think of role-playing games, and in every character from the Knights of the Dinner Table to your gaming table there's a bit of Conan there: a desire to rise up from nothing, to cleave your name into the pages of history with a big honkin' sword, written in the blood of your enemies. To attain wealth, romance, and a name known and feared by all. To be king by your own hand. That's Conan: a man who defied armies, kings, and gods. Truly a vision for the mind's eye.
Now let me tell you of the days of high adventure!
Conan doesn't believe in pants, but he stuffs
his leather thong with rabbit skins because,
barbarian or not, leather thongs chafe!
You can forget Hawk, Frodo, or Inigo Montoya. Conan the Barbarian is the fantasy flick for me! A masterpiece of cinema that looked torn from the imagination of Boris Vallejo himself, Conan was a surprising success despite its unconventional formula that seemed set up for failure. It took a 'roided up bodybuilder, a surfer, and a dancer and made them the leads. None of them could really act, but it helped that director John Milius set them against established master thespians as James Earl Jones and Max von Sydow to carry most of the meaningful dialogue. Besides, the casting made sense: when you think Conan you don't think of a compelling orator, you think of a massive, brutal chunkhead killing dudes with a gigantic sword.
What really drew me into the film was the bombastic, thrilling orchestral score composed by the late, great Basil Poledouris who brought a heavy, pounding intensity to the Hyperborean Age and a sense of pageantry and power to religion and ceremony. More than Arnold, more than James Earl Jones, the score steals the show as the most evocative character in the movie, and I think it holds up today as the best orchestral score in movie history.
Anyone with an INT score of 3 could sum up this plot in a series of grunts and whistles, but it boils down to our young barbarian hero being orphaned by the evil warlord Thulsa Doom who steals all their steel and sells the Cimmerian sap into slavery to shove a structure in a circle for seventeen years. After a brief stint as a pit fighter, he becomes a free man and sets out on a quest to find the snake-charming bastard who took his father's sword and wear his lungs as a hat. Along the way he picks up some fellow rogues and a manic wizard (played by the fabulous actor Mako, rest his soul) and together they seek booty and fortune.
I personally love how it plays out like an RPG in my head as I watch it. You can tell that Conan is rockin' the 18/00 STR, and the danger of trusting any female NPC who shows a sexual interest in your character is demonstrated when the spooky hermit lady that Conan nails turns into a shrieking succubus! And when Conan dies, his friends helpfully chip into the extensive party fund and get him raised. Then there's the serious DM miscalculation when Thulsa Doom tries to use a low-level Fascinate spell on a barbarian when he's winding up for a full-fledged berserker rage. Conan may not be that bright, but you'll have to do better than that to beat his Will save. And who hasn't belted out the "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women" line in a gaming session on more than one occasion?
I've heard complaints that the movie doesn't match the books well at all, and in fact dumbs down Conan's story a great deal. And I agree. The plot is thin, the main characters nearly mute, the special effects are cheesy, the violence and nudity are largely exploitative, and the acting is so wooden you could build a house out of it. Nobody ever accused Conan of being too complex. I still loved it, and anyone who thinks that this movie was dumbed down had better not check out the sequels.
LOL Buttsecks!
Here's a hard reality: producers and major motion picture studios don't care about making quality sequels. They care about making movies people will watch. That's why when a movie becomes a hit, the sequel is a slapdash, hastily-assembled clone with worse actors, more cartoonish violence, and far less money. The rationale behind this is with a sequel, you already have a built-in audience who are going to see it no matter what. The tickets are already sold. So all you need to do is to make it as cheaply as humanly possible and try to slash the rating down to a more family-friendly one so folks can take their kids.
Therefore I give you Conan the Destroyer, diminished in every way from the original and one of the worst fantasy films ever made. John Milius was out as director, replaced by Richard Fleischer, a man with a surprisingly diverse filmography ranging from Doctor Doolittle, to Soylent Green, to... Mandingo? Basil Poledouris stuck around to pen another great score, but it was performed by an orchestra about a quarter the size of the first, and for a score as heavy and intense as Conan it comes off sounding like it was done by a high school pep band.
In this movie, Conan has ditched Subotai the Archer and replaced him with the blisteringly unfunny comic relief character Malak, the man who was Jar Jar before Jar Jar was uncool. Malak spends most of his time hiding and swallowing his pilfered loot, so when accepting anything from him it's vitally important to wash your hands afterward. Conan is contacted by Queen Evilpants, who tells him that she'll resurrect his girlfriend Valeria if he'll escort the virgin princess Jehnna (and her hulking bodyguard played by... Wilt Chamberlain?!) to retrieve the Horn of Dagoth, a magical artifact that will return the Cthulhoid god to Earth to wreak destruction. Conan, of course, stops listening after the part where he gets his girlfriend back and agrees to go after collecting his old wizard buddy and a shrieking Amazon played by Grace Jones.
The huge gemstone that he kept in Valeria's memory, the Eye of the Serpent, is conspicuously absent. I assume he hocked it for cash, but clearly didn't spend a copper on pants. Folks in the Hyperborean Age don't believe much in clothes. No mention is made of Subotai, either, which is weird because Malak seems to possess all his memories. The strong core of actors present in the first movie are gone, and without it the dialogue is as rigid and as phony as Arnold's biceps. You're in trouble when you give Arnold, Wilt, and Grace most of your lines.
Conan himself is made into a much more buffoonish caricature of himself, stumbling around drunkenly and acting like a total idiot. Here's a tip: no director should ever tell Arnold "act dumber."
But I won't say the movie doesn't have moments. Despite my complaints, the movie does still have some pretty good action and has a certain b-movie appeal. Arnold shows a lot of impressive physicality and some remarkable swordsmanship, and many of the major battles are memorable, if unintentionally funny at times. Watching Conan wrestle a guy in a green rubber lizard suit wearing a Little Red Riding Hood cape screaming his trademark Austrian "nyaaauuuughh aaarrrrgh!" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
My favorite part of the movie is when Conan & Company are escaping from the crypt that holds the Horn of Dagoth and they run into its guardians. Their leader starts to drone on about their bravery, and how their adventure must come to an end here, and how even the mighty Conan blah blah blah... then Conan just steps forward, growls "enough talk!!" and hurls a dagger into his chest. It doesn't get any more Hackmaster than that.
He's not Conan! Really! He wears a shirt!
Oh yes, there was a third Conan movie. Red Sonja is a spin-off character from the original Conan stories. Sort of. Not really. But sort of. Everyone who ever saw Red Sonja noticed Arnold still hanging out and scratched their heads in puzzlement when he introduced himself as Kalidor, when he's still basically playing Conan. The issue is further confused when we notice that Kalidor wears pants throughout the entire movie, something Conan is rarely known to do, but trust me, it's Conan. I have no idea why they felt the need not to call him Conan, seeing as how they're all Howard characters anyway, but there it is. It's probably because Arnold was under contract to do a third Conan movie and this was the fastest way he could get out of it.
This abomination stars Brigitte Nielsen (at this time maintaining a death-grip on Sylvester Stallone's coattails and riding them all the way to the bank) as the She-Devil With a Sword herself, a master warrior seeking to avenge her murdered sister and to retrieve a magical artifact from another Queen Evilpants before she can use it to destroy the world. Nielsen is an impressive, statuesque figure in that she looks good, and like a statue never manages to change expressions or emote anything beyond passive scorn. All I'm saying is that Arnold is the best actor in this movie. The very thought makes my mind hurt.
Contrary to her comic book persona, Red Sonja does not prance around wearing only a scale mail bikini, but she's still every bit the unattainable sex object. Sonja refuses to boink any man unless he can beat her in single combat. I'm not really sure what that's supposed to prove, and actually seems like a rather traumatic way to go about dating other men, but I never claimed to understand women. It may explain why my love life is so difficult, because every woman I approach instinctively reaches for something sharp and drops into a battle stance. But needless to say, whenever you see a thong-wearing enchantress or an Amazon with unlikely proportions wearing a chain mail bra on a poster, you've got Red Sonja to thank.
Sonja seems to subscribe to the cinematic law of inverse protection, which states the less clothing you wear, the more invulnerable you are. I'm not sure how much protection a thin layer of chain mail barely covering her boobs affords, but I'm fairly sure that and a leather thong don't do much for your AC. It must be working for her, though, because if you look at the comics she never has a scratch on her. Must be colder than the inside of a 7-11 chimichanga though.
Anyway, the movie sets a new standard for annoying sidekicks by including two: the self-important boy-prince Tarn and his long-suffering manservant Falkon, further proving why you should never work with animals or children. Nobody here escaped massive embarrassment, not even Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone who must have needed a gig to make rent that year.
Red Sonja is scheduled for a remake in 2008, and I have to wonder how much farther down this series can go. The very thought that a movie could hit theaters worse than Kull the Conqueror wakes me up at nights screaming.
Si bien no hay manera posible de convencer a los socialistas de su error, las múltiples evidencias de la realidad del mercado libre, los miles de libros, ensayos, alegatos y manifiestos escritos para ofrecer soluciones a la pobreza, desde Adam Smith hasta Murray Rothbard, enfatizan que la preocupación de los liberales por que los pobres superen su desdichada condición es sincera, auténtica y ejemplar.
Lo cierto es que la amistad de los gobiernos boliviano y venezolano con Teherán es innegable, y no se puede ocultar ya que el presidente iraní, Mahmud Ahmadineyad, visitó Bolivia en septiembre de 2007, y que luego hicieron otro tanto varias comisiones iraníes. Todo ello da cuenta de que existe una franca alineación de estos dos países americanos, comprometidos con el socialismo del siglo XXI, con los gobiernos del Medio Oriente que muestran una marcada animadversión y una posición abiertamente opuesta y crítica al gobierno norteamericano y a sus aliados.
No disimuló su animosidad hacia los medios de información privados, que a su vez tampoco ocultan su animadversión contra lo que consideran un proyecto de izquierda autoritario "camuflado en el indigenismo".
Por cierto, no sé de dónde me viene esta querencia por los judíos. Ya se sabe, es uno de los argumentos preferidos de los antisemitas. Que enuncian con la misma contundencia como si dijeran "La Tierra gira alrededor del Sol" o "El Hombre desciende del Mono". Vamos, que tan seguros están de que no se trata de una opinión sino de un hecho contrastable, que van y te sueltan aquello de: "¡Pero si tú no eres judía!". Entiéndase: sólo la Tierra cree que es redonda y a los chimpancés les hace ilusión pensar que algún parentesco tienen con los primates superiores. Así son estos confusos seres, que mezclan alegremente gimnasia y magnesia.
El 8 de mayo, en su teatro "de la mano dorada", Dieudonné presentó su lista para las elecciones europeas. Una lista que se votó sólo en la circunscripción de Ile-de-France y que obtuvo un 1,3% del total de votos. Ya, claro: es poca cosa, y por suerte no obtuvo un solo escaño. Pero piénsese que en España la lista de UPyD, el partido de Rosa Díez, ha sacado el 2,8% de los votos (bien es cierto que en todo el país). Ninguna comparación es posible, desde luego: UPyD es un sano referente democrático, la lista Dieudonné es un absceso. Pero también piénsese en lo que significa que en Francia, que además es uno de los pilares más sólidos de la Unión Europea, sea hoy siquiera posible solicitar el voto de los ciudadanos para defender una sola tesis, y precisamente ésta: que Israel es la encarnación del mal, y que para ser buen francés y amigo del pueblo palestino basta con declararse antisionista.
Benson pone mucho énfasis en oponer el estado totalitario al catolicismo, cuando en realidad aquél se opone al espíritu de libertad y responsabilidad individual. Desde el fuero interno, sin embargo, aparece como de una gran ayuda la religiosidad (cualquiera sea la denominación o no-denominación), lo cual significa no sólo ponderar el hecho evidente de las limitaciones y la ignorancia del ser humano, sino que lo pone frente a la necesidad de reconocer facultades superiores a las fuerzas humanas, un sentido de trascendencia que lo obliga a la necesaria humildad y al abandono de la siempre peligrosa arrogancia de creerse lo máximo del universo. Sin duda que el liberal debe respetar todas las ideas sobre la religión, o sobre la ausencia de la misma, pero aquélla complementa la importancia de la razón epistemológica por la que se es liberal: refuerza el "no sé" socrático y lo baja de un pedestal a todas luces sobredimensionado.
La premisa es que todas las naciones expolien en forma igualitaria. Y en pos de ese objetivo, a la OCDE le es totalmente indiferente si, por ejemplo, el gobierno uruguayo es culpable de haber excedido el límite legal para contraer deuda pública. La ley establece topes anuales para el aumento del endeudamiento y prohíbe al Poder Ejecutivo colocar más deuda que la autorizada. En el 2008 el tope era de 275 millones de dólares, pero fue incrementada en 501 millones. Como el ministro de Economía concede que "hay que cumplir con la ley", para "sanear" la ilegalidad, remitió al Parlamento un proyecto que permitirá al gobierno acrecentar la deuda hasta en 700 millones en 2009.
Goethe calificó la contabilidad de partida doble como "el invento más refinado de la mente humana". El profesor Fekete, por su parte, lo comparó con la brújula de los marineros: hasta su invención, los barcos no podían alejarse mucho de la costa, o en todo caso tenían que orientarse por las estrellas... cuando el cielo fuera lo bastante clemente como para no ocultarlas. Si bien el socialismo equivaldría a tener el cielo siempre nublado, un libre mercado sin empresas que practicasen la contabilidad de partida doble sería el equivalente a unos marineros sin brújula: sus compañías apenas emprenderían proyectos de gran tamaño y arriesgados (no se alejarían de la costa), o se guiarían por señales simples y poco relevantes.
Las empresas se adaptaron a un entorno de malas inversiones (por ejemplo, los viviendas necesitaban proveedores de todo tipo, y en torno a las nuevas urbanizaciones comenzaron a crearse negocios que tenían la expectativa de satisfacer esa futura demanda); en realidad, estaban dilapidando su capital. En su balance contable deberían haber registrado una pérdida futura (es decir, provisiones por insolvencia, obsolescencia de demanda, despidos e incremento del valor de liquidación de su deuda), pero lo que hicieron fue anotar pingües ganancias. ¿Resultado? Esas ganancias ficticias les sirvieron para repartir dividendos (phantom dividends) o aumentar gastos.
Ya sabemos que en las escuelas, sobre todo públicas, reina la indisciplina, que los centros no son sino una gran guardería del Estado donde estudiar dejó de ser un privilegio del alumno para pasar a ser una imposición legal sorteable a los 16 años.
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