This week, Indiana Jim explores the second of the two Schwarzenegger Conan movies, Conan the Destroyer as part of our Summer of SciFi.
Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the Sons of Arius, there was an age undreamed of; when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, sword in hand. It is I, his chronicler, who knows well his saga. Now let me tell you of the days of high adventure…
It’s not the greatest movie ever made. It’s not the greatest Sword-and-Sorcery adventure flick ever made. Heck, it’s not even the greatest Conan movie ever made. But it was in syndication on TV, and I was allowed to watch it. That was good enough for a boy nearing his teen years.
All I knew for sure was that Arnold Schwarzenegger was a bad dude on par with Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone (as action stars and actors), and it had that chick from that Bond flick I liked so much with the Golden Gate Bridge. Later in life I would understand that it was Grace Jones and the Bond flick was A View to a Kill. Back then Bombaata was this really tall dude. Later I would learn it was Wilt Chamberlain, an actor on par with Hayden Christensen, but a pretty good basketball player. I would be remiss if I failed to mention Olivia d’Abo as the Princess Jehnna (Now how hot was she back then? Especially for a preteen male, HELLO!).
Destroyer was not, near as I can tell, very adaptive of anything Robert E. Howard wrote. I do know that writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, who provided the original treatment, were so disappointed in the final screenplay that they published the story as the graphic novel Conan: The Horn of Azoth in 1990, character names changed to protect the innocent. The director of Conan the Barbarian, John Milius, is known for echoing fan disappointment in Universal and producer Dino DeLaurentiis’ decision to aim for a PG rating. He felt that director Richard Fleischer’s story suffered because of it, and many people agree with him. But what Conan the Destroyer did for me, despite John Milius’ protestations, was put Conan in a context that I could understand and relate to, and for that I’m grateful. This was a film of my times, along with Beastmaster, as well as more kid-centric Sci-Fi and Fantasy flicks like Willow, The Neverending Story and Flight of the Navigator (I didn’t discover The Princess Bride until much later in life).
There were some things that this film got right, in my opinion. The first is the obvious growth of Schwarzenegger as an actor, and Richard Fleischer should be credited with bringing about a much more well-rounded Conan. It seems he delivers far more dialogue than in Barbarian, with much aplomb, and he is far more expressive facially than in the first film, where everything was done with a stone-cold stare. Many would argue Schwarzenegger’s performance cheapened Howard’s original depiction, which Milius came closer to grasping. This is most evident when a drunk Conan says in protest, “Lot… on your knife! I mean, not… on your life!” in a scene clearly intended purely for humor. Maybe they’re right, but to me it gave him a more genuine human dynamic.
Cinematography was performed by industry veteran Jack Cardiff, best known for working in an earlier era, winning an Oscar for his work on 1947’s Black Narcissus. He had also done 1951’s The African Queen, and would go on to shoot Rambo: First Blood Part II the year after Destroyer. It’s a film that refuses to take itself too seriously, with Mako as the wizard Akiro and Tracey Walter as Malak providing plenty of comic one-liners.
Likely the most influential thing about Destroyer for me is the stirring score by Basil Poledouris, may he rest in peace. A great score helps me enjoy any film, regardless of its quality. I know that’s why I can look past a lot of the Star Wars Prequels’ flaws, because of the brilliance of John Williams. I firmly believe that Poledouris’ piece for the scene where Conan fights the guy I like to call the “Lizard Wizard” (track titled The Crystal Palace) is one of the finest pieces of leitmotivic action scoring I’ve ever heard or will ever hear. It’s one of the reasons I became so interested in Film Scores, and scoring for film is a distant and secret dream of mine. It is supremely evocative of the Sword-and-Sorcery milieu, and one of the scores I routinely draw from for inspiration in my writing.
Destroyer took the tropes of Fantasy and made them accessible. The dialogue was simple and campy, the plot was easy to follow, and Conan was intriguing in that nigh-unapproachable, mysteriously vexed, almost anti-heroic archetype. It wasn’t something that long-time Conan or Robert E. Howard fans would have liked, or even what fans of Barbarian had come to expect. But it introduced me to a world that I did not yet know existed, and would not seriously explore until adult life. I watched it whenever it was on, which seemed to be quite often.
What Destoyer has always done for me is display how one could combine these elements of Fantasy to make something if not particularly great, at least accessible to a broader audience. The fact that it suffered from a) being a disappointing sequel and b) being a bad adaptation, should not detract from how it works as an adventure flick. It lacks the dark austerity of Milius’ film, with its epic closeups and long, unspoken but well-scored scenes. It instead moves us from action setpiece to action setpiece, interspersed with campy humor, and plays more on the traditional quest motif.
It is a piece of nostalgia from my childhood. It’s a movie I can actually watch and enjoy with my kids, without having to fast forward through any disturbing adult bits. It is a constant fountain of visual inspiration for my writing, as well as other films some people don’t seem to value as highly, like First Knight or The 13th Warrior. Maybe I’ve come to expect different things from my entertainment. I can value the masterpieces of the genre without feeling the need to outright disparage the ones that aren’t so much.
While Conan the Destroyer should never be confused with an action masterpiece like Gladiator, or a Fantasy epic like Willow, it at least has that charm of a film from a less cynical era. It has the nostalgia of being what we watched because it was the best Hollywood could give us at the time. It’s Arnold frickin’ Schwarzenegger hacking and slashing his way through a tale of high adventure, and sometimes a little swordplay makes it all work.
Would you believe I just discovered Andre the Giant wore the Dagoth costume in the film? This movie never ceases to teach me things….
Indiana Jim is the host of the Farpoint Media shows The Adventures of Indiana Jim and The 49ers Fancast. His Star Wars Fan Audio Drama, Codename: Starkeeper, was a finalist for the 2009 Parsec Award for Best Audio Drama: Short Form. His first full-length podcast novel, The Last Guardians, will begin later in 2010. Learn more about Jim and his projects at http://www.indianajim.net.
Al Harron says
“Destroyer was not, near as I can tell, very adaptive of anything Robert E. Howard wrote.”
Understatement of the century. There’s a city called Shadizar (which is nothing like the one in the film), a Queen called Taramis (who is nothing like the one in the film) and a place called Dagoth Hill (which is completely unrelated to the film’s Dagoth), and Conan fights an intelligent ape wearing a scarlet cloak in an infinitely better story. That’s basically it.
“Many would argue Schwarzenegger’s performance cheapened Howard’s original depiction, which Milius came closer to grasping.”
Those people don’t know what they’re talking about. Both cinematic Conans are equally far from Howard’s, just in different ways. While Barbarian’s Conan had more of the intellectual/savage side of REH’s Conan, & Destroyer’s had the humourous/romantic side, Barbarian’s Conan is a painfully stoic, silent, angst-ridden freed slave: Destroyer’s Conan is a dim-witted, confrontational, lumbering adventurer. Both are a far cry from Howard’s creation.
In addition to Destroyer’s Conan being unfathomably slow in combat and in mentality (he can’t seem to count to six, ferchrissakes!), he actually considers raising his greatest lover from the grave – something that’s complete anathema to Howard’s Conan, who knows too well the price and unnaturalness of necromancy.
While I can appreciate your attempts to justify your love of the film – Crom knows there are some terrible films with a special place in my heart too – I can’t help but think there’s a vast gulf in quality between the two films. That said, some of the criticisms leveled against the film are off the mark: blaming family-friendliness is missing the point, in my opinion. A film can be terrifying, action-packed and exciting without being hard R, and adding sex and violence does not automatically improve a film.
Destroyer’s flaws are more due to other mitigating factors: bad choice of actors, terrible story and script, lacklustre direction from a formerly competent director, budget cuts, producer meddling. They are myriad.
Still, I know the feeling when something you love is considered by many to be irredeemably bad.
Jonathan says
When this movie came out I was really into AD&D and I remember thinking at the time “Why can’t someone make a really good fantasy movie? But it was ok and I actually liked it better that the first Conan movie because of the more adventurous plot and I was allowed to watch it without staying up late and sneaking. I remember it was on HBO about 3 times a day. And I watched it over and over. Looking back I like the first movie better. But I still have a certain fondness for this movie, even though I knew at the time it wasn’t very good.
Indiana Jim says
I’m not going to argue about Barbarian. It’s an infinitely better film, despite it’s much slower pacing. I got the feeling that Barbarian’s Conan was far less intellectual than Destroyer’s. He seems to spend much more time afraid of the wide world around him, and his eventual triumph is due more to his brutality than his intelligence. Neither one is equal to the depth of his character in Howard’s works.
As far as the counting to six, you know how it is when you start counting something and your brain comes up with an estimate before your done? He was merely confirming Jehnna’s assertion that there were a whole lot of dudes ganging up on Zula. That doesn’t really say dumb to me.