Conan the Box Office Bomb

There were other words I could have used to start this blog, but none of them are family friendly. To say the least, I did not like, nor enjoy Conan the Barbarian. I am a fan of Robert E. Howard, I have devoured the Conan stories over and over. Conan the Barbarian ‘82 with Arnold Schwarzenegger was about as close to the original Howard stories as Mamoa’s Conan, but I loved that movie for its own sake. That film as well as the horrible pastiches by de Camp and Jordan made me seek out the original in turn allowed me to discover the rest of the great writer’s work.

I went into the film late and this blog is too late for many who have all ready spent their money, and the gods forbid on the 3D version. But it was so bad, weighs so much on my pulp lovin’ mind, that I have to get something out there to warn others.

First, I went into the movie with the idea that, like ‘82, this would not be Conan as Howard had seen him, but like ‘82 I would get a fun fantasy sword and sorcery movie. I didn’t get it. As a matter of fact when the credits started rolling all I could think was: ’Thank the Gods that train wreck is over’. When I come out of a movie emotionally exhausted I want it to be because it was that damn good!

The opening credits pissed me off! The opening voice over started with the famous Howard lines….. Know O Prince that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis gleaming cities and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas…… then they are corrupted to introduce not Conan but the friggin’ McGuffin for the plot! Once again, a movie maker decided that we need to waste twenty minutes of film with an origin back story to set the rest of the story. Though I love Ron Perlman and thought as origin stories for Conan go, the sequence wasn’t bad until the village was raised. Just because the whole “it takes destroying his village to make a hero” thing has been done to death!

Conan himself was okay. I get hung up on character features if they are strongly presented in the original prose. Conan’s blue eyes were made much of by Howard. They are usually a feature very prominent in action fiction because of the emotion description they can convey. Through out the film, I kept thinking that though piercing, seething, and volcanic could be used to describe Mamoa’s glare, his eyes were not the startling blue I should expect. Mamoa, a guy I like as an actor, was a good pick, physically and through his presence. He just had nothing to work with. Also, the lack of armor where appropriate bothered me. I understand that Conan is perceived as the bare chested barbarian and Mamoa spent the majority of the film that way. But Howard’s hero wore armor of various types when appropriate, there were a few scenes where a shirt of mail might have been wise.

The dialogue lacked any spark like Howard’s prose. Now I was not expecting or wanting Shakespeare, but a little more than the grunts and snarls that our protagonist issued, reinforcing the dull barbarian stereotype that Arnold had been saddled with. As with most films the villain had the best lines, but even these were so trite to the genre that they left me flat.

The costuming was not too bad. I could see the interpretation of Howard’s Hyborian races as it was presented, especially the Bossonian archers, though I was expecting long bows, not recurve designs. The make up on the other hand was ridiculous. The characters looked more like something out of Fall Out or Mad Max. I’m still puzzling over how Pictish warriors (loosly based on Native American tropes) sound like Tuskan Raiders. Now Howard had characters with some extreme features like the filed teeth of The Man Eaters of Zamboula. Often times this was a cultural thing like ritual scarring. Some of the level bosses (because that is what these guys were, but more on that to follow) looked like radiation mutants.

Certain features were well done, Messantia and the Cimmerian village both had the look of living, breathing communities, much like what was seen in the HBO series Rome and others that have learned what a good set can do for a story. The regions that were explored as ruins had the feel of being there for ages, or in the case of abandoned outpost, age and neglect. Then you have a massive mobile fortress on the backs of elephants! ARRRRGH!

The fortress (not the mobile command center) of the villain Kylar Zym, looked like a twisted nightmare vision of something Sauron would call home. Yeah, I know a twisted nightmare vision for Sauron, yes that is how over the top it was. Then the infiltration of the fortress, and the level bosses. Yes, I saw the potential for the first person Conan video game. Zym was surrounded by several level bosses, and in order to be ready to face Zym Conan had to defeat each one. It got stupid ridiculous when one of them was in the bowels of the fortress seemingly just waiting for Conan to come up so he could defeat said boss and move on to the next level.

The final fight between Conan and Zym was lack luster, no epic clash. Of course the fortress had to spontaneously exploded and tumble after Zym was defeated juuuuuuuust after the hero escapes. Now this is a pulp staple, but I was left wondering how and why when it was done.

The female lead was there to scream a lot and to give Conan someone to share his feelings with. Actually adding only as much to the story as the McGuffin, the Mask of Acheron.

This was such a lost opportunity for those with the Conan property. There was a chance to create a sweeping epic adventure that would have been part-pulp part high adventure. Stories that would have made great films still languish for adaptation. Howard has yet to be discovered by this generation of movie goers, I was fortunate enough to seek out Howard after seeing Arnold as the iconic barbarian. Others, considering the box office returns and stock pile of bad reviews will not be as fortunate.

As a post-script I would actually recommend the novel adaptation by Michael A. Stackpole. The story has elements that Howard himself could have written and makes the craptacular story of the movie work, while weaving it into the greater Conan cannon.

Princess of Mars: Traci Lords is Baaaaack!!!!!

I finally broke down and dropped my five bucks to rent Princess of Mars, written and directed by Mark Atkins. The direct to video 2009 release stars Antonio Sabato, Jr. as John Carter and Traci Lords as Deja Thoris. This film is based on the series of adventures penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs of Tarzan fame. The stories were "planetary romances", what has become known as Sword & Planet. There were roughly a dozen or so of these stories, usually serialized in various pulp magazines, the majority surrounding John Carter as the main character.

John Carter was a Virginian who had served during the Civil War as an officer. He was adept at shooting, riding, and he was deadly with a sword in his hand. All prerequisites for what was to come. Through a process which could only be related to astral projection, but with physical form, John Carter finds himself on the red planet that the natives call Barsoom and we know as Mars. He finds with the lighter gravity of Mars he is stronger, faster, and able to make tremendous leaps. He befriends, a four armed tusked warrior named Tars Tarkas, of a race called Tharks. He rescues Princess Deja Thoris from the Tharks; he goes on to embroiled in the events and politics of Barsoom. He saves the planet from suffocation by revitalizing/turning on the air pumping station that maintains the thin atmosphere. The first story ends with John Carter declared War-Lord. All the John Carter tales are related in the first person as Carter returns to Earth periodically having learned to secret to willfully travel between worlds, so the tales are as he related them to one of his descendants. (Burroughs)

The Mars of Burroughs imagining is a post-apocalyptic desert planet, inhabited by humans, myriad multi-limbed beasties, an assortment of weird races, and mad scientists for Carter to pit himself against. The world is drying up, becoming arid and inhospitable. Ancient technology manifests itself in things like air ships, flying sleds, radium guns, and afore mentioned pumping station. There are other super-science plot devices such as brain transplants from living bodies to synthetic ones and between species. The cultures are all honor bound warrior based societies with an emphasis on personal combat and reputation. With the technology becoming rare as it breaks down with little knowledge to replicate or repair, the societies have fallen back on swordsmanship and hand to hand combat as a means to wage war.

The Burroughs' books are great fantasy and an exemplarily example of pulp fiction that would go on to influence generations of writers, including Robert E. Howard and later day literary heroes like R.A. Salvatore.

Now the movie: not bad. Not good, but not bad. The movie actually does a fine job of adapting The Princess of Mars. But like so many Sci Fi Channel productions it suffers from a very low budget. But unlike the upcoming Conan film, the one of ARNOLD fame and even the new Solomon Kane film that will be released on DVD here in the States, this film actually follows Burroughs' story closely.

The film Princess of Mars has modernized John Carter, (Sabato) in that he is a Captain in the Marines rather than a Confederate officer, in the Middle East rather than in the Old West prospecting gold. The Mars of this new rendering is a planet in the Alpha Centauri region called Mars 4. John Carter agrees to be part of a teleportation experiment to this remote and theoretically inhabitable world. This gets around the fact that hard science has ruined the planetary romance and the turn of the century speculation about the Mars of our solar system.

When he arrives, as in the novel, he encounters the Tharks who are amazed and entertained by his prodigious leaping ability and strength. The rest of the film follows the original Burroughs' plot loosely, replacing the enemy city-state of the novel with the machinations of another Earth man that had also agreed to the experiment.

The nit and the picky: the production value is stupendously low. In the Burroughs tale the Tharks are ten foot four armed green giants. In the film they are men in rubber masks, but at least they kept their tusks. The make up is not bad, and at least they try to keep some semblance of the original envisioning, but like the thoats (6 limbed beasts) that are reduced to bipedal raptor-like creatures, the extra limbs are lost to save CGI money. The green screen shots are painfully obvious as such, and the swords, which were such an integral part of the society, are really cheap wall hanging pieces and have no uniformity of style: Roman gladius, sabers, and psudo-celtic broad swords. Of course there is Traci Lords, her acting was stilted, her facial expressions minimal, I half suspect from Botox to fill in the lines of a hard lived life. I envisioned a younger, fresher faced Deja Thoris, but admittedly, at 42 she still looks great in a leather bikini. The editing between scenes and cut scenes are rough and sometimes jarring. The film lacks the epic swashbuckling scale that the novels possessed.

The cool and geeky: This is John Carter of Mars as a live action film! There is a bigger production slated for 2012, but this came first. It stayed close to the source material as I said to hear the name Deja Thoris or Barsoom spoken aloud; to enjoy a version of Tars Tarkas befriend John Carter is geeky coolness. Despite the lack of a budget I think those that worked on this film wanted to make a good John Carter of Mars movie, but it is hard to realize that sweeping vision on a stipend. Sabato looks like John Carter, tall and muscular, dark haired, with honorable sensibilities. He might not have been the southern gentleman of Burroughs' stories but he is the man he could be in this modern, ambiguous era. And the former Calvin Klein model is not half-bad as an actor.

I caution that this film is really for die hard geeks like me. I will say at least they tried, and I don’t think they did a bad job considering what they had to work with. I would also point to this movie and say to those making the new Conan and the 2012 John Carter of Mars, a good story can be adapted faithfully. I would also caution them that all the special effects in the world do not make a bad story any better.

Wolfhound: Sword and Sorcery from Russia

Wolfhound is a fantasy film starring Alexander Buharov and Oksana Akinshina; directed by Nikolay Lebedev. Made in Russia and recently imported to the US on DVD. The tag on the cover says it is a combination of Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian. Watching the film I could see elements of both, and it is different enough from either to be its own film and a good one.


Wolfhound is set in a fantasy world in which the gods still move about the land, they channel their power through their worshipers, and others are locked away for good reason. Wolfhound is the title character who survives the massacre of his clan, the Grey Dog Clan, only to be sold into slavery. He escapes to wreak vengeance upon the men responsible for the destruction of his people, and the death of his parents.

He destroys one of his enemy’s called the Eater of Men, and rescues a young girl and a blind old wizard, Wolfhound reluctantly looks after the pair. He joins a caravan and protects a princess from his other foe, a druid and powerful priest to the dark powers. These events and companions set him on a course of the epic hero quest.

The story is well done, with the subtleties of socerous magic; a land gripped in an unnatural winter, blood to open the portals between worlds, and magical healing needing external sources to help it be effective. The special effects are top notch from what appears to be a low budget film, avoiding the cheese factor most movies seem to suffer from on the Sci Fi Channel. The acting, as I can determine because I watched the dubbed version not the one with subtitles, was good, the lines fitting the setting with verisimilitude. The characters looked to belong in such a setting. The women, though attractive, did not have an artificial beauty that so many actresses’ posses, that make them anachronistic within the world they should exist in. The men are hollow cheeked and hard featured, looking as if they had just dropped out of a history book. The one that deals with blood shed and barbarian hoards.

Wolfhound himself is dour and taciturn, there is little humor or warmth in the character, which is as it should be. This film was done as a serious fantasy movie should be done, without any slapstick antics, or witty banter that falls flat for being too modern in its application.

The film does have elements and acts that seem to be lifted directly from The Lord of the Rings and Conan; the aforementioned destruction of Wolfhound’s village. The style and cinematography seems to be borrowed from Peter Jackson, but resolve into a much darker and gritty tone that would have pleased Robert Howard far more than J.R.R. Tolkien.

I was impressed with Wolfhound with only a couple minor complaints that the pacing was a tad slow for me, which is not to say it was too slow, only that I enjoy my films with a little more alacrity. The other complaint is that the hero needs the direct intervention of the gods to accomplish his goals, where the film would have had greater impact had Wolfhound persevered by his own merits and skill.

My recommendation is that if you like fantasy films, good fantasy films, with a flavor that you will not experience from an American film then check out Wolfhound.

Solomon Kane: Swashbuckler and Hammer of God

“If I had to pick one Howardian character that I gravitate to the most, the answer is very easy. I would choose Solomon Kane as well. Kane was Howard's most unique character, and did not have to suffer the thousands of pastiches his barbarian characters had to endure. Kane wore his melancholy in plain sight, mirrored by his black garb and wide-brimmed hat. In many ways I always felt he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, as many good men do, and Kane was indeed a good man. He also balanced a strange duality in his nature, with a strong Christian drive to subdue evil in all its forms, and the savage pagan rage that would reveal itself during battle. Kane was the prototype for the theory of id vs. ego.” – Mangus




So wrote my friend over at Sword & Sanity of the question I put to him about his favorite character in Robert E. Howard’s dark fantasy stable. His position sums up my own in words that I wish I had written.

Solomon Kane is the creation of Robert E. Howard; a swordsman, pirate, wandering adventurer, and puritan. Howard wrote about his black clad soldier of the 16th century between 1928 and 1932, seeing publication in Weird Tales. It had been often noted by many that the Kane proves that Howard was more than the sum of Conan. I would argue that Howard was never the sum of Conan or any one character, but rather each protagonist is his own man, his own world view, and his own story to be told. Solomon Kane is my favorite.

Solomon Kane was a creation of Robert E. Howard, a master of pulp fiction and one of the forefathers of Sword & Sorcery fantasy. Solomon Kane appeared in magazines from roughly 1928 through 1936 and reappeared in the late 1960’s on the paperback racks. He appeared in comic form for Marvel Comics at about the time their popular Conan series ran in the 1970’s and 80’s. Dark Horse, the comic company that has revitalized Conan in the graphic form has released two series of adaptations for the Puritan. A theatrical release is supposed to be released at the end of this month.

Who or what was Solomon Kane? Robert E. Howard described him in The Moon of Skulls thus: “He was a man born out of his time--a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more that a touch of the pagan, though the last assertion would have shocked him unspeakably. An atavist of the days of blind chivalry he was, a knight errant in the somber clothes of a fanatic. A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things, avenge all crimes against right and justice. Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect--he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane.”

Living in the age of Elizabeth I roughly between 1575 through 1610 or so, Solomon Kane is described as tall, gaunt, “darkly pallid” and dressed all in black, save for a green sash about his waist. He was armed with weapons of the period, usually two black powder pistols, a rapier, and in many tales a musket and/or a cat headed staff given to him by N’ Longa, an African sorcerer.

A questing knight six hundred years and more too late, a swashbuckler and Hammer of God; Solomon Kane was all this and more and that is why he is such an enduring and memorable hero. His adventures spanned the coast of England in Blades of the Brotherhood, also known as The Blue Flame of Vengeance; to the darkest heart of Africa in several tales like The Hills of the Dead and Wings in the Night. In almost every tale of Solomon Kane, the Puritan is driven to seek out revenge in the name of justice or otherwise defend the weak. The hero would cross continents and face the very demons of hell in Howard’s yarns of daring. Through out the man remained true to the convictions of his own personal honor and belief in the righteousness of his cause; for he had the fanatic’s zeal, tempered with practicality of the world weary adventurer

There was a power in Howard’s prose: to sum up a character so succinctly in one statement that the man himself uttered: Kane said to John Silent in the fragment The Castle of the Devil: “It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives.” Like all Howard’s creations, there was the simmering anger beneath the surface that all men seem to feel at the world as it is, not as it should be. This is what draws readers to Kane, Conan, and Kull. But with Kane there is more, there is a feeling of moral obligation to act on those impulses that other heroes do not answer to. Where Conan acts for gain in one aspect or another, Kane takes action because it is what must be done for the greater good, or the preservation of others. He will take the haunted road to rid it of the evil that stalks the path.



With the tragic death of Robert E. Howard many of the secrets that Kane held were never revealed. Where hence came the green sash that he wore, the only splash of color upon his whole person? Kane never had a love interest in the tales of Howard, another curious division from heroes like Conan. Perhaps that bit of gaudy cloth came from a lady? The poem Solomon Kane’s Homecoming suggests that he had loved once, but his wanderlust drove him away: “Where is Bess…..I left her—though it racked my heart to see the lass in tears….. In a quiet church yard by the sea she has slept these seven years…..” Did Howard himself even know the answers to Kane’s past? As he told others his heroes told him their stories, he only related them. Kane’s existence did not end with his creator’s death, but rather each generation is rediscovering the Puritan and his barbaric brethren as new media comes out and the old work is republished. Perhaps someone else will take up a pen and tell the rest of Kane’s story. Though I hope not, I do not believe anyone can truly tell the stories as Howard had, and some mysteries are better left undiscovered so one’s own imagination can fill in the blanks.

There are many resources on the Puritan swashbuckler on the web, here are only a few of the better examples I have come across:

http://www.robertehoward.com/ : the only place to start.

An excellent chronology of Kane.

The Return of Sir Richard Grenville : an independent film based on the poem.
Gary Gianni: the great artist behind some of the best Kane images, as the one posted on the blog from Wings in the Night.

The Shadow Kingdom

In Augusts 1929, eighty years ago this month, Weird Tales introduced its readers to King Kull, in The Shadow Kingdom, by Robert E. Howard. The Kull stories, in general, many unpublished in his life time, were not Howard’s best, but this story, I feel, belongs in the top ten of Howard's stories. This story is one of those that hit on all cylinders for me, from story, to prose, to action, and emotion.
A quick synopsis of The Shadow Kingdom: (yes there are spoilers)
The opening of the tale introduces the reader to Kull; an Atlantian barbarian has ascended the throne of Valusia, a decadent and crumbling empire, through strength of arm and steel. The Tiger of Atlantis must face foes with courtesy and guile rather than brawn and axe. There are factions within the nation that want the barbarian off the throne; others find the infusion of such blood into the ruling line as a revitalization of the Land of Dreams.
Kull is asked to attend Ka-nu, the Pictish ambassador from the Western Isles who warns the king of plots and offers him an ally in the coming battles in the form of Brule Spear-slayer. Kull, never trusting of his races’ ancient enemy is reluctant. When Brule does come to him he reveals to Kull the plot by a race of ancient serpent-men, who through dark magic can mask their form to appear as anyone they choose. The serpent-men wish to assassinate Kull as they have done to strong Valusian kings of the past, replacing them with doppelgangers. Brule reveals to Kull the phrase: ka nama kaa lajerama, the meaning of the words are lost, but their effect was not, no serpent-man can utter them, because their mouth and jaw cannot form the shape of the sounds. A defense for mankind in his ape-like days when he did battle the beast races of the young world.
The pair battle serpent-men guised as advisors, members of the court, and Kull himself. Finally, the pair is triumphant with Kull swearing a war of extermination on the serpent-race.
On the surface The Shadow Kingdom appears to be a string of brawls that would do Howard’s other barbarian Conan proud. It is, but so much more.
The story is a perfect blend of plot, conflict, and introspection. The tale runs 15,000 words or so, and in it Howard blends layers of conflict and world building. He creates images of a world before Atlantis rises to her cataclysmic height, even further back; establishing the serpent race to be as old as the age of dinosaurs. This he does with poetic prose without loosing the thread of the main tale.
The two barbarians, as Howard said: Like rival leopards turning at bay against hunters, these two savages made common cause against the inhuman powers of antiquity. Brule and Kull’s races were mortal enemies, and Bruel proclaimed no love for the king, but it was a matter of alliances and the bidding of Ka-nu to consider. For his part Kull did not trust the Pict, even going so far as keeping his blade pointed at Brule’s back so that he would at least die before Kull if he turned treacherous. There is no petty bickering or name calling to show such distrust or some proclamation of trust that comes later, but rather actions like that note above and when: ….but Kull heard Brule’s breath hiss through teeth and was reassured as to Brule’s loyalty... and when Brule is described as the power beside not behind the throne; again woven through out the tale effortlessly.
A final, deeper layer is Kull’s self-doubt. Kull is troubled as any king, but more so because there is an underlying sense that he doubts his ability to rule a civilized nation, this is a theme that prevails throughout the Kull tales, he is introspective and probing, even at his own failings, these things make him vulnerable, both as a character, making him more real, and as a device to challenge the hero. In the final act he sees a double of himself on the throne and wonders who the true Kull is, momentarily questioning his sanity; but like a true pulp hero he ignores these doubts that threaten to make him inactive, to strike at the usurper.
For me, the above elements strike the core of what makes great pulp fantasy known as sword and sorcery. The ancient, evil sub-human race bent on subverting humanity; warriors that face the evil unflinching, and eventually defeating magic with steel and courage; with world building done subtly so you are reading good fiction and not a dull, detail laden travel log to a mythic place.
The only thing missing, and it is not truly missing is the female element. So much of the sword and sorcery includes the damsel in a dress, rather a flimsy negligee or chain-mail bikini. This tale does not require it, nor is it shoe-horned in by some manner. Dark Horse comics recently did an adaption that did include the feminine element. (Which I will review at a later date.) Howard would learn and use the value of the damsel in a dress in story sales, but this story shows a purer writing for Howard, one though driven to sell, not driven by sales. The Shadow Kingdom is essential Robert E. Howard, exemplifying the elements that made Howard’s style his own. It glorifies the noble barbarian over the decadent civilization, the ability of men to face horror and evil to win out through strength and determination, all with bold prose and red action