New "Conan the Barbarian" movie.

My company Gunny got me started on those books in 1987.....Spent many a 12-4 fire watch, Duty NCO shift or burned time waiting for transpo reading those: Pure Classics.

 

I was hoping you'd remember them. Did you read the Gene Duncan books? "Green Side Out", "Brown Side Out", "Run in Circles", "Scream and Shout" and "Dunks Almanac" are the ones I remember. They were really a Marine Corps specific kind of thing, I saw Conan and Casca books in both the Army and Marine Corps, but not the Duncan books. IIRC, the first one I read was given to me by my brother. He was in Col. Wes Fox's battlion (1/6), at the time, and Fox was a real old school Marine. He was a really inspirational leader and turned the battalion around to make it probably the best battalion in the division (2dMarDiv). This was around the time Duncan's first book came out and I can't swear to it, but I seem to remember he was behind the book making the rounds. If you haven't read Fox's book, "Marine Rifleman: Forty-Three Years in the Corps", it's a very good book and speaks alot about this time period.



Col. Wesley Fox
I think he was still scoring a 300 on the PFT when he retired!!!

 

Casca never made it to the UK, unfortunately (by the sound of it); neither new nor as "remainders" sold off cheaply, how I;ve picked up a lot of U.S. editions over the years.

Very few fantasy characters had the mileage Conan has had; they all seem to fade after 3-4 volumes. My personal favourite runner-up was Karl Edward Wagner's Kane...until Wagner abandoned him in favour of penning later Conan tales!

 

Well, I got to see the new Conan film last night....

It appears my Christmas Turkey arrived early! What a truly abysmal movie.

Production values were great, the effects were great....the plot was virtually non-existent it was so tenuous, and the scripting was pathetic. Conan came across as a petulant teenager. Where's the brooding? Even if it was just Arnie-type brooding, a bit like a retarded child studying an ice cream...at least it was there.

How come with ALL the great stories in the canon of Conan, they always opt for something brewed up on a hangover??? THIS took seven years and much pain to bring to the cinema? Well, every ache showed!

I couldn't believe it - just SO disappointing.

You know something? Just a few nights ago I was thinking about this after reading something on the Internet; the best Conan film made so far is actually the one where...he isn't even Conan! And he's not the Cimmerian....he's the Akkadian!

 

Well, I tried it again; usually I can do that, watch a movie again, maybe even a couple of times if it's something really good...

Didn't work this time, got halfway through and it's off in favour of Die Another Day on network telly....THAT'S how bad it is!

 

Yeah, the FX were good, the action sequences were decent, the heroine got appropriately nekkid, but have to agree on the development of Conan. The Conan I grew up reading would never have taken 20 years to complete a vendetta. It was usually done within a couple of weeks (literary-time, and that is taking into account travel across various nations to get to the douchebag of the story), whereupon he got nice and drunk with the female side of the story using coin pilfered from the now-deceased/decapitated/disposed-of villain. No savings plan, no retirement fund, just spend it and move on to the next quest. What really disappointed me in this one was the fact that he was a pirate, but not once did anyone call him "Amra" (or Black Lion, which is what Amra purportedly means). Everyone called him Conan. If you're going to remake a literary classic because you really have no original ideas of your own, please PLEASE read the aforementioned literary work(s) BEFORE trying to make them your own.

ETA: Had to add...how the heck can you have a hackem/slashem fantasy movie with Ron Perlman...and only give him like 20 minutes of screentime???? WTF? Show some respect, Hollywood!!!!

 

Well, he gets more screentime there than in In The Name Of The King!

 

Heh. I'd been quite successful in forgetting about that movie. Thanks, now I need to brainscrub again. Seriously....a fantasy movie, and the best name you can come up with for your main character (played by top-billed Jason Statham, not just some random bloke who has done sock commercials up to this point) is "Farmer"? Even my own personal "suspension of disbelief" can only be stretched so far.