Conan the Barbarian is the classic sword & sorcery movie, based on the stories of Robert E. Howard, that provided Arnold Schwarzenegger with his first major film role.
The movie tells the story of a young boy living in a mythical age whose family is murdered by an evial warlord. Conan becomes a slave, grows up to be a strong warrior on and goes looking for vengeance.
Over the years, Conan the Barbarian has become one of the best known and most influential fantasy movies.
The movie
The movie has quite a reasonable story and contains lots of fighting, magic and even some nudity. The acting of the main characters is not exactly topnotch but Conan was the breakthrough of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
During the Hyborian Age in the land of Cimmeria, the entire village of the young Conan, including his mother and father, is slaughtered in a raid led by the evil Thulsa Doom. Conan grows up a slave but once a free man he picks up the trail of Thulsa Doom. With the help of two thieves (one will become his lover) he is eventually able to defeat Doom, who by then has become the ruler of a large cult. After killing Doom, Conan is crowned king.
Themes & Style
Conan is the definition of the sword & sorcery genre. It is the classical fight between good and evil in which Conan has to go on a long journey and has to kill scores of enemies until he can finally defeat this archnemesis. With wizards and witches who control magic and can morph into animals, the influence of fantasy is strong but not strong enough to deny Conan his revenge.
The author, his books and other related works
Robert E. Howard is one of the great fantasy authors of all time. Conan is his most famous creation who centered in quite a few of his stories but Howard created several more characters including Solomon Kane on which also a movie was based.
The movie Conan the Destroyer and the television series Conan the Adventurer were created after the succes of Conan the Barbarian but both failed to live up to the first movie.
Recently, the MMORPG Age of Conan was launched, which is based on Howard’s Conan and is doing quite well so far.
Official website of Robert E. Howard.
Tags: Conan, Fantasy Movies, Robert E. Howard
