#i love gladiator for all the deep cinematic reasons

[wildsaltair]

Gladiator is about remaining true to your honor even when you’ve lost all obligation to do so. it’s about avenging what you have lost without losing sight of who you are inside. it’s about honoring the wishes of the people you love most. it’s about duty and loyalty and love and redemption. it’s also about a man with the most astonishingly beautiful shoulders you’ve ever seen in your life

[moviemunchies]

I think I underestimated this film when I decided to watch it this time. I had thought I would find it a very dumb actionized adaptation of the Howard character with little substance. And that’s not really what I found? There was more to this movie that I rediscovered on this watch-through.

So that’s cool.

Conan the Barbarian is an adaptation of the Conan character (who wasn’t really known exclusively as “Conan the Barbarian” in the original stories, though he is sometimes described as a barbarian) from Robert E. Howard, set in the mythical prehistoric ‘Hyborean Age’, but with more Plot to make it a film. Conan is a Cimmerian child whose parents and village are slaughtered by the forces of cult leader Thulsa Doom. He’s sold into slavery, and grows up as a champion gladiator. When he escapes slavery, he becomes a thief. When he and his friends go up against the cult of Thulsa Doom, Conan decides it’s the perfect time to take revenge. Of course, it’s not so simple as that to kill a powerful cult leader.

The original Conan stories tend to be mostly self-contained. There is not an overarching Plot to the stories. This movie, and th 2011 remake, try to make it more cinematic by having Conan’s parents be murdered, and Conan hungering for revenge on the warlord who killed them. But that’s not in the stories–Conan isn’t a tragic hero looking for vengeance. He’s a wandering warrior trying to make a buck! 

So the first time I saw this movie, I was a teenager, and I had started reading the Conan stories (albeit, the ones with editing by Sprague de Camp, not the original Howard stories, because that’s what my dad had); I was frustrated that the movie turned Conan’s into a typical Hollywood fantasy revenge tale. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it, only that it didn’t really feel like Conan to me, and I resented how it became the version of the character most people knew about.

But this is actually a pretty good movie on its own? It has some problems, of course. The female lead, Valeria, never has her name spoken in the movie (she’s named in the credits, and in the sequel, but not int he movie), and I’m not sure WHY she’s so in love with Conan in the first place, other than that he’s the lead. 

Conan’s also got a lot less agency than he should. Yes, his slave masters taught him to read for… Reasons (and also used him as a breeding slave what??). And he’s set free, he doesn’t escape slavery, again, for Reasons. He sort of stumbles onto Thulsa Doom’s cult, though when he does, he decides to go all the way, so that’s definitely a choice on his part.

I’m sorry I’m making this sound like a really stupid movie. It’s not! This is a movie that defined fantasy filmmaking for years for a reason. There are plenty of action scenes and sword fights, which feel exciting without feeling overdone or over-choreographed. The brutal style of combat fits for a world that we’re told is before the rise of civilization as we know it. I’m also impressed at times at how clever some of the characters are in combat–shooting enemies from a distance, setting traps. And yet those action scenes are still loads of fun.

The music is, all in all, surprisingly good? I didn’t remember it being this good, which is dumb because it’s apparently famous. But it captures the idea of an exciting, swashbuckling fantasy adventure (despite not really being swashbuckling, I guess?). I could listen to this over and over for a while now.

I don’t know if I’d call this movie deep, but it’s certainly thinking about deeper themes. Conan’s god Crom never appears in the story, but his relationship with Crom is a key if understated part of his character. The Riddle of Steel clearly occupies his mind, and while it’s not as if he goes around demanding the answer, it’s one of the first things about his religion that he explains to Subotai. 

[Also, some people seem to think we’re meant to assume that Thulsa Doom’s answer is correct by default? I don’t know that it is, at least, not completely.]

And of course, Conan’s final prayer for vengeance, which he ends by saying that if Crom doesn’t grant it, then “to hell with you!” It’s certainly memorable.

Thulsa Doom is not actually a Howard Conan villain (I believe he’s a Howard Kull villain?). He’s still terrifying. I am not generally a fan of ‘religious fanatic’ characters in fiction because they tend to be shallow and written without any effort at making them make sense. But a cult leader? This is a great type of villain, when done correctly, and Thulsa is pretty good. He actually feels like a threat, because you see his hordes of fanatical followers, and how devoted they are to him.

Although I don’t know how his cult makes sense–they have a weird orgy where they serve people soup? What is your theology, guys? What does this have to do with snake worship? 

And why does he turn into a snake? Not a deal-breaker, but it’s weird. Supposedly the novelization explains it. Either way, it’s freaky and unsettling, which is I think exactly what they’re going for. It definitely works in the scene it takes place in.

I liked this movie more than I thought I would on the rewatch. If you’re interested in fantasy films, old school action movies, well, Conan the Barbarian should be able to satisfy that itch. It’s fun, it’s deeper than you’d expect, and it’s certainly memorable. It’s not flawless, and it’s certainly not close as an adaptation of the Howard stories, but that doesn’t make it a bad movie. It’s still a pretty good one.