Conan the Barbarian (2011)

[Emp]

Fuck i was so hoping it would be good. I only go to the cinema if its something i really really think deserves big screen viewing (simply because the cinema experience makes me homicidal ). As a big Conan fan i was sure this would fit the bill.....now i'm not so sure.

[Radbacker]

thinking about it now, the trailer was awfully similar to the Clash of the Titans one, which looked cool but the movie ultimatly was meh.  Might not bother with this one at the cinema unless hear better.

CU Radbacker

[JOE SOAP]

Well at least this film is following in the long tradition of crap Conan films so at least they're being consistent. The only decent thing about the first insanely silly yet boring Conan film and it's bizarre script/performances was the exceptional music.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOfmy6zlh_k&NR=1

[James Stacey]

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/08/22/stan-lee-media-inc-files-suit-against-conan-the-barbarian/

Stan Lee is on the grab again

[TordelBack]

Whatever you might think of him, Stan Lee and Stan Lee Media have not been the same thing for some time - Stan left the company back in 2000-ish.  SLM have been suing Stan himself, his family and just about everyone else on and off for 5 years now.  They are predatory shits of the highest order.

[James Stacey]

I'll let him off then

[strontium_dog_90]

Went to see this last night and I'm pleased to report I found it absolutely fantastic - ballsy and epic and violent and totally engrossing. I'd happily recommend it to anyone :-)

[locustsofdeath!]

Went to see this last night and I'm pleased to report I found it absolutely fantastic - ballsy and epic and violent and totally engrossing. I'd happily recommend it to anyone :-)

Not read much REH then?

[Emperor]

Now now LoD.

Anyway here is the script writer on what it is like to have penned a flop:

www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-have-your-film-flop-at-the-box-office

[TordelBack]

Interesting review here from the always-reliable Chris Sims:

http://www.the-isb.com/?p=6373

Must say I'm now more interested in seeing this than I thought I would be.

[strontium_dog_90]

Went to see this last night and I'm pleased to report I found it absolutely fantastic - ballsy and epic and violent and totally engrossing. I'd happily recommend it to anyone :-)

Not read much REH then?

Only a little - mainly read all the other writers who wrote tie-in books in the eighties. Loved all of those when I was younger! That said, I have put the new book re-printing all the Howard Conan short stories on prominent display in the book shop where I work - just to get a bit of fantasy in there.

Still loved the film, though :-)

[locustsofdeath!]

Now now LoD.

Okay, maybe I'm a bit riled up. I saw this last night as well, and I have spent most of the day trying to forget what I watched. It was atrocious. I just can't find the words to describe how this film hauled REH out of his grave and shat all over his mouldering bones. It was "daring" enough to totally disassociate itself from the title character's literary foundation (see: what it feels like to pen a flop) yet borrows heavily from the 82 film (also a lousy adaptation)? Is there violence? Yes. Boobs? Uh huh. Bad acting, horrible direction, inept dialogue, no discernable plot, weak cgi special effects, awful fight choreography, laughable villains, miscast damsels? Yes, yes, yes.

Skip it. Although you may not have to - I doubt it will be in theaters long.

[JOE SOAP]

Skip it. Although you may not have to - I doubt it will be in theaters long.

That applies to all films these days, regardless of quality.

[SmallBlueThing]

I know youre very close to the source material, locusts, and im sure you're absolutely right in all respects. But that wont stop me being there as soon as my local cinema gets it. Cant bloody wait!
Sadly, it's gone from 'previews this week' (would have been today) to not appearing anywhere on the coming attractions board. I have a nasty feeling that poor advance word has scared the odeon chain into pulling it from wide release, therefore fucking it even more at the box office. Which means less chance of a sequel and less chance of there finally being a conan film to please everyone. Which i think is a massive shame.
SBT

[blackmocco]

Now now LoD.

Anyway here is the script writer on what it is like to have penned a flop:

www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-have-your-film-flop-at-the-box-office

Somebody call the waaahhhmbulance. Self-pity's just not attractive when you can't admit any of your own mistakes. According to this guy, it was everyone else's bad decisions that the movie failed.

I've worked on a ton of shit movies over the last twenty-five years (not, obviously, in the writing field). Seriously, rotten, vile fuckjuice excuses of movies. Ill-advised, badly written shite that the directors and scriptwriters would keep trying to tinker with right up to they couldn't anymore. If there was one scene left to finish, they'd still try and change it.

And when the movies were finished and released and they inevitably tanked, this was exactly the shite they'd throw out there. It's always someone else's fault the movie doesn't work.

The plain truth is this guy, and all the other halfwits around him, had no idea what they were doing. If he was half the REH fan he claims to be, he'd have known the approach the script was taking was all wrong.

Here's his apology for trying to throw everyone else under the bus but it doesn't disguise the fact that he thought he was improving the earlier drafts he's now trying to tell us were great.

"Actually my words "I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me" weren't very classy because it does sound like I'm throwing the previous writers under the bus, and I need to publicly apologize to Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Andrew Lobel. All I can say is that I didn't mean it that way and I should have chosen my words more carefully.

What I meant to say that I was proud of the work I did solving problems that that had emerged in the development process, over many years and dozens of drafts. To suggest that I did better work than the writers before me would be both un-classy and flat out incorrect.

Many people have read Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer's early drafts of Conan when it showed up on the internet, and a great, great number of them think theirs was the best draft of any, including the shooting script. Andrew Lobel's draft was filled with great humor, which some critics thought the movie lacked.

I didn't write this to point fingers. As the last writer on the project, the criticism of the story, dialogue, and characterization should fall primarily on me... not my peers, not producers, not studio executives, not the director."

He's wrong anyway. They're all to blame if they thought his script was worth shooting in the first place. Fucking tool.