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At first I thought that since the original was so boring and badly acted, anything new would be better. Yet, they picked the boring, bad actor from stargate atlantis to be conan. Oh well, at least they got rid of his dirty lookin dreadlocks...
As the early eighties golden age of role playing it made sense that people tried to try heroic fantasy for the cinema but very few made the mark. I my opinion we have two or three decent films from the time and genre.
First Conan the Barbarian of course. I love the challenge Conan makes towards the end of this scene, and everything Subotai does.
Apprently Sandahl Bergman had problems pulling her blows and injured a number of people.
Anyway in respect to the above scene and many others, the excellent scripting, supporting cast including James Earl Jones and superlative musical score Conan the Barbarian ranks as one of the best films ever made in any genre, and clearly the best fantasy film. I rank this film above Peter Jacksons efforts without any hesitation, were it not for what computers could do most others might do the same.
The film linked here is Dragonslayer a gem from 1981. This link sequentially shows the whole film. If you have never watched Dragonslayer I suggest you do so, good acting, good plot and high fantasy. Peter McNichol is cast against type as a fantasy hero, he normally plays painfully shy nerdy types, he still does here but this bookish nerd has the stones to fight a very impressive dragon. The stop motion dragon to be slain is well done, between Dragonslayer and The Thing filmed the year after are the culmination of that now dead art in animatronics. Both films offering a quality of stop motion animation within a hairs breadth of the quality we now take forgranted in SFX.
one note, Disney intitally wanted baby dragons fro the hero to fight in a drawn out sequence, but felt half way though filming that baby dragons would arouse too much sympathy and thus replaced Verminthrax's offspring with something a little less appealing, during filming they were referred to as 'banana slugs'.
Honourable mentions goes to Willow. This link also sequentially shows the whole film on YouTube. A decent film with some excellent combat sequences but lacking the 'epic' of the two prior oferings. Willow also had the benefit of a decade of technology.
After that we get the peanut gallery:
Krull, Hawk the Slayer, Beastmaster and Red Sonia, both of the last two can be fun though and the god awful Conan the Destroyer.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2010/05/27 20:13:06
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
