I don't know WHAT is going on here....Is that dude gonna get catapulted?
Ewww! That Pict Chieftan there is one ugly mother....and I don't like Staphen Lang's armor here.
Just exactly what is he doing sneaking around slashing peoples throats and stuff? SNEAKIN?
Quiet on the SET!!!! That's right!
Browsing the internet once again I come across more of these production stills from the upcoming movie” Conan the barbarian 3D”. I see all over the place on different blogs the reservations people have toward the upcoming movie. Everyone is comparing Jason to Arnold…as anyone naturally would. Arnold is a legendary figure he once held the title of the world’s most perfectly developed man. His Biceps were 21 inches around and his chest was an enormous 56 inches and he stood 6 feet 1 and 1 quarter inch tall….that I say is the perfect height. ( wish I was that tall ) So everyone has a natural bias toward the former ” Governator ”.
No Jason has nowhere near the physique Arnold had in his prime…but Jason is not a small guy. He’s 6’3” tall with a 50 inch chest and 19 inch biceps…you want to fight him? I certainly don’t.
One specific point I would like to touch on is…” Why are these barbarian characters built like rejects from Planet fitness commercials? ” Back in ancient times Warriors and Gladiators and Spartans and Roman legion soldiers did not train with weights and in the gym toning and isolating muscle groups. They fought death with weapons and skill and so on.
Well…I’d like to clear the air on this right friggin’ now. Robert E. Howard the father of High adventure fantasy literature or the genre we know as “ Sword and Sorcery” had a very specific vision of who he wanted CONAN to be. Being a body building and boxing enthusiast he was around GYM’s and near guys who worked out and dabbled in body building and working out himself. He saw those guys at the Circus bending bars with 50 inch chests and so on ( Circus strong men ).
Go back yourself and read his books. His description of CONAN is one of a great big guy with corded rippling muscles who stood a complete head and shoulder over everyone else. CONAN in Howard’s mind…was a Monster of a man. He could pick up a foeman and break him in half by bending him over backwards with his bare hands.
Now …add the element of a broadsword or a battle axe and put him out on a bloody battle field and you have Frank Frazetta’s iconic image of CONAN in the famous BARBARIAN painting. I too had my reservations about this movie… but now I am looking forward to it. I do have my fingers crossed. But….the movie could bomb. I would rather be optimistic about it. As Reis once said in an earlier post someplace here in this Homage of a blog called CROM…he stated “ We don’t want no negativity ”…not verbatim but that’s my interpretation.
Browsing the internet once again I come across more of these production stills from the upcoming movie” Conan the barbarian 3D”. I see all over the place on different blogs the reservations people have toward the upcoming movie. Everyone is comparing Jason to Arnold…as anyone naturally would. Arnold is a legendary figure he once held the title of the world’s most perfectly developed man. His Biceps were 21 inches around and his chest was an enormous 56 inches and he stood 6 feet 1 and 1 quarter inch tall….that I say is the perfect height. ( wish I was that tall ) So everyone has a natural bias toward the former ” Governator ”.
No Jason has nowhere near the physique Arnold had in his prime…but Jason is not a small guy. He’s 6’3” tall with a 50 inch chest and 19 inch biceps…you want to fight him? I certainly don’t.
One specific point I would like to touch on is…” Why are these barbarian characters built like rejects from Planet fitness commercials? ” Back in ancient times Warriors and Gladiators and Spartans and Roman legion soldiers did not train with weights and in the gym toning and isolating muscle groups. They fought death with weapons and skill and so on.
Well…I’d like to clear the air on this right friggin’ now. Robert E. Howard the father of High adventure fantasy literature or the genre we know as “ Sword and Sorcery” had a very specific vision of who he wanted CONAN to be. Being a body building and boxing enthusiast he was around GYM’s and near guys who worked out and dabbled in body building and working out himself. He saw those guys at the Circus bending bars with 50 inch chests and so on ( Circus strong men ).
Go back yourself and read his books. His description of CONAN is one of a great big guy with corded rippling muscles who stood a complete head and shoulder over everyone else. CONAN in Howard’s mind…was a Monster of a man. He could pick up a foeman and break him in half by bending him over backwards with his bare hands.
Now …add the element of a broadsword or a battle axe and put him out on a bloody battle field and you have Frank Frazetta’s iconic image of CONAN in the famous BARBARIAN painting. I too had my reservations about this movie… but now I am looking forward to it. I do have my fingers crossed. But….the movie could bomb. I would rather be optimistic about it. As Reis once said in an earlier post someplace here in this Homage of a blog called CROM…he stated “ We don’t want no negativity ”…not verbatim but that’s my interpretation.
13 comments:
I didn't want to be negative about the new movie on my blog post either. I think the actor is less relevant than the mood the movie captures. It should be dark, gritty, gory, tense and there should be an ample amount of nudity. Most production stills will not be what the final 'processed' film will look like (post-production effects and all). The one thing that will kill it will be if looks like it was made for TV and the dialogue sucks.
I haven't given up all hope yet.
"Most production stills will not be what the final 'processed' film will look like (post-production effects and all)."
I could not have said it betterer.
Good point about Howard's attitudes toward physical fitness. It's interesting that Frazetta was quite an athlete himself and took pride in his body. You couldn't ask for a better (post-humous) team up of writer and artist.
I think people who think that Jason Momoa is too short and skinny to play Conan should look up his physical stats. He is listed as 6' 4" tall and 210 pounds. According to reports, he was working on adding 10 more pounds of muscle.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger played Conan he was listed as 6' 2" tall, but most think that he is/was 6' tall at best. I don't know what his weight was then, but even with his larger muscle mass, I don't think he could have weighed more than 220 pounds.
So give Jason a chance, Conan fans! At the very least he's a better actor than Arnold was then. Anyone who thinks Arnold was the perfect Conan most likely only know the character from the two films and not the original novels!
Yeah, the "no negativity" thing was probably me. My thinking is that if I've got nothing good to say about something, it's hardly post-worthy.
And if I'm in the mood for negativity, it's pretty darn easy to locate some.
Just to clarify, I didn't find this post negative...rather enjoyed it. The worst case scenario is for me is that this movie is not Conan but a S&S movie that does well enough to generate interest in making more such movies.
I'm even gaurdedly optimistic that the post-3d conversion will be a pleasant suprise after reading this over at Kodak's website:
"Kloss proposed a post 3-D conversion to give the movie a cinematic look on film. “Now all the big studio projects agree that 3-D is cheaper and better looking in a post 3-D approach,” he says.
Evan Jacobs, Stereoscopic Supervisor for Conan, comments that “the tight grain structure of KODAK VISION stocks has been really beneficial in the 3-D conversion work, the speed and quality of which is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was just a year ago."
Link: http://www.motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Publications/In_Camera/Focus_on_Film/conan3D.htm
I disagree, I think it's better to be pessimistic about this movie. That way, if it stinks, no big deal. But if it is decent+, booyah!
There is nothing worse than expecting a great movie, and then it turns out to be less than great.
To hell with this flick.
I'm with Bree Yark all the way.
Check instead this new Conan sculpture in the works by the Shiflett Brothers, 2 views, one with helmet, one without :
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6923/img4056h.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1697/20090131warriordeathdea.jpg
Sorry to post this here, I have a problem with my email.
I did not feel as though I was being negative. I was pointing out that there are many folks who are being pessimistic and so on about Jason and the sneak peak trailer and the cheesie look and comparing it to a syfy channel movie and Jason is not Arnold and all that. This was more of an impartial non judgmental unbiased write up with an optimistic spin.
As I clearly state....I have my reservations as well. But I'd rather expect something cool instead of horrible.
While Momoa is far from my mental image of Conan (he looks too much like the Luis Royo Conan for my liking), I'm also looking forward to this movie. I think the story and the visual style will drive it more than the actor, and I'm reserving my opinion until I get a better sense of both. Of greater importance than Jason's workout schedule, I think, will be how they treat the source material and background of the character...will it have some faithfulness to the original works as the first Conan film did, or will it be just a S&S flick where the lead character's name happens to be Conan, but is really interchangeable with any character with an exotic sounding name? Arnold fans need to remember that, thanks to a bad story, even he made a dog of a movie the second time he played the character. And what about the thinly veiled Conan character in Red Sonja?
My optimism for the new film is cautious, largely based on the recent experience of the Solomon Kane film. As a longtime fan of the character (even more than I am of Conan) I was looking forward to seeing James Purefoy portray the character. He impressed me in "Rome" and the advance media looked good, but the liberties they took with the character made it hugely disappointing. Heck, Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing was more of a Solomon Kane than Solomon Kane.
I think the biggest concern for me about the new Conan film has to be the tag line from the trailer, "I live, I love, I slay..." I can't help but compare that to the line from the original, "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women." I want the Conan of crushing and lamentation, not the Conan of living and loving.
So when it comes to the new film, I'm hoping for the best...but preparing for the worst.
Dominic , the "Crush your enemies..." line is a paraphrase of Gengis Khan words. From The Secret History of the Mongols :
"The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you,
to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears,
and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters."
Milius is a fan of the Mongol conqueror. He might have taken his version of the sentence from Harold Lamb's biography Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men, which is even closer to the film's exchange.
"One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.
"The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you," responded the officer after a little thought, "and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares."
"Nay," responded the Khan, "to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet - to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best."
"I live, I love, I slay, and Iam content" is a quote from REH.
"I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
Queen of the Black Coast
I'm pessimistic about the upcoming flick, but I liked that reference to Howard's writings.
Well played, sir...I bow to your superior scholarship.
yessiree Miguel knows his stuff!
So that guy inb the first film...who was talking about Falcon's and breasts was Genghis Kahn we can surmise....or a reasonable facsimile of. :)
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