With a persistent rise in the number of movie and series remakes indulging the draw towards nostalgia and pandemic escapism over the past few years, now might be the best time to see 20th century brutal fantasy franchise Conan back on screens.
After it was revealed in 2019 that Arnold Schwarzenegger was in discussion with Conan the Barbarian director John Milius, there have been rumours that the ’80s classic would soon make a comeback. When asked about the potential for a new Conan in a recent interview with Experience With, Schwarzenegger confirmed that pretty much all that was left to decide was whether to go “with a TV series, like with Netflix, or one of the other places, or […] with a movie.”
Schwarzenegger’s enthusiasm for a Conan reboot seems to have come at the right time. Conan is one of those extremely popular stages for media and stories that was what Game of Thrones is now to the mid to late 20th-century audience. The series’ premise, of one muscular, magic, sword-wielding hero fighting a plethora of villains against a fantasy backdrop, was first released in Weird Stories magazine by author Robert E. Howard throughout the 1930s. The series then became five novels, adapted into Marvel’s King Conan comic series, which gave birth to Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, some of the first films to star America’s favourite Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Why Do We Want a New Conan?
via Twitter
When Entertainment Tonight asked about the appeal of his protagonist in the upcoming film Conan the Barbarian at its premier in 1982, Arnold Schwarzenegger answered that “I think that he’s a very heroic character’, going onto state that the elements of fantasy, adventure, magic and humour in the film in general work for their appeal ’to the whole family.”
The Schwarzenegger of the 1980s made the perfect star for the Conan films, the size of the actor almost a rite of passage in itself, bolstered, of course, even early in his career by a relatively good reputation and an impressively ‘American’ biography. When Conan the Barbarian was released, the 33-year-old European actor and bodybuilder represented a side of America that America wanted to see: a young person entering the land of opportunity and using that opportunity to reach enormous success. Schwarzenegger transformed the blood-soaked, half-naked demeanour of Howard’s originals into the blood-soaked, half-naked demeanour of a man fighting against the odds of a foreign landscape. The famous narrative of American success, ornately decorated with a fantasy landscape, expensive costumes, set design, and violence, could have its hero played by no more appropriate actor. When asked about the appeal of Conan the Barbarian, the answer was arguably not to be found in words spoken but in the man speaking them.
This point has become increasingly evident as Schwarzenegger was compared to his character after his speech on the Capitol Hill riot last year, having Conan shine through in our world where we had seen Schwarzenegger shine through in his.
Whether reasonably or not, the country has undeniably become more polarised since the Conan films hit screens in the ’80s. Today, our relationship with America, whether as a local resident or a fearful onlooker, has taken on a different form, in a storm of politics, with a whirlwind of social media and endless controversies. While some attribute the trauma of the seemingly never-ending pandemic to the recent interest in cinematic revivals, you can look pretty much anywhere to find a reason to want to see the past replayed anew, regardless of where you live. But, it is these differences that might be pointing in King Conan’s favour right now.
What Do We Need Out of the Reboot?
Universal Pictures
Despite the difference in feelings and ideologies since the release of the first Conan films, perhaps the whole-family-appeal that Schwarzenegger was talking about 40 years ago will still find its place as one of the reasons we need King Conan today. Conan’s father, played by the late William Smith, opens the 1982 film as he tells his son, “The Gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield, and we who found it are just men. Not Gods. Not Giants. Just men.”
Conan is a hero who, broken and broken again, still finds strength. As outlined by Conan the Barbarian’s opening speech, the Conan series looks at the human ability to overcome what seems inhuman - what we can achieve even when we are stripped away to bare humanity.
Audiences are thrown into a world where fire fights fire, a gory fantasy where the playing field is levelled by brute strength and uprooted again by magic. That same popularity it gained from kids and adults alike - for creating a violent but lovable world of characters and cults, with its lore and sense of timelessness - is likely not too far removed from the kind of content the show would gain its popularity for today.
Whether the characters were rescuing each other or fighting to the death, Conan made the audience feel like they were in that world. Conan succeeds by giving us that new world, beautifully contoured by new religions, new ways of seeing, and perhaps most appealing of all, evading all complications which can’t be solved without a fight.
