Cinepals - Conan The Barbarian (1982) Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Jaby and Vivian react to Conan the Barbarian (1982), a fantasy action film that follows the epic journey of Conan, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator, Predator, Total Recall), a fierce warrior seeking revenge against the warlord who slaughtered his tribe. Directed by John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, The Wind and the Lion), and also staras James Earl Jones (Star Wars series, The Lion King, Field of Dreams), Sandahl Bergman (Red Sonja, All That Jazz), Max von Sydow (The Exorcist, Minority Report, The Seventh Seal), and Mako (Memoirs of a Geisha, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Seven Years in Tibet). The video version of the podcast as well as other movie reviews and reactions are also available on our youtube channel www.youtube.com/@cinepals.   SOCIAL MEDIA ~CinePals~ Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok: @TheCinePals ~Jaby Koay~ Twitter & Instagram: @JabyKoay ~VIVIVAN~ Insta: @vivlingdarling

Sina. Pals. What is going on, everybody? I am Jabby Koeh, joined by Vivian Day. Here to play, as always, every day. Yay. So we're watching Conan the Barbarian. This is from 1982. In the interest of full transparency, I saw this in 1985.

I don't know what. When you're like three? No, I'm just joking around. I think I saw this when I was a little kid. I don't remember it at all. And you haven't seen this at all. So this is brand new for you. So there might be like fragments where I'm like, oh, I vaguely remember that.

But for the most part, like, I couldn't tell you what happens in this at all. So I saw the new one with Jason Mamoa, but I also don't remember much from that. I'm kidding. I don't know. You bring the snacks. You bring the snacks. You bring your own crappy. Yes, right.

Here we go. Here we go. It very much has a sort of classic feel, though. Even though, even though I don't feel. like an intrinsic connection to the story like it doesn't mean anything to me what happened like when his woman died for instance I didn't

I didn't really care but like it felt almost felt like a parable in a way even though I don't know what the lesson is right because they made a big deal out of like owning the steel right like that being the most loyal or true standard

of what morality is I guess for them and then you kind of totally forget about that towards the second half of the movie and then it just becomes a love story a redemption yeah I don't

I don't really know I don't really know what the well Revenge was always Revenge was always going to be part of the story because that guy killed his parents Yeah well I mean what I saw was his mom But yes his parents And his dad

Yeah we saw his dad get killed as well But like the part that kind of sticks with you Is seeing his mom get decapitated Yeah it was shocking We saw the dogs, you know, mauling his pop, so that wasn't necessarily James Earl Jones's fault. The dogs are hungry, you know, it just so happened. He was there on the ground. The dogs belong to his people, so.

Yeah, but it's not necessarily his fault. It went very strange. I'm just trolling. It went very strange. Yeah, and so it's a tale of revenge, ultimately. And he ended up, you know. Some demons and snakes. He ended up vinging.

he ended up avenging his parents and the death of the woman that he loved and so that's the whole story and so not a lot of dialogue it's just about kind of like following this you know ancient tale

yeah so in that regard it just felt like something like a like you were just kind of dropped into the middle of this you know what I mean and you were part of this journey for like two hours and then you leave and that's it

you know until the next one it's sort of just sort of peeking into this world for a moment, if that makes any kind of sense. I did like the relationship with him and his friend, which I still don't know the name of. But that's okay, yeah. The guy with the mustache, the long mustache, okay.

The other thief and the wizard. I really liked their interaction and their chemistry that made me feel more than him and his woman. I thought that the sets were cool. The costume was cool. The effects for their time were pretty cool. Like, all that stuff. I thought it was pretty remarkable what they were doing.

Even with the violence, like, you know, the design of like the bodies that were being taken apart and all that stuff. Yeah, like all of that stuff. I can see how effective that would have been back then. Yeah. When the film first came out. Like, you know, I can see how, you know, people bought into this reality in this world. And maybe it was on the merits of all of the technical aspects alone that the film did so well. And then you had Arnold, who was just like unlike...

Beasley. Yeah, he was unlike anything else that had come out back then in terms of people, in terms of superheroes. You know, you had Bert Reynolds, I guess. I'm trying to contextualize it with the people of the time. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger was still brand new when this film dropped. And so this might have been his first big one.

Like, it was unlike anybody who'd come before him. Right. It's like you weren't used to seeing these big burly guys like Arnold. Han Solo was... Not that. Yeah, he was not that. Han Solo was the hero. and, you know, the sexy guy.

And so you had this dude who just was like hulking, right? That coupled with everything else going on in this movie, including maybe violence you weren't used to seeing because Star Wars was huge at the time. And so this is just like taking things in a new direction. Yeah. Which you saw a lot of in the 80s, especially with Arnold. You know, Predator was quite violent.

Robocop was quite violent. And so this is in that pocket of time when you had those kinds of films. Right. A total recall quite violent with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And so, yeah, it's interesting how this was sort of, the beginning of that. And it spun off two sequels. You know, you had the other Conan film and then the Sonja, Sonia movie.

The Red Sonia. The Red Sonia film. Yeah. I think of the three, Red Sonia might be the one that I actually saw as a kid. You think so? I think. Because that one was 85, right? I don't remember any of this.

Yeah. This is. I definitely have not seen this. Yeah. And I see why. I see why you wouldn't show a child this? Maybe. But the film, the film tried to bring up an individual.

interesting point though and I'm wondering if it was just sort of a fable thing like a fantasy fable thing or if it was trying to make a point that I just am not drawing a connection to which it was uh James Earl Jones was talking about the power that he has because you know Arnold's thing was like the sword that's what his mom dad taught him right but but James wear it okay yeah but James Earl Jones was like I have the power of flesh and he's like yo do and then the person just died yeah on his command yeah and I'm like, okay, what was going on back then? Was there like the Cold War?

Is that what was going on? Desert Storm was like in the early 90s, wasn't it? I'm trying to contextualize this. Like, okay, Reagan, I guess, was president maybe at the time. I don't know exactly what was happening, politically speaking, at the time. And so I don't know if this was just like its own thing, had nothing to do with reality. But I find that hard to believe. You know, it's got to be connected to something that was politically happening back then, potentially.

Lord of the Rings wasn't, you know, when that came out, that was talking about J.R. Tolkien's experience with war. So many, many decades apart. I just looked up, was Conan the Barbarian a commentary on anything politically? And then there's this thing that popped up, Conan the liberal with the new Conan Barbarian movie coming out. So this was obviously written sometime back. Feminism. The primary goal of feminists is equality between the sexes. And from what we can tell in the Conan movies, there are several cultures that have embraced this principle. Okay. So there's that racism. It cannot, however, be said that Robert E. Howard's original stories were devoid of racism. However, in the film's equality of the racism,

was as little a question as equality of the sexes was. Religion, even more groundbreaking, as Conan's take on organized religion, leftist politics have been associated with atheism since Jean Messiere. A French proto-communist wished that the nobility would be strangled with the entrails of the priests, a quote which, oh my God, did a row borrowed.

Conan is as much of an atheist as one can be in a time when gods walk the earth, and the script goes out of its. way to make theistic religion look foolish. Gotcha. So, conclusion, while it would be nearly impossible to pin the vast amount of social progress that has been made in the last three decades on any one source, given its popularity, and fairly clear messages, it's hard to imagine Conan had nothing to do with this shift on social issues. Interesting. That's very interesting. So I knew there was something there.

I just couldn't quite put my finger on it. And religion seemed to be the most obvious one once I was like navigating myself verbally through it. There's that. There you go. Although, it was for not, you know, it wasn't for nothing. Yeah. But I don't know that I would rewatch this ever again. No. I am interested in the other ones just to see how much. Maybe it gets better.

You know, I tried to watch the first Mad Max film and I couldn't get through it. The original. Yeah. If I was watching it for this kind of situation, like reaction, I would be able to finish it. But when it's just me, like, this film, I might have turned off. After about 30 minutes, I might have been like, you know what? I'll come back to this. Yeah.

But I was forced to finish it. And then there was interesting discoveries along the way. Part of that also has to do with the fact that, you know, we're in an era where our attention span is just not good. Yeah. And so this movie moves slower. This would be a phone scrolling one. Yeah.

Mad Max, I tried watching. I couldn't get through it. But I heard that the first one is just more difficult to watch than its sequels, you know? It just sets the scene. Yeah, especially when you compare it to today's Mad Max. Like, goodness. Did you like that one? I loved it.

It's one of my favorite movies of all time. And so, you know, you get excited to watch, like, The original is like, oh my God, this is not the same whatsoever. But the point I'm trying to get to is I think I heard that the sequels are better, not counting the most recent one. Yeah. And I'm imagining that might be the same with Conan's sequel. I don't know. We have yet to see.

You guys let us know in the comments below about that. The action was all right. The effects, the practical effects were cool. They were good. I get the sense of like back then you just had to make it work somehow with movies, right? You just had to find a way to just string this together and make it work somehow. And they did it. They had a lot to deal with.

Yeah. And they put a lot together. And they weren't shooting in the most fun areas. Like it just seemed like rough terrain and like very mountainous and sandy and rocky and like, you know, it just looked like a tough place to shoot. And, you know, they did great. They did a pretty good job. And I don't know what Arnold did before this. I really feel like this is one of his earliest, if not his most early thing.

that, like, people came to know him for. Yeah. And I can see why. Definitely is... He just has a very unique look, you know? And sound. And sound. When a Terminator come out.

84. So, yeah, this is, like, Conan was right before The Terminator. And that's the film I'm more familiar with. Right. Like, I watched The Terminator so many times as a kid. Yeah. So, my parents didn't really give a shit about me seeing violence, just so you know. Like, the violence here, I don't think, would have necessarily turned my parents off.

Because I watched The Terminator, way too many times and its sequel. Maybe it's the boobies. There was a lot of boobies. Actually, you know what? You might be right. My parents were more afraid of boobs than they were of decapitation. And that's saying something. Watch them eat people, but boobs. I don't know as much has changed, to be honest with you.

In terms of like the culture. So you guys, thanks so much for hanging out. Hopefully you enjoyed that. Let us know your feelings in the comments below. I'm Jabby Kui. This is Vivian Day. Peace out.