MTV news on Stephen Lang

Fayric

Witty and eloquent? I think Lang will probably be one of the brighter things about this movie (the villain is always more interresting!), but in these short clips they have given us he dont really seam to care much for the movie, or he dont care to make an effort in talking about it. I dont want to speculate where they pulled their ideas from, and I really put my faith in those last minute scrpt chages, but this character khalar dont seam to have given Lang much of an impression.
(or is this the way Lang usually talk about his parts?)

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

Nothing impresses more the fans than actors saying they pull their roles out of their asses. Reminds me of how Michael Gambon, an otherwise good actor, managed to ruin the witty and amusing Dumbledore for several movies with his real life grouchiness, simply because he didn’t care to read a single page of the source material.
That compared to Sir Ian Mckellen, who was known for carrying his copy of the “Lord of the Rings” on set. Guess who did a better job (and won an Academy Award nomination).

Granted Lang’s character is not Howard’s creation, the least I would do as an actor is to research the franchise and the universe I’m being invited to join. I only hope Momoa and Nispel have a different approach other than just browsing the script.

Benzenzimmern

It was stated some time ago that most of the actors have read or still read Howard’s original stories.

Steve Dilks

Lang doesn’t convince me at all in interviews. I wish he would just say “well..its a job and I did my best.” If you can’t see how naff fake cheap and blandly commercial a vehicle this movie is by now you are very naieve. Its a blatant advertisement cash-in with no regard for Conan whatsoever. As a result it will flop and I hope Paradox have to sell of this silly conan properties thing (which again is all de Camp’s fault!) and it dissolves. How can one company liscence and control another persons character and decide how he is going to be “marketed”? Please also someone tell me that Momoa’s abs in that empire photo haven’t been photoshopped. Close up they look fake as do those silly scars. Notice how they are trying to make him look like Frazetta’s barbarian painting? HA! Then they give him that sword from the toy shop to stick in his belt! What the hell were they doing out there?

Taranaich

Oddly enough, this differs from a previous interview, where Lang compares Khalar with (I’m totally serious) Shakespeare’s Richard III, in that he didn’t play him as the villain. So he may well have taken it more seriously than he implied here.

Benzenzimmern: I’d heard the same. It’d be nice if this affects the film itself, but sadly I doubt it.

Fayric

I hope Lang just expect mtv news not to be interrested in an actual analyze and just want to make a “cool” reply. And I sure hope this Khalar Zym villain is not that booring evil guy that constantly have to show the audience how evil he is by killing his own captains (that worked for Darth Vader, but he is the exeption (and he even acted it out from behind a black mask helmet -magic!))

Reading howards stories (more or less on set, between takes as I heard it) Is most likely a good thing for Momoas acting, but probably have less importance for the other people involved if they hadnt read them before. Howards stories is so full of innuendos and aproximations, and readers mostly have one or two ideas of what they are to expect before they start reading; they will most likely interpret the text to fit the script that earn them the money.
Nispel say he likes the Conan stories and have for a long time, and I actualy take his word for it.
I know Malmberg is an old fantasy freak and managed to publish some translated conan books in sweden many years ago when they first got their hand on the conan properties (when malmberg was still just boss over a swedish roleplaying publication company that transformed in curious ways to Paradox, after what Ive heard); my point being I actually think his part in this is not compleatly from a money perspective, and he has claimed the writers “know their Conan”. If that was just to sell the movie to the fanbase, I ddont know, but I think Malmberg knows his Conan, for what that is worth.

m

Well, bear in mind he could be trying to sell this to the mtv audience, in which jersey shore and freakin twilight are the most popular things with that crowd. He(lang strikes me as a smart (if not a little burnt out) guy, he may just be dumbng himself down to sell it to the dopey kids who watch mtv. ” yeah khalars so badass, I even pulled him from my ass” heh heh beavis you said pulled!huh huh.And regards for conan or not, if he could sell it to them( you can sell shit on a stick to them )the movie will make money no matter how good or bad it is.

m

sorry for the dated beavis and butthead reference,but these kids who watch mtv today make them look sharp

m

kinda like what you just said fayric:)

m

the first post not the second of course

Ian

Why do i get the feeling this is treated as a rush job throw away fantasy movie?

Finn

Fayric, you are right, the killing your own captains thing is stupid and not believable. You failed to capture the protagonist of our story!??!?! Now you must die to make the hero’s final victory against us easier!

Fayric

Conan should be the villain of this movie! Might bring out his character better than the politically corrected versions usually on display (as many of you has pointed out). But I guess the slave trading, burning and raping days perhaps comes in the sequel, when he realize this revenge plot is over and he can do whatever he likes. “the damnedest bastard” was it?
Ralph, I think you made a good point a few posts back: It would be really interresting to her Momoa (and Nispel too) comment on the “moral” of Conan. True, even howard write that Conan follow a barbarian code of honor, but I suspect this code in practice is very much a “might is right” kind of code that also extend to the “family” or “pack” that Conan happen to pick up (as has been suggested in some analysis of conans behaiviour as an alpha wolf). I you are not part of Conans gang, you better be stronger or be sorry!
Mind you, I dont make any personal conclusions of this, just think its an interresting hero of an age lost to us, in more than one way.

Fayric

Steve, I think few magazines nowdays publish photos that is not shopped in some way, so it hard to say. Would they dare to do such a dirty trick? And if they did, they better make the same edit for the whole movie. Didnt they plan to hire those “muscle animators” that painted up th guys in 300 (have some memmory that they changed their mind, but that might just have been they got a cheaper alternative?)

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

Actually, the 300 cast went through a major training program. You can read about some of it here: http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=35

They did have toned muscles at the end of it. Which were then airbrushed in makeup sessions, not digitally. The techniques which were digitally employed to re-tint and increase the overall contrast of the movie also worked to enhance the makeup, but nothing was done in the likes of CGI muscles.

So while you can airbrush muscles for a magazine shot such as this, there’s no similar way to do it in live action. Even a costly frame by frame editing would look fake. The alternative is to build a CGI model and have it tracked on top of the footage. This is how they do Voldemort’s nostrils, for instance.

Yet, there’s no motion capture or reference marks reported in the set of Conan, which makes that possibility highly unlikely. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

By the way, while working on the first official Conan image to add the Frazetta hairstyle for a mock up (posted here earlier), I noticed that image had also been touched up. And in such a poor way that part of the stair behind his hand went missing, which leads to me believe his hair will be even curlier in the actual footage.

m

those howard qoutes on wikipedia were great btw.”muscles and money”summoned up howard’s heroes fairly good. I like the conan qoute where basically he says, “when science ,religion fail civilized men theyre gonna look to the man with the sword”.frightengly true…I think they hired the whole art team from 300 , its in one of the earlier threads.Fayric it’s funny that you should think conan as the villain of this flick, i feel the same way about batman for #3! I think there should be a sort of villain ( but a politician or gangster like rupert thorne or tony zucco) but I think a great twist would be , after batman does his thing, gordon figures it out and arrests him. that would challenge everyones beliefs on the character. As for conan I think he should be unsavory of course , but almost becomes the hero as circumstance( his motive for killing zym has nothing to do with world conquest, he mightve done the same himself) or accident, not because khalars ambitions of conquest give him extra motive for “getting it done”. more like “alright, i never thought i’d run into this prick again but if i get a chance i’ll gut him. “In other words, if his motive is disconnected from the bigger picture being played out, hes the vector with his own thing that cuts his way through, I can accept that. if hes gonna cry to every chick he bangs in this flick (he’d better tap every one of them!)thats its his life’s purpose to” vanquish the man who wiped the last of his kin, descended from sunken atlantis, and to save the corrupt but civlized world frm his nefarious plot,” i’m gonna be more than pissed,

m

@fayric:I say batman as villain too because you will never at least for the next ten years, get anyone who could pull off a joker like ledger or even scarecrow like murphy. i thought aaron eckhart( dawn of the two face there!) and qui gon ducard were a little weak.Think how it will be consistent with the alleged ‘realistic ” take they are going for( I dont find anything realistic about it except that they shot it in a real city) and how it would challenge everyones perception on who and what batman really is.imo, gordon is the only good guy in these pics.( i do like the flicks, dont get me wrong, but i am sick of batman.Its conan’s turn !!)

m

@ fayric , just double checked something though; conan would never take a woman by force, even howards, as in the vale of lost women, she( the woman of the story tries to even give herself to him and he rejects it, realizin gi would be the same as taking her without consent. feels he never had to do that).

m

a very underrated story too.

Steve Dilks

Fayric: Conan in a Howard story (I can’t remember which right now sorry!) utters his disgusts of slave trading saying something to the affect of ” they call my race barbaric; we do not sell our children.” The description you paint of Conan would not be my interpretation or make for an admiribale character either. His appeal is not, I think, of one pertaining to “might makes right” but in a straightforward approach to life and the romanic contrasts of barbarism. Fed up with being ground down by your tyrranical boss? By Crom, twist his head from his pencil neck shoulders with your bare hands and have the secretary fall at your feet in swooning admiration. Rise up against the oppressors at the head of your co-workers as a leader of men and hear them chant your name. That to me is the appeal of Conan- the sneered at underestimated underdog who one day turns. I got that impression of Howard’s Conan best summed up in movie form in “First blood” when John Rambo snaps in that cop station. Conan is no bullying slave trading rapist as hinted at in your post. I would certainly not be interested in such an interpretation.

m

though i definitely understand the comparison of rambo( even greater so in the following flicks, rambo could’ve easliy had been a character created by howard ) to conan in many aspects, remember 2 things: he snapped because of a mental flashback to torture in nam , though the fact that his countrymen were treating him ,a war hero like dirt fueled his anger and despair later. Rambo was mentally unstable,unhinged in first blood from war trauam and homeland rejection, conan though moody and uninhibited in combat strikes me as a more sound individual and not a broken soldier. 2 rambo was trained by the best men of war civilization has to offer, and though seemingly born a farmer he is still a product of the skills acquired from an organized military.though I do see conan as one who would loots, raids and looks to profit by using brute means as seen in tales such as rogues in the house though, and even howard had a disdain for savages portrayed as noble or of a higher morality. but aside venarium , which seems a more defensive military strike ( its so vaguely told though he said no one was left to live, men woman children, whos to say who he killed or didn’t)of a society encroaching on their turf, his raids and loots seem to be done on a larger scale with more political and targets of wealth, the type of people who at the top of the “civilized” food chain.weaklings to him, but the only prey he could profit from and they’re a detriment to society as a cirmcumstance of it. you wont see a tale where he breaks into a commoners house and robs a single mother of five and their children of their food and toys for mitra-day or something.

m

a correction: I meant the god in the bowl( i always get that and rogues in the house mixed up title-wise!)though he was in the process of robbing some rich guys house when he stumbled upon the guard in ( who had stumbled upon a corpse) i think conan was stealing food . but to accentuate my point,he stealing from a house of wealth, he would never steal food again froma poor single mother of 5.

Fayric

Sorry to talk down Conan for you, I see i was a bit harsh. While he is no saint, I agree he choose his “targets” for plunder and killing from people who vaguely “deserves” it, at least in the stories. Not much detail mentioned of what he did as a bloody handed pirate that made his name feared and hated long after he left that occupation. Im just re reading “hour of the dragon”, and just got past a part where he start longing for the good old days, he ask himslf why he should not “loose himself in the red tides of war and rapine that had engulfed him so many times before” [chapter 12, the fang of the dragon); true, this might say he long for the general feeling where he do the waring and his fellow mercenaries do the raping, still a bit of moraly questinable I think. There is also the opening of “queen of the black coast, where he have to flee because he has cleaved a judges skull and cut himself out of a court room when he realized he would not agree with the local law. “Straightforward approach to life”, sure.
About the slavery, I admit I had that wrong (just checked the part where Conan meet his old “friend” Publio; I had gotten in to my head Conan had supplied him with slaves in his days as corsair, but now I plainly see that was not the case).
And in the actual stories (not the things that happens between them), Conan mostly come out a pretty good guy, I think, reacting on a intuitive understanding of what ought to be done (and what must be done), often making a sort of common sense in the end.

Just kidding about actually making Conan the villain, but I do think it would be good for a conan movie if it was “told” from someone who was not conan, as the stories is mostly told from the perspective of other persons or even from a fixed spot of location, Imo.

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

The major flaw with past Conan incarnations is that script writers tend to see things in black and white. Conan doesn’t act, Conan reacts. His moral fiber always depends on whatever situation he’s placed himself into. Conan is not an anarchist in the political sense, he’s not a Robin Hood, he’s not a chevalier, he’s not primitive and he’s certainly not well intentioned. He is a survivor, and a selfish one.
Writers tend to cast a heroic spotlight on his motivations, and that’s where things start to stink. Rambo is an excellent example, by the way. The guy just wants to be left alone. They’re damaged characters whose difficult lives afforded them a strict code of ethics which forbids them to harm people who pose no threat. Everyone else is a potential enemy. They may go out of their way to rescue another victim of ill fortune, only because they can relate to that. They may be able to feel pity and maybe compassion for the weaker. But they’re too proud and angry to actually care.

That’s the classic anti-hero.

Fayric

Steve, I wouldnt call Conan the sneered at underestimated underdog who one day turns. Conan is more like a bully to me, and I cant say I admire him as a hero, never did, and that is not the reason I like those stories (and in another way, that IS why I like those stories, just because he is no great hero in my eyes, wich makes him real). But I honestly think that is more in me than in the stories now that I think about it. You have sure given me something to think about.

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

I kinda picture him as someone who places loyalty in high regard, which would make him a respected king and earn him many friends over the world. But rarely, if ever, he would mourns their loss or the death of a subject. He’d regard death as a part of life, but being no knight, he’d care little if someone dies honorably or in vain. He knows his fate will be the same sooner or later. He’s good in essence, but an advocate of chaos and chance rather than order and purpose. Mind over heart, and yet he’s very prone to let his rage take over. That’s delightfully grey in many aspects, and sadly, impossible to convey in a politically correct script.

Some say he is Howard’s projected alter ego, his opposite in many ways. Hence the contradictions in his character.

Fayric

Oh, almost forgot, Thank you ralph for more insights in the technical world that I dont know much anything about. Just knew they had edited the muscles of those boys in 300, and quite honestly, airbrushng the actual actors in this day and age just sounds ridiculous to me;) But I see you are somwhat an expert at CG art. very nice work you done.

You also make alot of sense and points on conans “morale”. Problem is Conan is written over many stories that somewhat contradict each other, and also write about a man getting older and more savvy in the wide world of vice and cruelty. But you are right, once we try to understand Conan as either black or white, we just get confused.

Fayric

M, Another reason Bats should be the villain is they have said it will be no villain ever before done in a batman movie. Together with the “realistic” take, that dont really leave us much options;) I dont suppose Killer crock is really realistic, nor that mad sientist that makes himself into a monster bat. Hush perhaps? More gangsters?
Also he dont have any more acces to Lucius Foxs technology, perhaps forcing him to rely more on keeping the bad guys in a state of terror, which probably would lead to a pretty scary “hero” or even villain if you like.
I think they bring in some of bats fellow heroes like huntress or canary for 3, to even out the dark dark lonely feel they left him with at the end of dark knight. I was actualy hoping they would make a moral dilemma for batman by bringing in catwoman and the boy wonder, each trying to win him over to their representative side, as he now balance between what kind of avenger he should be (also those two seem quite important for the whole batman thing).

Agree Gordon is the only good guy, bet they will mess his life up in the next movie.

m

he’s definitely no robin hood but he has his own sense of right and wrong, and more common sense than most of those he chooses to loot from. and he is a character in howards world and as you both have stated , that grows over time and his views change a bit as well. Conan the king isnt the same guy in the frost giants daughter , hes a bit more reflective.He exists in black white and grey and that is part of what makes him such a fleshed out character and one whom we all visualize differently from each other.wasnt conan the bararian relatively told from the point of view of mako?I was thinking as well as the preamble to the nemedian chronicles how about some bits of the hyborian age, just enough to give the new viewer an idea of where theyre at? they could do it during the opening credits maybe?

m

@fayric: i am thrilled you are for the idea of batman as the antagonist, you try to tell that to batman fanboys and they get all bent out of shapeand threaten to stalk the night with vengence and..i tell them they should put down their books and get laid!!if i had to go with a “rogues gallery” villain, I like black mask. but I think the use of gangsters,corrupt politicians and cops is the best contribution nolan made, and ledgers joker is better than anything that ever existed in the comics too… but alas this is conan and if conan was the villain of a bat flick it would be over in twenty minutes as he would gut that frea….um right . enjoy the rest of the weekend folks, fishing tommorow!

m

@fayric: one minor thing , I suspect you’d see conan in nolans batman movies before you see robin, its an early phase of batmans career( in nolans universe the 3rd may even be the end of his career as he hinted) and robin is in diapers likely.

http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

Fayric, airbrushing might sounds like a terrible idea, but it’s been actually used before in superhero movies. Spiderman’s outfit has very subtle muscle lines airbushed on it so that when the light catches it from certain angles, the muscles appear to be more pronounced.
It was used also in Lord of the Rings, to make the orcs look bulkier. They were airbrushed on top of the prostethics.
It can actually look fairly natural, if you picture how tan lines appear to highlight certain (*ahem*) areas. The principle is the same.

Finn

I think Conan was going to rape the frost giant’s daughter. I’m not sure what the legal status of frost giant women is, or if they have an age of consent. But my guess is that Conan was gonna rape her. Unprotected women out in the open are fair game in a society without police and telephones and squad cars. I don’t want to project a modern code of ethics onto Conan and turn him into an ambiguous Obama figurine made of playdough that is whatever you want him to be at the moment. He was gonna rape a giant. I can imagine him raping widows, sea turtles, and rolls of bread. He is not superman and he is not captain america. Every few pages he is doing something that would get him a life sentence in america today.

m

you know finn i thought of that too after i posted those remarks. but if you remember conan was not exactly in a normal state of mind in that story, does it count for or against him?

Taranaich

Fayric, nothing I’ve read indicates Zym is that “kills his subordinates” kinda guy: it’s mostly innocent folk he’s dastardly to. And while it’s unclear if Conan ever partook in slave trading despite his rebuke in “Iron Shadows in the Moon”, he never took a woman by force, by his own admission in “The Vale of Lost Women” (and Conan was pretty darn dastardly in that story). I guess no woman really could resist his charms.

Finn, the Frost-Giant’s Daughter is a very tricky case. It’s clear Conan’s wildly out of sorts after the blow on the helmet. Atali’s modus operandi is to lure a man to his brothers by inflaming their sexual lust. This takes place after a battle, where a man’s energy is completely spent. I think it’s strongly implied from the text that Atali was using some sort of telepathic suggestion urging Conan to chase her on – such is the nature of such seductresses in myth and folklore, to be so desirable as to override a man’s senses. When he finally caught up with her, that magic came back to bite her, and she had a lust-crazed Cimmerian after her with no brothers for protection.

Taranaich

*Edit: her brothers, of course.

Finn

I take it to mean that she is so beautiful it is hard for men to resist, and she knows that, but without any real magic being used. The strange madness has happened to me before around pretty girls. Plus she was naked and openly flirting with him (until he killed her brothers). So, it’s one of those situations where she brought it on herself and seemed to be asking for it, but today’s judges would still call it rape if Ymir didn’t save her.

Steve Dilks

Finn: Good point about “The frost giants-daughter”. I believe Atali cast on him a glamour which he overcame when he slew the giants. Certainly C

Steve Dilks

onan does does not like to be duped and lured to his death-particularly by magic! When he was about to take his reward yes it was by force and in the white hot heat of passion. Would it have made Conan a rapist? Yes. Look back on the history of why it never saw print in Weird Tales. Editor Farnsworth Wright thought it too risky- even for Conan. I am inclined to agree that yes Conan was a brute force direct sort of man. A bully though-no. Howard was bullied as youth and grew up despising them. I believe Conan was his psychological alter-ego against oppression in that regard.

Taranaich

Finn, the “strange madness” is described in very different terms to other times Conan’s been lovestruck. Take his chase after Valeria: he was completely smitten with the girl, but at no point did he show the sheer unthinking mania that he did in FG-D. In all the stories where Conan chases after a girl, not a single one has it ending with him raping her. “The Devil in Iron” ends with him forcefully kissing Octavia, but she relents and gives in in the classic “struggle for a bit then get into it” of the pulps – in other words, consenting.

Plus, Atali clearly was “asking for it.” This isn’t like a girl wearing a short skirt or slyly flirting with some guy in a nightclub, she was actively goading Conan to chase after her and ravish her. There is no ambiguity here. Sure, today’s judges would indeed call it rape – but applying modern mores and laws to ancient peoples (especially when mythical creatures are involved) is problematic at best.

Steve Dilks

Taranaich: This is dodgy ground. Barbaric,primitive societies often impose far more stringent penalties for rape,child molestation and even adultery than so called “civillized” ones. Conan would have been brought up instilled harshly with these values- its how small societes work and ultimately thrive. Not the reverse where there are no laws or rules which is often the interpretation of a tribal or savage society. Conan , in “The frost giants daughter” was in the heat throes of lust and battle. This sort of thing could have occured quite frequently in Howard’s stories and would have done too if Farnsworth Wright had not forced his hand. Howard was always pushing the limits. He knew what he could and could not get away with but the hints are there in most Conan stories and from todays unedited texts its plainer to see. He was a bit of a pillaging rapist. Who would have thunk it?

Finn

Frost Giant’s Daughter was written early on and was rejected. I don’t know if the editor told him “Hey buddy, none of this lusty strange madness sex chase business, alright mister!??!?” but REH was trying to hit the formula which would get him paid. So it makes sense he would have shied away from going that far afterwards. It seems to me the frost giant brothers and atali didn’t have any magic on their own and were just blessed with extreme beauty and strength/size. They depended on ymir for help, hence the whole sacrificing business. The other women in the conan stories had mortal parents. Looking at a girl that beautiful was enough to drive men insane, even conan. Maybe conan’s lawyer could have pleaded temporary insanity.

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