[...]More on the Conan Movie in Empire and Comic-Con | Conan The Movie Blog[...]…

[...]More on the Conan Movie in Empire and Comic-Con | Conan The Movie Blog[...]…

More on the Conan Movie in Empire and Comic-Con | Conan The Movie Blog…

More on the Conan Movie in Empire and Comic-Con | Conan The Movie Blog…

More on the Conan Movie in Empire and Comic-Con | Conan The Movie Blog…

Thank you for your help!…

I won’t say Thomas’ adaptations were uniformly perfect – his adaptations of “The Hour of the Dragon” and “Rogues in the House” have some really weird choices. However, given the choice between Dark Horse’s “Black Colossus” and Savage Sword’s, I’d go with the latter every time. I haven’t read the late ’80s stuff, mostly out of disgust for some of the later work.

As for taking other adaptations of Howard: well, the difference here is that Thomas was writing a comic, and wanted to make it as REH as possible. This included taking elements from non-Conan REH, and giving them a Conan spin. I actually think they worked well. However, in De Camp’s case, he’s working in prose, and taking non-Conan REH stories and essentially supplanting them, since in De Camp’s mindset, Conan sells and non-Conan REH doesn’t. Adaptating a story into another medium and rewriting a story into another story are two different things, in my opinion.

Fayric, while I agree Radcliffe isn’t great, what I was getting at was the films adhere to the setting, plot and characters of the book. Radcliffe didn’t do a fantastic job, but what he was given was essentially JK Rowling’s creation: a boy whose parents are killed by an evil sorcerer, who leaves a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his head, and lives with his uncle and aunt before going off to a school for wizards. Contrast with Conan’s early life.

As for “Valeria,” it’s my impression that she’s simply an extra. She isn’t *the* Valeria (either of them), luckily.

Ralph, I can’t say I agree. There are a few stories where Conan is very definitely more a hero than an anti-hero, and he has to make decisions. “The Servants of Bit-Yakin” is the most profound of these, where he has to choose between saving a box of priceless jewels, or a dancing wench, from falling into the abyss. He doesn’t even pause: he saves the girl. As for evil: well, I think many of the sorcerers and horrors he meets are far more evil than Conan is. Conan never the victim? “A Witch Shall Be Born,” “Rogues in the House” and practically all the king stories beg to differ. Sure, he isn’t broken or utterly powerless, but you definitely want him to get revenge against his tormentors.

There are a few stories where Conan, while savage and dangerous as he ever was, is far more heroic than in others. “Beyond the Black River,” “The Black Stranger,” and again the King stories all portray a man willing to put his life on the line for others. “The Devil in Iron” has him go to an uncharted island, alone, to rescue a girl he doesn’t even know. “People of the Black Circle” could almost be shown as a hero’s journey, as he starts off kidnapping the Devi to barter for his men, but by the end of the story, he’s planning on rescuing her from a castle of wizards simply to save her life. He even lets her go at the end, even if he does get his “ransom” (which is as much a reward for rescuing the Devi as it is a ransom). So does “The Tower of the Elephant”: he starts off a wild man who will kill on provocation, but when he meets Yogah, he shows pity, and stays his hand. Even “Black Colossus” has Conan showing concern for his soldiers.

But, as you say, even that might be too much for the dunderheads at Hollywood. More’s the pity.

Rabensblut: I think you’ll find a lot of REH fans are metalheads. I’m a Manilla Road man myself.