I am slightly surprised, although I absolutely should not be, at how deeply this movie has rooted itself in the fantasy RPG aesthetic. Obviously the Conan stories themselves had an impact; but the way that adventuring parties in the movie operate is instantly familiar. “Hi, person I just met! Let’s go steal stuff! Hey, there’s another person planning to steal the same stuff! Let’s team up! Awesome! Now, let’s all act together in unison — whaddya mean, you didn’t bring rope! Shh, don’t explain, I need to do an info dump and you had some after all.”
I approve of this, you understand. I could hardly do anything else, really. But I hadn’t realized just how much stuff was getting, err, borrowed…
That movie should have been a train wreck; on paper, it is little more than a string of scenes cobbled together from half a dozen of REH’s stories. But some how, Milius made it work.
I must have seen it a dozen times, and it is still watchable.
My favorite scene is Conan’s prayer at the end. Actually, that whole last stand sequence is pretty awesome. Even the Valeria ex Machina.
Or as someone else mentioned, a movie starting a bodybuilder, surfer and dancer… But they did have James Earl Jones and Max Von Sydow (in the script, they kind of mentioned that they wanted Max Von Sydow for Osric the Usurper, and lo, they actually got him). Max Von Sydow is nothing if not profesional, he’ll do the job. He’s even on Strange Brew.