Why was Conan the Destroyer so bad?
I was watcing it last night and sort of having fun with the movie, because it was really bad. I mean, did they get the director from a pro wrestling tour or something? I could see it being OK in the hands of someone more competant, but I’m trying to figure out how it could have become such a mess.
I did like the black warrior girl. Lord she was great. And, y’know, Arbold was Conan again and did fine.
I watched a few minutes of it also and a couple of thoughts came to mind:
I loved this movie when I was 12. I was a dork when I was 12.
This muscular gentleman, in animal skin loincloths, and speaking broken english, is now the governor of the California. (Crack on Californians withheld due to forum restrictions).
It was produced by Dino DeLaurentis, never a good sign.
It written by Roy Thomas rather than John Milius. Roy Thomas is more known for working with Marvel comics. I loved his Savage Sword of Conan comics. But it wasn’t until recently good comic book movies were made.
Cheer up though. Rumor has it Milius is making another Conan movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376707/
Might not be bad. BTW, have watched the first Conan lately. Not nearly as good as I remember it being. Still kinda fun, but… not so good.
Why was Destroyer so bad?
No James Earl Jones.
Wilt Chamberlain was not that great a second. They should have had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar booked in the movie. He has movie fight cred.
That’s why Destroyer was bad.
One of the reasons was that Arnold was only supposed to be minimally involved. I remember seeing an interview where Arnold said he agreed to shoot a few scenes for the sequel as a favor to Dino DeLaurentis, but didn’t expect it to be more than a cameo. But after the success of the first one, and knowing that he had been cast in The Terminator, DeLaurentis ordered them to use almost all the footage of Arnold. As a result it didn’t quite flow, using the term loosely.
A small interesting tidbit is that you may recognize the actress that played the black warrior - she was the evil Crypton chick from Superman II.
I saw the last few minutes and couldn’t stop laughing. In the final scene Conan’s wearing leather briefs! They were so bulky they looked like a diaper, and they had a gold medallion on them and everything. I also liked that his legs were waxed and oiled, even though his society hadn’t come up with the idea of pants yet. I think that really added to the hilarity of the last scene.
The blonde girl’s bangs also looked incongrous – she looked like an 80’s high school student, not a princess or whatever she was.
The monster was also great; it looked like it was made of burnt marshmallows and it was never all in the camera frame.
I loved the warrior girl though. I think her name was Zula.
Was the rest of the movie as funny? I’m thinking about renting this next time my friends and I have a movie night.
Nope. Grace Jones was not in Superman 2. However, the actress who played the evil high priestess was.
IIRC the same actress played a sorceress in Beastmaster2-Through The Portal Of Time
“Lie to me witch, and I’ll cleave your black heart from your bosom!”
“Why does everyone want to cleave my bosom? I think it cleaves just fine on its own.”
Grace Jones does show up as a warrior in an episode of the Beastmaster television series. She’s also naked in Vamp and did a Playboy or Penthouse pictorial wearing nothing but boxing gloves.
Wellll, not exactly. The actress from SUPERMAN II was Sarah Douglas, who played the evil queen in the Conan movie. The bizarre warrior woman was Grace Jones, just as crude and unlikeable as she was in the Bond film A VIEW TO A KILL (where she and a badly aging Roger Moore made an unattractive sexual liaiason).[QUOTE=DocCathode]
Nope. Grace Jones was not in Superman 2. However, the actress who played the evil high priestess was.QUOTE]
:o Sorry, I assumed the OP meant “the one in the black clothes.” I guess I also assumed the OP knew who Grace Jones was…
Ah, good, silly cable fun. Just like Tremors, or something with Godzilla. The kind of movie you wish you could hit a switch on your remote and turn on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys.
Grace Jones, a New Wave singer/performance artist from the eighties was perfect for the role. Apparently, she was so enthusiastic, they had to explain to her over and over not to really hit the stunt men with her big stick.
The D’Abo girl was mildly delicious, though her preposterous lip shaping and eyelash flicking was more a distraction than an attraction. Her sister was in the first Timothy Dalton Bond movie.
Arnold’s drunk scene should have been pulled by the competition in the election. It might have cost him some votes.
Oh, yeah. Favorite badness: The actors with mouthfuls of cigarette smoke trying to convey the coldness of the sorcerer’s lair – One breath at a time.
Yeah.
I think they tried to make it funny, & less of a flick only 11-22 year old males would enjoy. For instance the violence is significantly less graphic in this movie than the first.
This is a wild exaggeration, but they made Conan-Bond-Moonraker instead of Conan-with alot of blood & boobies and the Conan Character, Arnold, Grace Jones et al. Don’t do Moonraker well.
I’m with the making it a parody movie. The first was a more-or-less honest shot at the barbarian movies popular in the cult films circut (OK cult of barbarian D&D fans…), but this was more a parody.
(4) The clumsiness of Ms. D’Abo’s “crush” scenes with Ah-nold.
(3) All of Grace Jones’ performance.
(2) Arnold’s drunk scene
…and the #1 thing that made this a bad movie: The evil vizier’s batwinged helmet. When he turns his head suddenly, we find that the “metal” bat wings are in fact rubber, which makes it look like his helmet realizes how bad the movie is and is trying to take flight and escape from the scene…