Director: John Milius
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Ben Davidson
Have I Seen it Before: I want to say yes, but the more I think about it, the more I become convinced that every memory I have of the movie is half remembered wisps from various partial viewings on cable throughout the years.
Did I Like It: This is an interesting border movie. Yes, it comes after the one-two-three punch of Jaws (1975), Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) in an age where films were slowly going to become more about spectacle and never look back, and when films more about ideas like anything directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Conan somehow miraculously straddles the line between the two worlds. On the surface, it is a high fantasy epic with swordplay, mysticism, and action to spare. It made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name, which was no small feat as at that time all the Austrian Oak had to offer to the world of film was the documentary Pumping Iron (1977) and the sublimely, transcendently awful Hercules in New York (1969, AKA Hercules Goes Bananas). That alone would make it a staple of the action genre.
But there are ideas present here, thanks to the idiosyncratic hand of John Milius at the helm. It’s a deep dive into the Nietzschean ideal, and aside from an awkward title card as the first thing we see, it is all delivered subtly. It’s one of the most brashly atheist films ever conceived for a mainstream audience, with the film stopping for several scenes so that characters can debate about the value of their various arbitrary gods, only to then effectively dismiss their usefulness altogether. The third act hinges entirely on a mass cult meeting that unravels after their charismatic leader (Jones) is decapitated during a ceremony.
I’m not even sure I’m entirely on board with such slavish devotion to Nietzche, but the film could have been far more of a drag in its examination of those ideas. I’d imagine—and I’m basing this mostly off of a knowing viewing of The Big Lebowski (1998)—that I wouldn’t find Milus agreeable company, but one cannot deny that he made an imminently entertaining film that is steeped in his feelings about life and destiny. Star Wars might have had some ideas behind it as well, but I think we can all agree that there was a little bit more to the notion of selling action figures. No such luck here.