Giant Spider from Empire Strikes Back

Here's a deleted arachnid beast from Empire Strikes Back concept art, I thought it was interesting. The only movie to pull it off was KRULL, it was dropped in both CONAN and STAR WARS. *Also reminds me of the Alien Queen from ALIENS, when she lays her eggs,lol.

The pic is really scary. Damn! In the German Fantasy books I mentioned in my first post here the main character also have to deal with such a huge spider.
I feel uncomfortable just to look at the pic.

Makes for great heroic fantasy doesn't it ?! It would've been cool scenes for either movie, another loss. I think one of the animated Lord Of The Rings movies from the early 80's features a giant spider.

BTW, on a somewhat related note.. not many people know or realize that Ron Cobb got his own Star Wars character and action figure in recent years:

http://www.rebelscum.com/TAC31roron.asp

Is cool, surely is inspired by macro zoomed real insects, also the enviroment look like an ultrazoomed animal skin surface or something like that.



The toy is fun, Cobb designed the alien and also a lot from the tavern scene.

Cromulus, do you know any site with pre-production art of the Star Wars movies?


Apparently the giant spider would have been a Dagobah native animal right? I wonder if the teaching of Luke by Yoda was not inspired by Boorman's EXCALIBUR, kinda reminds me of some moments of Merlin with Arthur in the forest.

Milius declared he haven't read Joseph Campbell and that he is not interested in. So, the use of archetypes like the good/evil father in CTB surely came directly from his friend's movie Star Wars. Milius use to speak shit about Star Wars but looks like the script -or at the least the concepts in it- made a great impact on him. Also Thulsa is too reminiscent of Vader in look and... voice (lol) to be just a coincidence.

Yeah, I doubt Milius bi-passed comic books ect and went straight to classic Historical and Mythological literature growing up as a kid. But heck I could be wrong of course,lol. Interestingly enough I seem to remember some older interview from the late 90's or early 2000's, where Basil Poledouris recommended Milius for directing comic book movies liek Spider-Man. I believe he also said something like they were both fans of the genre and such.


I was just having a brief talk to MightymcT last week infact, and I was saying, "It doesnt make too much sense in the Mediascene newspaper magazine, Cobb states that Greenberg said Milius was always the first choice for the movie, but was busy working on Big Wednesday(1978). Cobb's description of the pairing of Stone and Milius was also interesting, because he said they spent some time on revising Stone's script until Milius didnt want armies of Mutants and then Stone got mad and Milius re-wrote the "entire thing". Cobb goes onto mention they didnt really want a Frazetta style from the get-go(which is a departure from what other sources state), and then he mentions Doom being written for Connery, with Milius didnt want Doom to be ugly but a seducer of women and very handsome(which surely runs counter to what Milius' stated on the DVD)."

Milius doesnt seem very stable, meaning lots of variants of the stories from his own mouth. He even went some distance on the CE DVD to convincing the audience it was always to be "this great James Earl Jones' face with this dark skin, straight hair and stark blue eyes" with the whole "reversing of Anthropology" and being this "great race that died out, Atlanteans".

William Stout also confirms that Doom was written for Connery, but even Earl Jones seems very excited and taken by the role along with being the voice of Vader. So I think was strongly under the impression Milius wrote the role for him.

Plus Milius' 1st Draft features armies of Mutants and mentioning of trolls, Ape-Men and other mutants, so I dont think that was a factor with Stone rushing out pulling his hair out, so Cobb was wrong there. Milius maintained Mutants and beastmen well up to actual Production. Milius even had Conan fight Thulsa Doom in his Serpent form in the Orgy chamber over the Father's sword.* I created a topic before I even read the 1st Draft over this scene, because was interesting why he eventually deleted everything there, including the Sword on the wall, which i think was pivotal, it seemed Conan was just in it for the money and only wanted revenge once more after Valeria bought the farm and bascially had no choice at that point but to stay and fight Doom at the Mounds.






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The Spider shouldve been in Dagobah as far as I am aware, yeah.

I dont have any concept Star Wars links off hand no, wish i did though:

but try these for now:

http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heilemann/sets/152728/

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

The only movie to pull it off was KRULL

You forgot about RED SONJA!

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

it was dropped in both CONAN and STAR WARS.

Now that I'm thinking about it, according to Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway, there was also supposed to be a giant spider in CONAN 2 at some point. They apparently dropped the idea because of KRULL, which was in production (or going into production) at roughly the same time...

Nah I didnt forget it. Was just a matter of scale(big vs giant,lol).. that was about the size to fit into that tower of Set though.

Would be great to land more Thomas scripts.

PS

Turd, you'll like the Mediascene mag, Cobb specifically called Milius a "Proto-Fascist" and Oliver Stone a "Hippie" on the topic of their pairing...he also said they got along real well and seemed to have known eachother before being paired on production..but had the falling out after Milius decided to re-write the entire script(a gross exaggeration on Cobb's part there,lol).

When was the giant spider supposed to appear in CONAN 2 ? At Toth Amon's Crystal Palace ?

Yeah, I read that interview, Cromulus. I agree with you, Milius changes his stories up as he goes... Also, the versions about Frazetta changing each time, first they say they wanted to do something different and then Milius in the documentary about Frazetta say that he had allways been enamoured of his art and not only that... he proudly claims that made THE ONE AND ONLY Frazetta-like looking movie ever made....

I think Milius is hardly trustable... He declared that he is allways "by the side of the winner" , which is like, lol, licking the ass of the stronger, doesn't matter who. One day Milius can say he is a "proto-fascist" but then one day the comunists win and then he swears he allways loved Marx, and so...

It's a strategy, you know, you have your ass covered no matter who is above you. But for people like us, trying to figure out what this man is about, only brings some kind of little deception. At least in my case. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger condemning the videogame of CONAN because the blood and violence...... Oh my fucking god, Arnold is against violence in the media??????? I can only say one word: LOOOOOOOOOOOL.

How could they be so sold out????? Can't explain... Well, I perfectly can, though I would prefer to think about these guys, who once were my heroes, with some dignity. But things like those make it hard... In the end they are real people, I guess, but a guy who makes a career doing ultra-violent movies and then is chosen president and talks about how bad the violence is, hardly can be respected, man....



Mmm, btw in CTB there was supposed to be a giant spider in the Tower, or is it just a wrong memory of mine? I remember the soldiers of Osric and also the standart of Zamora has a spider, but it doesn't mean there are giant spiders underground, as REH said. Are there any giant arachnids in the first scripts??


Other thing, about MILIUS, he said he never liked marvel superheroes. In some interview he said the only comics he loved were War comics, and ones (from the 50's) about a super-team of american heroes who fought the nazis -can't remember the name-. I think milius was really into wester movies, cheap novels, and so. He uses stereotypes again and again, but he is much more deep than any comic so I think his background comes from literature, cheap and also good. Also history books and so.

The battle with the Spider was in the 1st Draft, some pieces of it survived into the others..but was mostly completely deleted by 2nd Draft. But for some reason its symbolism made it to the movie as did Osric's Mirrors of Thuzan Thune, all very mysteriously.

Einar wrote:

When was the giant spider supposed to appear in CONAN 2 ? At Toth Amon's Crystal Palace ?

Yeah, apparently Conan would be the only one who swims to the crystal palace and climbs its walls. There would be a giant spider (size of a pig) directly taken from the "Tower of the Elephant" tale. But they heard about the movie KRULL so they forgot about the spider, and changed into giant leeches -a lot of them, different sizes-. You can see this scene in HORN OF AZOTH graphic novel.DeLaurentiis said something like: NO FUCKING SLUGS. So the leeches were eliminated, as Thomas and Conway also were in the end.



Hm, the Star Wars spider and the one from Krull are very similar, both white.



BTW, If I remember right, there was another giant spider in FLASH GORDON, a pre-Conan movie with lots of connections with CTB. The giant spider is in a swamp, and tries to eat Flash and then the prince James Bond saves him with a laser, or maybe viceversa?



OH! And of course, we can't forget the amazing giant spider from "ATOR, THE FIGHTING EAGLE"



(Funny, in none of these next both posters any spider appears, instead there are a giant snake and a sabretooth -none of these both are in the movie-. The art is good, though).

http://bp3.blogger.com/_w_kJtyrbKew/RyBM51puOVI/AAAAAAAAAv4/tGf6doDcw74/s1600-h/35079.jpg

http://cine-filia.iespana.es/peticiones/carteles/ator%20el%20poderoso.jpg

A bit off topic, but I remember in the old Jungle Book movie with Sabu, there was a giant snake-- some parts reminded me of Conan. Just a bit interesting how CONAN movie was to have featured alotve real animals like: snakes, wolves, lions, leopards, vultures and possibly panthers in Cimmeria and all the various interactions with those animals.

Speaking of Sabu, he fights a giant spider in The Thief of Bagdad (1940), on his way to steal a big red gem called the "All-Seeing Eye" hidden inside some lost temple. And just before that, he takes his sword from the dead hands of a skeleton! In the same movie, the main character befriends a small thief (Sabu) who is always starving (there's a scene where they are seen stealing some food while crossing a bazaar), and the main villain has some hypnotic abilities and kills (through an intermediary) the old king to get his daughter. There is also a procession scene in the streets where the hero is completely mesmerized by the princess beauty, while his thief companion is not...

HAHA,oh my god, good call! I havent watched some of these movies in years( which is a shame really) unless they play them on TV,


Also in "Arabian Nights" (1942) with Sabu and Maria Montez , there is a leopard as the pet of the Princess . She has lots of handmaidens dressed in "oriental" garb and all the oriental tents,pools and pillars and all of that kinda stuff in the desert. It reminded me of the Orgy, just without all the battles and sex. She even did a dance for the evil sultan. If we change Baghdad to Shadizar , I think we have CONAN.

Check out Maria Montez from THE COBRA WOMAN



I think Universal(which produced CONAN) produced alotve if not all these movies, with her, John Hall and Sabu. Maybe thats some relation to or not who knows.

*

PS

I think the hero was strung up/crucified in Arabian Nights too, in the desert outside the city.

My favorite books in a new cover. I liked the older ones way more, just sayin. I post it in this thread cause of the huge spider. The first pic in this thread is way better though.

http://voneckartsberg.blogspot.com/2006/12/5bookcovers-for-garth-torian-german.html
http://voneckartsberg.blogspot.com/2006/12/6bookcovers-for-garth-torian-german.html

True giant spiders -(very probably)- existed, as -(probed)- giant scorpions and other bugs, before the dinosaurs age -in the Carboniferous era, were plants were for the first time the rulers the earth, therefore a huge amount of oxygene existed in the air; so arthropods grew like Kaiju monsters-

Quote :

The reason for it is land arthropods have very primitive respiratory system for taking in oxygen. They rely on defusion of air into the brook lungs in the abdomen rather than rely on the diaphram, like us, to contract and draw in the air so the blood in our lungs can assimilate the oxgygen. Defusion means movement of gas or liquid from higher concentration to lower cocentration. When the air in the brook lungs are concentrated with carbon dioxide gas and the oxygen gets used up the carbon dioxide move from higher concentration, the lungs, to outside of the lungs, and then when there are less oxygen inside the lungs, the oxgen from the air outside, which have higher concentration of oxgen, slowly move in. This process keeps going on and on and on.... Now, with a bigger body arthropods would need more oxygen which there is not a lot of today, so they all adapted and evolved to be smaller because their respiratory system isn't just efficient enough and their blood doesn't have iron, like ours, which assimilate oxygen better, but rather arthropods' blood is copper based which isn't as efficient at assimilating oxygen as our iron based.

Truth is no true giant spider fossil evidence has been found yet, not even the size of a pig (like in the Tower of the Elephant) and clearly not elephant-size like the one from the ATOR movie, but is highly probable that huge spiders had really lived during the Carboniferous Age, like this hypothethic one:



Mesothelae (size of a human's head and fed on reptiles by the size of a cat.





Still not as big as the Harryhausen ones, true giant scorpions existed in prehistory

The BRONTOSCORPIO, which was semi-aquatic:



Another giant scorpion:




Still, a kind of gigantic centipedes did exist, the ARTHROPLEURA: