The Skeleton

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

But think there was some sorta axe laying near the Giant's body though, along with the sword.

yep!

Yep cool, sometimes Kull even used a single bladed axe kinda like that that one there.

It looks also like Kull did the famous "thinking" pose at some point in the Marvel run, came across these images:

Is it true that in later years CROM was updated and is now known as CD-ROM?

I think my 4 years old cousin makes better jokes than that

The gods battled in the heavens and Crumb fell to the earth and in the darkness of choas, his secrete was lost into the crevices and cast to the four winds and was thus lost forever until hither came Dandarr came--with his soiled sandals and sweated brow and fungus ridden loincloth and sat himself in the cave of the almighty and feasted upon the remains of Crumb--and he casted up his mighty sword of Martoe and said...BY THE POWER OF CRUMB's SKULL.

http://www.hardhero.com/thinginthecrypt-statue.html

The Skeleton could had been a great Atlantian warrior king.

http://hyboria.xoth.net/gods/crom.htm

I remember on the DVD extras commentary with Arnie & Millus that it was said the Skeleton was supposed to get up...
But they were glad they never did this as the effect of the Skeleton slumping worked out better & more grounded.

Lets face it...it would have been to fantastical,like Harryhausen or Sinbad.(in which the effects are AWESOME)

I am amazed at the size of the skeleton.

I naturally believed the skeleton in the cave was Crom.

CROM !!! wrote:

http://hyboria.xoth.net/gods/crom.htm

I remember on the DVD extras commentary with Arnie & Millus that it was said the Skeleton was supposed to get up...
But they were glad they never did this as the effect of the Skeleton slumping worked out better & more grounded.

Lets face it...it would have been to fantastical,like Harryhausen or Sinbad.(in which the effects are AWESOME)

Yes the effects are awesome on those movies (I'm a huge Harryhausen lover) but Milius didn't want that on Conan. The skeleton was actually never supposed to arise, not even in the screenplay. I do prefer it that wat, indeed. It's more realistic -and the movie works great the more realistic it is-. There are only some slightly "magic" touches in the Milius' Conan world, and I personally think it was a very good idead. If skeletons arise because you steal their weapons at the start of the film, then you know you can spect anything on that world and it becomes less interesting -in a D&D world where elves and dragons live and warrior skeletons are normal, nothing really awesome happens (everything is awesome, so soon the audience starts to not giving a fuck to the next "awesome" thing)-. Milius were more into the mystery than into the magic.

Yes,it would have been too far fetched & un-believable.
The only 'magical' kind of goings on in Conan i can remember are:

The witch who turns into a fireball.
When Conan is in the Hammock & the Demons are trying to snatch him away.
The 'Giant' Skeleton with Atlantean Sword.
James Earl Jones turning into a Snake.
Valeria appearing to Conan.
Hypnotism of the Cult.

While these are all pretty mystical events...they have an plausible historical earthy grounded feel to them if you know what i mean.

Sex & Orgies,Witchcraft,pagan,celtic rituals still practised.
The Demons are similar to Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark who melt the Nazi faces...& White Noise,Ghost,etc...
Indiana Jones is just a man-& placed in history of world war 2,in living memory,yet look at his adventures,ALL have other-worldly discoveries in them,but mixed with history & facts,for a movie it becomes a world featuring elements of magic & fantasy which we can actually still relate to.
Skeletons of early human ancestors are still being found today.
In fact...in real history,when Greeks found Dinosaur skeletons,they didn't even have a concept of Dinosaurs as we do & they believed these relics & skulls to actually be an ancient race of giants,hence the stories of cyclops,etc...
Mix that with the Stars in the Sky & constellations,etc & you have a great story...
(Another reason why the Harryhausen stop motion animation works so well,even today)
There really are giant anaconda snakes in the Amazon.
Plus the other Giant snake in the pit looks great,much better than CGI.
Valeria-Conan could have been wishful thinking about her.
Hypnotism-Very real,just look at what 'Derren Brown' can do.

So they kinda pass off as acceptable...No over the top fire breathing dragons or Cyclops in this movie !!!
Plus with all the Sword action & Blood,etc...just seems more like it 'could' have been from a time in the past,a period of time we know nothing about,maybe that's part of the enduring appeal of 'Conan the Barbarian'

The "skeleton" coming to life probably couldve worked had it being more like some mummy than an actual skeleton. I'm not sure what Milius wanted, he changed his mind throughout production and well into post-production and never got around to do the Conan voice over either in nearly 30 years later,LOL

Also its a bit strange why the Pictish ally of Conan's in the first draft, which clearly was written for and resembled Franco Columbu got so reduced to nothing by the final script and actual shoot, the addition of a Mongol-Samurai played by a surfer instead of an actual martial arts actor whom they passed on Jackie Chan or even Toshiro Mifune, and Brak being written for Lou Forigno which then becomes Rexor/Thorgrim to be played by Arnold's bodyguard and close friend Sven. Christopher Lee and Sean Connery not getting cast as Thulsa Doom but the part going to Darth Vader's voice , James Earl Jones. Even the heavy Frank McRae was a candidate by the time they were about the role the camera.

The movie was plagued by sloppy composition and editing(probably more the director's fault than actual studio or producer interference imo), and a very low budget casting. I kinda beleive Milius ended up thinking 1941 was gonna be a huge hit and thus spent more time and quality with that project while he didnt have much faith in the Conan movie. There seems to a aura of disinterest by Milius during production and post production. Also the fact he couldnt secure Connery, Lee, Chan or Mifune really begs the question of just wtf. The movie had a A budget of 18-20 million which for back then was pretty good. Also most of the effects shots and creature effects were contracted to lower(where was Baker or even Rob Bottin?) artisans or eventually cut out anyhow.

The "magic" on that world was closer to shamanism or ancient tribal witchcraft than to "magic" as understood today on that elves and harrypotters thingy. All that "magic" had a sense and a meaning in that world. For example, the giant skeleton was a supposed ancestor of those "modern" humans, a more advanced civilization wich vanished in a cataclism -atlantis-. Doom was a survivor of that time, probably a "dark" witch who endured through time by eating human flesh in some vampiric way. Also, witch and shamans of ancient tribes were supposed to transform into animals -like mayan into jaguars and eagles, african into leopards and crocs...-. Doom is able to transform into a serpent because he worships serpents and knows their secrets -also knows their languaje, and can give orders to them, like when it orders a snake to become an arrow-. Talkling to animals was another characteristic of ancient shamans.

Now, REH wrote about a race of intelligent reptiles evolved into humanoids, wich he called "serpent-men". They were able to hypnotize humans and make us see them as humans. With some ancient words, the hypnotic trick could be break and then humans could see them as they really were. Those "serpent-men" passed by humans trying to take political control of humans civilization. Some sick conspiracy theories of the 60's actually took that seriously and said some politics were actually reptiles liying to people. Well, guess that theory isn't that crazy. ---Thing is intelligent reptiles evolved into humanoids was a scientific theory proposed by some paleontologists on the 60's or 70's, so again it's not so "magic" but just playing with the unknown of prehistory: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/D/dinosaurintell.html

Giant snakes existed, and not so long ago: during the mammals era. The TITANOBOA being the hugest, bigger than the one from Set's tower!

And mutants or beast-ment, well, neaderthals lived with homo sapiens in europe for thousand of years. Both species knew each other. And it's actually supposed other older species of humans -likle homo erectus- lived at the same time too!!

And steel wasn't supposed to exist on that early prehistoric time. Only iron weapons, at the most. But then, the possibility if some few tribes like Cimerians discovering it could happen, and only some very few steel swords would exist in that world -reason why they are so valuable, so much that a whole town is destroyed by some obsessed steel seekers who traveled throuigh thousand of km just to get it-.

The wold-witch -another shaman or ancient witch, able to turn into an animal or fire or natural elements... The demons who came after Conan: another characteristic of shamans like Mako/Akiro was they were able to summon and make visible the "spirits" to talk with them and make deals, also the demons who create pain and suffering, in order to scare them and make them run away. That is actually what the famous Amerindians do with their weird drums and chants, they try to scare the demons and the bad spirits away from their tribe, and bring the good ones.

Valeria coming back..... well, women are a different creature. They can do anything, and you will never know how the fuck they could.

I think the mere presence of 'Sean Connery' would have totally stolen the limelight in the film from the more un-known cast members & overshadowed them...
Christopher Lee (While he is Great & i LOVE Hammer films) has been known to be in some real Shit films...
Fu Manchu...anyone ??!??!!
...& not to mention that crap 'Howling' werewolf film he was in !!!
I'm surprised he passed this one up,he did much worse!!!

Franco Columbo & Lou Ferrigno can't act to save their lives !!!
I grew up watching "The HULK" & loved it,especially the sad piano music at the end when Banner is hitch hiking away from Town...But all Lou needed there was Muscles & to Roar(& i bet that was dubbed)
& Franco was like a baby to Arnie,too small for him in 'battle'
Arnie is Huge,so fighting even bigger foes worked out better.
Not like some opponent who's a foot shorter could pose a threat to him is there?

James Earl Jones was a fantastic choice,because being a Black man with the booming voice & straight basin cut hair & Blue eyes...
He really looked like he could have been the last remnant from a long gone forgotten ancient race.
One who maybe had more knowledge than we have now about the animal world,etc...

& anyone remember a few years back...the so-called "hobbit" fossils that were found in the island of Flores in Indonesia? debate raged as to whether these remains are of modern humans (Homo sapiens), reduced, for some reason, in stature, or whether they represented a new species: Homo floresiensis. Lee Berger and colleagues from the University of the Witwatersrand, Rutgers University and Duke University, describe the fossils of small-bodied humans from the Micronesian island of Palau. These people inhabited the island between 1400 and 3000 years ago!!!
Thats like the blink of an eye !!!
Islanders have stories passed down from the generations of their human ancestors chasing them into the caves & killing them off...plus they lived side by side with the other larger ape species...maybe cross-breeded?

Every civilization has their evolution theory & Gods...
How about the mystery of a 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator found in Greece,
The construction of elaborate buildings & monuments like:
Stonehenge...the Pyramids in Egypt & Mexico...
Monsters: Bigfoot,the Loch Ness monster?
All that other good stuff that used to be on 'Arthur C. Clarkes mysterious world' tv programme.

The mind boggles...but in the film realm,the mix of real history & fantasy/fiction works really well.
Mexican history fascinates me too...all the crystal Skulls (modern fakes),sacrafice & animal worship.
Apocalypto-unknown cast,but still a Mega film !!!

To me,even if the guys behind the cameras are world class oscar winner directors like Speilberg & Co...
To be honest that doesn't interest me that much...it's all about the performance of the main actors in the film that make or break it.
Good Example: Tom Hanks in 'Castaway'
He's on an Island...with just a football called Wilson...& nothing much happens,but his acting performance makes it so watchable.
Example of Crap:
Battlefield Earth, decent cast that couldn't save the film...total crap.

& Valeria as a 'Ghost'...while i love a good Horror film & a Ghost Story & the tv show "Most Haunted" i don't believe in any of it.
All the so called "Orbs" are just specks of dust in the modern pixel cameras...
People believe what they want to & it can be very comforting to believe there is more after life.
Clint Eastwood (another fine actor) has a new film out soon about just that called "Hereafter"

Conan is i'd say a Man's film made by Men for Men...real boy's own adventure stuff.
i can't imagine any Women being interested enough to talk about a film this much...unless it is "Dirty Dancing" or a Girlie film like that.
& what Man wouldn't like the idea of clubbing a woman & dragging her back to their Cave?
Ahhh...the good old days !!!
Long live Conan !!!

With special effects and computer graphics today, they could reuse the skeleton coming to live and fighting CONAN for the new CONAN film or in a CONAN video game.

I always thought the remnants in the cave were those of Kull or one of his successors : the volcano behind could represent the cataclysms which engulfed Atlantis , perhaps the volcano responsible of this disaster in the Thurian age became the "mountain of power" during the Hyborian age in Milius & Cobb's minds.
No wonder they made their version of Thulsa Doom dwell in this same lair, perhaps it replenished him in chtonic mystical powers.

Even if the passage in Conan the Barbarian resembles DeCamp's "Thing in the Crypt", it's not a mummy in the film and even less evil. It's like a legs to Conan (or Clonan some say !).
The mummy in DeCamp's short story was rather in the style of Akivasha, Xaltotun or Nathok , which were foul UNDEAD fiends, preserved by unknown means to be later revived.

there is a passage in "Windwalker" a 1981 film on native americans, in which the old indian awakes from death, (he never really died) , walks away then gets chased by hungry wolves and barely manages to fight back, slipping and thus falling backwards in a cave in the same way Conan falls in the atlantean mound's entrance (the scene is very similar) . The difference is that the old native american encounters a Grizzly bear and manages to skewer him.

concerning the sentecne I wrote where the "legs" is mentioned:

I meant that the passing of the sword after eons in the cave,almost from hand to hand, could be considered as a legs to Conan from what could be eventually Kull , since cimmerians are descendants of Atlanteans and Conan would one day be king by his own hand.

Well, Milius himself said he loved Reh's KULL stories even more than Conan's. So, well, the skeleton in the cave was probably inspired by Kull, definitely yes.
But, ¿truly supposed to be Kull? I would say nay.
Remember the skeleton in the cave was A GIANT, plus remember that the cave was placed in some site around Mongolia or Russia, therefore that couldn't be Valusia's trhone room at all. So I don't think the skeleton is truly supposed to be Kull. Also Milius didn't understand the Cimmerians as descendants of Atlanteans same way as REH. For Milius, Conan was actually a Cimerian (also known as Scytians), that is, the true historical tribe who lived in Ukrania and Russia in prehistoric times. Even though Milius was basing his movie on Reh's writting, he decided not to follow it to the letter and make a personal creation. Since Milius was hugely interested in history, and not as much in fantasy, he chose to set the story on a (more or less) historicaly realistic scenary (with some fantasy touches, but really very few). Meanwhile REH set the Hyborian Age about 12.000 years ago in a sort of Pangea continent, Milius set his story in the modern East Europe about only 3.000 years ago.

So, yes, the Milius' Conan is not Reh's Conan.

But don't tell me that's still a surprise today. ^^ Roy Thomas' Conan wasn't Reh's Conan either (closer to Reh's than the Milius one, but still Reh's Conan was ONLY the Conan REH wrote, and noone's else).


My personal theory is the Skeleton was actually an ancient atlantean king, maybe a mythic figure as great as Kull was. But since the cave is not underwater (as it would be the case if he was truly Kull) this atlantean king lived AFTER the flood, therefore, he is a post-cataclismic king. Proofs of this is the cave and the sword are decorated with images of Atlantis sinking in the sea, and boats the survivors used to reach the lands of Asia from where they traveled to Europe. So these survivors, guided by a great king, reached Russia and there stablished the last Atlantean remains until they finally dissapeared completely, leaving only the tombs and artifacts as proof of their existence.

Kull lived and died before the cataclism wich sunk Atlantis, that's why the skeleton cannot be Kull.

Milius probably wanted some sorta Nordic-Aryan giant to represent Atlantean. I'm not sure Milius was all that concerned with Howard's material, but he took great interest in exploring the pseudo-anthropology and Nordic-Aryan racism and supremacist of the 19th and early 20th century which Howard's world already supplied. In film swords magazine Milius references some work of H. G. Wells on the Nordic-Arayans and he mentions how Howard was taken by Germanic-Aryanism and likely inspired from Wells' book--Well Howard was, but I not to the likes or extent of Lovecraft possibly. But in Milius' mind all the Barbarians rolled into one and were "Germanic supermen" and he had a weakness for Mongols too-- anyway thats what he wanted Arnold to be , the "Germanic Superman" Arnold. But otherwise have no clue why an Atlantean was someplace in china nor how Conan runs from East Asia to Spain over two nights with his Mongol sidekick, thats almost as bad as Maximus riding from Germania to Spain on horse within two days.

Anway, Howard uses some pseudo folk tales that link Gaels(Irish) to Scythians and the Cimmerians.

There were a few inconsistencies in the script. In the opening scene Crom is described as living in the earth. Later on, Conan tells Subotai that Crom is "strong on His mountain, laughing at the Four Winds from His mountain." I always took the tomb to be of a fallen king or such, when I first saw the movie at 13. later on, reading the Howard tales and re watching, I could visualize the Atlantean connection and see it as such a tomb. The skeleton moving and it's head falling is on a base level, something old and barely balanced being disturbed. Symbolically, it can also be seen as a warrior King finally passing the burden of his sword on and being allowed to rest. Osr is it his final defeat, being disarmed?

Milius laughs from his mountain!