Went back to watch original Conan the Barbarian (1982) with someone much younger

The other day I started talking to this girl that I have kind of been flirting with a bit here and there and we have started to discover that we share a lot of common interests, which is a good thing if you are considering making someone a part of your life. I was delighted to find out that she has a thing for fantasy films because that is one of my favorite and rather nerdy genres of choice.

There was a conversation about "favorite fantasy films" or something along those lines and when I mentioned one of the classics in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian I didn't specify the year. She said that she loves Jason Momoa and thought Conan the Barbarian was pretty good. She was unaware that the 2011 film with Momoa was a remake and she was unaware that the 1982 film existed.

I knew that I was a bit older than she is, but I think now that I am perhaps maybe 10 years or more older than she is. We never really discussed our age but now this makes me feel good about myself a bit.

Anyway, I asked her if she wanted to come to my place to watch the 1982 film that she had never heard of and it went pretty well. I got to see the reaction and hear the thoughts of someone that genuinely enjoys the genre, and also knows literally nothing about the film.

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While the film was going on there were some sequences that looked a bit fake and this is to be expected considering that there was virtually zero CGI that existed at the time. This absence of anything other than practical effects is part of the reason why she was so taken aback by it. She kept remarking on how difficult it must have been to actually shoot this because all the scenery and settings would have had to have been either found or built. There was no such thing as green screen technology back then.

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In the past I had done a bit of research about how they pulled this off, because obviously they wouldn't have built entire cities out of stone for single scenes such at the one near the start where they climb the snake tower to steal the big red gem. They used creative photography combined with miniatures that were placed meticulously inside of actual background in order to give the very impressive impression that the extras who were standing in for Arnold and his sidekick(s) at the time, were really standing in front of a great walled city. It was effective, because even now more than 40 years later these establishing shots look real.

One thing that they had no choice but to actually build, and this is part of what makes this movie so spectacular, is that the Mountain of Power that is featured at the end, was built from the ground up and then dismantled after shooting was finished.

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This building was made from the ground up and was designed to hold up to 1500 actors and extras at one time. While I am sure safety shortcuts were in fact taken, the entire structure that we see in the film is real. There may have been some "soft" sections that were made of foam or whatever but it had to be load-bearing so most of it is legit. This was considered at the time to be one of the largest set design undertakings of the time.

The girl that came to watch this with me had a lot of fun thinking about how back then they couldn't just call in the CGI team to make whatever they want and how this would have placed a lot of limitations on what they could produce on screen.

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Certain things like the fight in the temple with the gigantic snake did have the opportunity to appear really fake, but they used creative camera angles and short-burst shots in order to get past the fact that they didn't actually have a snake that size, let alone one that you could stab in the face and remove the head of.

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When Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) turns into a snake, they couldn't pull in the computer guys to do this, they had to make a stretchable version of his face that could flex and show that sort of transformation in at least semi-real time. You wouldn't get a lot of chances to get this right and probably had an absolutely massive creative team.

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The fights, while a bit dated, still look impressive. They again didn't have the technology to make huge wounds on people with a computer and I have spotted at least one scene where you can see a person who has just been hit with a sword that can be seen throwing a container of blood over his shoulder before he hits the ground. That scene made it into the final cut and I suspect that because it was part of a much larger scene, they knew it was there but simply couldn't afford the time or money to give it another take.

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There are other mistakes such as being able to see safety harnesses during climbing scenes. These were probably all detected on the cutting room floor, but they were correct in presuming that most people are not going to spot this.

To me the original film is a masterpiece, and the girl gave me her honest impressions about the movie afterwards but perhaps she was trying to spare my feelings just a bit. She said she enjoyed it but that it does seem very dated in her mind but she appreciates how well they did considering that they had no technology available at the time. I have told her that if she wants, I will now watch the 2011 remake with her. I had previously tried to watch it, but the very family-friendly nature of it turned me off when I tried to do this on my own in the past, and I only made it about 20 minutes in before switching it off.

In my mind, Conan films should always be rated-R or above.

I guess the "date" worked out ok because she wants to do movie night again sometime, and that was kind of part of the plan as well. Provided she is not faking her interest in this kind of cinematic experience, it is a real joy to be dating someone that likes all this nerdy stuff.