Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 15, 2015 13:45:43 GMT -5
Behind the scenes with Conan executive producer Edward Pressman
by David Anthony Kraft
Says Pressman in this interview: "I didn't know anything about Conan". That I can believe easily, as the movie character had little to do with Robert E. Howard's character.
Pressman describes part of the process that led Conan to the silver screen. Oliver Stone was attached to the project, once, but most of his ideas were abandoned (I seem to recall that he wanted Conan's adventures to be set in a post-apocalyptic world). Oddly enough, actor Arnold Schwazenegger was signed before the movie rights had been secured or any kind of script produced. (I'm sure that's not uncommon in Hollywood, but the hell if I like this way of doing things backwards. I understand that big commercial movies are first and foremost about making money and not about telling a story, but I still hate the concept).
The interview isn't long but informative enough. Topical, too, despite what I think of the movie.
An interview with the associate producer of the Conan movie Edward Summer
by David Anthony Kraft
Summer was the initiator of the first Conan film, being the first to tell Edward Pressman about how Conan could be a good movie hero. He also wrote a first script in collaboration with Roy Thomas, with a story that would have been set in the middle of Conan's career. Sadly, that script wasn't used. The Oliver Stone script wasn't either, and it is director John Millius' script that was finally filmed. Summer says this: "One of John's great contributions to Conan, I think, is his setting up of Conan's history and motivation; showing the character development that lead Conan from being a little kid who's thrown into slavery, into a grown man who will some day be king".
That's complete tripe. The movie Conan is nothing like the actual Robert Howard one. We know what motivates Conan: it is wanderlust, ambition,a craving for freedom and action, and a love of a good time. It is emphatically not an all-emcompassing desire for revenge for a tragically destroyed childhood.
Robert Howard's Conan is an energetic man, a free spirit, ever taking the initiative in any situation. Milius's Conan is a crushed soul, always suffering or reacting to the actions of others but never taking the initative. Like a whipped pup, we see him remaining chained to a wheel for a bloody decade before someone else buys him and forces him into a life he didn't choose. Conan the slave boy is a psychological wreck who falls hopelessly in love with the very first woman he meets, an emotional cripple whose life is defined by a man who hurt him as a child. In no way is that Conan the Cimmerian, and Summer's endorsement is not to his credit (even if, of course, he could hardly say that the script sucked right as the movie was about to be shown).
by David Anthony Kraft
Says Pressman in this interview: "I didn't know anything about Conan". That I can believe easily, as the movie character had little to do with Robert E. Howard's character.
Pressman describes part of the process that led Conan to the silver screen. Oliver Stone was attached to the project, once, but most of his ideas were abandoned (I seem to recall that he wanted Conan's adventures to be set in a post-apocalyptic world). Oddly enough, actor Arnold Schwazenegger was signed before the movie rights had been secured or any kind of script produced. (I'm sure that's not uncommon in Hollywood, but the hell if I like this way of doing things backwards. I understand that big commercial movies are first and foremost about making money and not about telling a story, but I still hate the concept).
The interview isn't long but informative enough. Topical, too, despite what I think of the movie.
An interview with the associate producer of the Conan movie Edward Summer
by David Anthony Kraft
Summer was the initiator of the first Conan film, being the first to tell Edward Pressman about how Conan could be a good movie hero. He also wrote a first script in collaboration with Roy Thomas, with a story that would have been set in the middle of Conan's career. Sadly, that script wasn't used. The Oliver Stone script wasn't either, and it is director John Millius' script that was finally filmed. Summer says this: "One of John's great contributions to Conan, I think, is his setting up of Conan's history and motivation; showing the character development that lead Conan from being a little kid who's thrown into slavery, into a grown man who will some day be king".
That's complete tripe. The movie Conan is nothing like the actual Robert Howard one. We know what motivates Conan: it is wanderlust, ambition,a craving for freedom and action, and a love of a good time. It is emphatically not an all-emcompassing desire for revenge for a tragically destroyed childhood.
Robert Howard's Conan is an energetic man, a free spirit, ever taking the initiative in any situation. Milius's Conan is a crushed soul, always suffering or reacting to the actions of others but never taking the initative. Like a whipped pup, we see him remaining chained to a wheel for a bloody decade before someone else buys him and forces him into a life he didn't choose. Conan the slave boy is a psychological wreck who falls hopelessly in love with the very first woman he meets, an emotional cripple whose life is defined by a man who hurt him as a child. In no way is that Conan the Cimmerian, and Summer's endorsement is not to his credit (even if, of course, he could hardly say that the script sucked right as the movie was about to be shown).
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