Midweek Mention... Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian

Dan: Pete, could you say something? Give me a sound check there. You're coming through very clear. Very

Pete: I, I enunciate very

Dan: He does. He's a good annunciator.

Pete: annun

Dan: Annunciator. What about

yourself, Chris? Could I hear a little peep?

Cris: little bit? Yes, you can. I think I'm

Dan: Slight

Cris: have to say I

Dan: Slight velvet.

Cris: now that I sit in Riggs chair.

Dan: Yeah, well, I don't know. Maybe it's the chair.

Pete: a sound as him.

Cris: I don't think that's gonna happen.

Pete: You can do, are you going to do the intro then?

Dan: Light

Sidey: I've got the intro. We don't do an intro in the midweek.

Dan: I've got an intro prepared. Light velvet. Sorry.

Sidey: Have you though? No. No.

Dan: no, I do not.

Cris: Pete, coming back to more important things. How was your experience in

Sidey: West

Wurundjeri.

Cris: in Africa? And also do you speak Swahili now?

Pete: I do speak some Swahili.

Cris: Nice. What,

Sidey: what can

Cris: say to

Pete: hang on a Santa Sana is thank you very much. Pauly Pauly means slowly, slowly. Yeah, that was

Sidey: Is that a sexual thing?

Pete: No, I as I was walking up the mountain, they were telling me

Sidey: telling me Oh,

Pete: Cause I was sprinting. Obviously.

Dan: When you were going up.

Pete: Have we, is this, are we

Sidey: started?

We're live and

Cris: we're, you

Pete: How was it? It was, it was great. It was fun. It was horrible as well, but

Cris: Yeah, you were saying

Pete: I said, yeah, I

Cris: I mean, listen, fair play to you.

My wig is coming off.

in

a moment,

Dan: moment,

Cris: in honor of your ascent and descent

Dan: I'm just amazed at what

Cris: Mount Kilimanjaro.

Dan: AI can do these days and it can almost, it can almost position people up

Sidey: It didn't look like the prettiest summit in the world.

Pete: Yeah, well it depends what your sort of expectations were. It kind of was like what I expected. It's like very, very, yes, incredibly rocky and craggy. Well it's, yeah it is, well it's a volcano. So the top of it is very kind of like bouldery and then you've got like scree and loose rocks and black sand.

As you start off you go through like a rainforest and then it becomes a little bit more

Yeah, it gets sparser like the,

Cris: you get to kill any wildlife?

Pete: I'm sure I did.

Dan: punch any camels

Cris: Just by your

Pete: yeah, just my, my, like my breath after the first,

Dan: first right.

Pete: the, after a few days, I mean, I didn't shower for six days, so there were probably some some victims.

Cris: Any, any French showers with the wet wipes?

Pete: No ironically there were some French people though, and they smelt worse than me.

So

Sidey: I was

using

Pete: cucumber wipes. They, they kept me lemon, not lemony fresh, cucumbery fresh. And they came in handy when my mate who went with me shat his pants or shat himself in his sleeping bag,

Sidey: his sleeping bag! Which

Pete: is funny.

No names.

Cris: No,

Pete: We all, we all know who it is.

Cris: it's good to have the stories, right?

Pete: These are some of the better stories, but that one was way more funny than the actual like summit night, which was like by some distance the toughest thing I've ever done, but I won't go on about it. I mean, I'd

Cris: given birth to quite a few kids?

Pete: I have indeed. Yeah.

Dan: It is was it really found it that difficult sleep sleeping over the night and then going early in the morning was

Pete: We didn't go. We slept from about 7 p. m. Till 11 p. m. And then got up at 11 set off at midnight and got to the very top at five past eight. So it was a but that was as grueling in eight hours as I'll ever spend other than the time to spend around here.

Dan: Yeah, I'm sure.

Pete: pretty pretty grueling. Yeah.

Dan: Wow, okay. Well done, well done.

Sidey: Well, that segues very, very nicely into this week's Midweeker, which has been long talked about and finally nominated.

Pete: Well, I think, think my experiences on the mountain just taught me it's, you know, I'm at a point in my life where I've just got to put my big boy pants on. And I'm putting my big boy pants on with this. I'm laying myself bare because this is It's not the best film i've ever seen in my life But it is absolutely well and truly one of if not one of my favorites if not my favorite film of all time I fucking love this film

Sidey: it's conan o'brien the barbarian

Pete: Conan the Barbarian. Yeah. And so, I think it was, it was one of those that it was 1982. So, I was too young to have seen it. I'd have been four when it came out. So, wouldn't have appreciated it

Dan: I don't know whether you didn't see it. It explained a few things. Maybe. Yeah, yeah.

You might

Pete: of my

Dan: ingrained

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Dan: an early age.

Pete: But obviously once, once Arnie became an absolute phenomenon, I think the first Arnie film I saw was Terminator.

And then not long after that and everyone was talking about Arnie. Everyone's watching Arnie films and you know the Predator and Commando and all of these like and so when I realized it was this like one in his back catalogue I went and and watched it and absolutely loved it because I love fantasy sci fi films that kind of thing this is like obviously right in the

Sidey: this is, this is sword. Sword and sorcery, I would

say absolutely

is where this, where this lives

yeah, It's got boobies. Yeah, it does.

Pete: it's got, it's got violence, it's got boobies, it ticks pretty much

Cris: wanking furiously to this movie

Pete: And that was just Conan himself, yeah.

Cris: Yeah. Like when, yeah.

Sidey: So unbelievable poster for this.

Which I have to say,

Pete: Don't say that's the best thing about it, don't go early.

Sidey: No,

I'm not. It just, I was wanting Arnie to look like that in the film. And it does kind of overstate

Pete: in the

Sidey: He still looks good, but this is not peak Arnie

Pete: of overdo it. It doesn't

Sidey: triceps, I was,

Pete: at all. It does not hit Arnie physically. His triceps, I was like but he is enormous in that and that's only two years

Sidey: right? Okay

Cris: there's also tits

There's

Pete: loads of tits now and Grace Jones.

So you can pretty much see a chuff throughout the entire film.

Cris: So even if you watch it just for that,

Pete: Yeah.

Dan: Well, it was one of the things that I thought, actually, as crazy as it sounds, he didn't look that buff. I mean, he

Sidey: he looks buff but not

yeah, he

Dan: chiseled. You know, he didn't have that kind of Mr. Universe look about him.

Sidey: No

Dan: Obviously he goes on to that a couple of years later.

Pete: the explanation for that is that obviously he was a professional athlete. I don't know what you'd call a Mr. Universe, but I guess athlete or whatever. So, but he, he wouldn't be able to do his ridiculous training regime and do this film at the same time.

Obviously he's on location

Sidey: with that

Pete: no, not with that attitude. So this would have been him at. He's kind of like off season, like size from

Sidey: Yeah, he's not in the middle of a cut or whatever it's

Cris: I've not, I've not, I have to be honest, I've seen this a few times. I've not really done any research because why should I? But, yeah, know, No,

but

Is this, should this action of this film be in and around Mongolia?

Pete: I

don't actually know where it's

Sidey: As in the story of the film? Or just

Pete: of the film, it's,

Cris: no, yeah, in the story of the film, in, in terms of, because looking at the costumes and how it's kind of

Dan: you're thinking genis.

Pete: stairs. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely got, it's definitely taking some influence from that. Obviously it's not set, this is set in an

Sidey: fantasy world. Fantasy world, yeah. Right,

Cris: okay.

Pete: But

Cris: no, no, I know it's the land of whatever other, yeah.

Sorry,

Pete: I should know where it's, where it like, like, shot, like the location. But I don't,

Sidey: don't.

But it, should we say, it starts off with the forging of a

Pete: Yes it does, yeah. And a bit of, and a bit of, you know, and a guy talking about some law and the riddle of steel and the gods

Dan: I see this narrator.

Pete: yeah, and it's, it's kind of, you know, just, and, and you, you learn that it's that, you know, this, this sword is being forged by a guy.

Who's then going to pass on the, you know, like the it's a bit of a right of passage to his son, his young son, Conan. You see, like you already see it, get a quick snippet of the mommy's super hot whilst they're forging the sword. And then yeah, you just see him like sat up on the mountain, explaining about their gods and the steel and the riddle of steel and all of

Dan: and there's actually not a lot of dialogue on the way through this film but at the beginning here as you get it pieces the story together for is We find conan as a pretty hard growing up,

Pete: well

like first Yeah. Straight out the gate. Like his entire, not like everyone, he knows his entire kind of like, people are massacred by some like sort of snake cult lunatics who Yeah. By, by this house slitherin who at that time are basically, they're looking for steel.

They, they want to. Go, like, travel around and acquire everybody's like, you know, artillery and, you know, in the shape of swords and things like that. So you see Conan's dad getting hit like an ax stuck in his back, and then mulled, mulled by swans, mulled by uh, dogs. Like a, like a, maybe not the best, like practical effects, like a, a,

Sidey: It does, I mean, let's just say throughout, it sometimes suffers

Pete: Sorry. You can cut it

Sidey: No, I, I'm cutting a load of slack, but there are some bits that when you're watching it now, you're like,

Pete: Absolutely, like some of the effects of a dated significantly, but yeah, there is like a puppet full of meat getting pulled apart by some dogs. And then, but like the scene where his mom gets executed is fucking brutal because it's, it's a tense scene.

I mean, like. James Earl Jones has got enough fucking presents just to make any film anyway. He gets off his horse,

Sidey: couple of enormous

men.

Cris: I was gonna say, that's some hair, by the

Pete: And he gives her the stare, she's protecting her son, and you think, you know, what's gonna go, how's this gonna play out? Yeah, he turns away, but then, and it's shot quite cleverly, where you've got the boy, Conan, holding his mum's hand, and you just see a head

Sidey: Well the camera goes on to him. Yeah. As, as you see James Earl Jones pivot and spin and you just see kind of Then Conan's face and some red spray kind of go across the screen and something fall and you're like, oh, okay, that's not good.

Dan: the

Pete: and it, yeah, it like lingers. It's a slow motion shot, and it lingers on there. And the music's blare, like pumping at this time.

So we'll come onto the soundtrack in a bit,

Dan: all of his stone is something to do

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Cris: Well, sorry, Mr.

Grace his name in the movie is what? Tulsa Doom,

Pete: no?

Tulsa Doom, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so then it, and then the, the narrator explains that Kona was then sold into slow or just, you know, give, put into slavery.

And then he spends a, an a, not an, an indistinct amount of time on it, and it doesn't use it in the film, but it's called the Wheel of Pain which I'm not really sure the purpose of. It's some massive mill. And when

Sidey: Was it? Is that what it

Pete: yeah, it is, it's, it's a, it's a mill. It's obviously

Cris: put you put grain like wheat or barley or

Sidey: I get that, but they didn't show that in

Pete: No, that wasn't sort of explicit,

Cris: No, but that's how that's that's what the purpose of

Dan: have been Nutella, might have been a big Nutella he was spinning from or something.

Pete: Yeah. So he, so he's changed to this, to this mill along with loads of other children and you see a major over time and you see less and less people to like, by the end, it's just him. It's just him you know, working, working the mill. And he is big, he's big, but I'm by 1982 standards. He's enormous.

Like there's fucking, there's a guy who looks like him now at every gym, but in 82, he was still a rare sight.

yeah. And then they decide, well, you know, pissing in the wind here with the, with the mill a little bit. Let's see if he's any good in like the fighting pits. And it turns out that he's a bit apprehensive at first, especially the fellow with the funky teeth and

Dan: Willing to do that. Yeah, that, that.

Pete: yeah, it's fight or flight really. And he decides to fight. And within this montage. You see him getting more and more of the gear and his deaths that he's inflicting on people getting more and more violent. And you can see he's just turning into like a machine, really like a violent killing machine.

His owner is obviously doing well out of him.

To the point where they, you know, they're obviously there about, you know, beyond the fighting pits, there's battles and everything like that on all of it kind of like culminates in minute 24, which is when Arnie has his first line in the entire film, which this is I love it because they've got this physical specimen.

And you know, he looks the part and you know, you know, that his acting skills aren't going to be like supreme or whatever, but you know, it lends itself to this like kid who's probably been a mute for 12 years on the wheel of pain and so on. And anyone remembers his opening line?

Dan: Well, it was something. It's

Well, go on, I'll let

Pete: in life Conan?

Dan: Yeah, it's, it's about when you see the women like

Cris: destroy your

Dan: men or

something.

Pete: your enemies. I know a few people that would probably say

Sidey: Sounds like something Cook would

Pete: well, back

Cris: a few people that would probably say that, but Yeah,

Dan: yeah well, Back in the

Sidey: he's given his freedom, isn't he?

Pete: But, before that,

Cris: But, before that, he also gets a bit of sexy time. He

Sidey: The pleasure of the women. Yeah, they

Pete: pleasure. When he was on the wheel and everything

Cris: star slave

Sidey: Yeah, you want to keep him on side.

Pete: So they're,

Dan: at that stage they were trying to breed him, weren't they?

Yeah, they were

Pete: they were, they were breeding him, but they said like they were giving him like education and like teaching how to like read and write and everything.

And so and bringing in women and, and you see him, even though he is a, a behemoth of a man, they bring in like a, a, the first set of tits, I think in, in the film. Yes. Yeah. But he covers her up quickly and then he is gentle with her, and then he whips off the blanket and gets stuck in that. But yeah.

So He's

Sidey: Yeah,

Pete: Yeah,

yeah, yeah. They're showing, he, he is, he, he has a, he's a, he has a good heart. Even though he is a, like a violent killing machine, you know, but

Cris: they get set

Pete: free. He does get set free. I think the narrator kind of explains that. You know, whether like a dog that's been a wild animal that's been kept in captivity for too long or something.

So they decide, you know, he, he, he's he can be set free. And the first thing he sets off to do after he's getting chased by some dogs first and finds, finds a sword in a, in a tomb, like in a crypt and thing.

Sidey: that's the the skeleton

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but really his is the second he's set free after all these years is vengeance is, is the first thing on his mind.

Dan: wants

to kill that guy and he is never in, been in better shape to do it. I mean, he is a killing machine.

Pete: Yeah. And they also teach him in sword for, you know, how to handle himself with a sword as well.

Dan: Yeah. He's pretty useful

Pete: little guy. He's like slapping him around the face for not holding your sword in the right

Cris: it. also helps that he, the first person he meets is this witch.

Pete: Who Incredibly

Cris: Very, very

Pete: she does completely lose it and turn into some sort of like crazy electric sprite when he throws her in the fire.

Sidey: in

Dan: Yeah,

Pete: Which

Cris: he kind of remembers exactly what he's there for. Oh, they said, you're going to come. They said, you're going to look for something. And then he's like, Oh, I'm looking for the snake with the moon. And I'll go to Zamora or

Dan: Yeah, it helps focus his purpose if if anything

Cris: then he finds the thief.

Pete: He does. He finds his

Cris: well, I think the thief is a narrator actually,

Pete: No, it's not. No, the, the narrator is the wizard. Yeah. Yeah. He's a hero. Yeah. But this, this is Subutai who is who is tied up outside. Yeah. Yeah, he is.

Dan: so, Sobotai is a thief and an archer and in that, in that order and they both have a laugh at that, and next thing,

Pete: Well, he comes in handy because he's kind of like all the things that Conan isn't. He's like, he's nimble and can go unnoticed. And, you know, he's an archer to Conan's sword. They're a pretty handy double act. And he's a little bit more street wise. He's, he's, he's, yeah. So he helps Conan out in some sense.

He even says you're too big and clumsy to be a thief to him and so on. But yeah, they start going to. different cities and you see them, you know, like doing some like stealing some things and

Dan: getting lads on the town.

Pete: like, there's loads of like montage of him and he's putting his fists up light as if like the two snakes, this is what he's looking for.

You get the incredible, incredible scene that actually happened where he punches a camel. I mean, it's just like totally unnecessary. It's completely unnecessary.

Cris: I have to say, we've talked about this earlier and there's obviously the, you said you've seen

Dan: I've seen it in india guy hitting a camel when I was out on a camel ride. And

Cris: But was it his camel?

Dan: was his camel. Yeah. Yeah, he was disciplining his camel I guess but I was Pretty shocked because he really lamped this camel

Sidey: Well, that's what Arnie did. He fucking leathered it and the camel went down.

Cris: Yeah, I've actually seen that with a horse in real life and I'm not even making this up. There's a guy, a hooligan back home who's been arrested numerous times for hooliganism. From the South Sands and he punched a horse and the horse fell on his like bum on his back and I was probably 14 when I've seen that and it was because back home for the big games you get the horses like the

mounted police, you get the riot police, you get five different types of police or used to and the guy, the horse got too close to him and just punched the horse straight in in the nostrils

Sidey: That's a really fucked up

Cris: yeah he's,

Dan: horrible. And so is this. I mean, this is bordering on Swiss family, Robinson stuff. This now, aren't

Pete: we?

Sidey: I don't remember anyone explicitly punching an animal in Swiss Family Robinson,

Pete: No, no. No one did they, they were like throwing horses into like trying to drown horses and monkeys and stuff like that.

But yeah, no, this is, is obviously not,

Sidey: It's from a

Pete: yeah. It's, it's not cool. But in,

Cris: Conan's defense, they were given some mushrooms.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, he was, he was fucked up when he did it. Yeah.

Dan: Okay, we can, we can, what was that? They gave mushrooms for this

Pete: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Yes. Just to make it all a bit more weird and

Pete: Yeah, he's like, he's like laughing, he laughs at it at first because he thinks, what the fuck's

Cris: And everyone

Sidey: at them like,

Cris: it's like, oh, what's that, what's that? And then, bang, he punches the camel, and then everybody looks at them like, these

Dan: Ah, right,

Pete: Well, let's not dwell on the camel

Sidey: Yeah, because we, we need some fight, we need some fighting.

Pete: Yeah, well, there's going to be fighting. So, so first of all, they, they find he's now getting pretty close to, to, you know, like the, the snake cult that he's specifically looking for in Tulsa doing because they, he hears about this tower in the city that he's in.

And him and Sabatai are going to break into

Sidey: it. Is Valeria with them at this

Pete: no. So this is where they meet, this is where they meet Valeria. So they're about

Sidey: to super

Pete: in. Yeah. So Valeria is, is yeah, my kind of gal. And yeah, she's, they say, Oh, you're not a guard. And she's like, yeah, well, you don't look like a guard. You don't look

Dan: she looks like the blonde out of Abbo.

Sidey: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, little bit.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's got that. Well, she's American, but she's Sandal Bergman. She's got like Scandinavian vibes going on there. But anyway, they, they shimmy up this big kind of chimney looking building. And then you know, lower themselves down in some ropes. They're going in to steal some stuff, but, but Conan's M.

1. at all points in time is I, I, I'll do these jobs, but I'm trying to find more clues as to how I can find Tulsidume and, and, you know, yeah. So they go down into the, into the basement part, and again, you see some more tits. There's a girl get, about to get sacrificed to this giant

Dan: cult thing going on, ain't there?

Sidey: she doesn't, does she? She stays up. She's in, she's in disguise.

she,

And it's the two fellas go down to the basement. It goes full Slytherin here. Basilisk type

There's a, and I actually thought that this stood up pretty well, this looked not so bad,

Cris: Yeah, it looked good.

Pete: from when he's like hacking it

Sidey: it with

Pete: there's papier mâché involved. A lot of blood

Sidey: a little gemstone that he has to retrieve, that's what they're there to try and retrieve, is this little gemstone. Like openly kind of gemstone and they have to step over and and as us as viewers get to see the snake slash battle is I and it's when he steps back down, you see the I change and you're like, Oh, here we go.

And I almost immediately he stabs it through the head. So it's like through the it's bottom jaw mandible

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: up through his head. So

Pete: Exactly. Exactly. Like in the Chamber of

Sidey: Yeah. And his archer mate Fires a few arrows in to pin it to the wall. Yeah. And then Yeah, its hat its

Pete: beheads it. Yeah. And then they, they, they quick tail out of there, but not before Conan is, is seen this like jade. I don't know what you call it,

Cris: the

Pete: the two snakes with the crescent, with the crescent moon

Dan: picks that up as well. So

Pete: he takes that with him, because that, that'll get him in a bit of bother later on. So anyway, they, they shimmy up the ropes. And this is Rexxor, the, the second, Tulsa's Doom's second command. This is obviously his, like, temple or whatever. Big, big dude. He's about 6'8 I think the actor is that plays him.

And he's one of the ones that's by Tulsidume at the very beginning when his mum's head gets cut off. Anyway, they escape and then you just see them there like, you know, they're getting pissed. There's jewels all over the table. Him and Valeria obviously realize that they've got a thang for each other. So we have some more sexy time.

I think it's his third shag and he's only about 45 minutes into the film. So he's doing pretty well and then they get kind of carted off He falls in his porridge and they get carted off thinking that they're in big trouble, but it's max von I still don't know. I'd say his surname side out side of sid of siddo max von siddo as king osric and he Kind of like looks like he's chastising them saying, you know, like, you know, what, you know, the like the front of you guys, like how, you know, you've gone into this, you know, religious place and stolen from under their noses and everything.

And then he's like, I salute you. And it turns out that his daughter has been kidnapped by Tulsa doom by you know, and indoctrinated into one of these like snake cults. And he's offering them basically more gems than they'll ever, they could ever steal in a lifetime to go in.

Dan: to make you kings. As you get older, he says, what does a man want?

He wants, you know, his love of his daughter.

Pete: got a good speech. Isn't he? The gems used there. Lose their shine like they glisten the gold loses its luster. I mean, I do it better actually

Dan: Yeah, well, I mean, you've a lot more experience.

Pete: So, yeah that now they've got a Common kind of like goal at this point valerian subatai are still keen to just go and like, you know, they're

Sidey: Loot and plunder. Yeah.

Pete: But Valeria basically says, look, he's already given us a load of gems up front. Like, let's, let's fuck this old dickhead off and, and just, you know, live, live the good life. Which Arnie is not for, because much as he's bang into Valeria by now, he wants to avenge his, his, his people and his family. So he scoots off in the middle of the night, which ill advised really, because Valeria and Subotai, as it turns out, are pretty handy.

But Arnie goes off towards, he finds people that are, yeah, that are heading towards the mountain of power, which

Sidey: Which is,

Pete: which is, yeah, it's against another, there's lots of of's, there's a wheel of power, the wheel of, of whatever, wheel of pain, mountain of power. And soon we're going to encounter the tree of woe,

which made me chuckle.

But not before we've met Akira, who's a crazy old wizard. And we discover the narrator of the piece who's been referring to Conan as his master all the way through from his, his narration perspective. But Yeah, they

Sidey: Is this the ghosty flying things like Raiders of the Lost Ark bit?

Pete: No,

not quite yet.

He, this is after he goes off to the, to the mountain of power on his solo mission. That, that's when that happens. So, basically, he tells Akira what's, yeah.

Dan: and i'm just wondering where where were you guys up until this point?

You still awake? chris No, you've gone. You've gone at this stage. I was still up. I was still watching

Sidey: I had to do it in two parts 'cause

Dan: was a two parter

Sidey: So I was, it's probably about where I paused it and then I picked it up again later on. But yeah, I'm still, I was, I fully engaged. Fully

Dan: Fully engaged at this stage because As we talked about a little bit, Arnie's buff, he's huge.

He's like twice as big as anybody else. But he's not in the best shape of his life. As far as

Pete: being hypercritical there,

Dan: Well, just normally

Sidey: It's a bit of a funny one, I would say, because obviously it's his film, he's the leading man. But it's early in Arnie's filmography. And so he's not necessarily got the chops, I would say, as, as the leading man

But he does a good job. He still

does

Dan: Yeah. No,

Sidey: Because he doesn't have that much to

Pete: lends itself to his, both his strengths and his weaknesses, and his weaknesses being the dialogue and all of that.

Sidey: I'm not

Dan: hypercritical but i've just seen him in in better nick like for someone that's you know, Greased up and they normally make more of it as far as maybe they maybe the film

Pete: don't let don't let the listeners fall into the trap of thinking he looks puny in this like he is fucking well put together but he's just not prime

Cris: know why they even said, I couldn't even tell that he

Pete: he's he definitely if you watch honestly watch the first opening scenes of Conan the Destroyer and it's two years later he is fucking

Sidey: think of predator

Pete: up and browner and yeah

Sidey: Commando

and predator

Cris: no, I know, I've seen all of them. We've watched Predator not too long ago, but I don't know, I

Sidey: he's still, like, incredible. Still huge. But it's, you can tell when he's become a big star, like, we need to maximise

Cris: to maximize This, yeah,

Sidey: needs to be the

absolute,

Cris: he meets the wizard and he carries on

Sidey: Yeah, he, he starts to get in some strife, he doesn't have it all his own way.

Pete: No, because he, he goes off to, to, to the Mountain of Power and there's loads of all these like devout like loonies that are following

Sidey: They look a bit like KKK

Pete: Yeah, they do. Yeah, I thought that

Dan: Well, he does. Yeah, he

Pete: Well, he does. Yeah, he misjudges it a little bit. He, he, he basically tricks some guy into thinking that he's going to bum him behind a

Dan: rock This, this, this medallion thing is the giveaway because obviously, word would have

Pete: there

to but this is where he first encounters Tulsa do so they rough him up a bit and then he, you know, he, he has some like quite terrible acting where he's like, you killed my people and all of this stuff.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: But the, like the, the chilling part of that scene is when he's talking like, I mean, fucking James Earl Jones steals every single minute that he's in the film, but. He's talking about, like, what is steel compared to the power of the flesh. And then he's, like, just goes, like, he points at a girl at the top, and he's like, Come to me, my child.

And she just drops and kills herself on the floor. And he's like, That is power. That is strength. And all of this. And then he's like, Contemplate that on the tree of woe. Which they nail him to. And

Sidey: I think he says, crucify

Pete: Yeah, crucify him. So stick him on the tree of woe. There's a funny scene where he like eats, he like bites the neck of a vulture that's having a peck on him.

But as, just as he's kind of like, you know, on his last legs and going into a state of delirium, really, he sees his old pal Subotai running. He's quite, he's good at runner. Subotai covers the ground fairly well. So yeah, he comes and helps him out. Valeria's on the scene as well. They take him back to

Sidey: This is the

Pete: And they say, look, save him at all costs, whatever you need to do.

And he's like, there is a price to pay with the gods to save him. And Valera is like, yeah, whatever, mate.

Sidey: Is this like when you fall asleep at a sleepover and everyone draws on you with a biro? I'm a

Pete: was a dick on his

Sidey: Because they do cover all of him with like, drawings and graffiti.

Yeah,

Dan: like Drew

Pete: like voodoo, voodoo.

Yeah. And he's got like his wounds from where his wrists and shins have been nailed to the tree and so on. But he survives the night. They, they help fend off the, like, the evil spirits that, that are coming. Makes a pretty quick recovery. And then they're like, right, we're in better, better nick to go and go and achieve.

So they're still saying, look, let's just go in and get the girl and get her out and get our reward. Like you can deal with Tulsa doom another time. And so on. And he's like, he's not really listening. He's just sharpening his sword. But what they do do is get fucking painted up in some pretty cool like body paint and Valeria looks even hotter in that.

Sidey: Yeah. yeah,

Dan: they've gone very kiss, haven't they?

Pete: very

Kiss

Sidey: for loving you, baby.

Dan: yeah

Pete: Yeah, they're right in the middle, these

Sidey: Yeah. There was like a,

Pete: in

Sidey: So right in the middle, there was these people in gimp masks with like you say an orgy, but it was. Definitely not the kind of stuff you find on Pornhub.

Pete: No, no, no, if you search long and hard enough, you'll find

Sidey: This was niche, this was a niche kind of um, interest.

Pete: Yeah, but you know, yeah, there's a sort of a horrible, I think it's pea and ham soup.

It's got that kind of like

Sidey: In the, in the cauldron.

Pete: yeah. But it's also got heads and hands and stuff. There's a woman just comes and gets a bowl of it and starts nibbling on a finger. But yeah, they're all off their face

Sidey: face. This is the big fight, right?

Pete: Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. Well, not the big fight. It's not

Sidey: well, there's, there's, there's a lot of violence here and there's a few bits in here.

That almost took me out of the movie because you can see the fucking blood bags on the people and you're like

Pete: And like,

Sidey: Okay, maybe you could have

Pete: Yeah. Arnie like swinging a sword nowhere near someone and then a guy bursting a blood bag on the side of him. Yeah, there's that. And the, and the big pillars that come down that have made out of polystyrene

Sidey: Well first, that, that central pillar, first he hits it with the cauldron, he tips that over and you can see it gets a little bit damaged, then there's what that fella, he's got a massive like big warhammer, which he swings and hits it a few times, and he comically kind of looks at it when it comes down, he's like, ooh, and you're like, well, you fucking whacked it, like, full on.

Pete: and it lands, kind of lands on his mate

Sidey: Yeah, crushes his pal, yeah.

Pete: What you do see though, is it again, not, not the best special effects, but you see Tulsa doom turn into a snake.

His hands disappear up

Dan: the throat. Not bad.

Pete: Not bad. I mean, for the time it would have been, it probably

Sidey: Nah, it was just decent. It was decent.

Pete: Yeah. So, yeah. And he, he slithers off and. They, they find this princess, they, they, they steal her and, and, and out they go and, and they're away home free. Nothing can go wrong now.

What they didn't reckon on is that Tulsa Doom can also stiffen snakes

Sidey: into an

Pete: into an arrow.

Sidey: Yeah, that's

Cris: brilliant.

Pete: And yeah, he fires a sort of an asp y looking snake. It's a good, a good distance right into Valeria's kind of stomach. And then they carry on riding for a bit, but yeah, she, she's a goner. There's no

Dan: goddess. There's no comeback.

Pete: Yeah, she never danced

Cris: From a stiff snake. You can't.

Sidey: I've been watching a

Cris: Or from a stiffy.

Sidey: quite a lot of the Olympics and Like this was not in the archery manual

Dan: I'm not sure that's legal. No. Yeah, I'm not sure

Sidey: I'm

Cris: It's the same like if you would use PEDs in archery.

Sidey: D

Dan: different time though, so we'll just have to

Pete: it was a different time. Yeah. But yeah, so Valeria, yeah, she doesn't make it.

And so yeah, they, they get back to again, but, you know, even Akio can't save her. So they take her up to this, like mound and Akio's, like, you know, there's no, you can't get fire up there. You just can't and then he manages to like, you know, set this pyre on on fire and it's fucking going off this like full pyromaniacs go like, pyrotechnics going on.

Sorry. And then you get that really touching moment where subotai helps him and then comes back down and he's crying and Akira says, why? Why are you crying? And he goes, well, he's simmering. Conan, he will not cry. So I'll cry for him.

Dan: yeah, they're mates.

Pete: gets me that

Cris: That's, yeah,

Pete: gets me big, softy. Yeah.

So they decide that. Yeah, they,

Sidey: well, he's retrieved his sword, hasn't he? Importantly in the battle and it's, but no, I thought that

Pete: doesn't, no, he doesn't get that back until the, the, until the, the end of the

Sidey: next, oh, the next V is the next fight.

Is it? Okay.

Pete: Rex saw the big, ugly looking

Sidey: fight. Oh, that's that big.

Pete: has got his dad's, he's got his

Cris: He looks like Gérard

Pete: he does a bit actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a, a giant

Sidey: He's, he's also got a fringe.

a

it must be a tribal thing. Yeah.

Pete: the other one with the big with the big hammer It's very impractical that hammer I think

Cris: they

Pete: But they know that they're in for it that you know, probably I mean this is like the morning after like, you know They're stealing the princess back.

So Yeah, the last kind of like remaining I guess likes Swords people from from the mountain of pain and wherever it's called. They're gonna come down and and take them on in their own patch and even Akira is getting pots and pans and things like that to, you know, use but they set up, it's a bit of like a, you know, predator type set up, you know, setting all the booby traps and everything some of them you know, look like we just walk around that and others

Sidey: Which

Pete: by surprise.

Sidey: is

Pete: Yeah.

Dan: great if you can just pick people up and throw them on them, which is what happens a lot in the

Pete: you see horses rolling down them, which seems to,

Sidey: They didn't come up with, at

Pete: it didn't come up with at the end, like no animals were harmed in the middle. Well, certainly a camel got punched, but yeah, anyway, this, so this is the, the big, like the fights, the big, the final big showdown,

Sidey: No, but the

Pete: the two, the two main henchmen and all the other like people who could protect Tulsa doom.

Yeah, basically they, they, They buy it one of them gets spiked right through the chair. It's a bit, it's like a Rambo booby trap, that one, isn't it? He sets it up cunningly by putting it, like, the, the mechanism is his helmet,

Dan: Oh, that's

Pete: thinks it's, so the, the, the baddie whacks his helmet and it triggers this booby trap to come and penetrate him.

Big Rexor then comes out, he's mad that his mates bought it and then we get a really odd, needless, kind of, like, moment where, Valeria comes back to life as like a goddess,

Dan: Oh, in between, in between,

Pete: Rexxor.

Dan: between the stones, isn't she? And She uses

Pete: her catchphrase, which she used quite a few times, which is like, do you want to live forever?

Dan: Well, that's it. And it just gives him that extra boost to go and beat him. Well,

Sidey: go in. One of the things they had just granted on him

Pete: it certainly helps him. He

Sidey: And her dying was the price of him living, wasn't it? That was the, that was the thing. When they said there's a price for you living, it's that someone else has to die.

Pete: Yeah, but big Rex or is got Conan's

Sidey: Curran's

Pete: man swords and he any like chops that sword in half and then, you know, takes Rex or down takes back the shards, you know, the

Sidey: it's a good fight because it's not like a pantomime fight. He slices him a couple of, he slices him up real

Pete: Yeah, yeah slice them up a treat

Cris: like a salami

Sidey: And if in a few moments and then he's, he's kind of like just offed.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: The sword and it's it's half a

Pete: It is half a sword, but it might come in handy at some point. It might play a part in it. Anyway, the only other part worth mentioning in there is, is Tulsidume is watching from afar. He's a bit of a shithouse, isn't he? He sends all his mates in. Yeah, sends all his mates in to get it done. And then he just thinks, oh, for good measure, he's going to stick another snake arrow into the princess who's like bit, who's like strung up on a, on a boulder and subotai saves her, gets the gets his, his shield in the way Tulsa's had enough.

So he, he hotfots it back to the mountain of power and they've, they've won the day. And that just leans into the, to the final scene, which is he's having another gathering.

Sidey: the KKK. yeah, the KKK

Pete: are having another, another rally. He's there talking about, you know, the sacrifice that's needed and all this stuff.

And. What are

Sidey: was he talking about? Were they all gonna kill themselves?

Pete: going to get the same thing?

Sidey: the rapture sort of thing. Yeah.

Pete: I

Dan: But he's done the old I'll come up from behind

Pete: the princess, by this time, obviously, she's, the spell is kind of broken for her. The hold on her is gone. She's like, yeah, go on, I'll help you get this motherfucker. So she's like showing him another way to get to, you know, is, is, is like podium at the time.

Dan: Yeah.

Pete: And for a moment you think, cause, cause one of Tulsidume's things is he, he, he engages in the eyes and he gets you kind of the control over you and you see kind of Conan like loses train of thought for a little bit and

Dan: turn to

Pete: he, and he's saying to him, he's like, well, I'm your father, what am I now?

If I'm not your father, like without me, there is no you and all of this

Sidey: my child and

Pete: Yeah. And he he thinks about it for a second, then goes now. And then like really clumsily hacks his head off, like takes him four or five goes and then talk.

Sidey: doesn't You know, the end of A naked gun.

Pete: Oh yeah.

Sidey: when he gets the guy and like comedically, it's obviously a dummy. It's a little bit like that. Like he hacks his head off and it doesn't look anything like his head and then his body falls and he holds the like head up and uh I was I was willing to forgive it because it was old and

Dan: Yeah, it's not anything I get too It's symbolic

Sidey: but you could easily if you wanted to be a

Dan: not expecting it to be a real head. You know,

Sidey: No, but it, it's

Cris: mean, I would. I

Sidey: looked better in the years since.

Pete: looked like, you know, you know, when you used to have like guys Guy Fawkes night when he like chucks it, you know, you get, you've got like a track suit full of straw, but that's

Sidey: was pretty amateurish.

Pete: then the head goes down the stairs and so on. But then it's no longer as he, no sooner is he dead than all the, the KKK members start chucking their light lanterns in the,

Sidey: pond. They're not racist anymore.

Pete: pond, yeah, and they cured them of their

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: And they just start, like, dispersing. And then I thought, like, I remember thinking, oh, is he just gonna, like, shack her up with the princess now?

Because it was a bit where, it was almost like she was basically going, like, listen, I'll do you if you want. And he kind of takes her hand, but it's more in a protective way. Leads her away and that, that's

Sidey: well, he does a great big hammer throw, doesn't he?

Pete: Oh, he does?

Sidey: burning orb thing and he does a really throw.

Pete: it doesn't go anywhere near,

Sidey: but luckily

Pete: but luckily it caught

Sidey: still burns everything down here.

Pete: see the, yeah, the temple in as a raging Inferno. And then you just get the, the sort of like the outro piece, which is a Sekiro saying that Conan would go on to have many adventures and become a king in his own rights. And we'll tell you more about these in other films. You just see like a, kind of a painting of, of Arnie as Conan sat on a throne, looking a bit more like, you know.

older and and so on

Cris: more mature.

Pete: and then Yeah, and then cue more fucking banging music. What did you think of before you come on we come onto your take side What do you think of the soundtrack?

Sidey: It was banging Yeah, it's good. It

Pete: it is good The guy is the the guy did it did a lot of work with paul

Sidey: Oh

Pete: like he did robocop and and like other stuff like

so

Sidey: a good pedigree.

Pete: good good good pedigree It's kind of like operatic and you know epic and like everything that you'd want

Dan: Yeah, well, this is a huge epic story, isn't it? I mean, it's set over there's so many battles. He's got to go along the way. So many hardships, so many times he he need, you know, disappointments. He loses people he loves on the way and yada yada.

I mean, as a kid. This is all you wanted a guy with huge muscles, slicing heads off people and, and winning the day, getting the women women are dying, getting a new woman, you know, he's like. On it just as a huge alpha male, leading on the way

Pete: and, and

Dan: but yeah, no

Pete: to a point. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: didn't make him out to be a monster or anything He was he was likable enough and and so I hadn't seen it for for years and years Since then and I don't I remember simbad and other kind of ones that had epics as well, which I really enjoyed.

I mean, they had the Red Sonja. I think

Pete: yeah, yeah,

Dan: On a similar thing, wasn't it? And in this world, and I enjoyed this. You know, it was one of those films where It probably has lots of faults. It definitely does. You know, it's got lots of

Sidey: think it's

Pete: But I

think the time, it's, it's, that's a time lapse thing rather than

Cris: 42 years ago!

Dan: That's It, it's still, it's still as an epic, as a, just a, like a, an action sorcery and sword movie. It's

Pete: before, before Sidey like, like picks it apart, right? It, it I read a quote that it, that a critic, I can't remember which one it was, but basically said that this was the benchmark for sword and sorcery genre films until Lord of the Rings, like nothing in that time kind of toppled this off its perch other than then, you know, Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson came along and did it

Dan: You had Willow,

Pete: different story.

Dan: Time bandits.

Pete: like,

Dan: I don't know, there's a few there.

Pete: Yeah, there are some good ones. Don't get me wrong, but yeah. So side, come on, come on. Like gloves are off. Let's go.

it.

Sidey: know it's it's really tempting to just pretend that I didn't like it just to annoy you, but I used to play dungeons and dragons, you know Uh, you can't like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings and then say this is stupid or whatever that just doesn't add up it's really good You know The only thing that it suffers from is that I didn't see it when I was a kid So or

Pete: So the nostalgia

Sidey: don't have the

Pete: which is huge, like,

Sidey: and it does it does suffer from its age a little bit Not not enough to me to say.

Oh, you know because that's from some films are old and they Things have moved on and they look a bit better. But no, it's I really enjoyed it. It was really good. It was really

Pete: I'm, I'm happy. Chris, have you

Cris: happy. Chris? Yeah, yeah, it was good. I know I always liked it. Especially because I'm pretty sure when I've seen it, the first probably Eight. Yeah. Or something like that. Obviously, when it was made, it was better. Before I was even born, but when I've seen it, and I'm not actually lying.

I used to masturbate quite a lot when, when I've seen this

Pete: movie to, to

Cris: because you don't

Sidey: see much. Pete as well, Pete, the same thing I think. Yeah? Just Diwane.

Cris: Right. And well, not to Arnie, but,

Sidey: We're all friends here, it's

Dan: a, what, it's a

Sidey: is a safe space.

Pete: it's

Sidey: This is a safe space.

Dan: you

Cris: Tulsa Doom. Win his fringe.

Snake. Snake.

Sidey: Do you want to know about James Earl Jones and Arnie? James Earl Jones was a last minute addition to the cast because of his commitments on Broadway. And he and Arnie became friends on set. Arnie helped him stay in shape. And Jones As well as Max Von Sydow, Shidow, Shudow, they both coached him on his acting,

Pete: Well, it kind of

Sidey: kind of wholesome trivia that

Pete: wish they'd had more time with him, but,

Dan: no,

but

Pete: but no, but it is, but that's the thing. It's got, you know, it's got James Earl Jones got max, like Sidedo or however you say it.

You know, who are like fucking solid, like reputable, like powerhouse actors that.

Cris: that he had the voice dubbed over? Aren't he?

Sidey: Arnie? Yes. He didn't say much.

Cris: Well, no, but it was dubbed over

Pete: No, I think maybe, maybe like originally I have heard this actually, but

Cris: I, I've

Pete: I think there's a version with a dubbed voice because they were really worried because he's got like an Austrian accent,

Sidey: It just sounds like Arnie to me.

Pete: Yeah. Well, it just became an Arnie accent in the end, I think, but maybe at the time it, it, it, It probably didn't stand up. that's, that story rings a bell. I'm not sure if it's this film or maybe even Arnie himself, but yeah,

Cris: am asking you only because , after seeing this film, I've watched the Netflix thing with Arnold again.

You know, there's a documentary with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he says like, oh, this house is perfect, is

Dan: the Mr.

Cris: is

Dan: Universe one.

Cris: know, whatever. And he says that his first ever movie.

Dan: Pumping Iron,

Cris: Maybe he said his first ever movie. I'm not really sure if it's this movie or he made another one before, whatever the fuck it is.

He said that it was actually not even his voice.

Pete: I can't

Cris: He says it himself,

Pete: don't know, because he's got a bit of a cameo in Red Sonja and I

Cris: but I don't know. So

Pete: is similar universe, I think. It's the same sort of

Cris: But do you know that our entities is honestly, I love the way as soon as I seen that, I obviously didn't know that at the time, but when I've seen that, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: yeah. There's some solid people attached to this, obviously Oliver Stone, as we said as well. But yeah,

It's an

absolute 10 outta 10 for me.

yeah.

Dan: 10

Cris: go 10 out of 10. Also, it's too long.

Sidey: It's too

Pete: Yeah.

Cris: too long.

You don't need 2 hours and 15.

Sidey: and 15 minutes.

It's good. Strong, strong

Pete: Strong recommend, guys.

Cris: good.