This Shouldn't Upset Me But...

[SA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQ99y8KaTU

And with that, the spirit of Fantasy departs Hollywood forever.

[Magnus Pym]

Looks cool to me :P

[LD]

That trailer somehow combined all the tacky elements of several movies.

I'm not sure what you were expecting from Conan though--the older movie wasn't very good either.

[Elemental_Elf]

I'm not sure what you find wrong with the trailer... Its your basic, run of the mill, Hollywood blockbuster. It will sell a gazillion tickets and make everyone involved rich. If it entertains me for a hour and a half, then it has accomplished its goal from my perspective.

[SA]

We can talk about its goals as a Hollywood blockbuster and we can talk about its goals as a Conan movie. Hollywood adaptations aren't inherently crappy, so this movie didn't have to be. Cynicism is the easiest of all postures to adopt, but I won't adopt it here.

As for the older movie: it wasn't great by any stretch, but at least Conan was a frickin' thief, creeping into wizards' towers to steal their magic jewels. That movie gave at least half a damn about its source material.

This one... not so much. :P

[Elemental_Elf]

The older movie wasn't great by any stretch, but at least Conan was a frickin' thief, creeping into wizards' towers to steal their magic jewels. That movie gave at least half a damn about its source material.

This one... not so much. :P

Arnold is the antithesis of a Thief. His muscle-bound, steroid rattled, proto-brain could never grasp the finer intricacies of sneaking, thieving or teamwork. :D

[Elemental_Elf]

Look at these two bodies.





If I were playing D&D, which one would I choose to play a Thief?

Definitely not Arnold :)

[SA]

EE, you do know the importance of distinguishing characters from actors, right? Conan is a thief. Arnold is a... well I wouldn't say he was ever really an actor. :P

As for what's wrong with the trailer: everything. I have no idea what the movie's about. No sense of place, time, or plot. And no shot of Conan outsmarting/outwrestling a giant man-crocodile in the dank and forbidding hall of some forgotten fortress. So, no Conan.

[Elemental_Elf]

EE, you do know the importance of distinguishing characters from actors, right? Conan is a thief. Arnold is a... well I wouldn't say he was ever really an actor. :P

Touche Mr. A. Chap.

As for what's wrong with the trailer: everything. I have no idea what the movie's about. No sense of place, time, or plot. And no shot of Conan outsmarting/outwrestling a giant man-crocodile in the dank and forbidding hall of some forgotten fortress. So, no Conan.

I think you are expecting a bit too much from a trailer. Showing Conan outsmarting a monster while giving you historical context for the world doesn't generate ticket sales. Watching a dude fight a Snake Squid and some sand dudes while seeing less than a second of a sex scene, that is box office gold my friend. :)

[SA]

No, you're right. Sales sales sales. Why did I ever think otherwise?

Like I said, the spirit of fantasy departs. I shall tip my hat and follow suit. Goodbye Hollywood! i loved you once...

[Elemental_Elf]

When did Hollywood ever embody the spirit of Fantasy? Remember the original D&D movie? What about the Dungeon Siege movies? All the lame King Arthur movies? Red Riding Hood? All the Beowulf movies? Eragon?

The only Fantasy movie, that wasn't a kids movie or a comedy, that Hollywood got right was Lord of the Rings, and that can hardly be called a Hollywood film. I suppose, by a stretch, you could claim Pirates of the Caribbean is Fantasy, in which case Hollywood now has 2 series to its credit.

[Superfluous Crow]

Wait, having never read the source material: if Conan is a thief, why is he called the barbarian? (yeah yeah, we are not talking D&D classes here, but those two titles are still not overly compatible).
Also, as far as trailers go I think it's good it doesn't showcase the entire storyline of the movie. E.g. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (so many monkeys...) pretty much revealed the entire storyline through its trailers...
Also, just because the trailer is selling out doesn't mean that the movie has to. I guess. Probably wishful thinking.
But Conan did end up being the great hero in the original, no? So it is not inherently wrong for him to be a hero here?  

To be honest, this doesn't look too horrible to me. Nothing deep, true, but it looks they had some original thoughts for visual imagery and aesthetics.

P.S. Is it just me or does the dude dodging the spear look like Doc Brown?

[SA]

if Conan is a thief, why is he called the barbarian?

Barbarian:[/b] A member of a community or tribe not belonging to one of the great civilizations.

Conan is from Cimmeria, the backwaters of antediluvian earth.

[Seraph]

While the trailer doesn't actually arouse my interest all that much, it looked like it might potentially be better than the original movie, just as a movie.  

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the "spirit of fantasy."  Fantasy is a pretty open-ended term.

[Polycarp]

While the trailer doesn't actually arouse my interest all that much, it looked like it might potentially be better than the original movie, just as a movie.

isn't[/i] potentially better than the original movie.  The original Conan movie was so bad it became sublime.  The cast was inept and everything else was ridiculous; Arnold's lines were like some kind of extended empty-headed koan, and the whole mess is set to an overwhelmingly bombastic epic score that transmutes the tragedy into farce.  It's so terrible that it's hilarious - it's the funniest movie I've ever seen.  Comedy movies may have jokes, but there are entire scenes of this movie when I can't stop laughing.

Judging from the trailer, the "New Conan" will be bad.  But for it to be worse than the old one would require a journey into the realm of theology.  It couldn't merely be bad - after Arnold, there's simply no space left on that end of the quality spectrum.  It would have to actually be evil.  And I'm not sure that would be very funny at all.