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Zhan Shi
If I remember correctly, D&D became popular in the late 70's and early 80's. Also at this time, a number of sword and sorcery/fantasy films were released: the Conan movies, Dragonslayer, Krull, Beastmaster, Excalibur and others. Was D&D the catalyst (no pun intended) for this? Or were both phenomena a manifestation of the same popular zeitgeist?
eidolon
I don't know. I haven't made any kind of study of it or anything, but weren't the Conan books fairly popular in their own right? I had always assumed that Conan was the catalyst for those movies, but you gotta know that every D&D player was standing in line opening night. biggrin.gif
Zhan Shi
They were. Plus there were at least to comic adaptations at the time. I've always wondered what caused the sword and sorcery resurgence of the late 70's. Perhaps the public was just waiting for something "new", and the films/books/comics/rpgs filled that need.
nezumi
I'm pretty sure they both arose thanks to the same cause. 1937 saw the release of the Hobbit, and that is notable because it was widely accepted as merely a children's book because it was fantasy. It wasn't until the 50's and 60's that science fiction and fantasy began to really pick up steam in fiction, which means it wasn't until the 70's that it made it into the movies and other media.
Fortune
QUOTE (Zhan Shi)
I've always wondered what caused the sword and sorcery resurgence of the late 70's.

People who grew up reading Lord of the Rings.
Fortune
Great minds! biggrin.gif
BishopMcQ
When I first looked at the title, I immediately thought this would be about Mazes and Monsters with Tom Hanks.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Zhan Shi @ Sep 22 2007, 04:37 AM)
I've always wondered what caused the sword and sorcery resurgence of the late 70's.

People who grew up reading Lord of the Rings.

Very much so. I think the first big LOTR craze hit when D&D was becoming popular. And remember that D&D was derived from Chainmail, a wargame, and that LOTR is largely about gigantic battles counterbalanced with brave hobbits.
tisoz
There was that little movie known as Star Wars, too. Many called it a Space Fantasy.
Fortune
I've heard it mostly referenced as a Space Western. smile.gif
D Minor
Or a big pile of crap. don't get me wrong, this is just my opinion but the hero's in my storys arn't whinny bastards. thank god for han the true hero of star wars. And when they brought in the care bears, that ruined that triolgy. 30 years later what do we get, a whinny bastard who cant be a convincing villain. And thats my humble opinion. StarWars fans i apologize for my drunken rant but luke is a Bitch and so was his dad
nezumi
What are you talking about?? Star Wars is a tragedy about a man who gets a successful, corporate career, before his whiney, half-wit son goes around breaking everything. It's a great movie about the ineptitude of our youth.
tisoz
QUOTE (Fortune @ Sep 23 2007, 04:45 AM)
I've heard it mostly referenced as a Space Western.  smile.gif

With Magic and Swords?
hyzmarca
It's basically a rip-off of The Hidden Fortress. So it's a Space Period Samurai Drama.
Mercer
I've always heard it referred to as a Space Opera, which is an update of the term "Horse Opera", which doesn't have anything to do with opera as much as the old Saturday matinee serials. But I suppose that's here nor there.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (D Minor)
Or a big pile of crap. don't get me wrong, this is just my opinion but the hero's in my storys arn't whinny bastards. thank god for han the true hero of star wars. And when they brought in the care bears, that ruined that triolgy. 30 years later what do we get, a whinny bastard who cant be a convincing villain. And thats my humble opinion. StarWars fans i apologize for my drunken rant but luke is a Bitch and so was his dad

Pfft. Han Solo was nearly as whiny as everyone else in that movie. In fact, the only main character who wasn't a whiny little bitch at one point or another was R2-D2. The closest he came to being whiny was when he was reluctant to do something mundane, like roll around in a swamp or battle a crazy old man to keep his flashlight. That aside, he was also the only character in all six movies (I believe) who was truly brave and risked life and limb to save everyone, not because he had to, but because it was the right thing to do. No question, no hesitation.

That said, Tolkien was definitely the source of the fantasy explosion, with Conan being not too far behind (at least as far as the Conan movies goes). There's little question about that, especially since large chunks of D&D were trying to take advantage of the popularity, too. Hence the inclusion of Hobbits (who were later forced to be renamed Halflings). D&D had about as much to do with those early movies and popularity as Shadowrun had to do with the rise of cyberpunk in the 80's and 90's. They were a result of it, not the cause.
imperialus
The big thing with Conan is that during the 70's L. Sprauge Du Camp *spits* got his mitts on the publishing rights and republished them. Of course he "fixed" them first making Conan a nice PC kinda guy trying to ram them into a timeline and generally fucking with the original stories which were some of the best examples of pulp fiction ever written. He and Arnold did such a good job of turning Conan into campy 80's garbage that now that ReH's originals are finally being republished in their entirety people have this bizarre and totally off base view of who Conan is.

Sorry... That wasn't completely on topic... ReH is one of my favorite authors and the crap that was done to his characters pisses me off. Don't even get me started on Kull, and I've sworn to shoot the first producer who starts babbleing about making a Solomon Kane movie.

I'd say that (movie) Conan had a profound effect on early D&D. You really only need to look at the artwork from the early modules to get the idea that the idea of bare chested men with perfect hair rescuing underwear clad women from evil sorcerers was what the game was all about.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (imperialus)
The big thing with Conan is that during the 70's L. Sprauge Du Camp *spits* got his mitts on the publishing rights and republished them. Of course he "fixed" them first making Conan a nice PC kinda guy trying to ram them into a timeline and generally fucking with the original stories which were some of the best examples of pulp fiction ever written. He and Arnold did such a good job of turning Conan into campy 80's garbage that now that ReH's originals are finally being republished in their entirety people have this bizarre and totally off base view of who Conan is.

Sorry... That wasn't completely on topic... ReH is one of my favorite authors and the crap that was done to his characters pisses me off. Don't even get me started on Kull, and I've sworn to shoot the first producer who starts babbleing about making a Solomon Kane movie.

I'd say that (movie) Conan had a profound effect on early D&D. You really only need to look at the artwork from the early modules to get the idea that the idea of bare chested men with perfect hair rescuing underwear clad women from evil sorcerers was what the game was all about.

Hey, listen man. Back when I was a student at Cornell I was able to read a few unedited Conan stories because I found some old original editions in the school library. It was the most engaging fiction I ever read.

How can I find the republished un-edited originals today?
Zhan Shi
Borders, if you live near one. If not, they're published by Del Rey books, so you can just go to their site and order online. I think the addy is delrey.com, or maybe delreybooks.com; can't remember which.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Zhan Shi)
Borders, if you live near one. If not, they're published by Del Rey books, so you can just go to their site and order online. I think the addy is delrey.com, or maybe delreybooks.com; can't remember which.

But how can I tell if they've been edited by Le Camp or not?
Zhan Shi
The current releases are exactly as Howard wrote them. The series editor is Rusty Burke; the editor for the first volume is Patrice Louinet. The other volumes I don't have, but it looks like De Camp had nothing to do with it.
imperialus
Yeah, Du Camp had nothing to do with them.

The Anthology titles are:

The Coming of Conan the Crimmerian
The Bloody Crown of Conan
The Conquering Sword of Conan

You can also get the "Savage Tales of Solomon Kane" "Bran Mok Moron, The Last King" and "Kull Exile of Atlantis"

They are amazingly well done books, each story is written in the order that it was published, with no attempts at ramming it into some sort of timeline. The only thing that has been changed is some spelling errors and each one is annotated in an appendix with the orriginal manuscript spelling beside it. It's actually kind of interesting, you can really see how Howard was very much a self taught writer. You'll see a spelling mistake in an early peice and then later on he'll have corrected his spelling.

There is also a new anthology out The Best of Robert E. Howard. I havn't read it yet but it appears to simply be a collection of his work spanning different characters. Not sure if I'll pick it up as I completed my collection of most of my favorite characters of his. His Westerns and Boxing fiction never grabbed me. Some of his horror writing can be quite interesting too though so I may have to give it a read and see if there is any of that in it.

Just as a warning to anyone who might be interested in Conan... Remember Howard was a Texan writing in the 20's and 30's... Conan is NOT politically correct. There is quite a bit of stuff that modern readers could find offensive. Vale of the Lost Women springs to mind, as one that no one outside of the klan would write today... The whole first half of the story basically consists of "dem darkies gonna rapes our white wemenfolk's". Like I said, Du-Camp PC'd it up considerably.
Synner667
If you're going to talk about Conan [the tales of which are great reading]..
..I will utter a name of much power..


Thrud !!
Synner667
Also..
..Conan stories are actually part of the HP Lovecraft mythos, too [if I recall correctly].
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Synner667)
Also..
..Conan stories are actually part of the HP Lovecraft mythos, too [if I recall correctly].

Whoa! If that's the case, any Cthulu RPG should let you play Conan. Be a rugged noble savage whose primal vitality and closeness to the earth insulates you from such philosophical questions as would destroy the minds of depressive investigators from 1910.

The "Barbarian" class would be analgous to the overpowered monks from 1st edition D&D.
Zhan Shi
Howard was indeed a part of the famous "Lovecraft circle". If you're interested, his Cthulhu type stories are collected in Nameless Cults, by Chaosium.
imperialus
Lovecraft and Howard were definatly friends and Howard, like many other pulp writers used the Cthulhu mythos in his stories. Lovecraft really enjoyed other authors using his mythos, and it's probably a big part of what gave him such legs.

Conan and Kull however belong to a seperate mythology. Set, Crom, and the other gods are not related to Cthulhu though one could say that aspects of them, praticularly the alien in "Tower of the Elephant" were inspired by Lovcraftian mythology. There are occasionally hints that the Lovcraftian dieties but it is never overt.
Synner667
Vaguely back on track..
..Looking at the whole run of Sword&Sorcery that appeared and deluged the film market, I've been surprised NOT to see a similar thing in recent years after the continued huge success of Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter.


re: Conan and HPL..
..You're correct, and I'd have been more accurate to say that Conan stories contain elements of HPL's writings, rather than implying Conan encountered Cthuloid creatures.
Zhan Shi
Call me crazy, but I would like to see a new Conan film. Provided it was not produced by De Laurentis. The lack of deluge has puzzled me as well. Usually, when a film(s) proves to be so successful, Hollywood pounces with a vengeance. But I'm not a film industry watcher; maybe stuff is in the works. As for REH and HPL, in a way it's a "chicken and the egg" argument. Members of the Circle frequently borrowed each other's ideas and characters. For the record, in Call of Cthulhu I've seen two different explanations for Set. One is that he's one of Nyarlathotep's "Masks". The other, derived from the Simon Magus stories of Tierney (The Great, IMO) is that Set was/is Hastur. Tierney imagined that the name "Hastur" is a linguistic corruption of the Stygian "Ha Set Ur", or "Set is great."
imperialus
That said though. Howard was definatly not a horror writer, praticularly not in the same vein as Lovecraft at all. In fact his attempts at true horror stories are pretty bad. Lovecraft characters don't tend to be praticularly heroic. Curious to a fault, but when the shit hits the fan they either die or end up commited to an asylum. Howard had a difficult time convaying the same sence of hopelessness in his characters. His character's reaction to something wierd and supernatural is usually something along the lines of "Damn, that's scary! Better reload." Solomon Kane is a really good example of this "heroic, horror".

If you want to read a really interesting study of Howards work check out "The Dark Barbarian" and "The Barbaric Triumph". Both are exellent critical works on Howards writing.
Zhan Shi
I found something you may be interested in. An essay called "Howardian vs. Lovecraftian". It's in the back of "Conan: Volume 4: Hall of the Dead and Other Stories", by Dark Horse.
Zhan Shi
BTW, the "Dungeons and Dragons" movie was terrible. That movie was to the game what the Conan films were to Robert E. Howard's stories.
GrepZen
Supposedly the 2nd movie, which was a straight to video releese, was much better and had good acting. Jeremy Irons was over the top in the 1st but, who could really blame him...I've seen better episodes of Power Rangers (the horror...the horror).
Zhan Shi
Truly? I was not even aware there was a second film. I may check that out.
Angelone
Second film wasn't bad at all it. Which is odd considering it was a sequel. It had a good range of characters including a NE halfling rogue. It also shows what happens when someone starts turng undead like from Liberus Mortis?
Wounded Ronin
Okay, I really don't understand why anybody would chose to of all things badmouth the first Conan film but not the second. The first Conan film practically inspired my life. The second one was just a very ordinary representation of a Steve Perry novel.

I realize that Milius' Conan is not exactly the same as Howard's Conan. That being said, Milius' Conan is a well developed literary figure in his own right.

QUOTE

This is not exactly Robert E. Howard’s Conan.  The character created by the young Texan writer is one tough mother, an animal in human form, with the instincts and reflexes of the wild, a shrewd, devious fighting man formed in equal measure by heredity and experience.  He is a superman, but one with a paternity reaching straight back to Beowulf and Enkidu, Siegfried and Attila, Alexander and Genseric.  John Milius’s Conan is a northland barbarian youth reborn with the soul of a samurai warrior.  This works well in the context of Milius’s revision, but it dramatically changes the focus of Conan’s warriorhood as it reshapes the essence of the character himself.  Howard’s Conan is a brawler and a brute, lucky to be alive, forged by his adventures into a quasiclassical warrior-king; but Milius’s Conan is of a new order altogether.  For the character in Howard’s stories, a sword is a tool; in Milius’s film, a sword is the warrior’s spirit and is richly symbolic of the warrior as a self-actualizing, self-overcoming new man -- the overman.  In most of Howard’s Conan stories, women are prizes or wenches; in Milius’s film, Valeria is the woman of women, special and elevated, the new man’s equal, the other half of his soul.  The schooling in the art of sword mastery and the rigorous self-discipline Conan attains in the movie are pure Musashi by way of John Milius, as is the reverance for the sword itself, for steel, their importance taking on a spiritual dimension--weapons "as an expression of the will directed towards a certain end," according to Jung (as quoted by Ania Teillard in Cirlot’s study of symbols).  Weapons as extensions of the self, mastery of the self, the overcoming of the self--the will to power.


http://www.barbariankeep.com/ctbds.html


As such, Milius' version of Conan influenced my philosophy and outlook on life. There was a time when I watched Conan the Barbarian every day for nearly a year.

It seems ludicrous to claim that Conan the Destroyer was a more worthy film than Conan the Barbarian.
nezumi
Alright, as much as I look forward to reading the original Conan books, I have to agree, Conan the Barbarian was an AWESOME movie, one of the best the 80's had to offer.

The ones that followed were pretty dorky though.
Link
I enjoyed the several REH novels I've happened upon and I'm also a fan of the first film, liking both is not mutually exclusive. As WR says, they offer much to those who listen ;)

Here's a quote someone uses as a sig in another forum. Gold.
QUOTE
What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king!

The Phoenix on the Sword, REH
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