The Conan Completist

SOURCES: Starlog, Envisaged, David C. Smith.
AUDIO COMMENTARY: No.
NOVELIZATION: ???
COMIC BOOK: No.
FILMED?: Yes.
EXTRAS LAST UPDATE: ---

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After several screening-tests set up by Universal in February and March 1982, the total length of the film was seriously reduced, which caused multiple cuts in the last reel. Here is what one could read in the July 1982 issue of "Starlog":

According to Associate Producer Edward Summer, five or six minutes have been cut from the film's last reel - during the Battle of the Mounds and Conan's final confrontation with Thulsa Doom.

If one includes (in these 5 or 6 minutes cut from the last 20 minutes) the 2 and a half minutes related to the presence of the Princess in the final scene, hence there must be more or less 3 minutes of scenes cut from the Battle of the Mounds scene.

What is missing exactly during this sequence? Hard to say, but the most probable assumption relates to passages of bloody violence. As soon as December 1981, Ron Cobb declared in "Prevue Magazine":

"CONAN might be the most violent film ever made! I don't remember how much cut heads, torn off body parts and knife stabs John did shoot. We had mechanical torsos with moving arms and removable heads, arrows in the eyes, cut throats and buckets of blood. Everyone expects the movie to be X-rated, then I am sure John will attenuate the gruesome details in selected scenes, but he really succeeded in filming a barbarian combat!"

An anonymous fan was complaining in the old www.thearnoldfans.com message board about various shots not reinstated into the Special Edition DVD version, including "Subotai shooting an arrow in somebody's eye" and "the spear throwing scene", two scenes belonging to the Battle of the Mounds. In fact, a unused shot of Conan armed with a lance and using it is featured in the first theatrical trailer on the DVD (pictures 4 and 5). There are various additional production stills of this scene (images 1 to 3).

David C. Smith also announces in his essay that Milius had envisaged to insert flashback shots of the village attack during the final battle, but it is not known very well if this daring idea was really used during the editing, or if it never exceeded the script stage. A first flashback was to appear at the time of the death of Valeria in Conan's arms:

VALERIA
The wizard--I told him--I would pay the gods... Hold me! Hold me close so that my wounds bleed into yours--

CLOSE - VALERIA

Her lips part from his, her voice barely a whisper...

DIFFERENT ANGLE

He holds her there, looking into her face. She is gone.

FLASHBACK

The boy, Conan, pushing at the Wheel of Pain. A tear falls from his eye and is frozen. It was the last time the Cimmerian vowed he would ever cry.

CLOSE - CONAN

Perhaps it is only a drop of water from the river, but it slips down his cheek.

The flashback is one of several that Milius indicates in the second-draft screenplay; all but one, serving as a memory triggered when Conan sees Thulsa Doom’s standard in the well that houses the giant snake in the Temple of Set, were eliminated from the final release print. These deletions are unfortunate. Despite the convention that flashbacks are best avoided in cinematic storytelling, their judicious use by thoughtful filmmakers can add depth and strength to a story. Milius inserted a number of them during the Battle of the Mounds, where they add a very satisfying dimension of closure to this biography of a vengeful warrior:

CLOSE - CONAN

His face hardens, his eyes glint.

A FISHING LINE

plops into a Cimmerian lake long ago.

A falcon rustles its wings.

A girl opens her mouth to scream.

Porridge spills into the snow.

Horses’ hooves crash through ice, snow and underbrush.

Horses’ hooves thunder across the desert steppe in the gathering darkness.

THE FIRST MOUND

Twenty iron-plated riders, black against the sky, thunder over the mound and down around the others on either side...

CLOSE - CONAN

Several riders thunder by; one goes over.

THE FACE OF CONAN AS A BOY

watching the rider go over in slow motion.

CONAN

He steps out full into their path and swings with all his strength. There is a terrible METALLIC CLANG and splattering as the rider is cleaved from his horse...

RIDERS

They wheel and group, turn and charge back down the mounds again, howling and screeching with spears and swords glistening.

CONAN

He draws his sword, holding it across his face in the pit-fighter salute, then drops it behind him in position.

CONAN’S FATHER

The Master taking a similar position in the snow years before.

RIDERS

thunder down on Conan.

ConanCompletist 2004