The Conan Completist

SOURCES: David C. Smith, D.A.K., Starlog.
AUDIO COMMENTARY: No.
NOVELIZATION: Yes.
COMIC BOOK: Yes.
FILMED?: Most probably.
EXTRAS LAST UPDATE: ---

According to James Earl Jones, the two speeches that Thulsa Doom gives to his believers were seriously shortened in the final cut.

In fact, if one attentively observes the editing of his very first appearance at the top of the Mountain of Power, one notices that the "big speech" mentioned by Schwarzenegger in the audio commentary finally contains five small sentences only, of which the four first are spoken in voice-over (i.e. with Thulsa Doom not being seen on screen): "I see you. I have watched you. For 1000 years, I have watched you.
Who among you still fears death? Who will not face emptiness?”

This first speech of the leader was obviously originally much longer, as explained by David C. Smith (who is basing himself on the Milius script):

The vengeful Cimmerian is forced to endure a long speech by the sorcerer, an address to his followers that is an explicit, Charles Manson-like bid for power and social upheaval:

THULSA DOOM
When I, your father, ask, will you take life for me? Will your hand clutch the dagger and strike true to the infidel heart?... Many of you are about to go back to the world--to the leaders, judges and parents who lied to you and led you astray... The day of Doom is at hand. The great cleansing.
.

These situations place Conan’s murder of Thulsa Doom in a far more volatile political environment than that shown in the movie as released (...).

A rather complete version of the first speech appears in the novelization.

Interviewed by David Anthony Kraft at the time of the film release, James Earl Jones gives a rather trivial reason to the shortening of his monologue: the bad quality of the original on set sound recordings.

"Once the filming was over, we had to re-do some lines in studio when external noises escaping our control had made interference. For example, a completely current problem was the noise of the planes. But it is a very bad thing because I do not think that one can reproduce what was made outdoors on location. I made a long speech from the top of a site in the shape of an amphitheatre; this speech will be much shorter in the final version, I am sure. As for the effect obtained from the place where I was standing, I do not think that it can be correctly duplicated in a studio."

Six years later, again from Jones' own mouth (interviewed this time by Steve Swires in the March 1988 issue of "Starlog"), the reason was slightly different: the dialogues written by Milius were quite simply... too boring! [1]

"John [Milius] had me speechify a lot, being bombastic from the mountain tops. He experimented with the speeches of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and the Reverend Jim Jones. He threw all the despots into a bowl, and tried to create dialogue. But all he came up with were boring orations, so most of that footage was cut.”

The true reason of the cuts perhaps is to seek in this laconic comment from Milius, which accompanies the final version (thus reduced) of the scene:

Schwarzenegger: "Ah, it is the big speech!"
Milius: "No, [Thulsa Doom] already knows that [Conan] is there. And instead of making a big speech, he makes his guards seize him bodily. He wants to make an example out of this infidel..."

ConanCompletist 2004