I’m more a connoisseur of the trailers of summer films than a viewer of them. But I notice that a new Conan film is coming out, after years of delays which I was blissfully ignorant of. But honestly this is not a franchise I’d have thought would be up for a “reboot,” but here we are. I have never read more than one of Robert E. Howard’s stories, but the two 1980s films which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger I’ve watched half a dozen times each. They’re campy and silly, but generally fun if your tastes run toward juvenile, or, you are a juvenile. But the trailer for the new edition makes it seem overly serious, without the budgetary sizzle to render it palatable. Below is the trailer for the 2011 film, along with those for the two earlier ones.
Oh, and the answer to the question in the title? According to Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. This is reputedly a paraphrase of an assertion of Genghis Khan. If you’re an elementary school kid it seems kind of like a nonsense sentence, let me tell you….