CONAN WEEK CONTINUES: BUTCHERED SCENES!
Deleted Conan scenes need a comeback!
Reported By: René de Jong
Thursday, April 3, 2003

Everyone's favorite TAFs' Conan aficionado, "CromIsGod", is back with an all new report. TheArnoldFans.com have been receiving a ton of requests for information on deleted Conan The Barbarian scenes lately - so we put the ultimate Conan fan to work on this assignment. Rick Henriques, a.k.a. "CromIsGod" was happy to oblige. Conan is his life.

Rick Henriques: Crom's Cutting Room Floor

With the impending return of everyone¹s favorite barbarian to the silver screen, there has been much talk of how great the original "Conan the Barbarian" was in it's time and how great it still is. The great debate still rages on though: How much better could it have been? Everyone who follows the Conan genre has heard the stories about when the movie was first shot John Milius had a vision... a vision that not only included a ton of bloody barbaric scenes, but a vision of a three-hour epic chronicling the beginning of our sullen eyed warrior¹s life. Unfortunately for John (and us fans) not only the ratings bureau, but also the studio got involved and many of the scenes in John's vision were left on the cutting room floor. Through many of my readings and intense study of this movie I have come up with a list of scenes that were actually filmed and left out of the final production. There were many others that were trimmed down because of gore and excessive violence, but the ones I have listed were outright deletions from the movie. Some of them I had certainly heard of before, but some others were quite the surprise to read:

• Young Conan & The Master scale a large mountain or cliff face to reach their summit where The Master tells Conan of "The Riddle of Steel".

• The decapitation of Conan's mother was completely redone. The scene was initially two scenes. One of which was shot from the back in which this gigantic splatter of blood gets everywhere. The other shot was of a working mechanical head lying on a bank of snow going into the death twitches and spasms.

• The War Yurt scenes where Conan sits chained to a turn-style table and young warriors come to get his advice and wisdom.

• Conan fights a woman pitfighter (played by John Milius' secretary, Sarolo) in which after a first battle Conan cuts off her head and holds it up for the entire crowd to see.

• A pickpocket tries to steal something from Conan in Shadizar and Conan promptly cuts off his arm.

• John Milius plays a barker selling "Lizard on a Stick" to Conan and Subotai in Zamora.

• Conan and Subotai sit on a mountaintop, with Shadizar in the distant background, and decide to break into the Tower of the Serpent to steal the jewels.

• Conan & Subotai sneak through a garden and jump over a wall to get to the base of the Tower of the Serpent.

• Subotai fights the Beast with Three Eyes when he first gets on top of the Tower of the Serpent. In that same scene Valeria finds a tile in the wall of the tower encrusted with jewels and pries it out to keep for herself.

• In the scene where Thulsa Doom explains the Riddle of Steel to Conan, Rexor and Thorgrim beat Conan so senseless and so bloody that it had to be cut for the graphic violence.

• When Subotai arrives at the Tree of Woe to save Conan he picks up the dead vulture and tells Conan that he is hungry and intends to EAT it. Conan asks him to "eat it behind me so that I cannot watch".

• Also in the scene where Doom explains the Riddle of Steel to Conan, Doom not only orders a girl to jump from a high perch, but also orders a follower to stab himself to death and he does.

• As seen in the Collectors Edition DVD, King Osric¹s own men assassinate him by running him through with swords.

• In the battle of the mounds Conan picks up a dropped spear and hurls it right through a riding horseman.

• Conan approaches the princess as she is chained to the altar in the battle of the mounds scene. She is defiant as he speaks to her and he grabs her by her face as he tells her she will be returned to her father (Conan doesn't know he was killed already which was also deleted).

Now again I believe that there were many other scenes that Milius wanted to be filmed. Of those, I don't know if they were. I know at least all of these scenes were initially filmed and were supposed to be in the final movie. Hopefully with the production of King Conan: Crown of Iron, a brand new gigantic two disk collectors edition of "Conan the Barbarian" will emerge soon. I know all Conan fans are hoping for that and the new film to be made. We must all pray to Crom everyday and if he does not listen... than the hell with him!

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René de Jong