Conan the Destroyer: Special Edition (1984) |
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Conan the Destroyer: Special Edition (1984) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-Olivia D'Abo (Actor) & Tracey Walter (Actor) Audio Commentary-Richard Fleischer (Director) Featurette-Conan: The Making Of A Comic Book Legend Featurette-Basil Poledouris: Composing The Conan Saga Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Gallery-Conan Comic Book Gallery |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1984 | ||
| Running Time | 96:51 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (58:43) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Richard Fleischer |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring |
Arnold Schwarzenegger Grace Jones Wilt Chamberlain Mako Tracey Walter Sarah Douglas Olivia d'Abo |
| Case | Soft Brackley-Transp | ||
| RPI | $36.95 | Music | Basil Poledouris |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English German French Italian Spanish Dutch German for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Conan The Destroyer is the very poor sequel to a wonderful, cult classic.
Conan The Barbarian is a wonderful, exciting, and intoxicating, classic movie. One cannot underestimate the impact of this movie on young men As a schoolboy, I discovered that all of life's lessons are contained within Conan The Barbarian, and I watched the VHS video so many times that I came to know the dialogue intimately. Sadly, in the history of Hollywood's poor sequels, I cannot think of a more disappointing sequel than this one. Veteran director, Richard Fleischer, takes the helm this time, and he decided to play it for laughs. The combination of a crappy story, poor acting and direction, cheesy visual and sound effects, and some glaring continuity errors, results in a B-Grade waste of time and effort. Originally, there were supposed to be a series of Conan films, but Mr. Fleischer ensured that this was the last.
Conan The Destroyer is a continuation of the story of Conan The Barbarian, which in turn was based on the characters created by Robert E. Howard. As in the Conan novels, and comic books, Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a roaming barbarian, warrior, and thief. Conan is hired by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) to escort the young and virginal Princess Jehnna (Olivia D'Abo) on her dangerous quest to collect a religious relic. On the perilous journey, Conan is joined by warrior-woman, Zula (Grace Jones), the Queen's Captain of the Guard, Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain), a wizard, Akiro (Mako), and Conan's sidekick, and the movie's comedy relief, Malak (Tracey Walter).
The transfer is surprisingly good for its age.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is close to its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is 16x9 enhanced.
The sharpness of the image is generally good, although it does become a little soft at times, such as the shot of the priest at 11:35. The shadow detail is also generally good, but it becomes very poor in some of the darker scenes, such as at 54:55.
The colour is a little dark, but generally good. The flesh tones are fairly accurate, although occasionally people appear a little orange.
MPEG artefacts were not a problem.
Film-to-video artefacts were not a problem, but some very mild aliasing appeared in the form of a slight shimmer on some objects, such as on a belt buckle at 26:28.
Film artefacts appear throughout, but they are generally very small flecks. An example can be seen at 30:40.
There are seven sets of subtitles present, and the English subtitles are accurate.
This is a RSDL disc, with the very obvious, and clumsy, layer change placed at 58:43.
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The movie's English audio was originally presented in mono, and it has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 for the DVD's default audio. There are also six Dolby Stereo tracks, which include two audio commentaries.
The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine on the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.
The musical score is credited to Basil Poledouris, and he effectively recycles the music and themes from the first movie.
Due largely to the movie's mono source, the surround presence and activity is limited. The surround sound mix is quite front-heavy, but the rear speakers are used subtly for some effects such as wind at 24:12.
The subwoofer is used very subtly but effectively to support both the score, for example at 94:26, and some of the sound effects.
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There are a number of extras.
An animated menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with PCM audio.
Theatrical Trailer (1:31)
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital stereo audio.
There are two audio commentaries, one by actors Tracey Walter and Olivia D'Abo, the other by director, Richard Fleischer. The former contains a lot of trivia and anecdotes, and the latter contains long silences, as Fleischer tends to discuss the locations and technical aspects of shooting.
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital stereo audio, the movie's authors Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway discuss Thomas' background at Marvel Comics and the adaptation of Howard's stories to comic book form.
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital stereo audio, Poledouris discusses his score for the Conan movies.
Photographic stills from the movie production.
A series of stills of comic book covers
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Conan The Destroyer was released on DVD in Region 1 in March 1998.
The Region 4 DVD misses out on:
The Region 1 DVD misses out on:
There appears to be no competition here with the Region 4 version being the clear winner.
Conan The Destroyer is a very disappointing movie, riding on the coat-tails of its very successful predecessor.
The video quality is good.
The audio quality is also good.
The extras are plentiful.
| Video | |
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| Extras | |
| Plot |   |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
| Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |