A few hours ago, an earlier version of this report was posted on Conan Movie Blog. However, due to circumstances I don’t feel at liberty to discuss, the images and source of the images therein are not going to be present. However, at least has discovered the pictures (EDIT: .  .  And By Crom, ! Looks like Pandora’s Box is open.) I assure everyone that I have not contacted these sites, nor has anyone associated with Conan Movie Blog, to the best of my knowledge. They may have been taken from the original post before it was taken down, or from the original source, but wherever these other sites got their pictures, it was not through any assistance by myself or Waldgeist. Let me be very clear about that.

However, since the information is now out there, I do think that the photographs should at least be discussed among those who have seen them. Among the stills include the first picture of Rachel Nichols as Tamara, a female figure who may be Rose McGowan as Marique, some of the action scenes and set pieces, and many pictures of the film’s set have hit the internet for the first time. In addition to adding my opinions on the pictures (not all of them bad, astonishingly enough), I’m going to note that we may well have seen some of these things before. Warning, there may be some big spoilers.

I may not be able to show the photographs myself, but I can describe them. And that is exactly what I’m going to do.

The most tantalizing picture shows what is presumably the interior of Zym’s flagship, used to hunt down Conan and Tamara, who are aboard the Hornet. Among the furnishings are ornate chests, huge vases, velvet drapes, a tiger pelt, and, curiously, four great tusks arranged in a sort of four-poster bed. Good to see that mammoths are still alive and kicking in the Hyborian Age, unless those are fossil tusks. In the foreground, we can see an unusual female figure: she has a bouffant of red hair, heavy black makeup around the eyes, and pale skin. I’m of the believe that this is Rose McGowan’s Marique. However, it’s the man partially obscured by beams of light that intrigues me most: he’s reclining on the bed, behind the female, in lavish silken robes. Is this one of the first shots of Stephen Lang’s Khalar Zym? It’s hard to tell, but the facial structure does indicate the possibility. However, this image may not be the first time Khalar Zym has hit the net, believe it or not. , Rudarciposted a few pictures from the set. Included there is a mysterious horseman clad in gilt armour and purple finery:

Later, , featuring a very similarly-clad warrior on wire facing a swordsman that could be Conan himself, was found:

Put together and what do you get? I think we might get Khalar Zym. (Comparison image by Stampfer.)

Surely, then it’s only a matter of time until the first official pictures come out? The only thing making me doubt that this is Zym is that his horse is somewhat… underwhelming. It’s just a paint horse. In comparison, the black-armoured horse facing him is a lot more imposing and impressive. Perhaps they’re going CGI with the horse, but then, why aren’t there any of the tracking markers? Who knows.

The second picture featuring what could be Marique also appears to show a group of soldiers being led to a very Greco-Roman set of buildings. At a guess, I would say this is Khalar Zym’s army marching on the “Greco-Roman Monastery” where Tamara and her warrior-nuns dwell, and the tall female figure on the left must be none other than Rose McGowan as Marique. A while back, Nu Boyana posted some pictures of a very Greek/Roman-looking set, where a gaggle of Bulgarian children were playing with the styrofoam props that make up the fallen statue. They have since been taken down from the site, but not before the Conan Movie Scouts could get their smoke-stained hands on them!

That said, I’m seriously not digging the look of “Marique” (if it is indeed she). That hair and make-up looks less like a witch of the time-lost Hyborian Age than it does a background dancer in a Cradle of Filth video. It has no place in Conan or the Hyborian Age. When I think of all the cool witches and sorceresses in the Conan stories Marique could have taken after – Salome of “A Witch Shall Be Born,” Atla of “Worms of the Earth,” Lilith of “The Witch from Hell’s Kitchen” – I just wonder why they kept the horrible “proto-Goth Rocker” idea. Even if you’re going for something different, by Crom, there’s a limit.

The clearest and most unambiguous photograph, however, is a picture of a woman clad in a strange square veil and white clothing. However, there’s no mistaking those eyes and lips – finally, an image of the lovely Rachel Nichols as Tamara! Sadly for a certain demographic, it doesn’t have her in her action-girl costume, but during her “warrior-nun” phase, so we can only see her beautiful face. Hopefully we’ll see her in action in the coming weeks. A final note: she appears to be sporting dark brown hair for the role.

Another image shows our final major character (assuming his role has not been substantially reduced) as well as our first glimpse of the “warrior-nuns” keeping the secret of whatever Khalar Zym needs to conquer the world from him. A half-dozen women, clad in white garments and what looks like a square-shaped habit, are seated around a great black bowl, where an older man is sitting. The man must be Fassir, the patriarch of the monastery: the actor portraying the character has not yet been announced. I’m stumped as to who the actor is, though I’m getting a bit of an Erick Avari/Tony Amendola vibe: it likely isn’t either, but he is somewhat reminiscent. It appears he’s having a good old puff on a hookah: how very “Greek.” One of the girls surrounding him must be Tamara: I’m guessing from her general shape that it’s the one on his immediate left. The architecture is certainly “Greek Influenced” as per the casting sheet: I’m not a fan of the idea, but I will say it looks scenic enough. Infact, the lighting in all the pictures is quite well done. Nispel’s best with visuals – not surprising, given that he worked in advertising and music videos before filming features – it’s everything else I’m worried about.

Apart from the characters, there are some shots of the set. The first depicts a wide-angle shot of what must be Conan’s home town, and we can see some forests and hills in the background. The Cimmerian village is looking – horror of horrors – not half bad. Finally, a photo that looks like it could fit Conan’s description of his homeland: “A gloomier land never was – all of hills, darkly wooded, under skies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down the valleys.” Hopefully they shot it on a particularly gloomy day, or at least make it gloomy in post-production. We’ve seen some other pictures of Conan’s village, and this shot corresponds to them:

Three images show the destruction of this village by Zym’s very Eastern-looking soldiers: two are simply depicting the place on fire, while one displays a battle scene. Dozens of black-haired warriors and soldiers clad in dark steel are fighting in a chaotic brawl, in front of a Cimmerian hut. Of particular interest is a giant figure in the middle-ground, wrapped in chains, and wielding a huge maul or sledgehammer: this huge man could be the Jailer, whom Conan would face later in life under the dungeons of Khor Khala, rumoured to be portrayed by professional huge person Nathan Jones. The giant man certainly looks like he could be the 6’10” Colossus. Of course, this image is going to be one of those things that I’m never going to like. Ever. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with it. If nothing else, the Cimmerians look like they’re putting up more of a fight than the poor villagers in Conan the Barbarian, half of whom where struck in the back as they ran screaming from a few dozen horsemen.If you’re going to kill off Conan’s tribe (not that you, in any circumstances, should) then they’d at least damn well better go down fighting.

Another image depicts some sort of smithy or foundry, with a single figure in the centre raising a sword, his back to the large forge. There are barrels, wheels, saddles, belts and wooden items all around the set. This scene, late in the film, may have been changed: in the early script, Zym’s son Fariq was involved, and since the character has been gender-switched and made into a witch, it may be very different. Quite how this forge figures in the final iteration of the film is unknown, but given the elaboration of the set, I don’t doubt it’ll be a big action set piece, likely involving fiery doom. No idea who the figure in the centre of frame is: perhaps some luckless extra whose moment of glory is to be eviscerated by the Savage Sword of Momo.

Yet another image depicts a sewer, darkly lit, with half a dozen skeletons chained to various metal torture implements, along with rusty chains and rags. The water is dark and cloudy with muck, and the illuminated entrance to an upper level can be seen. Halfway through the film or so, Conan and Tamara attempt to sneak into Khor-Khala through the horror-haunted sewers beneath the castle (guarded, no doubt, by the infamous Blind Archers). It’s very considerate of the skeletons in “The Sewers” to stay all articulated after centuries of decay: presumably the same mysterious properties that kept the skeletons at the Mounds of the Dead in Conan the Barbarian are at force here. But hey, it’s gruesome.

One picture shows a mysterious figure – a scout, perhaps Remo or Saïd Taghmaoui’s thief, or just another unfortunate extra – darting in the way of a troupe of horsemen. The horsemen do not appear to be the same as the cavalry from other photographs, indicated by their red keffiyehs, spired helms and subtly different armour: they could be an affiliated but distinct group from Zym’s other soldiers, or another entity entirely.

The last image has Momoa in rather nonchalantly erecting a siege engine, with one hand languidly holding a rope as the engine – a counterweight affair, like a trebuchet – leans at an angle. The scene in the script calls for Conan to “send a message” to Khalar Zym, and quite a message he sends. I’m really hoping they’re not going to have Momoa effortlessly raise a half-tonne siege engine with one arm – Conan’s “strong beyond the ken of man,” but not that strong – but perhaps it’s tied to the post, not on a pulley, and Conan’s merely pulling on a rope. It’s comparatively small for a trebuchet, most such engines are two or three times that size, but if it has sufficient elevation for its intended purpose, it might have enough distance to deliver its payload.

Editorial

What in blazes is taking so long?

I’m going to take a quotation from on The Cimmerian regarding the truly ridiculous lack of news on the upcoming Conan film:

Lionsgate’s nonsense has prevented Malmberg & Paradox from releasing cleaned-up, enhanced studio photographs for publicity. One need only compare it to the image of Chris Hemsworth as The Mighty to see how unfortunate this is. Here, we have a tantalizing glimpse that doesn’t give everything away, but gives just enough to get fans salivating. We can see Hemsworth’s face, his arm, and a portion of the armour: no shot of Mjolnir, or the famed winged helmet, but that can wait until closer to release. As a result, fan reaction is as could be expected: questions over the close-cropped beard and choice of armour over the classic Thor costume, skepticism over his musculature, and the usual fanboy banter. However, the casual fanbase–and I’m sure plenty of diehard Thor fans–are ecstatic with the shot. It’s unlikely these shots of Momoa will do anything to convince the Ahnold fans that he could possibly live up to the man’s standard in musculature and imposing presence, nor willit impress anyone sitting on the fence over Momoa as the character. Howard fans are already burned over the film’s script, but reaction is, as ever, split roughly down the middle on Momoa himself. One can only hope that this leak will convince the fools at Lionsgate to get to work on releasing a proper first look at “Conan.†The Marvel movies have generally been very good about this sort of thing, as are other genre films like Star Trek, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings–you’d think Lionsgate would be more careful about this, when one of the biggest factors in a film’s reception would be how Momoa looks as “Conan.†Let’s hope Lionsgate get cracking, and let Mr Malmberg et al release a picture of “Conan†that will get the average joe excited for the film–Crom knows they can’t convince the Howard fans.

This was posted on the 10th of May. Since then, we’ve had only three officially released publicity stills, all of Jason Momoa’s Conan. All three were released at the end of July, meaning that there have been no new official pictures in over two months. In comparison, photos for the Thor movie – which has had a similar production time-frame to Conan, if not slightly later – has revealed Anthony Hopkins’ Odin, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Natelie Portman’s Jane Foster, a behind-the-scenes snap of the Destroyer, and a dozen pictures of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, a good chunk of them being official publicity stills. In addition there have been dozens of interviews, movie clips (behind the scenes and film footage), viral videos and all manner of publicity material. In Thor, the public has a good handle on the film’s characters, story and themes straight from the film producers: with Conan, we know basically nothing about any of the other characters. There are still people out there who think ThulsaDoom’s in this movie, for crying out loud!

I may have acted over-zealously in my original post, but given the complete lack of concrete news, I’m starting to get frustrated. Hell, we’ve seen more of Green Lantern than we have of Conan. At this rate, we’ll be seeing the first pictures of Bilbo from The Hobbit before we see new Conan pics.

I don’t know what Lionsgate/Milennium/Nu Boyana/et al are planning, or why there’s been such a profound media lockout on the film. It isn’t as if this is The Empire Strikes Back, where there’s this massive, fundamental twist in a sequel to an unexpectedly successful film that requires massive secrecy. Stephen Lang and Rose McGowan have stated that they’re effectively contractually bound to be silent on the film, even when they have “some really cool pictures” to show everyone. So this lack of news is undoubtedly intentional on the producers’ parts. Perhaps they think that this’ll lead to a frenzy, as everyone’s frothing at the mouth for a glimpse at Zym or Marique or Tamara. However, if they’re playing that game, then they’d better have something damn special to justify such tactics.

2011 is going to be a big year for action-packed fantasy/science fiction films. In addition to Thor and Green Lantern, Conan (assuming a summer release, for example) has the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Rise of the Apes, Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and Captain America: The First Avenger to contend with. Lionsgate et al need to have one hell of an ace up their sleeve, or Conan risks being lost in the shuffle, neglected as “just another pointless remake” and forgotten in between the sequels and new adaptations.