Apocalypse Now & Conan the Barbarian
 

Apocaylpse Now, Conan the Barbarian.

The former credits John Milius as screenwriter. I think it's been established that the ending was not scripted. He directed but not did write the latter.

No spoilers. Am I crazy . . . or do these movies have really similar endings?

Yeah you're crazy.

And he did do a re-write of Oliver Stone's orig. script on Conan.

Three things that stand out . . .



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1. The stone steps.


2. The people (villagers) seemingly in reverence to the protagonist standing above them.


3. The protagonist has just slayed the antagonist.


More intanigbly, I feel a tonal similarity in the endings. They both seem rather slow to me. I understand that there are only so many stories. In other words, where a single protagonist is chasing an antagonist, there's a good chance he'll eventually kill him. Still, I think these are specifically tied. Anyone else see it?

I realize that this is a bit of a thread resurrection (but hey, I love Reanimator!) Anyway, I have long asserted that there was a common theme running through the ends of both movies. The clue as to its origins lies in one of the books we see on Kurz's desk: James Fraser's The Golden Bough, one of the foundations of comparative anthropology. In it Sir James discusses the stories whereby an old, sick king reigning over a blighted land welcoming the younger rival whose arrivals brings him what he both fears and desires, namely death, thereby bringing about peace and rebirth of the land.
Regarding Conan, I remember catching a cheesy Italian sword and sandle epic from the late 50s-early 60s on a UHF station one night in the 80s, Hercules something or other. It was produced by Dino de Laurentis, and dealt with Hercules' vengeance against a snake cult that was responsible for the deaths of his parents. The plot was quite similar to that of Milius' film. I don't suppose anyone remembers this? I even wrote it down in one of my notebooks, which was lost while I was in the Army.