A thread over on the Robert E. Howard Conan Comics Yahoo Group echos my own thoughts while watching The Chronicles of Riddick: The anti-hero Riddick has a lot in common with Howard's Cimmerian.
Both Conan and Riddick are outsiders, barbarians living on the fringe of civilization, doing whatever it takes to survive. Each has his own strange (to civilized minds) code of honor, belongs to a mysterious and distant race, and is exceptionally good at killing men in hand-to-hand combat. After reading the collected short stories in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, I think Conan is the more honorable (and likeable) of the two, but that only makes sense given that Howard had the opportunity to take his hero from barbarian to rogue to king. Thus far, we've only seen Riddick as a brutal killer and reluctant liberator.
This idea tickled the back of my mind while I was watching Chronicles but the sense of familiarity erupted full at the very end of the movie when (DANGER: SPOILER) Riddick takes the throne of the Necromongers, lounging on in as the conquered warriors all begin bowing before him.
Howard would have approved.
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*arriving at the part fashionably late*
That scene seems to have struck the same Conan chord in every single gamer I know.
Cool.
I think it's the pose ... he's just lounging there, master of all he surveys, and taking the adoration of the Necromongers as his rightful due. And that cocky, unsmiling, knowing stare as he contemplates his new domain ... and perhaps his future.
That one shot made the movie for me.
As for arriving late ... the party's just starting, seeing as how Atomic Age never had comment support before. So far I'm liking it; it adds a sense of community missing from Nuketown (and yet, adding comments to Nuketown is a daunting task since I'd need to develop it myself, and I don't know if I'm up to defeating the determined efforts of the spammer legions.)
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