Featured Essays sword & sorcery The Cinematic Forging of Excalibur and Conan the Barbarian A pair of epic films with different — but connected — ideas about swords, symbolism, mysticism and magic. By Adam Ganderson | Published on October 16, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the early 1980s, two R-rated films were released that became the ultimate expressions of a new wave of sword-and-sorcery cinema. Excalibur (1981) and Conan The Barbarian (1982) had grizzled bikers and D&D dice rollers lining up together around the block at theaters, taught fantasy-loving teenagers how to recite Old Irish spells, and introduced raw vulture as a hot new menu item. Like two serpents facing each other on the shield of a snake cult, these are different stories which are connected in hidden ways. One film was launched on a wave of resurgent interest in Texan weirdo Robert E. Howard, starting with stories reprinted as Ace paperbacks adorned by the art of Frank Frazetta and then followed by a successful run of 1970s comics. The other was based on Thomas Malory’s 15th-century adaptation of Arthurian legend, Le Morte D’Arthur. Both had notoriously difficult film shoots that culminated in singular visions filled with crushed enemies, giant snakes, flying arrows, leather, armor, caves, mud, blood, naked bodies, and philosophical enigmas regarding the magical properties of swords. Allegedly, six swords were crafted to represent Excalibur by armorer Terry English. English also made the silver headpiece worn by Nicol Williamson as Merlin which might have saved the actor’s life when he was struck by a flying piece of rock while shooting a castle siege. The two most famous swords in Conan—the Atlantean Sword and the Master Sword forged by Conan’s dad—were built by blacksmith Jody Samson. According to genre historian Paul M. Sammon, dozens of others were created for battle scenes: carbon fiber prop swords, swords with retractable blades, and weapons with CO2 cartridges in the handle that would spray blood.  But beyond the sword as a weapon of war, in these films it is a signifier of connection and severance between past and present, pagan and civilized, nature and human, life and death. Both bringer of destruction and harbinger of rebirth. Its forging could even be seen as analogous to filmmaking: an assemblage of various elements shaped to create a moment in time before the director says “cut.” Or perhaps we might imagine a reel of film forged in the fire of a projector and quenched on a movie screen, revealing images of severed serpent heads and magic blades plunged into stone… much of the material shaped in the minds of two dudes named John.  British director John Boorman had for years been circling both The Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legend, while in the meantime covering everything from classic L.A. noir, backwoods adventure, and bizarro sci-fi. John Milius, aka “Viking Man,” aka “The Zen Anarchist,” was a fanatic of all things related to weapons, war, and surfing, and had directed a couple good films but was primarily known as a screenwriter, particularly for co-writing Apocalypse Now. When he was called in to direct Conan, he brought influences ranging from Akira Kurosawa to John Ford to bear on Howard’s source material, and assembled a cast that included ex-NFL players, professional surfers, and Broadway dancers…plus Arnold Schwarzenegger. During a special features interview from the 2024 Arrow Video edition of Conan, Milius says, “I’ve always had a great interest in pagan cultures and pagan times and it allowed me to do a pagan movie.” “Pagan,” here, has a number of different possible interpretations. Boorman, for his part, described Excalibur as an allegory for the past, present, and future of humanity occurring in three parts. The first as “man emerging from the swamp,” the second as the building of Camelot and emergence of civilization, and the third as the downfall of civilization and “the Wasteland.” On his DVD commentary for the film, Boorman states: “Merlin represents the magic of the past. The way in which human beings connected to nature. With the coming of civilization there was a loss of that magical connection to the old gods of the past.” These old gods are still present when the movie opens in England during the Dark Ages (though shot entirely in Ireland.) It is the woods. It is dark, except for scattered torch flame. It almost seems probable that it was always night during the Dark Ages. Even the knights have black armor. They blend with the night. They are Night Knights. Merlin retrieves Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake and gives the sword to Gabriel Byrne as Uther Pendragon. Merlin announces: “Behold! This is the Sword of Power, Excalibur. Forged when the world was young and bird and beast and flower were one with man and death was but a dream.” The question of why anyone would forge a sword during an age when “death was but a dream” is just one of several riddles posed by these two films. There is also, of course, the Riddle of Steel. This is introduced in Northern Cimmeria, thousands of years in the distant past: the Hyborian Age. In an opening montage directed by production designer Ron Cobb, a warrior forges a sword inscribed with mysterious lettering and animal insignia. On a mountaintop, the man—Conan’s father, played by William Smith—gives his young son the famous “this you can trust” speech: a tale of mortal men finding steel left behind by gods. More importantly, steel possesses a riddle that Conan must learn: “Not men, not women, not beasts” are to be trusted over a sword. Especially not beasts, since his dad gets eaten by dogs in the very next sequence when Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) and his Snake Cult wipe out Conan’s village and family and then steal the Master Sword. Most readers will know that the rest of the movie revolves around the central theme of revenge and retrieval of the lost sword. Through training, thieving, drinking, and various tribulations, Conan himself is forged like a piece of steel, each experience honing Conan’s psyche after his village is burned down and his will is gradually turned to iron. Some of this is explained during one of the most hilarious DVD commentaries ever recorded. It is worth seeking out Milius and Schwarzenegger’s description of the film where they unintentionally come off as the Hollywood director-meets-Austrian bodybuilder version of Beavis and Butthead.  Regardless, Conan eventually does learn to trust men and women, in particular Gerry Lopez as Subotai and Sandahl Bergman as Valeria. Both of these characters end up saving Conan’s life at various times. Lopez’s physicality works great in action scenes, though his dialogue was unfortunately over-dubbed. Bergman shines (at times like a literal Valkyrie) as Valeria. The intense training she and Arnold underwent with master swordsman Kiyoshi Yamazaki is obvious, and at times during filming the commitment to realism became dangerous—Sandahl almost lost a finger during a fight scene with an extra. Additionally, her skills as a professional dancer were extremely useful during scenes involving scaling walls, jumping off of towers, and chopping people’s heads off. Excalibur’s warriors are more metal than leather. The neon-colored battle scenes are realistically bloody and awkward, given all the heavy armor. Nigel Terry, as Arthur, goes through less rigorous training than Conan and, by contrast, it is his naive trust in other people which becomes part of his undoing. His path is mystical, his very conception tied to magic. Merlin uses the Charm of Making to call forth the Dragon’s Breath and give Uther the ability to disguise himself as the Duke of Cornwall, impersonating the duke in order to impregnate Igraine, the duke’s wife. Arthur is conceived out of this rape by deception, leading Merlin to declare “the future has taken root in the present.” When Uther is ambushed and killed, his final act is thrusting the sword into the stone. This action sets up the solution to the riddle of Excalibur’s forging by revealing it as an avatar for the concept of time; forged in the past, but a seed for the future. It is literally planted inside a rock, waiting dormant until Arthur, having come of age, can retrieve it and bring about the second phase of humanity.  Arthur’s retrieval of Excalibur leads to a period (in the film, about thirty minutes) of unification between humans, nature, magic, and civilization. But civilization, like steel, exacts a cost. The cost is committing to chivalrous rules which, when too strict, begin to snuff out the connection between humans and pagan magic. Neither Arthur or Conan have ambitions to be king. Their ascensions only happen because of the swords. When Conan tumbles into an underground cave to find the skeleton of an Atlantean king, he claims the weapon because his family sword was lost. Like Excalibur, the Atlantean Sword is tied to a time of pre-history. Atlanteans are meant to be ancestors of Cimmerians, and so the cave itself represents a connection to a mystical past within the barbarian’s own mind and serves as portent of Conan’s destiny in becoming king. The first words Arnold speaks on screen are when a warlord boss asks: “Conan, what is best in life?” Conan replies: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” This mirrors a similar exchange at Camelot when Arthur, the trappings of civilization closing in around him, asks his court: “Which is the greatest quality of knighthood? Courage? Loyalty? Passion? Humility?” Merlin answers, “They blend, like metals used to make a great sword.” Arthur, not grasping the significance, says, “No more riddles.” And so the wizard simply goes with “Truth. When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.”  Camelot is presented as a glowing kingdom, but its beauty is deceptive, a type of lie. Milius’ Hyborian Age version of civilization is seedy and corrupt. “How does the wind get in here?” Conan asks Subotai as they enter a city, where they proceed to get stoned on Stygian Black Lotus (sold by Ron Cobb in a cameo). This is an age of people existing “in the swamp,” as Boorman put it. Conan would not like Camelot much. More savage than chivalrous, he is suspicious of magic. Milius and Schwarzenegger capture the barbarian spirit as envisioned by Howard in the 1930s, partially based in Howard’s conception of the noble savage: brooding, often silent, but a patient hunter. And the hunt is of primary concern. After stealing the Serpent’s Eye jewel from the snake cult compound, Valeria suggests that maybe she and Conan should chill out and enjoy their riches, to no avail—it’s not that he doesn’t like Valeria. But revenge is more important. Conan’s penultimate sword battle takes place at The Mounds. Fittingly, this is the home of The Wizard of The Mounds, played by Mako—himself a version of the Merlin trickster, though with much less screen time. The Mounds are a Hyborian Age version of Stonehenge which are mirrored in Excalibur by Merlin’s rainbow-lit crystal cave fortress, which is itself located under a type of Stonehenge structure. Here, Merlin attempts to trap the sorceress Morgana (who is also Arthur’s half-sister, played in the film by Helen Mirren). But at that very moment Arthur discovers Sir Lancelot and his wife Guenevere cheating on him in the woods, and relinquishes Excalibur, stabbing it into the ground between them. The sword, being magical, pierces the spine of the dragon and goes through Merlin. This allows Morgana to reverse the Charm of Making, trap the wizard in a giant crystal, and thereby severing Arthur’s connection to the land. In a parallel dimension, it is when Conan abandons his sword and tries to infiltrate the snake cult as an acolyte that he is captured. Thulsa Doom demonstrates to him the answer to the riddle: that flesh is stronger than steel, then suggests he consider this while being crucified on the Tree of Woe. This is the part where Conan, his arms nailed to the desiccated tree, kills a vulture with his teeth and, facing death, is forced to reckon with the idea that Thulsa actually got the riddle right. Whoa indeed.  When Fritz Leiber coined the term “sword and sorcery,” he was referencing “Howardian fantasy-adventure.” But he was also citing a type of duality. Two elements, sometimes in tandem, sometimes in opposition: Steel versus magic versus dream versus reality. Conan’s sorcerous elements are secondary to the central idea of steel as the ultimate truth. Boorman’s film is saturated by magic: from the green gel-filtered lighting to mirror-shine armor to billowing black fog, it is a primeval rock ‘n’ roll carnival, a place where truth is elastic. Fritz Leiber’s famous characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, are themselves representative of both sword and sorcery. Fafhrd is clearly modeled on Conan, where Mouser, though not related to any specific Arthurian character, represents the more magical half of the duo. He is an adept of sorcery, a Merlin in the making. Though Mouser, of course, is also quite skilled with a sword.  Some of this duality is born out in the way these films were made. Excalibur’s dream logic visuals, largely achieved through camerawork, are vastly different from Conan’s practical monster effects. There’s a 35-foot mechanical snake which Arnold decapitates, James Earl Jones at one point actually turns into a snake. A wolf witch turns into a ball of fire. Flying death demons howl through a scene reminiscent of Kwaidan. Apparently, this is only a fraction of the fantastical elements that were in the script’s first draft, written by Oliver Stone. But the subsequent rewrite by Milius, more suited to the main character’s distrust of the supernatural, made things “more action oriented, less magical,” according to Ron Cobb.  Arthur’s fit of jealousy, his relinquishing of Excalibur, is just one of many times the sword is broken or lost throughout the story. It is plunged into the rock then broken in an early duel with Lancelot then returned, like new, by the Lady of the Lake, before being lost again when Arthur discovers the betrayal by his wife and best friend. Conan too eventually ends up breaking the Master Sword (wielded by Thulsa’s henchman Rexor) with a blow from the Sword of Atlantis: an act of victory and a clean break with his past, the final step as the unformed molten ore of his mental and physical strength solidify into iron.   These episodes of destruction and rebirth ultimately reveal the swords as representative of the duality between masculine and feminine. Conan’s entire quest is wrapped up in revenge and retrieval of a weapon that was forged by his father then stolen. On the way to solving the riddle of steel, he uses another sword that belonged to an ancient royal male ancestor. When Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, he also recovers a sword once wielded by his father. But Excalibur never really belonged to Uther. He did not forge it—it was on loan from the Lady of The Lake through a deal negotiated by Merlin. In the end, it is again returned to the magical waters. Each time it is lost, Excalibur is returned from water by a woman, re-forged then quenched ad infinitum. The sword breaking the surface in the hand of The Lady of the Lake is analogous to birth, a woman’s water breaking at the start of labor. Towards the finale, Perceval recovers the Holy Grail—more a pagan than Christian symbol in this instance, though that’s another story. But the grail awakens Arthur to his connection with the land and this sets the stage for a final battle. He reconciles with Guenevere and discovers that she has kept Excalibur through the dark years of “The Wasteland.” She has joined a convent and is celibate, but in this instance acts as mother to the sword, which here becomes the reconciler, restoring humanity’s connection with Earth.  All of this is captured by Nicol Williamson’s portrayal of Merlin. He is cynical, wryly fatalistic, often hilarious. Described by Boorman as “sexless,” he represents both male and female, a being whose mystical world is being replaced by the rational squareness of civilization. His physical form, like Excalibur, is eventually imprisoned inside a rock, but his magic persists (like the swords of both films) as “a dream to some; a nightmare to others.” Did Merlin know that a time when “spirits of wood and stream grow silent” would arrive when he called forth the sword from the lake? Was this an intentional act of severance with the past? For that matter, how did Conan, in his final scene, come to wear a crown “upon a troubled brow,” hemmed in by the civilization he so detests? It is the legacy of both movies to leave us with riddles not easily answered and plenty to contemplate—maybe late at night under the influence of Black Lotus, pondering life under the tree of woah…[end-mark] The post The Cinematic Forging of <i>Excalibur</i> and <i>Conan the Barbarian</i> appeared first on Reactor.