To grow up in the ‘80s is to learn about life from Arnold Schwarzenegger in a loincloth as he punches out a camel. Am I right? Well, I know at least one youngster back then who got a taste of maturity from watching John Milius’s great 1982 adventure yarn. Before anything, there’s the music. Basil Poledouris, the composer, knocks it out the ballpark with thunderous music that made my heart leap—afterwards, Wagner and all the other guys had a lot of catching up to do in order to impress me. Then, there’s the killing of the people in the village where young Conan lives, and the main villain removing his helmet to reveal James Earl Jones himself, slaughtering the hero’s mom in a moment that was much more traumatic to me than the death of Bambi’s mother. Then, of course, the adult Conan played by Arnie in the role he was born to do. Silent and tough, he was a role model of masculinity and honor. (Never mind his own evil reign as the California governor, that’s another movie.) The journey to rescue the king’s daughter provided the structure for a bunch of exciting, stirring vignettes and characters, including Sandahl Bergman as the Amazonian babe, Gerry Lopez as the sidekick, and Mako as the cranky old wizard. The bit with Earl Jones turning into a snake freaked me out, and the climax atop the mountain suggested disturbing things beyond my youthful comprehension. Would the same movie that so moved me as a kid strike me nowadays as downright fascist? Or would I still melt when Lopez wipes his tears as says, “He is Conan. He won’t cry, so I cry for him”? (Oh, and Conan the Destroyer is also pretty cool.)