Weekly Geekly Rundown for July 11, 2025: Red Sonja Trailer Edition
The Challenges of Sword & Sorcery Cinema: My Reaction to Red Sonja’s (2025) Trailer
Instead of a typical Geekly Oddity where I share something interesting in mathematics, science, or hobby culture, I’m using this space to talk about my reaction to the new Red Sonja trailer. I thought about doing a solo post on the trailer, but decided that two posts on the same day was enough and moved this to the Oddity section. Given that my reaction to the trailer are that it’s a bit of an Odd Duck (in good and bad ways) that fits.
Before I get deep into anything resembling a review of the video, I just want to point out that film makers have long struggled with adapting Sword & Sorcery stories into movies. The primary challenge seems to be whether to present the stories as serious with all the grim dark elements required, or whether to present them with a dash of camp. Add to that the issue of which audience you want to aim the movies at, whether to go full R or to acknowledge that 12 year-olds are reading Sword & Sorcery, in both book form and Comics Code Authority approved comics, and go PG-13, and you’ve got another challenge.
One might answer, “Sword & Sorcery tales are filled with sex and debauchery! So keep that it!,” but that’s not really true. Sure Gor novels, which are more Planetary Erotica (the erotica equivalent of Planetary Romance), have tons of sexual content. Yes, Conan tales like Queen of the Black Coast and The Frost Giant’s Daughter contain sexual elements, but the first is about one of the great loves of Conan’s life where the relationship has depth and meaning and the other is a modified version of a Siren/Lorelei tale. As lusty as Conan is in The Frost Giant’s Daughter, he’s a far cry from the “hero” of the first Deathstalker film1.
The fact is that you can have great grim dark Sword & Sorcery tales without worrying about the Sex & Sorcery question. The Tower of the Elephant, Phoenix on the Sword, and The God in the Bowl are among the best Conan stories and they are either pure adventure or, as is the case with The God in the Bowl, a barbarian detective story. The fact that The God in the Bowl adheres so closely to the detective story model might be one of the reasons it was rejected by Weird Tales.
My discussion of this topic isn’t because I think Sword & Sorcery films should be bowdlerized or any scandalous content, but to point out that there is a place in Sword & Sorcery films for romantic content to be more naturalistic in their approach rather than voyeuristic in a Russ Meyer sense. Both are valid approaches to the genre, but the films have tended to focus on the Russ Meyer approach with a dash of camp. Films like Barbarian Queen, Deathstalker, and Sorceress use nudity (or near nudity) and camp as a way to make up for their low budgets. The first Conan film contains sexuality, but it is more naturalistic and the relationship between Conan and Valeria matters more to viewers because of it. The 13 Warrior, a fantasy realism adaptation of Beowulf, is one of the best Sword & Sorcery films and takes an even more subdued approach.
Wow, that all made me sound way more stodgy than I am. I’m just trying to set up that Sword & Sorcery movies often slip into camp and/or exploitation and that this has given the genre a reputation that it doesn’t deserve. There’s a lot of great Sword & Sorcery out there, but as we’ll see there’s a lot of baggage too. That baggage is readily apparent in the new Red Sonja trailer and underpins a lot of my thoughts on the topic. Before I get into my specific reactions to the new trailer, I’d like to highlight the three films the new trailer most reminded me of when I saw it.
A Tale of Three Films
Kull (1997)
Within moments of starting the Red Sonja trailer one of my biggest fears began to surface as I heard metal riffs blaring through my speakers as the action intensified. As you know from my recent Robert E Howard themed Weekly Geekly, heavy metal and Sword & Sorcery are deeply connected fandoms, and rightly so. I am a fan of both genres and I do believe that a Sword & Sorcery film with a metal soundtrack could work very well and if the particular darker tones I heard in the Sonja trailer are any clue, then that might be the case here.
However, and it’s a big however, I cannot help but remember my first reactions upon seeing the Kull the Conqueror (1997) preview when I was an undergraduate. I heard the mainstream metal riffs and my mind’s eye could almost see Mötley Crüe playing the Joel Goldsmith composition in the trailer because it sounds a lot like “Wild Side.” The trailer makes sure to remind us that Kull both “Rocks” and “Rules.” Just writing that makes me cringe a bit, just as I cringed when Kevin Sorbo says the words “By this Axe, I Rule!” at the end of the movie. In the Kull story of the same name, a story that later was rewritten to become The Phoenix on the Sword, Kull declares that the old laws are dead and that it is his Barbarian Axe that is the new law. It’s a powerful literary moment that embodies Howard’s critique of civilization. In the Kull movie, it sounds like Kevin Sorbo is spouting the Surfer/Valley Slang statement “I Rule” and you can almost here the follow up “Locals Only!”
Joel Goldsmith’s use of metal wasn’t limited to the trailer either. Metal guitar riffs are spread throughout the films score. Take for example the song Saving Zereta, the music alternates between Classical and Metal in an unstable sonic modulation. The song opens with semi-Gregorian chanting which transitions into sweeping score, only to shift abruptly (without modulation) into metal riffs that alternate with violin, flute, and other classical instruments. It’s an odd combination that gives a sense of how dissonant the film could be because it’s as narratively and thematically diverse as this song.
Having said all of that criticism, I also really like the Goldsmith score. It’s the kind of dissonance that grows on you when you know what to expect. The same is true with the movie. Once my expectations are fully grounded in the camp experience, it becomes a fun ride with some genuinely entertaining moments. It still lacks the seriousness I want, but it does have a sense of comic book adventure to it.
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Just as the Sonja trailer reminds me musically and thematically of the Kull film’s metal elements, I can’t help but see D&D inspired aspects that remind me of Vin Diesel’s very personal project The Last Witch Hunter. Before you think I am criticizing The Last Witch Hunter (it does have a Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% after all), I am an unabashed fan of this movie. It’s not a guilty pleasure. It’s a pleasure. I think the movie is genuinely fun and the quick cut flashed “primordial tree” in the Red Sonja trailer immediately reminded me of the witch’s tree at the opening of The Last Witch Hunter, that opening is fire by the way.
Vin Diesel’s project attempted to give us good Urban Fantasy, but it has Sword & Sorcery at its core and is best when it fully embraces those. The Witch Hunter at the core of the story was based on Vin Diesel’s longest lasting D&D character, a character who has deep personal meaning to Vin Diesel.
Like the other films Red Sonja’s trailer brought to mind, there is a lot of dissonance in the tone of the film. Its it high heroic? Is it grim dark? Is it urban fantasy? Is it Fantasy Noir? Why is it borrowing from The DaVinci Cod? There’s a lot going on, but I’m there for every moment because I can feel the sincerity in every frame of Diesel’s film. I don’t know if that same sincerity will be in Red Sonja because you can’t get that from just a trailer.
Conan the Barbarian (2011)
The last of the three films that came to mind when I first saw the Red Sonja trailer was Conan the Barbarian starring Jason Momoa. When that film was released, fans were ready for a solid Sword & Sorcery film and Jason Momoa had shifted from a niche fan favorite on Stargate: Atlantis to growing star with his performance in Game of Thrones. Though Conan is, as I have mentioned before, an Ur-Celtic warrior who’s people are the fictional ancestors of the Irish or some Scots, Momoa had the right build and had charisma and sex appeal that made him a good candidate for the character. After all, Conan’s not Ur-Austrian either.
The problems with Momoa’s Conan film had little to do with him and a lot to do with the fact that the version of Conan the film delivered was Roy Thomas’s comic book Conan and not Robert E. Howard’s character. The studios should have learned from the box office drop of Conan the Destroyer (a film written by Roy Thomas) that Conan fans wanted something closer to the foundational version of the character. This was particularly the case in 2011, just a few years after Wandering Star and Del Rey published excellent anthologies containing the original tales. While Frederik Malmberg pushed for a version that was closer to the Howard stories, elements like the Mask of Acheron are pure Thomas.
As a comic book Conan film, I think Momoa’s Conan the Barbarian is a blast and hits all the right notes. It’s not the Conan film I would have most preferred, but it has some very excellent moments to it and Momoa presents Howard’s philosophy in a couple of key scenes in a way that channels the original character. It’s not perfect, but for someone who grew up watching films I love like Hawk the Slayer and Beastmaster and films I tolerate like Deathstalker and A-Tor the Fighting Eagle, this is downright Citizen Kane. Momoa is all in with his performance and while the film isn’t perfect, it is entertaining.
Red Sonja Trailer (2025)
Which finally brings me to the trailer for Red Sonja. The film is set to be released on August 15, 2025 and my feelings about it are mixed after watching this initial marketing push. I don’t mind that the trailer has a very comic book barbarian feel because Red Sonja, unlike Conan in whose comic she first appeared, is not a Robert E Howard creation. She is literally a creation of comic book writer Roy Thomas. In the following paragraphs, I’ll be giving a lot of historical background for Sonja and all of the information comes from the Pulp Hero Press book Barbarian Life volume 1. I’m not going to cite each individual fact, so think of the prior sentence as a universal citation for all the fact claims.
For the first two years of the Marvel run of the Conan the Barbarian comic book series, Roy Thomas had been looking for a female character who would be worthy of eventually spinning off into her own comic book series. The inspiration for Red Sonja as that character came to Thomas as he was preparing to write the second of the major “war scenarios” for early Marvel comics. The first of those was the classic Kree-Skrull War and the second, in Thomas’ opinion, was the War of the Tarim/Hyrkanian War in the Marvel run of Conan the Barbarian.
Thomas’ initial inspiration for the Hyrkanian War was the siege of Troy in the Iliad and Thomas thought that it would be interesting to have Conan see both sides of that battle as he fought for each army. He doesn’t mention this directly, but it reminds me of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (based on Red Harvest and the The Glass Key). While he had an initial inspiration, Thomas wanted to root the story in the Howard-verse and eventually found a story about the Siege of Vienna that read as if it was written for how he thought of the War of the Tarim. That story was The Shadow of the Vulture, a historical fiction story by Robert E Howard that featured a feisty red haired warrior woman named Red Sonya (with a Y and not a J). Thomas had been directed to the story by a fan named Allen Howard (no relation) who wrote about the story in the Amra fanzine and he was immediately taken with the tale.
After getting permission from Glenn Lord, the rights holder to Howard’s stories at the time, Thomas adapted The Shadow of the Vulture into a Conan story. That story was intended to be published in issue 22 of Conan the Barbarian, and Barry Windsor Smith illustrated a pretty cool cover for it, but the interior pages were running late so issue 22 reprinted The Coming of Conan from issue 1. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to buy that issue based on the cover, only to discover that they were buying a reprint issue.
When issue 23 came out a month later, it contained the promised tale The Shadow of the Vulture along with a cover by Gil Kane. Gil wasn’t the only non Windsor Smith artist to work on issue 23. Sal Buscema was hired to illustrate page 6, a page that was added to properly introduce The Vulture in a more dynamic manner than had been done in the Windsor Smith pages.
Red Sonja is introduced on page 15 where she rescues Conan from being rundown The Vulture and his men. It’s interesting to note that Red Sonja is wearing a full chain shirt in her initial appearance rather than her semi-iconic chain/scale mail bikini, an outfit they mock by hanging a lantern on it in the trailer. The chain shirt and shorts she wears in the first appearance isn’t full armor in any sense, but it’s more armor than Conan or most of the other characters are wearing and is almost the Barbarian Comic equivalent of full plate mail.
We eventually learn, and it’s hinted about in issue 24 The Song of Red Sonja, that Red Sonja was gifted prowess as a warrior so that she could enact revenge against those who murdered her family and that she would retain this power so long as she never kissed a man who hadn’t first defeated her in fair combat. This pronouncement was taken nearly word for word from one of Roy Thomas’ favorite literary works, William Butler Yeats’ On Baile’s Strand. This tale not only provided the title for one of my favorite books as a kid, Riders of the Sidhe, it also tells the tale of a tragic moment in Cuchulainn’s life when he unwittingly kills his own child in a kind of inverse Oedipus.
The character of Red Sonja originated in the comics, and in the mind of Roy Thomas, so I find it acceptable that the movie has a bit of a comic book feel about it. Neither do I mind that the lead lacks Lucy Lawless’ physical presence. Sonja of the comics was unable to lift her brother’s sword to defend herself and her family and her strength is magical in origin. Matilda Lutz has demonstrated that she can do action in the past and what will matter here, as it matters for everything, is her sincerity in the role. Even if the film shifts camp, which it looks a little like it might, a lead deeply vested in the character can pull a movie through that to create something really entertaining.
From the trailer, this looks like it will be somewhere on the level of Solomon Kane when it comes to tone and while that meant that Solomon Kane’s tale diverged greatly from the Howard stories. This isn’t surprising since M.J. Bassett directed Solomon Kane. Bassett’s also worked on a number of excellent action series like Reacher and The Terminal List. Roy Thomas’ comic book stories are in a more comfortable range for the typical Hollywood production and the trailer displays some of that comfort.
There are some very cool moments in the trailer and Matilda does well with the choreography. Robert Sheehan comes across as one of the weaker elements in the trailer, and the “magic rod” he activates looks cheap. Wallis Day looks pretty cool as Annisa and while I wish the Cyclopsotaur (Minoclops?) had slightly better resolution, the trailer’s version might be an early rendering.
I give the trailer about 3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars and think it suggests the film will feel more like a 2010s Sword & Sorcery film (with a dash of A Knight’s Tale if the bikini scene is any hint and that’s not a bad thing) than a 1980s one, that alone makes me optimistic.
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
has some positive things to say about the latest Superman film and also writes a bit about the commentary around Superman the movie and how people are interpreting the symbolism of the film. My own sense, having already watched the film twice, is that James Gunn presented the Superman I hoped would return to the big screen with an added dash of the DeMatteis/Giffen/Maguire era of the Justice League thrown in for good measure. While the international conflict involved DC’s Barovia, and not Bialya as in the early issues of the DGM era of Justice League, the tensions are the same and the use of Lex instead of Colonel Rumaan Harjavti made it more friendly to casual fans. 
The online discussions surrounding the film are a reflection of both a cynical fandom and modern political polarization. Liberals and conservatives are reading their politics into the film, some without even watching the film first. My sense is that James Gunn was hoping to write a film that reached out to both liberals and conservatives. I saw very moments when Gunn was attempting to appeal to each segment of our polarized nation, but online rage bait culture only rewards people who criticize rather than enjoy for enjoyment’s sake. When I watched it, I realized that we all think of ourselves as Superman, but we are often as envious as Lex Luthor or as cynical as Lois Lane.
The film was so good, in my opinion, that it made me almost weep at the end when it played my absolute least favorite Iggy Pop song and instantly transformed it into one of my favorite Iggy Pop songs. We should all strive to be as kind as Superman is in the film, he is always seeking to help others, but too many of us want to judge and cancel each other and given Gunn’s own experiences this film is about cancel culture as much as it’s about anything.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Courtney Howard really liked the new Superman movie, but she did only give it a B+. For someone like me, for whom Superman has always been their favorite hero, it is a strong A+. I’ve seen it twice. I’ll see it again. I bought the Krypto popcorn bowl, the Krypto plushie, and the Superman T-Shirt. This movie represents the Superman who is inspiring enough the lead to the creation of the Legion of Superheroes centuries later.
It’s been a while since Dr.
wrote her piece on the Banned Episode of The Teletubbies, but it’s one of her best articles yet. While I don’t think this was her intention, the article is a perfect example of how kids were coddled by censors in the 90s. When I think of my childhood, I immediately think of H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, and Watcher in the Woods. There was some psychedelic and disturbing entertainment when I was a kid. Sure, there was the Satanic Panic in my youth, but the stuff they were reacting to was at least genuinely outré.As disturbing as this Teletubbies episode is, and my wife assures me that there were moments that actually creeped her out, it pales in comparison to Gen X and Millennial kids being shown Watership Down (it’s a cartoon for kids about bunnies) and Artax’s fate in the heartwarming tale The Neverending Story. Don’t even get me started on Disney’s Fantasia or the horror show that was Time Bandits. The kids’ parents get blown up by a piece of pure evil for goodness’ sake and this was just “clean fun for kiddies” back in teh day.
Today’s recommended role playing game is discussed in detail in this week’s Independent Gaming Month post.
Independent RPG Month 2025: Week Two Recommendations
As I mentioned last week, Professor Dungeon Master recommended two years ago that July should be classified as Independent Tabletop RPG Month on his YouTube channel.
I was at a loss for what to discuss in this week’s musical recommendations when I got an email from the Duck Club in Boise asking me if I was interested in seeing a future show featuring Die Spitz. Boise’s a great arts town. Our Treefort Music Festival is a cultural keynote, but interesting bands are visiting all the time and we have some really cool all-ages venues so even younger audiences have access to some great shows.
Remember last week when I said that Gen Z art was a metacognitive fusion of a lot of influences? That is certainly the case with Die Spitz. The bio on their website reads like it was written by Corrinne Burns, Diane Lane’s character in the excellent film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.
The cult film was a commentary on bands like The Runaways. The Go Gos, and The Sex Pistols. It’s about Punk Rock, authenticity, and commercialism and Die Spitz’s bio hits all the right notes and so far, so does their music. They have a wide variety of influences ranging from College Rock and Punk to just straight metal.
For example, you can hear echoes of Pixies songs like “Debaser” and “Gouge Away” in “She Knows You Know?,” The opening number of their Audiotree set.
The Pixies influence is front and center, but so too is the influence of Nirvana. Their RUTX set opens with “Groping Dogs Gushing Blood” which channels Nirvana songs like “In Bloom” and “Heart Shaped Box.”
What was even more interesting to me about their sound was that the metal influence. Sure bands like Corrosion of Conformity and Suicidal Tendencies transitioned from Punk to Metal, as did Glen Danzig in his post-Misfits days, but this transition happened over years as the industry evolved as Punk died. Die Spitz alternates between Metal and Punk seemlessly as you can see in their latest song “Throw Yourself to the Sword.” This is a pure metal song that draws from the wellspring that is Black Sabbath by channeling one of my favorite songs from Master of Reality, “Children of the Grave.” Serendipitously, it also channels a bit of Red Sonja.
Since the beginning of the post ran long, I’ll make the film recommendation short. This week’s recommendation is The 13th Warrior. It’s my favorite Sword & Sorcery film, but it was a film that languished in the studio’s vault and was released during the dead months as little more than a write off. The studio didn’t like the film, but over time the movie has built quite the fan base…a fan base it deserves. The 13th Warrior is an adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel Eaters of the Dead, which is itself an adaptation of the epic tale of Beowulf viewed through a non-magical lens. It is a what if that answers the question, “what if Beowulf was real?” Eaters of the Dead was one of two novels where Crichton tried to address medieval subjects seriously. The other novel was Timeline and both books are very good, but only The 13th Warrior managed to translate Crichton’s argument to film with any fidelity.
The 13th Warrior contains drama, action, and humor and the only real rough spot for me are the effects during the sea journey. Those look a bit cheap. Other than that, this film is an absolute gem and much better than the Zemeckis animated film where an animated version of a naked Ray Winstone (who is also in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains) runs around shouting “I am Beowulf” in a screenplay where Neil Gaiman decided to add sexual tension between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. Gaiman’s literary adaptation of the Norse Myths is great. His screenplay for Beowulf? Not so great, but Crichton’s vision of a realistic Beowulf is a ton of fun.
Let’s just say that the protagonist of the first Deathstalker film is not a good person.
Fantastic wording, I quite liked both the trailer and this essay. This was really well written, and I quite agree with you about Kull and Red Sonja, and also the feel of Thomas' Conan and that of Howard's.
Getting a mention in the Geekly rundown is always a treat.