Believe it or not, I had never seen this movie before yesterday. I can't say I was missing much, since I grew up watching He-Man. The story is simple. Young Conan's father tells him about the mystery of steel. Now, i may have lived a sheltered life, but I never knew steel to be very mysterious. I mean, you heat it, form it, and let it cool. Big deal. The biggest mystery about steel, if you ask me, is why strings made of steel aren't as durable as the ones made of nylon. Sadly, they don't address this in the movie. Anyway, young Conan's village is attacked by the voice of Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones. Vader lops off Conan's mother's head, and his men take Conan prisoner. He spends the next several years pushing a big wheel in a circle until he becomed the Ahnold we all know. Then he learns to fight and, well, if you've seen Gladiator, this part of the movie is just a condensed version of that. So, he escapes and runs into the guy that Man-At-Arms is based on. They become buddies and meet the inspiration for Teela. So, now that he has a buddy and a love interest, he begins his quest for good old fashioned revenge. Ah, those were the days, back when men were men, women were mannish, and revenge was a noble cause...
SO, Conan, Teela, and Man-At do some stuff and they get captured by some king (Randor) who sends them on a quest to rescue his daughter from Lord Vader. Along the way, Conan meets the Narrator who brings him back to life after he gets crucified. Yup. We're supposed to equate Conan with Jesus. Riiiight. Then there's this scene where a bunch of cartoon ghosts try to make off with Arnold's body, but Teela won't let them. The Terminator comes back to life and Teela declares her love for him. She also gives him some obvious foreshadowing. Conan and his entourage get into the palace where there's a bunch of writhing naked women and some guy with a big kettle of people stew. It's green. My guess is that it's supposed to be a subtle reference to Soylent Green. This is the part that I'm guessing the majority of they male audience was waiting for. Lots of blood and naked chicks. Right. So, the bloodbath ensues and Darth Vader escapes by turning into a snake. Conan gets the princess and they escape, bud not before King Mufasa can do his damage. He turns back into a human, picks up a much smaller snake, straightens it out, and shoots it as an arrow, killing Teela.
Conan is a little upset, but he gets over it when he burns her body. The bad guys attack, but they all die. But Vader still has to be killed. Revenge is a serious thing. So, Conan goes back into the palace and cuts off his head. Then the Narrator says that Conan later became a king, but that's a different story.
It's pretty obvious that Conan was the inspiration for He-Man. Other than that, the movie wasn't very good.