NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective discs.

ADDITION: Arrow 4K UHD (January 2024): Arrow are releasing John Milius' "Conan the Barbarian" to 4K UHD. This offers 4K UHD presentations in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of three versions of the film via seamless branching: the 'Theatrical Cut', the 'International Cut' and the 'Extended Cut' with newly restored original mono audio and remixed Dolby Atmos surround audio on all three cuts. They are cited as "Brand new 4K restorations from the original negative by Arrow Films". We reviewed the Universal Blu-ray of Conan The Barbarian back in 2011, HERE. We have compared many captures below. The new 2160P image certainly benefits the film presentation with all colors, and black levels, gaining richness and depth. Flesh tones warm and there may be a yellow, golf or even red leaning. It makes the Blu-ray look pale by comparison. We lose slivers of information on all four frames but the 1080P looks oddly vertically stretched beside the pristine 4K UHD. Overall "Conan the Barbarian" always had inherent softness with the 80's stock but this upgrade is a significant one. I found this highly impressive.  

It is likely that the monitor you are seeing this review is not an HDR-compatible display (High Dynamic Range) or Dolby Vision, where each pixel can be assigned with a wider and notably granular range of color and light. Our capture software if simulating the HDR (in a uniform manner) for standard monitors. This should make it easier for us to review more 4K UHD titles in the future and give you a decent idea of its attributes on your system. So our captures may not support the exact same colors (coolness of skin tones, brighter or darker hues etc.) as the 4K system at your home. But the framing, detail, grain texture support etc. are, generally, not effected by this simulation representation.

NOTE: For Atmos - many non-compliant systems will recognizes it as TrueHD 7.1, but from Wikipedia: "Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not a real-time mix rendered the same way as in cinemas. The substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus. This substream only represents a losslessly encoded fully object-based mix. This substream does not include all 128 objects separated. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital channel. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channel, but it is not an object-based real-time rendering. Filmmakers need to remix and render the TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks with Dolby Media Producer."

The 4K UHD disc has the two audio commentary tracks - both only available on the "Extended cut" version. Repeated is the archival feature commentary by director John Milius and star Arnold Schwarzenegger found on the 2007 "Collector’s Edition" DVD and 2011 Blu-ray. We described it back in the day as "Comfortable. Even the crude humor seems applicable in the atmosphere of two guys joking and talking like fans having a beer or two. From that standpoint it may not be as informative with details pushed to the back-burner." There is a second, new commentary by genre historian Paul M. Sammon, author of Conan: The Phenomenon lavishly illustrated by Frank Frazetta etc.. As a very strong Robert E. Howard pulp fan I was especially keen on this commentary. Paul examines the stages of the character's development, Conan's legacy, a lot on Howard - his young suicide (only 30) and so much more. I consider this commentary essential. The 4K UHD disc also offers Poledouris' impressive score in an isolated, lossless (24-bit) track.   

The included second disc Blu-ray has all of the remaining video extras which repeat Laurent Bouzereau's significant 54-minute Conan Unchained: The Making of Conan which fills in many gaps about the history of the literary character, the transition to the screen and much more. It has interviews with producer Ed Pressman, Oliver Stone, Dino De Laurentis, James Earl Jones, Max Von Sydow, plus Arnie and Milius from 2000. Also included are three deleted scenes (including one cameo by Milius) lasting just over 5-minutes, and "The Conan Archives" slide-show, Art of Steel: Sword Makers and Masters (with sword master Kiyoshi Yamasaki) running 15-minutes and Conan: From the Vault - just over 10-minutes. There is plenty more. Designing Conan runs a quarter hour, a newly filmed interview with production artist William Stout (First Blood.) Costuming Conan is a newly filmed 13-minute interview with costume designer John Bloomfield. Barbaric Effects, a newly filmed 10-minute interview with special effects crew members Colin Arthur and Ron Hone. Young Conan, spends 7-minutes with actor Jorge Sanz (Belle Epoque) on how the role that continues to resurface in his life. Conan & The Priest, is a short interview with actor Jack Taylor (Pieces.) Cutting the Barbarian, is a new 8.5-minute interview with assistant editor Peck Prior (Career Opportunities.) Crafting Conan's Magic is a new interview with visual effects crew members Peter Kuran and Katherine Kean. Barbarians and Northmen is a newly filmed interview with filmmaker Robert Eggers on the film's influence on The Northman. Behind the Barbarian, a newly filmed 20-minute interview with John Walsh, author of Conan the Barbarian: The Official History of the Film. A Line in the Sand, is another new interview (17-minutes) this time with Alfio Leotta, author of The Cinema of John Milius. Conan: The Rise of a Fantasy Legend is an 18-minuite archival featurette on the film's literary and comic book roots. Included is a Tribute to Basil Poledouris with a series of videos produced by the Úbeda Film Music Festival, including video of Poledouris conducting a concert of music from the film in 2006 (remixed in 5.1 surround) and interviews with collaborators such as Paul Verhoeven and Randal Kleiser. It runs shy of 50-minutes. There is also a rarely-seen electronic press kit from 1982, featuring over half an hour of on-set footage and cast and crew interviews (from a watermarked tape source) - a split-screen "Valeria Battles Spirits" shows a brief visual effects comparison of some of the magic mist with Sandahl Bergman. Conan: The Archives is a gallery of photos and production images from 2000. Conan the Barbarian: The Musical is an affectionate 3-minute comic tribute to the film by Jon & Al Kaplan. There are US and International teaser and theatrical trailers and the 4K UHD package has a double-sided fold-out poster, six double-sided collectors' postcards and an illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Walter Chaw and John Walsh, and an archive set report by Paul M. Sammon. Whew.