All of Red Sonja's appearances on screen so far.

After more than a decade in development hell it looks like the ball is finally rolling on a Red Sonja film. What if you can't wait though, you want to see Red Sonja in action right now? Well you have some options because she's been on screen before.

The mark for how successful a character becomes is not how their comic book does, but if they get turned into a film. Red Sonja achieved this in 1985, decades before other comic book characters would make it to the big screen. Unfortunately the movie stood as evidence to producers that audiences didn’t want to see action movies helmed by women. Roger Ebert said “It was so inept there were times it was actually fun, especially when the actors struggle through dialog that sounds like they’ve already read the Mad magazine parody of this film.” With Gene Siskel’s biggest takeaway from the movie being that there was a statue that appeared to him as Buddha taking a shit. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that it was the worst movie he ever made and that he threatened to make his kids watch it if they misbehaved.

So is the film really that bad? No, it’s a cult classic and you should definitely watch it if you’re a Red Sonja fan. There are wonderful moments of world building such as the bridge of bones and some engaging action scenes. It’s just that there seem to be so many points in this film where they could have gone a direction that made sense, and instead they went running the other way.

The biggest sticking point being that Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared as “Lord Kalidor.” Red Sonja comes from the Conan comic books, you have the actor that played Conan in two previous films, yet you don’t make him Conan? It’s just confusing. According to imdb the film didn’t have the rights to Conan, but that’s no excuse. Either they should have got the rights or not used Schwarzenegger at all. Arnold’s appearance in the film is odd. He’s supposed to be a Lord but has no followers and the clothes on his back appear to be his only possessions. He keeps leaving and then reappearing. This is because he was originally just supposed to have a cameo but producer Dino De Laurentiis was able to keep him on set for four weeks instead of the planned one. Additionally they were sneaky about shooting footage of Arnold--sometimes shooting the same action scene from multiple angles to get more. All this led to Arnold--not star Bridget Nielsen--being given top billing.

Then there is the rating. The movie Conan the Barbarian was a hard R film full of bloodshed and boobs. Red Sonja would be rated PG-13. Why, so kids could go see this rape and revenge story? They had already made the Conan sequel, Conan the Destroyer, which was rated PG, and much less loved. The producers should have learned their lesson and made Red Sonja rated R. (The PG-13 rating was invented between the release of Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja).

The film opens with a goddess of vengeance visiting Red Sonja (Nielsen) to ask “Remember that time the evil lesbian Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) had your parents and brothers murdered, your body ravaged and your house burned down? (at this point the house is still on fire) Well I’m going to give you the strength to get revenge.” And it shows flashbacks of these things happening as the goddess is speaking. It’s a very awkward introduction. Why not just present these events as they happened or slowly reveal that they happened over the course of the film? No, instead the film starts with a flashback to ten minutes ago. Also worth noting is that the goddess never actually says that Sonja must not lay with a man unless he has defeated her in battle, yet Sonja later claims that was a condition placed upon her.

Then the film goes to a temple where priestess can no longer wait for “The Lord of Eternia” (Eternia being the name of a fictional planet where He-Man lives rather than a place in the Hyborian age. Another mysterious choice by the filmmakers.) to show up to destroy a green orb known as “The Talisman” which has become too powerful to control. However, evil lesbian Queen Gedren does show up, kills the priestesses, and claims the Talisman. We find out the Talisman can only be handled by women, it vaporizes any men who touch it. Thus it is set up that Sonja, and not say, Lord Kalidor, must destroy the Talisman. This is a needless sexualization of the problem that sometimes happens to women in fantasy, think Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. It’s hard to imagine a situation where it is set up that must be Conan, and not some woman, to solve a problem.

The Talisman grows more powerful when it is in the light, so evil lesbian Queen Gedren immediately sets off for Birkabeyn, the land of eternal night (Wikipedia says "Berkubane." The comic adaptation of the film says “Birkabeyn.” I think “Birkabeyn” sounds more like what they say in the film.). Now keep in mind that the Talisman and Birkabeyn aren’t in the comics, they were just made up for the film. It’s like the creators were going out of their way for things to not make sense.

One wounded priestess, Varna (Janet Agren) escapes. Lord Kalidor finds her and she asks him to find her sister, no surprise, Red Sonja. Kalidor finds Sonja at a school for swordsmanship and brings her to Varna. With her dying breath Varna asks Sonja to destroy the Talisman before it destroys the world. This raises the question of why the introduction was needed at all. Why need the goddess to give you sword skills when Sonja still has to go to a swordsmanship school? Why do you need the personal stake of getting revenge for the murder and rape when Sonja wouldn’t be spurred into action until yet another family member was murdered? Do you really need the personal stake at all when the entire world is in danger? By the way, all of this insanity happens less than 17 minutes into the film.

Sonja sets off on her quest. In Conan the Barbarian, Conan teams up with an archer, a thief and a wizard--an awesome team you’d want to be a part of. Sonja gets teamed up with delusional boy prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes Jr.) and his bumbling servant Falkon (Paul L. Smith). Why put a purposefully annoying kid in a sword and sorcery movie? Is he supposed to be a relatable character for the children watching what is, again, a rape and revenge story?

Anyway Sonja and her companions eventually make it to Birkabeyn. There’s some ill advised scenes of fighting a robot snake, seriously, and evil lesbian Queen Gedren jump cutting around the place during her showdown with Sonja. The day is probably saved.

My final criticism is about Sonja’s appearance. She wears a leather bustier and a fringe skirt, which is not ideal, but I understand that producers thought the iron bikini wouldn’t work on screen. But the hair is unacceptable. In the comics Red Sonja is described as “One whose locks glow like sentient flame.” In the movie she has a rusty mullet. What the hell?

The 1985 movie was not Sonja’s only appearance on screen. In 1998 she also appeared on an episode of the short lived series Conan. It’s fun to watch this awkward show that badly wanted to be the next Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, for some reason.

Bridget Nielsen was at a bit of a disadvantage in her film—few people are going to look very strong when standing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. However, Nielsen has a bit of meat on her shoulders and she is tall (freaking 6’1”). In her TV appearance Red Sonja is portrayed in a leather bikini, which is more than what Conan wears, by Baywatch babe and Playboy model Angelica Bridges. You may have guessed that the producers went completely for hotness over toughness.

The story is that Sonja is on a mission to rescue a kidnapped wizard and Conan and friends decide that it would be fun to tag along. At one point they are attacked by people that just happened to be passing by. Sonja’s backstory here is that her parents were killed and she was raised by an old warrior as his son--which is a better origin than what she usually gets. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the episode has nothing to do with Sonja: Danny Woodburn, who is a dwarf best known for his recurring role in Seinfeld, has an on-screen relationship with the relatively tall Amy Buchwald that’s played for laughs, but in real life they would get married.

In 2015 Sonja appeared in the direct to DVD market in Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues. This is a “motion comic” of Gail Simone’s Red Sonja, but there’s actually little motion. It’s static images with maybe a stiff arm swinging as if it’s on a hinge and maybe some heat haze. Yet it’s easily the best showing of Sonja on screen. The dialog is so much fun to hear. “Hold your sword in front of you, useless woman. Perhaps a solider will trip and impale themselves.” Red Sonja is often surrounded by dudes but the titular plague has wiped out armies so the cast is heavily female, which is a refreshing change. It kind of feels like a table read of a great comic.

If you’re really cankering for more you could watch Sonja & the Wizard 1978 on YouTube. It’s just Wendy Pini and Frank Thorne cosplaying, having a conversation in character, and then Wendy fights a projection of a monster. It probably would have been cool to see live but it doesn’t really hold up on video.

And if you're looking for more Red Sonja content, you could click here, here, or here.