Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 1: We're airing the second part of our Highlander two episodes.
Speaker 1: This episode originally published five three, twenty twenty four. If
Speaker 1: you didn't hear the first one, just go back a
Speaker 1: few We reran part one on Monday, and today on Friday,
Speaker 1: we're rerunning part two to complete our perhaps an overlong
Speaker 1: discussion of this super weird movie. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: actually over long. I think there's so much to talk
Speaker 1: about here. It's a marvelously, marvelously weird and fun flick.
Speaker 1: So let's dive right in for the second half.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCory. And
Speaker 3: we are back today with part two of our discussion
Speaker 3: of the nineteen ninety one sci fi fantasy action movie
Speaker 3: Highlander two The Quickening, starring christof Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madson,
Speaker 3: and Michael Ironside. Highlander two is a movie that is
Speaker 3: infamous for its awfulness and positively anathematized by most Highlander fans.
Speaker 3: Highlander fans, a lot of them will say, don't watch
Speaker 3: this movie at all. If they if they do tell
Speaker 3: you to watch it, they'll usually say, you know, prefer
Speaker 3: one of the like recut versions, such as the Renegade
Speaker 3: cut or whatever. We'll get into those in just a moment.
Speaker 3: But Highlander two the Quickening in its original theatrical release
Speaker 3: is a film that I love, and I have loved
Speaker 3: for years. I have watched it so many times, more
Speaker 3: times than I can count, really, and I'm actually worried
Speaker 3: for the physical integrity of my legacy VHS tape. I
Speaker 3: fear that one day the tape may snap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they I've got to put it back out.
Speaker 1: They've got to make the theatrical cut, the Zeist cut,
Speaker 1: available for everyone so they can experience the true broken,
Speaker 1: weirdness and an awesomeness of this picture, because you know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of like awesome, flawed films, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is this, there is this nagging question what could have been?
Speaker 1: How could you make this better? And it's often I
Speaker 1: mean the legacy of even great films that get a
Speaker 1: lot of recuts. You know, I'm thinking about Ridley Scott
Speaker 1: getting in there and tinkering a lot with some of
Speaker 1: his pictures. You know, it's I feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are cases, yeah, where a fan seem to have
Speaker 1: a consensus about, Okay, this is the best cut, this
Speaker 1: is the best way to watch particular film, certainly, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times you just end up with this
Speaker 1: kind of ambiguity, like there is no there is no
Speaker 1: key picture. So I really admire some of those filmmakers
Speaker 1: out there who are like, no, no, there's just one
Speaker 1: cut that is the director's cut, and of course there
Speaker 1: are a lot of moving parts there. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to have a position where the director has enough
Speaker 1: say that that they feel like that is their cut.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I digress.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe we should start. But because in the last
Speaker 3: episode we did a significant segment talking about the different
Speaker 3: cuts of the film available, because that will come up
Speaker 3: again in today's episode, maybe we should do it, just
Speaker 3: a really fast rundown of what they are again. So
Speaker 3: you've got the original American theatrical release. This is the
Speaker 3: one we're watching, the one we're talking about today. This
Speaker 3: is the one that is most generally hated by Highlander fans.
Speaker 3: It's like eighty something minutes long, and it preserves the
Speaker 3: big plot innovation from the script, which is that the
Speaker 3: immortals from the original Highlander are actually aliens from the
Speaker 3: planet Zeist. So it takes something that was originally mysterious
Speaker 3: fantasy just kind of magic with an unknown source, and
Speaker 3: makes it concrete science fiction. Then there's also the British version,
Speaker 3: which preserves these main details, but it's also longer. It
Speaker 3: includes some extra character development scenes and rearranges the edit.
Speaker 3: It also has the so called fairy tale ending, which
Speaker 3: we'll talk about at the end of this episode. Then
Speaker 3: there is the home video release known as the Renegade version.
Speaker 3: This is even longer, It includes more scenes and some
Speaker 3: different takes. I believe also includes some additional footage that
Speaker 3: was shot after the production, like I think they actually
Speaker 3: got Christoph Lambert, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironside to come
Speaker 3: back to shoot like an action scene that was supposed
Speaker 3: to be a big set piece in the movie but
Speaker 3: was never completed during filming this version, the Renegade version,
Speaker 3: has a totally different edit. Most notably, it removes all
Speaker 3: references to the immortals being aliens and removes all references
Speaker 3: to the planet Zeist, and also in a rather confusing
Speaker 3: move removes all references to the Quickening, which is in
Speaker 3: the title of the movie Highland or two the Quickening.
Speaker 3: But it's large thought that the removal of the immortals
Speaker 3: being aliens and the planet Zeist and all that is
Speaker 3: due to fan backlash. Fans did not like that, you know,
Speaker 3: they were probably getting a lot of angry questions about
Speaker 3: it at the conventions. So that that's just gone.
Speaker 1: And I would love to hear from many Highlander fans
Speaker 1: out there, of varying degrees, for your take on the
Speaker 1: franchise as a whole, because I think by and large,
Speaker 1: fans of anything Highlander have at this point been presented
Speaker 1: with numerous things to find lackluster, but also, you know,
Speaker 1: some things to genuinely enjoy and find awesome. And they're
Speaker 1: eventually going to get a reboot, so potentially even more
Speaker 1: stuff to be perturbed or excited about. So yeah, right in,
Speaker 1: we'd love to have to know your thoughts on it.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 1: I'm very much you know H one, H two, and
Speaker 1: I enjoyed H three for what it is, and then
Speaker 1: I have seen many, but not all, of the episodes
Speaker 1: of the TV series, and I thought that could be
Speaker 1: quite good at times.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm the kind of person who thinks there's a
Speaker 3: lot to love and enjoy in a Highlander two, as
Speaker 3: is especially in the most hated version, the American theatrical release,
Speaker 3: which has lots of stuff that is immensely pleasurable because
Speaker 3: it's good, and probably even more stuff that's immensely pleasurable
Speaker 3: because of how bad it is. It's just a mix
Speaker 3: of the best of both worlds. Oh. But then also,
Speaker 3: I think there is actually I alluded to this in
Speaker 3: part one, but I wasn't sure. I think there is
Speaker 3: another home video release after the Renegade version. It's called
Speaker 3: like the Ultimate Version or something. I don't know much
Speaker 3: about that one, but I think possibly it includes some
Speaker 3: updated and supposedly improved visual effects. So, as we've said,
Speaker 3: in defiance of conventional wisdom, we are watching the original
Speaker 3: American theatrical release, which we will hereafter refer to as
Speaker 3: the Zeist cut, because it's where the Zeist stuff is
Speaker 3: left in. Now, another thing I wanted to address is
Speaker 3: that we don't normally split Weird House Cinema episodes into
Speaker 3: two parts, but we've done it a couple of times
Speaker 3: recently for deservingly massive and to us at least fascinating movies.
Speaker 3: First of all, we did it for David Lynch's adaptation
Speaker 3: of Done, and now we're doing it again for Highlander
Speaker 3: two the Quickening. And one thing I don't think we
Speaker 3: pointed out last time is that while these movies are
Speaker 3: in many ways quite different, they have some things in common.
Speaker 3: They are both troubled, big budget English language sci fi
Speaker 3: productions filmed in Latin American countries, and in both cases
Speaker 3: there were bitter struggles for creative control over the film's
Speaker 3: contents and the final edit. So in the case of
Speaker 3: David Lynch's Dune, this was a big budget sci fi
Speaker 3: production shot largely in Mexico, and it was well known
Speaker 3: that David Lynch was extremely unhappy with the theatrical release
Speaker 3: of the film, which was strongly influenced by the producers
Speaker 3: and the moneymen. And David Lynch has said that his
Speaker 3: experience with Dune taught him that he would rather not
Speaker 3: make a movie at all than make one without having
Speaker 3: full creative control or full control over the final cut. Well,
Speaker 3: last night I learned some interesting resonances between this story
Speaker 3: and the story of the making of Highlander two, because
Speaker 3: I watched a making of documentary called I think this
Speaker 3: was a strange choice for the title, it's called Seduced
Speaker 3: by Argentina. This is a featurette that's included on one
Speaker 3: of the home video releases of the movie. This has
Speaker 3: interviews with the director, Russell mulcahe with the producers, with
Speaker 3: Christoph Lambert, and with many of the crew, and it
Speaker 3: explores the strange, wonderful and also somewhat cursed process of
Speaker 3: making Highlander two. So the film's production was moved to
Speaker 3: the country of Argentina for a number of reasons. One
Speaker 3: of the major reasons just being financial. It was a
Speaker 3: lot deeper to make it there. And there are a
Speaker 3: lot of stories about how the production sort of turned
Speaker 3: into a big party, Like a lot of the cast
Speaker 3: and crew got to Argentina. We're spending time in Buenos Aires,
Speaker 3: and they sort of fell in love with the city
Speaker 3: and with the culture, and we're spending a lot of
Speaker 3: time like going out to nightclubs and just hanging out
Speaker 3: and partying and drinking and doing whatever. And that this
Speaker 3: created some kind of problems with like staying on task
Speaker 3: with the making of the film, but also the movie
Speaker 3: was this was a big production this is a big
Speaker 3: budget movie involving major talent in terms of set design,
Speaker 3: costume design, visual effects, and so forth. And though there
Speaker 3: was a lot of talent working on this film and
Speaker 3: they put in a great effort in any ways, and
Speaker 3: some of the sets and stuff, you can really see
Speaker 3: that this is a lavish production with you know, great
Speaker 3: intentions behind it. But a lot of these teams also
Speaker 3: ended up working with weird logistical constraints and limitations. And
Speaker 3: this included all kinds of different things like lack of
Speaker 3: certain materials they needed, lack of access to crew with
Speaker 3: certain kinds of industry know how, to the fact that
Speaker 3: I think they had. I could be wrong about this,
Speaker 3: but I think they had a very tight window in
Speaker 3: which to shoot all of Sean Connery's scenes. Like I
Speaker 3: think he was only going to be in town for
Speaker 3: like six days or something, and he is not a
Speaker 3: cameo in Highlander two. He's a major character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think they might have shot some of
Speaker 1: his scenes in Scotland, like the initial Scotland scenes.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: But still, yeah, there's a lot of stuff with him
Speaker 1: in the futuristic setting, So that's a lot ultimately to
Speaker 1: pack into six days. Especially in a big production like this.
Speaker 3: Also sounds like this was not the safest set anyone
Speaker 3: ever worked on, just like some of the footage you see,
Speaker 3: like some of the crew they you allude to this
Speaker 3: that they were kind of moving fast and cutting corners
Speaker 3: and you know, doing things that were not would not
Speaker 3: be considered, I don't know, taking optimal safety precautions that
Speaker 3: you would and in a regular production. And by the way,
Speaker 3: I love movies, and I can get really precious about
Speaker 3: preserving a filmmaker's vision at many costs, but not at
Speaker 3: any cost. Nobody needs to die or get injured making
Speaker 3: a film, you know, that's just you know, keep it
Speaker 3: safe on set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've read that. One particular detail of all this
Speaker 1: is that both Michael Ironside and Christoph Lambert apparently sustained
Speaker 1: injuries in their sword fighting sequences, which you know is
Speaker 1: always a risk if you have actors doing their own
Speaker 1: action scenes and fight choreography and so forth. But you know,
Speaker 1: looking back at like assuming for a minute, I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is correct, but assuming that they shot
Speaker 1: the final epic sword fight between General Katana and Connor
Speaker 1: McLeod in sequence. By the end of it, it looked
Speaker 1: really looks like they're not able to do much. And
Speaker 1: I've also read that like the general Katana ironically fights
Speaker 1: with a broad sword, which was apparently difficult to wield
Speaker 1: as well. So like by the end of this big
Speaker 1: epic fight scene with an amazing set, everything feels a
Speaker 1: little clunky and kind of tired, Like they just look
Speaker 1: like maybe they're out of steam, and if they're working
Speaker 1: through injuries, you can understand that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know what the source of this information
Speaker 3: is because I didn't see this mentioned in any of
Speaker 3: the interviews that I recall, but I know I've read
Speaker 3: that like that. I think it was Christoph Limbert wanted
Speaker 3: to work with real swords. He was like, I don't
Speaker 3: want this plastic crop, you know, I want to have
Speaker 3: like a real sword, And so they were doing that,
Speaker 3: but apparently Limber's eyesight is not great and he you know,
Speaker 3: couldn't wear glasses for filming the scenes, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: they were just Oh and also he did a lot
Speaker 3: of his own stunts in the movie, including us the
Speaker 3: scenes we'll talk about later with like an elevator, falling
Speaker 3: down an elevator shaft and flying around on rocket boots.
Speaker 3: And stuff, so like, in some ways it's kind of exciting,
Speaker 3: you know, stories of Bravado from the film Star. But
Speaker 3: also yeah, it sounds like it was not the safest
Speaker 3: set ever. But anyway, all working with all these limitations,
Speaker 3: things keep happening. Also, I think in the background here
Speaker 3: there is a major inflation problem in Argentina while they're
Speaker 3: shooting it, so like the money, the value of the
Speaker 3: money they're using to make the movie is like all
Speaker 3: over the place, and that's causing production problems as well.
Speaker 3: So there were just like basic logistical problems and production
Speaker 3: financing problems, and the movie was apparently taking way too
Speaker 3: long and going over budget. So in a move that
Speaker 3: absolutely always goes well more than halfway through production, creative
Speaker 3: control was taken over by an insurance company.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is not bode well.
Speaker 3: So for those of you who not familiar with the
Speaker 3: film bonding process, there's a thing in the film industry
Speaker 3: called a completion bond, which is essentially an insurance policy
Speaker 3: for the film's investors. So if a movie is not
Speaker 3: coming in on time or not staying within budget, the
Speaker 3: bonding company that has been contracted can step in, supposedly
Speaker 3: to protect the interests of the investors of the film
Speaker 3: to take over production and guarantee a completed film within
Speaker 3: a certain budget and by a certain time. And this
Speaker 3: is what happened with Highlander two. So things are not
Speaker 3: going well, they're spending too much money, it's taking too long.
Speaker 3: The insurance company steps in and says, we're in charge. Now.
Speaker 3: You can kind of imagine how cool that would be.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially if you're dealing with filmmakers they want
Speaker 1: to take big swings that they want to know, go
Speaker 1: big or you know, or go home, and you have
Speaker 1: the insurance people coming in and saying, actu, it is
Speaker 1: time to go home. It is time to wrap it up.
Speaker 3: So I think I think a lot of the deficiencies
Speaker 3: of Highlander two, a lot of the things that are
Speaker 3: very funny and bad about it can be chalked up
Speaker 3: to this thing that had the takeover of the movie
Speaker 3: by the insurance company. But not all of the funny
Speaker 3: stuff or the stuff that fans consider bad can be
Speaker 3: can be chalked up to that. For example, many fans
Speaker 3: apparently you know, the fans who thought it was weird
Speaker 3: to introduce the sci fi elements and make the immortals aliens.
Speaker 3: They would end up blaming that choice on the creative
Speaker 3: takeover by the Bonding Company, but that is not the case.
Speaker 3: The suits from the insurance company did not make up
Speaker 3: the planet Zeist that's in the script. From what I
Speaker 3: can tell, it seems like the choices made by the
Speaker 3: Bonding Company consists more of like wrapping production without filming
Speaker 3: major sceness and then trying to paper over those holes
Speaker 3: with a bizarre Frankenstein edit, and also just like lots
Speaker 3: of choices of I guess, like bad takes and terrible
Speaker 3: looking visual effects shots and just you know, late stage
Speaker 3: scriptory rights to change things up to just finish it faster.
Speaker 3: And so I think this is one reason. Like in
Speaker 3: the documentary they show some examples of how this is
Speaker 3: a movie that has some great looking visual effects shots
Speaker 3: and some great looking effects and sets in certain scenes,
Speaker 3: and those will be contrasted almost immediately, like you'll cut
Speaker 3: back and forth between stuff that looks great and stuff
Speaker 3: that looks terrible. And apparently the at least some of
Speaker 3: the crew involved in, people who were working on the
Speaker 3: visual effects for the movie, chalk this up to the
Speaker 3: Bonding Company. They say like that they came in and
Speaker 3: they commissioned the you know, completion of the film with
Speaker 3: these terrible looking visual effects and put those in, so
Speaker 3: you've got those right next to stuff that looks really good,
Speaker 3: and that would explain a lot of that weird contrast
Speaker 3: when you're watching the movie. Apparently they also cut out
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff that would have made sense of
Speaker 3: the plot holes created by making the immortals aliens. So
Speaker 3: you know, this movie it's like Swiss cheese. You could
Speaker 3: poke a million holes and be like, none of this
Speaker 3: makes sense with these plot innovations. Apparently it would make
Speaker 3: more sense if we had a full film based on
Speaker 3: the original script, because some of the differences are actually explained,
Speaker 3: some of the gaps are actually explained. But we just
Speaker 3: don't get that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you've been saying, like ultimately the filmmakers
Speaker 1: themselves run from the Zeist concept, So yeah, we just
Speaker 1: get even further and further away from some sort of
Speaker 1: like concrete vision of what this film was meant to be.
Speaker 3: But anyway, the fact that the planet Zeist stuff does
Speaker 3: not come from the bonding company that is originally there,
Speaker 3: it's just more to me that to take out the
Speaker 3: Planet Zeist is to excise the beating heart from this film,
Speaker 3: so so Highlander two. People, the people who are behind
Speaker 3: making all these cuts, you've already made like four or
Speaker 3: five of them, or however many there are. Give us
Speaker 3: the ultimate Zeist cut, you know, give us the edit
Speaker 3: that the release that looks great, has the updated picture
Speaker 3: and sound and all that, but keeps all the Zeist
Speaker 3: content and has the nice looking, the better selected visual
Speaker 3: effects shots. Give us the ultimate cut that still has
Speaker 3: Zeyist unless you've already done that and I'm simply not
Speaker 3: aware of it, in which case I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't think they have because I feel like we've
Speaker 1: wasted a lot of time looking for it. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm up into open to whatever, Like put it
Speaker 1: out as a single disc. I'll buy it. Put it
Speaker 1: out as like the third disc in a multidisc release,
Speaker 1: like Ultimate Release of Highlander two. You know, I'm fine
Speaker 1: with that. You can even have an optional commentary track
Speaker 1: where you you know, rip into it and talk about
Speaker 1: everything wrong, as long as I have like just one
Speaker 1: version of this that I can watch and you know,
Speaker 1: in inacceptable quality, and you know, you know, we've already
Speaker 1: touched on some of the problems with some of the effects.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just give me a solid z ice cut.
Speaker 1: That's all I say.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, Now, we just started talking about the plot.
Speaker 3: In the previous episode, we talked about the prologue with
Speaker 3: the Shield. Do you want to jump back into the
Speaker 3: plot or do you have anything to address first?
Speaker 1: No, I think we just jumped right back into it.
Speaker 1: We established the zeis well or did we What did
Speaker 1: we establish? We established just the building of the shield, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we'll do a real fast recap
Speaker 3: of that. So the opening of the film is in
Speaker 3: the year nineteen ninety nine, when the human race is
Speaker 3: in dire peril due to the depletion of the ozone
Speaker 3: layer and the resulting exposure of the Earth's surface to
Speaker 3: deadly radiation from the sun or McLoud. The main character
Speaker 3: of Highlander one, the victorious age old warrior who won
Speaker 3: the game of Immortal Combat and achieved human mortality and
Speaker 3: the ability to have children at the end of the
Speaker 3: first movie. He uses his centuries of wisdom and presumably
Speaker 3: also his magical ability to read minds, though the movie
Speaker 3: doesn't really address this, to organize a team of scientists
Speaker 3: to create the Shield, which is a giant geoengineering project
Speaker 3: that forms a sort of laser net over the Earth's
Speaker 3: atmosphere and protects the surface of the planet from the sun.
Speaker 3: It looks kind of like a gigantic lightsaber blade blasting
Speaker 3: out of a huge concrete pyramid and then it forms
Speaker 3: a laser net in the sky, sort of connects with
Speaker 3: a satellite somehow, and it shields us from the Sun.
Speaker 3: And Connor and his scientist friend Alan Nayman they celebrate
Speaker 3: their accomplishment. They have saved the world. This surely was
Speaker 3: a good use of the prize, is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what mornchy do you ask for? Seemingly save the
Speaker 1: world and to some degree helped in sure peace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, happy ending, right at the beginning, But then we
Speaker 3: cut to twenty five years later, two.
Speaker 4: Eight year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That's right, I mean this is this was the perfect
Speaker 1: time to really jump in and discuss Islander too.
Speaker 3: On Weird House, so we see Christophe Lambert driving a car.
Speaker 3: He's driving a convertible down a dark, wet street in
Speaker 3: what looks is not great makeup and terrible old man makeup.
Speaker 3: His face looks like a bowl of porridge. It's not great,
Speaker 3: but we hear his voiceover, McLeod says, the shield twenty
Speaker 3: five years ago it was our savior. But now no sun,
Speaker 3: no stars, only heat and humidity. It drains the energy
Speaker 3: from the whole world. We're falling apart, going backward old cars,
Speaker 3: old planes, old dreams. The cure is worse than the disease.
Speaker 1: Now already we have so much unpack like, well, why
Speaker 1: are they using old cars, old planes, and old dreams
Speaker 1: because of some sort of energy shortage? I mean, the
Speaker 1: real answer is it lets them do this this kind
Speaker 1: of neo noir look for the film, which I do
Speaker 1: quite like, but it doesn't really make any sense where
Speaker 1: it's like, we can't use a car that was made
Speaker 1: post nineteen fifty three. Now.
Speaker 3: I think they wanted to use some of these beautiful
Speaker 3: old building facades from Buenos Aires, and they were like,
Speaker 3: let's see, how do what everything looks old? Now? We'll
Speaker 3: say for some reason, yeah, using old cars and planes,
Speaker 3: what would that have to do with anything?
Speaker 1: We also, when we're panning past, does some sort of
Speaker 1: statue or something. There's this plaque that commemorates the shield,
Speaker 1: and it has the dates nineteen ninety nine through twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four on there and I was wondering, do they
Speaker 1: just update it every year, like it's like, okay, it's
Speaker 1: a new year, twenty twenty. Let's add that, like it's say,
Speaker 1: you know, no work injuries for X number of days,
Speaker 1: sort of a thing. I don't know. Yeah, because there's
Speaker 1: no indication that there are no plans to bring the
Speaker 1: shield down in twenty twenty four, as we'll discuss, and
Speaker 1: as we'll see.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we see Connor driving as convertible through this
Speaker 3: dark city, and we gathered that the world here is
Speaker 3: now squalid, polluted and dark. The sky is always covered
Speaker 3: with this shimmering, burnt orange aurora, in which shadowy triangles
Speaker 3: and pyramid shapes appear. There are also in this world
Speaker 3: just future punks everywhere. I love good future punk, and
Speaker 3: here they're like on the sidewalks getting up to no good.
Speaker 3: Connor is driving past them and like glancing nervously out
Speaker 3: the windows of his car looking at them as he
Speaker 3: drives by. We can hear them yelling. Then when we
Speaker 3: actually see them, they're crowded around some kind of machine
Speaker 3: that distributes gas through a face mask attached to a hose,
Speaker 3: and they're like kicking and beating on the machine to
Speaker 3: make it work and then taking turns huffing out of
Speaker 3: the mask. Is this supposed to be a vending machine
Speaker 3: for inhalance?
Speaker 1: I don't know es your neighborhood huffing station. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there are a lot of wild boys in
Speaker 1: the future for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, wild boys. Yeah. Then in the car, the
Speaker 3: TV comes on. Great, this is one of those futuristic
Speaker 3: old cars from twenty twenty four. It's an old car,
Speaker 3: but it has a TV in the dashboard.
Speaker 1: They have those now.
Speaker 3: Yeah oo, it's exactly what cars need. Yeah. So Connor
Speaker 3: is watching the news while driving and the news anchor
Speaker 3: says that the Shield Corporation, which is the world's largest company,
Speaker 3: was today accused of monopoly and price fixing. I was
Speaker 3: just thinking, how do you do price fixing if your
Speaker 3: product is the shield? Like who are the market competitors
Speaker 3: of the Shield Corporation that they would be colluding with? Yeah,
Speaker 3: other Shield companies and they're making an agreement to fix prices.
Speaker 1: And it does seem like it's the same shield for
Speaker 1: the entire planet. Like you can't you know, pick and choose,
Speaker 1: like how much shield different regions are getting or there's
Speaker 1: no indication or even a hint of how that would
Speaker 1: be possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe they make other products too, Maybe the price
Speaker 3: fixing is on whatever these these huffing stations. They also
Speaker 3: say that the president of the Shield Corporation, Alan Nayman,
Speaker 3: remember that was Connor's partner in creating the Shield twenty
Speaker 3: five years ago, he could not be reached for comment.
Speaker 3: And then they say that the Shield Corporation just posted
Speaker 3: record profits. Oh and also there's a weather report. Tomorrow's
Speaker 3: high is going to be ninety seven degrees fahrenheit. Sounds
Speaker 3: like the low is also ninety seven degrees fahrenheit with
Speaker 3: a humidity of ninety seven percent, same as every other day.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's predictable, you know. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 1: know what to wear. There's not a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about what you're gonna wear tomorrow, So we can say
Speaker 1: that for it, at.
Speaker 3: Least now here is a question I do have. So
Speaker 3: Connor is like driving past these future punks and he's
Speaker 3: like checking to see if his car doors are locked,
Speaker 3: and the future punks are dancing aggressively at his car
Speaker 3: as he goes past, next to their flaming steel garbage cans.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, why would you have a flaming garbage
Speaker 3: can in a world where there's like it's ninety seven
Speaker 3: degrees And maybe they need it for light, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but you don't need it for heat.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is always the question of any kind
Speaker 1: of apocalyptic hellscape or or urban hell setting. It's why
Speaker 1: are the garbage cans on fire? Maybe just because they
Speaker 1: can be on.
Speaker 3: Fire, right, Maybe they're cooking with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cooking up some assuming rat.
Speaker 3: Some charproiled rat in the garbage can. Yeah, okay, So
Speaker 3: where is Connor headed? He's going to the opera, of course.
Speaker 3: And here's one of these cases where we were talking
Speaker 3: about the contrast of like you'll have these bad looking
Speaker 3: scenes and then great looking scenes. I feel like the
Speaker 3: whole opera scene from the outside and the inside, the
Speaker 3: set within a set, on the stage, the interior of
Speaker 3: the opera, it's all beautiful. It has it does have
Speaker 3: a somewhat derivative kind of blade runneriness about the sci
Speaker 3: fi style, but it also it has a style of
Speaker 3: its own, Like the opera has this red blinking neon
Speaker 3: sign like an all night diner. It's a very weird choice,
Speaker 3: but I think it looks really cool and inside it's
Speaker 3: it's beautiful. So Connor is going to see this Vagnerian production.
Speaker 3: I think it's Actually he's watching Twilight with gods and
Speaker 3: we hear this, you know, the sweet and tortured melodies
Speaker 3: of a dying world, as the name John C. McGinley
Speaker 3: pops up on the credits. By the way, just funny.
Speaker 1: The set for this opera does look amazing. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a lot of operas, maybe only ever one opera
Speaker 1: live and in full, and I have to say, give
Speaker 1: me an opera with the said like this, I'll show up.
Speaker 3: So we pan around the audience at the opera and
Speaker 3: we see all the fancy people in the balconies sporting
Speaker 3: their evening attire, and eventually we land on a private
Speaker 3: box where Connor MacLeod sits sad and alone, dozing off
Speaker 3: with his chin on his chest, until he is startled
Speaker 3: awake by a voice echoing inside his head. It is
Speaker 3: the voice of Sean Connery. And here, basically, right at
Speaker 3: this moment in the American theatrical release, begins a truly
Speaker 3: remarkable several minutes of film, one that I have essentially memorized.
Speaker 3: Highlander two was one of the I've said this earlier,
Speaker 3: but it was one of the first movies in this
Speaker 3: sort of glorious failure genre that I ever came to appreciate.
Speaker 3: And after I got my hands on my first VHS copy,
Speaker 3: of course, I watched it with my friends lots of times.
Speaker 3: But on top of watching the movie as a whole
Speaker 3: lots of times, we've probably rewound the next few minutes
Speaker 3: of the movie several times every time we watched it.
Speaker 3: So this, this is kind of like a religious catechism
Speaker 3: to me. Sean Connery says, Remember Highlander, Remember your home
Speaker 3: another galaxy, you were chosen? Remember, And then the Wagner
Speaker 3: music swells and the camera zooms in on Connor's face
Speaker 3: in a weirdly unflattering off center shot. His eyes are
Speaker 3: sort of half closed, his his fake gray hair is
Speaker 3: lit up in a peculiar way by off camera lights,
Speaker 3: and we hear his thoughts as he says, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I remember the beginning five hundred years ago on the
Speaker 3: planet Zeist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is a moment where you know,
Speaker 1: you can you can definitely feel fans dropping out because yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm tuning in, because I mean, either this is something
Speaker 1: that Connor MacLeod conveniently forgot his entire time on Earth
Speaker 1: throughout the first film, or he knew the whole time
Speaker 1: and just it didn't factor into any of his thoughts
Speaker 1: or actions or anything. And like either version, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see that being interpreted is kind of like a
Speaker 1: cheap shot of the experience of the first film, you know,
Speaker 1: and could even be seen as like cheapening, yeah, the
Speaker 1: experience of the first film, But I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: also one of the things to love about Highlander too.
Speaker 3: It's so beautiful and then so there, like we were
Speaker 3: saying about the differing, you know, quality of the textures
Speaker 3: of the movie, the next thing they show us is
Speaker 3: the planet Zeist, and what we get is a beautiful
Speaker 3: matte painting of a big desert with mountains in the
Speaker 3: background and the crescent Moon in the sky and some
Speaker 3: kind of giant crashed airship in the desert. You know,
Speaker 3: it looks like some kind of airship the size of
Speaker 3: a skyscraper and it's just plowed into the sand of
Speaker 3: the desert. Looks like almost like a relic, like it
Speaker 3: could have been crashed there for a long time. And
Speaker 3: the context is hilarious. But I think the Matt painting
Speaker 3: looks so good. The fact that it looks so good
Speaker 3: makes it even funnier, and like it's got a good
Speaker 3: contrast in the shot with characters in the foreground as
Speaker 3: these silhouettes covered up in desert clothing, you know, moving
Speaker 3: down the hills into the airship. But it's a great
Speaker 3: looking moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the film has just made a very
Speaker 1: wacky choice. And initially here at least, you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, this looks awesome. Let's give it a try,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's see how it fits.
Speaker 3: This is one moment where I can point out that,
Speaker 3: like the Renegade cut, I think I've seen this, they
Speaker 3: like change this to it's not the planet Zeist, of course,
Speaker 3: because they cut that out entirely. This is supposed to
Speaker 3: be sometime in the ancient past, right, so.
Speaker 1: We get an ancient city escape instead of that crash
Speaker 1: spaceship or airship or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And I think it doesn't look as good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Well, I thought it
Speaker 1: looked good, but it's not as interesting, and it just
Speaker 1: raises all these questions because again you're about to see
Speaker 1: some sequences where guys are clearly fighting with gas masks
Speaker 1: and modern looking weapons and explosions. So to take it
Speaker 1: away from an alien planet and put it into the
Speaker 1: ancient past actually just creates more problems, yes, more logical
Speaker 1: problems for the film.
Speaker 3: Okay. Connor McLeod's voiceover goes on. He says, we planned rebellion.
Speaker 3: We met in secret, always careful to avoid our deadly enemy,
Speaker 3: General Katana. This is not a character that was mentioned
Speaker 3: in the first movie, so this is brand new. So
Speaker 3: we see a bunch of sweaty guys with like head
Speaker 3: wrappings and desert cloaks gathering in the ruins of the airship,
Speaker 3: and then Sean Connery walks out on a platform to
Speaker 3: address them, and his speech goes as follows. He says,
Speaker 3: free men of the planet Zeist, hear me. We gather
Speaker 3: together in secret for the last time. You suffer under
Speaker 3: the yoke of General Katana's rule for the last time,
Speaker 3: and you stand without a leader for the last time,
Speaker 3: and the people call out for Sean Connery to lead them.
Speaker 3: You know Ramirez well, by the way, this character on Zeist,
Speaker 3: his name is Ramirez on Zeist, and Connor MacLeod's name
Speaker 3: is Connor MacLeod on zeist. Okay, yeah, so Ramirez says
Speaker 3: he's not going to lead them, but he says, because
Speaker 3: he sees with eyes different from theirs, he knows that
Speaker 3: one among them has a great destiny. And the people
Speaker 3: call out who is he show him to us, And then,
Speaker 3: in what I think is probably one of the funniest
Speaker 3: single shots in line deliveries in like all of cinema history,
Speaker 3: Sean Connery draws his sword and he says, let him
Speaker 3: show himself, let him feel the quickening. He waggles his
Speaker 3: sword and lightning flashes, and then Ramirez, there's like a
Speaker 3: folly of sort of electricity arcing. And then somehow every
Speaker 3: turns and looks, and among them in the crowd is
Speaker 3: Christophe Limberry's standing there with wind blowing in his hair
Speaker 3: like he's in a Creed music video, and he looks
Speaker 3: very grave and heavy with the burden of this new responsibility,
Speaker 3: and Sean Connery says, yes.
Speaker 1: You, this is how the leaders of all great rebellions
Speaker 1: are chosen, by the way, Yeah, just just sort of
Speaker 1: randomly picked out of the crowd and like you, yep,
Speaker 1: you're the one you're gonna leave the rebellion. That's just
Speaker 1: how it works, yes, you.
Speaker 3: And then it doesn't stop like it just goes so
Speaker 3: fast straight into I guess we're about to see what
Speaker 3: the quickening is as realized by this movie now Rob
Speaker 3: quickly no pun intended. What was the quickening in the
Speaker 3: First Highlander?
Speaker 1: The quickening in the First Highlander also it felt a
Speaker 1: little vague. It was something magical about connection between immortals,
Speaker 1: and we basically hear about it the most in that
Speaker 1: scene where where it really a nice scene where Ramires
Speaker 1: and Connor, during the midst of all their training run
Speaker 1: on the beach, maybe while a horse is running, I think,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's like I think about it whenever
Speaker 1: I run on a beach. I'm like, yeah, the quickening,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like it was more of a feeling
Speaker 1: than a codified lower thing. You know, it's about it's
Speaker 1: about their relationship, it's about their bond, and this is
Speaker 1: I guess trying to channel that as well into some
Speaker 1: sort of like magical thing that connects them across time
Speaker 1: and space, as we'll see.
Speaker 3: Yes, So what happens next is Ramirez and McLeod sit
Speaker 3: across from each other and dip their fingers into like
Speaker 3: it's like a fun du pot for glowing magical energy.
Speaker 3: They like dip their fingers in and they get some
Speaker 3: of the magic on their fingertips, and then they touch
Speaker 3: their hands together and then there's like light that shoots
Speaker 3: out of their hands. And Connor looks very again. He
Speaker 3: looks very grave. He's like, oh no, what's happening. But
Speaker 3: Ramirez is just grinning wildly, and he says, the ancient
Speaker 3: power of the Quickening has joined us. We are now
Speaker 3: as one.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know how this is going to result
Speaker 1: in a successful rebellion, but you know, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: we've done the quickening and now it's time to go
Speaker 1: ahead and win this thing.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, So they got to go beat General Katana,
Speaker 3: so right then, immediately explosions start popping off outside Ramire,
Speaker 3: says Connor McLoud. He has to go defeat the general.
Speaker 3: So we cut to a few fleeting shots of a
Speaker 3: battlefield charge, a disastrous battlefield charge by the rebels. Connor
Speaker 3: tries to rally them to coordinate the attack, but it
Speaker 3: ultimately fails. This is where we're about to meet General Katana.
Speaker 3: But I did just want to say about this battle scene.
Speaker 3: It seems like this is one of the scenes that
Speaker 3: was supposed to be a big, weird, beautiful, fascinating action scene,
Speaker 3: like a massive action scene in this sci fi landscape.
Speaker 3: I think in the documentary they referred to it as
Speaker 3: like the Battle of the Valley of the Moon or something,
Speaker 3: and they show these these concept sketches for it that
Speaker 3: have all these strange rock formations and these aliens fighting
Speaker 3: in weird costumes and all that. We don't really get
Speaker 3: to see any of that. Instead, we just sort of
Speaker 3: see some guys running in the sand and some things
Speaker 3: blow up, and then it's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nothing you really haven't seen in other post apocalyptic
Speaker 1: battle movies. They are just war movies in general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a shame because just based on the concept
Speaker 3: sketches in the documentary, it looks like this could have
Speaker 3: been a really beautiful, awesome looking sequence. But this is
Speaker 3: where we first meet the villain of the movie, Michael Ironside,
Speaker 3: playing General Katana. Now he stands over the battlefield. He
Speaker 3: looks very pleased about all of his enemies being annihilated.
Speaker 3: He says he wants Connor MacLeod and Ramirez captured. As
Speaker 3: for everybody else, he wants their heads.
Speaker 1: And Katana does look pretty awesome here. You know, he's
Speaker 1: a little bit industrial metal but with a stylish dueling scar,
Speaker 1: and he has this like long he has long, dark hair,
Speaker 1: but he has the street of gray or white through it,
Speaker 1: so it's a solid look, and you know it's Iron Side,
Speaker 1: so he can definitely sell the menace.
Speaker 3: So now Michael Ironside, who we just met seconds ago,
Speaker 3: he has Connor mcleoud captured and held prisoner in this
Speaker 3: kind of some kind of like office slash dungeons. It's
Speaker 3: I guess Rob, I think you brought this up in
Speaker 3: the last episode that this is a cool looking interior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is a really cool loo Consett. This
Speaker 1: is definitely a scene that I recommend going back and
Speaker 1: watching in like the highest picture quality possible. Like I
Speaker 1: went back and watched this scene in the Renegade cut
Speaker 1: just because it's it's just shot so well it looks great.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. This is one of the examples of how
Speaker 3: in the Renegade Cut, a lot of scenes that you
Speaker 3: do get a glimpse of in the theatrical release do
Speaker 3: look better in that version. But also The content of
Speaker 3: what's happening in the scene is that, like General Katana
Speaker 3: is giving a speech to an eel. He grabs an
Speaker 3: eel out of the tank and he starts giving it
Speaker 3: a you know, a good old like we're not so different,
Speaker 3: you and I. And then he says, so deadly in
Speaker 3: their own environment, so tame and servile in mine. I
Speaker 3: think he means out of the water. And then Connor says,
Speaker 3: maybe they're just waiting, and then Katana says waiting for what?
Speaker 3: And then Connor says, for you to get careless. I
Speaker 3: get what he's saying, but how would that apply to
Speaker 3: an eel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. It's wait, he looks good. It
Speaker 1: looks good.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait for you to fall asleep in the tank
Speaker 3: where they can get you anyway. So General Katana demonstrates
Speaker 3: his power by like squeezing the eel in his fist
Speaker 3: until it basically he like cuts it in half and
Speaker 3: it splats on the floor. Uh. And then it just
Speaker 3: seems that General Katana is going to execute Connor MacLeod,
Speaker 3: a resident of the planet zeised for his crimes against
Speaker 3: the planet's iis. But instead we cut straight from this
Speaker 3: to Connor and Ramirez standing in a dark hall with
Speaker 3: some kind of priest of Zeist reading out their sentencing.
Speaker 3: And so this priest, there's like several bald priests in
Speaker 3: robes standing up on these huge pedestals like way above them,
Speaker 3: and the priest says, leaders of the Rebellion, you have
Speaker 3: been found guilty of treason. We hereby sentence you to
Speaker 3: exile from Zeist. You will be sent to the planet Earth.
Speaker 3: Once there, you will be immortal. You can only die
Speaker 3: when your head is cut from your body. When one
Speaker 3: of you becomes the last of us on Earth, he
Speaker 3: will claim the prize. He can return to Zeist or
Speaker 3: choose to grow old and die on Earth.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, certainly a liberal and overly complex exile
Speaker 1: process that also kind of functions like a loser's bracket
Speaker 1: right in a tournament. So it's like all the people
Speaker 1: that were enemies of our planet, they're sent away, but
Speaker 1: then you compete against each other and then like the
Speaker 1: most powerful of you can then come back and I
Speaker 1: don't know, have another go at ruining the planet or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, I don't quite get it, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just codified in their religious thinking and their traditions.
Speaker 1: I don't know, fine enough, they've explained what's going on
Speaker 1: in the first Highlander film. They've read cond it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll make do with it here.
Speaker 3: But I love how Also they're literally they're getting their
Speaker 3: you know, life in exile sentence read out and they
Speaker 3: just start talking to Connor and Ramirez start like talking
Speaker 3: in class. Like Connor's like, will we be together on earth?
Speaker 3: And Ramirez says not at first, but we're joined in
Speaker 3: a way that can never be broken, not even by death.
Speaker 3: And then he says, when you need me, you'll only
Speaker 3: have to call my name.
Speaker 1: Oh it's like like the friends in Labyrinth, you know
Speaker 1: at the end, where Sarah can just call on them
Speaker 1: and they come.
Speaker 3: But why did we know this in the first movie.
Speaker 1: No, when Rami is his dad in the first movie,
Speaker 1: he's dead for centuries and there's no indication that he
Speaker 1: could ever call out to his old friend, though he
Speaker 1: clearly missed him. That's the thing, like, if he could
Speaker 1: have done this, there would have been opportunities to do it.
Speaker 1: But oh well.
Speaker 3: Oh, and also Connor gives a solemn vow. He promises
Speaker 3: that if he wins the prize, he'll be back back
Speaker 3: to the planet Zeist. So remember that. That's a vow,
Speaker 3: that's a promise.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh also another thing to remember. Sean Connery just kind
Speaker 3: of leans over at the end and he says, just
Speaker 3: remember the quickening. Okay, okay, oh God, no way, it's
Speaker 3: not even over yet, because Connor then says it sounds
Speaker 3: like magic, and then Ramirez says, well, it is a
Speaker 3: kind of here's our first of many many references to
Speaker 3: the Queen song. A kind of magic or some kind
Speaker 3: of magic. Which is it.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of magic.
Speaker 3: It's a kind of magic. How many times do they
Speaker 3: bring this up in the movie?
Speaker 1: Oh? Way too many. I mean, it's a great song,
Speaker 1: we all love it, but they go to the well
Speaker 1: a little too often on this.
Speaker 3: I think they wanted to put a bunch of references
Speaker 3: in there in case you didn't get some of them,
Speaker 3: you could still get the others.
Speaker 1: They should have referenced the other songs, though I don't
Speaker 1: think they directly reference Princes of the Universe at all.
Speaker 1: He could have said that he could just remember Highlander
Speaker 1: with Princes of the Universe.
Speaker 3: Here we are born to be kings.
Speaker 1: Exactly till your mother down, highlander.
Speaker 3: We will not let you go.
Speaker 1: I want to break free.
Speaker 3: So the priests say, prepare yourself. There can only be one.
Speaker 3: And then the priests like lower swords, like they're knighting
Speaker 3: them sort of, but they're standing way above them. And
Speaker 3: then Connor and Ramirez get zapped by a big machine
Speaker 3: that's like a like an exxeistorator, and General Katana looks
Speaker 3: on angrily. I guess he did not get his way
Speaker 3: at the sentencing here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not down with his cultures, very forgiving system
Speaker 1: of exile.
Speaker 3: So next Connor wakes up in twenty twenty four on
Speaker 3: Earth in the opera house. I guess all that was
Speaker 3: a dream, a memory, you know, of his past. The
Speaker 3: show is over and an usher is asking him to
Speaker 3: leave the theater, and he's so old and weak and
Speaker 3: feeble he can barely croak out a friendly response to
Speaker 3: the usher.
Speaker 1: In Michael Weldon's little review for this in The Psychotronic
Speaker 1: Film Guides, he points out that it's a review where
Speaker 1: he says, like, there's definitely some awesome stuff in this
Speaker 1: in this film, but he's like, oh, it spends way
Speaker 1: too much time with Lambert convincingly playing an old Connor McLeod,
Speaker 1: Yes and yeah, quibbles about the makeup aside, Like, he
Speaker 1: does really sell this idea of here's your hero from
Speaker 1: the first film, Old and Feeble. But there's going to
Speaker 1: be payoff for that. There's going to be payoff.
Speaker 3: It takes a third of the movie for him to
Speaker 3: get hot again.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Also, there's a scene here where we see like meanwhile
Speaker 3: at the headquarters of the Shield Corporation. I remember, this
Speaker 3: is a giant concrete pyramid surrounded by like rushing canals
Speaker 3: of water and armed guards. I think this is another
Speaker 3: thing that gets mixed up between the different cuts of
Speaker 3: the film, because I believe originally more of the different
Speaker 3: Shield Corporation locations were separate, discrete locations with different kinds
Speaker 3: of buildings. But this cut just makes it look like
Speaker 3: everything Shield related is taking place in the pyramid. So
Speaker 3: at this pyramid we see a group of operatives sneaking
Speaker 3: past security guards with grappling hooks and zip lines. What
Speaker 3: is their purpose? Well, inside the facility, the infiltrators remove
Speaker 3: their helmets and it's revealed that their leader is Virginia Madsen. Hey,
Speaker 3: there she is, So what are they here for? It?
Speaker 3: Is to hack the shield specifically to get into the
Speaker 3: computer and find out what the readings above the shield are.
Speaker 3: And it turns out they are normal, which is a
Speaker 3: funny reveal. It's like a gasp moment, but just because
Speaker 3: it says normal, so Virginia Madison says impossible, radiation levels
Speaker 3: can't be normal. Then the infiltrators trigger the alarm and
Speaker 3: security comes running, so Virginia Madison's crew has to They
Speaker 3: flee and we see some very again, some very nice
Speaker 3: sets and matte paintings as they run away. There's like
Speaker 3: one shot you only see for a second, but it's
Speaker 3: like a walkway running over this deep, you know, column
Speaker 3: shaped chasm with like beams running up and down the sides,
Speaker 3: and you know, the actors are running across this walkway
Speaker 3: way up above the pit in the foreground and it
Speaker 3: looks great, but it's just like a moment and then
Speaker 3: it's gone, and then you see some other stuff that
Speaker 3: looks not so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this makes you look like they're on
Speaker 1: the Industrial Death Star sort of a set. It looks good,
Speaker 1: but yeah, then we're through with it.
Speaker 3: So they split up. As they're running away, they're being
Speaker 3: pursued by Shield Corporation mercenaries. Meanwhile, back in the city,
Speaker 3: we follow Connor as he goes out to a bar
Speaker 3: after the opera, and the city set here is so gross.
Speaker 3: They did a great job of making this look like
Speaker 3: just a disgusting place to live here under the Shield,
Speaker 3: Like the streets look like they're made out of wet newspaper,
Speaker 3: and they're like no colors apart from the neon signs
Speaker 3: over businesses, which I think is also a nice touch.
Speaker 3: It almost feels like kind of thematically meaningful that like
Speaker 3: all of the buildings and the streets and the sky
Speaker 3: and everything is like the same kind of gray brown
Speaker 3: mud to kind of color. And then the only other
Speaker 3: colors are just like lights that say like a bar
Speaker 3: or opera or you know, or show like advertisements.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I keep expecting Deran Duranz Simon Labon to walk
Speaker 1: into frame here and start belding out some lyrics or
Speaker 1: you know, to rotate into frame strap to a windmill
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 3: Boys.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Yeah, but we are about to get some music though.
Speaker 3: That's right. So in a restaurant, Connor puts a quarter
Speaker 3: in a jukebox and he cues up a kind of
Speaker 3: magic or it's a kind of magic by Queen. So
Speaker 3: like we get a needle drop in the movie. Here
Speaker 3: the song about Highlander two, I guess, or is it
Speaker 3: about Highlander or Highlander two?
Speaker 1: Oh it's from Highlander one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that's right. Okay, So it's a callback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a callback. It's a great track. It's great
Speaker 1: to hear it again and does kind of like remind
Speaker 1: us like, yeah, this is a Highlander movie. Gosh darn it.
Speaker 3: But it's nice to know that within the story of
Speaker 3: the movie, like it is diegetically the case that Queen exists,
Speaker 3: and Connor is a fan of it's a kind of magic. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's his, like, don't stop believing it's his jukebox tune.
Speaker 3: So this is a bar where Connor is a regular.
Speaker 3: He sits down for a drink. He knows the bartender.
Speaker 3: He watches the news on TV and it's a report
Speaker 3: that there has been a terrorist attack on Shield headquarters
Speaker 3: by an eco terrorist group called Cobalt, led by a
Speaker 3: woman named Louise Marcus. That's Virginia Madsen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see. COBALT's call sign is essentially the Zodiac
Speaker 1: killer symbol. For some reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nice selection there, and then the News interviews John
Speaker 3: C McGinley, who was playing. They said earlier that Alan
Speaker 3: Naman was the president president of the Shield Corporation, but
Speaker 3: here they say John C McGinley is the president of
Speaker 3: the Shield Corporation, So I don't know what the deal is.
Speaker 3: He says that any attempt to undermine the Shield is insane.
Speaker 3: Without it, every single human being on the planet would
Speaker 3: instantly die. Connor's main reaction to the news is to
Speaker 3: comment that the terrorist lady is pretty that's Virginia Madsen.
Speaker 3: And also I think we learned, either here or maybe later,
Speaker 3: that she used to work for the Shield Corporation before
Speaker 3: she became the eco terrorist.
Speaker 1: I'm increasingly struck by the fact that her character is
Speaker 1: essentially Gracie Law, the Kim Cattrell character from Big Trouble
Speaker 1: in Little China. You know, she's there. She's a spunky
Speaker 1: go getter, you know, a little bit of a hoxy
Speaker 1: and female all you know, trope character, but also is
Speaker 1: just ultimately there to be the love interest in the
Speaker 1: long run. Gracie Law, to be clear, is a much
Speaker 1: better defined character.
Speaker 3: Gracie Law is a lot funnier. Yeah, Virginia Madsen has
Speaker 3: some moments in this, but they're mostly like as we
Speaker 3: said in the last episode, she is sort of the
Speaker 3: human character who's here to process the mythology. So we
Speaker 3: see her like working through, like she's getting all the
Speaker 3: zised stuff explained to her and she's like, am I
Speaker 3: understanding this right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah. She's basically also there to be like like
Speaker 1: wake up and get get excited about the B plot
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, let me tell you about the
Speaker 1: A plot, and then we have conversations about that.
Speaker 3: There you go, that's exactly right. Also, meanwhile, while like
Speaker 3: Connor's inside looking at her on TV, she happens to
Speaker 3: be changing out of her terrorist clothes in the street
Speaker 3: wear in an alley outside the bar, and then she
Speaker 3: like unfolds a piece of paper and the paper just
Speaker 3: says McLoud twenty third Street bar. Huh, how does she
Speaker 3: have that information?
Speaker 1: Informants? I guess?
Speaker 3: And then a drunk lady tries to pick a fight
Speaker 3: with Connor. She recognizes him by sight and tells him
Speaker 3: that her life is bad and it's his fault, as
Speaker 3: she says, you covered the sky with that puke, and
Speaker 3: then she bashes him with a glass bottle, and so
Speaker 3: in the world of this movie, like Connor is recognizable
Speaker 3: by sight to just random members of the public and
Speaker 3: they all hate him. So as Connor is leaving the barge,
Speaker 3: having just been bashed with a bottle, he's clutching his
Speaker 3: wounded arm, Virginia Madson just walks up to him in
Speaker 3: the street and she says, Connor macloud, I am the
Speaker 3: terrorist woman you just saw on TV. Except I'm not
Speaker 3: a terrorist. I've got business with you. And he tries
Speaker 3: to brush her off and get in his car. He
Speaker 3: seems to he has lost his passion for peace and
Speaker 3: harmony and doing good in the world. He just he
Speaker 3: seems to just want to, you know, mind his own
Speaker 3: business and be old and lonely. But she says, you know,
Speaker 3: I used to read about you. You had such great
Speaker 3: passion for the world. I admired you. I can see
Speaker 3: that's all gone now you're nothing but a tired old man.
Speaker 3: And he tries to get in his car and drive away,
Speaker 3: but she just jumps in the car with him, and
Speaker 3: then he drives away anyway, Like why is she hounding him?
Speaker 3: I don't know. But they drive off and she says
Speaker 3: the world is dying, McLeod, I need your help. Then
Speaker 3: suddenly a highly WTF cut, So we go straight from
Speaker 3: that conversation in the car to crazy rock formations in
Speaker 3: the desert, and a title says the planet Zeist And
Speaker 3: then we see Michael Ironside and he's just like Hinchminton.
Speaker 3: And a couple of guys walk up and these are
Speaker 3: a pair of pale birdlike men wearing welding goggles with
Speaker 3: porcupine quills for hair.
Speaker 1: Yes, major wild Boy energy to these two. I mean
Speaker 1: these two, yes, really could have just walked right out
Speaker 1: of the Wild Boy's music video.
Speaker 3: General Katana says to them, you leave for the planet
Speaker 3: Earth and media, find McLeod and kill him. The Benjamin says,
Speaker 3: but I thought you said McLeod was mortal and could
Speaker 3: never return.
Speaker 1: And this is actually an excellent and unaddressed point. So
Speaker 1: on planet Zeis, everyone here seems to be a mortal
Speaker 1: as well, because Katana has not seemingly aged at all,
Speaker 1: these guys presumably are part of the Zeistian order from
Speaker 1: centuries prior as well. And yeah, it's like for some reason,
Speaker 1: Katana's saying, Okay, go find the guy that won the prize,
Speaker 1: and he's doing all this stuff and hasn't hasn't come
Speaker 1: back to Zeist, is not in any way seemingly planning
Speaker 1: to or or working on interfering with our stuff. Here,
Speaker 1: go back and kill him, and and they're like but
Speaker 1: why why now? Why are we doing this? And he
Speaker 1: just like slaps him around a little and like, go
Speaker 1: do it, you dummies. But why there's no reason for
Speaker 1: this to happen. There's never a reason for this to
Speaker 1: happen in the movie.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, Like why now?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I was thinking about this, Okay, assuming Katana
Speaker 1: wanted to interfere with the exile system and the you know,
Speaker 1: the game towards the prize, he would have done it
Speaker 1: ages ago. And maybe the idea here is like, I know,
Speaker 1: they wanted to get Clancy Clancy Brown in here to
Speaker 1: reprise the role of the Kurgan to some degree, So
Speaker 1: maybe the idea is like, at some level, the Kurgan
Speaker 1: was like their dude that they sent back. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: go win this prize thing so we don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about Connor. And he fails, But even then, it's
Speaker 1: like that was the time to interfere. At this point,
Speaker 1: Connor won the prize and ended up not doing the
Speaker 1: thing you were afraid he was gonna do. No reason
Speaker 1: to go back and kill him.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is what I've read that they wanted Clancy
Speaker 3: Brown to come back and play the Kurgan again to
Speaker 3: establish that the Kurgan, the villain of the first movie,
Speaker 3: was another Hinchman of General Katanas, who had been sent
Speaker 3: there to kill Connor. But he was defeated. And but
Speaker 3: still I wonder, like, why is it now in like
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four on Earth where he's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: ready to send two more guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've about outlived Connor McLeod. He is mortal, He's
Speaker 1: going to die of mortal death. What does it matter,
Speaker 1: de Ist?
Speaker 3: But Katana, like you said, he just kind of like
Speaker 3: slaps these guys around and says find him, kill him,
Speaker 3: and they nod, and then one of them cackles like
Speaker 3: one of those motions sensing Halloween decorations, you know, the
Speaker 3: witch that cackles when you walk by. It sounds exactly
Speaker 3: like that. Then they beam themselves to Earth, which is
Speaker 3: apparently instantaneous. So back on Earth, McLeod and Virginia Madson.
Speaker 3: They're still driving around and suddenly McLeod gasps for breath.
Speaker 3: Then again it's as if he can sense in his
Speaker 3: guts whenever someone arrives from Zeist and Connor pulls over,
Speaker 3: gets out of the car, and then the two porcupine
Speaker 3: bird henchmen are here, and they've got rocket boots or
Speaker 3: like a floating rocket skateboard that allows to fly, and oh,
Speaker 3: one of them has wings on his back, and they
Speaker 3: sort of like they at the beginning, they like loaf
Speaker 3: around in an alley way, arguing over who gets to
Speaker 3: cut off McLeod's head. Again, Connor McLeod is his Zeis's name,
Speaker 3: that's the name they know him from there, and then
Speaker 3: this fight kicks off, and man, I have so like
Speaker 3: I think that the edit that is available does not
Speaker 3: give the best does not show the best sides of
Speaker 3: this fight very well. But actually, if you look at
Speaker 3: the individual shots, this is a pretty great looking fight
Speaker 3: scene and a lot of these stunts and effects are
Speaker 3: quite impressive and do look good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very ambitious. In my opinion, this is the
Speaker 1: best part of the film. A truly awesome sci fi
Speaker 1: action set piece and sequence that really gives you everything
Speaker 1: you want. Like, this is the part of the film
Speaker 1: where you really feel like everyone's heart was in it.
Speaker 1: The vision was on point, the execution is mostly pitch perfect,
Speaker 1: and I can quibble about one or two of the
Speaker 1: effects towards the end. I'll come back to that, but otherwise,
Speaker 1: this is Highlander two at its best. This is the
Speaker 1: thing in the trailers that pulled me in to Highlander
Speaker 1: films in general.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They actually talk about this in the documentary where
Speaker 3: they show how they achieved specifically the effect of Connor
Speaker 3: McLeod riding the sort of I don't know, rocket skateboard
Speaker 3: or whatever, the hoverboard, and it's a really cool effect
Speaker 3: because it really does look like he's floating in the
Speaker 3: air and kind of riding it, like it's bouncing up
Speaker 3: and down. And the way they achieved that was, you know,
Speaker 3: they had him on a wire system, of course, but
Speaker 3: the board was strapped to his feet and they had
Speaker 3: it suspended from an elastic system, so the board would
Speaker 3: actually sort of bounce up and down with the weight
Speaker 3: of his body as it was adjusting and moving through
Speaker 3: the air, and it creates a really cool looking effect.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if anyone listening is not familiar with it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: this is like the little hoverboard that the Green Goblin
Speaker 1: uses in Spider Man Snyder Man movies.
Speaker 3: And it's almost entirely like in camera effects. It's not
Speaker 3: post production stuff. It looks great because they they what
Speaker 3: they were able to achieve on set looked great. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so during this fight, the two aliens from Zeis to
Speaker 3: attack him, Connor seems to defend himself pretty well for
Speaker 3: a guy who just seemed almost too weak to talk
Speaker 3: earlier this evening. But I don't know, maybe the arrival
Speaker 3: of the guys from Zeist has sort of partially reinvigorated him,
Speaker 3: given him back some of that immortal strength, and they
Speaker 3: like fight. They go up a fire escape and they
Speaker 3: start fighting on these catwalks that go over the city streets.
Speaker 3: The guy from Zeist has a sword and at first
Speaker 3: Connor is defending himself with just like a steel rod,
Speaker 3: like a metal bar. And I love the like these
Speaker 3: henchmen are super weird, but they're very expressive. They keep
Speaker 3: doing the witch cackling thing they like, stick their tongues
Speaker 3: out grotesquely and they try to mock McLoud and these
Speaker 3: weird high pitched voices. It's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are a lot of fun I
Speaker 1: mean they're just completely over the top. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: again I love the action and these sequences with old
Speaker 1: man Connor, uh, you know, mustering up and just enough
Speaker 1: energy to fight them off using a pipe against swords.
Speaker 3: Now, what comes next, I think is also a quite
Speaker 3: inspired action staging choice. You know, action choreography here is smart.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: They fall from the catwalk onto a passing train and
Speaker 3: Connor they fight on the train. Then Connor manages to
Speaker 3: knock one of the bird warriors off the train and
Speaker 3: his body falls in just the right way so that
Speaker 3: the wheels of the train remove his head.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, he really lucked out on that one. But
Speaker 1: it's a cool, cool moment.
Speaker 3: And then the quickening. There's like the snakes of lightning
Speaker 3: jumping out of the severed Zeistian head and then they
Speaker 3: wrap around Connor and he screams and everything starts loading.
Speaker 3: Nearby storefronts explode, paint cans and other garbage in the street.
Speaker 3: It all explodes. A passing gasoline truck as like a
Speaker 3: you know, the gas transport tankers. It explodes, and then
Speaker 3: the fireball envelopes Connor, and you're like, oh no, oh, no,
Speaker 3: Connor must have been destroyed by this explosion, and the
Speaker 3: remaining zeist Henchman clearly thinks that because he sees it
Speaker 3: happen and he giggles triumphantly. But uh oh, Connor McLeod
Speaker 3: walks out of the fireball from the gas truck and
Speaker 3: we're back, friends. I think we are back in business.
Speaker 3: Christoph Lambert is hot again, he looks like he's young again,
Speaker 3: and he is ready to fight.
Speaker 1: This is the exact moment in the film at which
Speaker 1: Princes of the Universe should have played. My number one
Speaker 1: criticism of the film is that is that Princes of
Speaker 1: the Universe does not play at this moment. I would
Speaker 1: also settle for some off album choices. They could have
Speaker 1: gone with keep Yourself Alive, or if they wanted to
Speaker 1: be a little cheeky, don't stop me Now. But it
Speaker 1: needed it needed that, it needed that oomph. And it's
Speaker 1: still it's still a very dramatic and nice moment because yeah,
Speaker 1: he's back, he's young again, he's hot again, he's powerful
Speaker 1: enough to take on this other assassin, this remaining assassin
Speaker 1: from the planet's heist, and oh, and I want to
Speaker 1: add the whole destructive quickening thing. I kind of forgot
Speaker 1: that they also call that the quickening, Like the quickening is,
Speaker 1: to my understanding, simultaneously both the transfer of energy between
Speaker 1: a slain immortal and the immortal slayer and also running
Speaker 1: on the beach with your best friend. Correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong highlight.
Speaker 3: I can't correct you. Oh yeah, but fans maybe, Okay,
Speaker 3: I trust you, Rob, I think you're right about that.
Speaker 3: But can I go with another, uh maybe maybe more
Speaker 3: oblique kind of queen song choice? I think they could
Speaker 3: have done I'm in Love with my Car. You know
Speaker 3: it's the right feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the feeling is key. It's I think
Speaker 1: you'd want to go with like a nice building, heavier track.
Speaker 1: Another one Bites the Dust I think could also work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are a number of great queen songs.
Speaker 3: Oh. Also, Virginia Madsen is peaking out of a dumpster
Speaker 3: that I guess she hid in. I don't think we
Speaker 3: see how she gets in the dumpster, but she like
Speaker 3: looks out at Connor McLeod and she's obviously like, oh
Speaker 3: he looks good now. And the second zeised Henchman starts
Speaker 3: flying around on his wings, like swooping at Connor and
Speaker 3: shooting at him with a blaster from Star Wars. But wait,
Speaker 3: shouldn't the zeis Tinchman know that the blaster won't do
Speaker 3: anything because Connor is once again immortal.
Speaker 1: Well, he can't kill him with the blaster, probably, but
Speaker 1: he could wound him enough to have a better chance
Speaker 1: of cutting his head off.
Speaker 3: I guess that. Okay, actually that does make sense. I
Speaker 3: withdraw my criticism there. You're right. But Connor gets into
Speaker 3: the fight by putting on the other birdman's rocket boots.
Speaker 3: So he's zooming around on the rocket boots. The other
Speaker 3: guy's got the wings and it becomes an air joust
Speaker 3: and it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I legitimately love this whole sequence here. It's good.
Speaker 3: But there are also, like just some weird in this scene.
Speaker 3: There are these weird little dialogue moments that I don't
Speaker 3: know if they're quite firing on all cylinders. Like the
Speaker 3: henchman yells say goodbye a highlander, But why does he
Speaker 3: call him a highlander? That's just like random Earth topography.
Speaker 1: I mean, his name's McLeod too, but yeah, it makes
Speaker 1: no sense.
Speaker 3: He says, say goodbye, highlander, and then Connor replies, why
Speaker 3: you going somewhere?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think they could have workshopped that
Speaker 1: a little.
Speaker 3: Okay, And then also the bird henchman randomly incinerates. Just
Speaker 3: there's a guy on the sidewalk who asks this alien
Speaker 3: if he has a light and then he just blows
Speaker 3: him up.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a great moment. This is perfect.
Speaker 3: No notes on that, but anyway, Connor manages to decapitate
Speaker 3: the second Zeist fighter here with a clothes line trap
Speaker 3: made out of electrical wire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this moment is still awesome, but this is the
Speaker 1: moment where I feel like the effects could have been
Speaker 1: a little bit tighter. It could have moved a little faster.
Speaker 1: Still great, but I see where like maybe they didn't
Speaker 1: hit exactly where they envisioned.
Speaker 3: I agree, But okay, so Connor, he's defeated the two
Speaker 3: aliens from Zeis. Now he gets quickening once again. He
Speaker 3: gets all the lightning coming up on him and things
Speaker 3: blowing up, and he's just like flowing with that immortal energy.
Speaker 3: And when he does, he drops to his knees in
Speaker 3: the middle of the street and screams into the sky.
Speaker 3: Ram next thing, we're on stage at a play in
Speaker 3: a theater in Scotland. It's a performance of Hamlet, and
Speaker 3: Sean Connery zaps into existence in the middle of the actors.
Speaker 3: This descends into what I think is a fairly cringey
Speaker 3: comedy scene where Sean Connery starts talking to the actors
Speaker 3: mischievously while they're trying to perform, and they're like running
Speaker 3: around the stage trying to escape him while reciting their lines.
Speaker 3: And I think the joke is like, oh, Ramirez has
Speaker 3: no idea what's going on. He doesn't know what a
Speaker 3: play is. But like hundreds of years ago, when Ramirez
Speaker 3: was alive, there were plays. Plays existed then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ramirez, who we know traversed multiple cultures, absorbing their
Speaker 1: cultures and sometimes their accents at every turn. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: knows what a play is. Just this is just beyond ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Also, the audience loves Ramirez. He's here disrupting this play
Speaker 3: and like like making fun of the actors, and the
Speaker 3: audience is eating him up. They're like, get off of here, Hamlet,
Speaker 3: I want more Ramirez ridiculous, So we will continue to
Speaker 3: get some more frankly pretty cringey fish out of time
Speaker 3: gags with Sean Connery, like he walks into the street
Speaker 3: somewhere in Scotland and he almost gets hit by a
Speaker 3: truck and then mutters to himself, so much for the
Speaker 3: horse and caught what okay? And then back in wherever
Speaker 3: Connor is? Do they say where Connor is this in
Speaker 3: the future. I don't know, Shield City. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: Shield City. Connor is explaining to Virginia Madsen the whole thing.
Speaker 3: You know, I was banished from the planet Zeis five
Speaker 3: hundred years ago, I cannot die, et cetera. And then
Speaker 3: they just kiss passionately. That's absolute. We said this in
Speaker 3: the last episode, but this has got to be one
Speaker 3: of the most unearned romances in movie history. They just
Speaker 3: met moments ago, and their meeting was entirely business. There
Speaker 3: was had nothing like, no initial connection whatsoever. But he
Speaker 3: just got quickening and now he's young and good looking
Speaker 3: and now they're just smooching.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I referenced Gracie Law
Speaker 1: Kim Katrall's character from Big Trouble and Little China earlier,
Speaker 1: but at least in Big Trouble Little China, which I
Speaker 1: still hold up as being pretty great. You do get
Speaker 1: development of the relationship, the romantic tension between Jack Burton
Speaker 1: and Grace Law. It is ultimately earned that they fall
Speaker 1: in love with each other at least for a little
Speaker 1: bit or something like love, you know, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: totally unearned here. But does this not the kind of
Speaker 1: movie where you necessarily expected I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's not a moment of romantic tension at all
Speaker 3: between them until like the kissing starts. Basically anyway, then
Speaker 3: they're back at Connor's pad. And by the way, look
Speaker 3: a look at the I've got a screenshot of his apartment.
Speaker 3: It's full of like these giant marble statues. Inside the apartment,
Speaker 3: it looks like a train station.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, call back
Speaker 1: to the first film in which his home is kind
Speaker 1: of like a museum because his life is like this
Speaker 1: museum and all these memories and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she's this is the scene where Louise is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let me just see if I can get this straight.
Speaker 3: You come from another planet. You're mortal there, but you're
Speaker 3: immortal here until you kill all the guys from there
Speaker 3: who have come here. And then you're mortal here unless
Speaker 3: you go back there or some more guys from there
Speaker 3: came here, in which case you become immortal here again.
Speaker 3: And then Connor says in his with his wonderful little
Speaker 3: voice and chuckle something like that, and she expresses disbelief.
Speaker 3: And then Connor love these adding up here. He says,
Speaker 3: let's just say it's a kind of magic.
Speaker 1: Just repeat to yourself. It's just a show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But anyway, so Louise tells Connor that, oh,
Speaker 3: you're back to business. We got to remember. The whole
Speaker 3: reason we met is she's like, I need your help
Speaker 3: with the shield. We got to save the earth. She's like,
Speaker 3: something's wrong with the shield. The B plot is something's
Speaker 3: going wrong. They're hiding something and you've got to help
Speaker 3: me expose it.
Speaker 1: And again I want to point out that Katana had
Speaker 1: zero stake in all of this, like this would ultimately
Speaker 1: everything would make more sense if there was any connection
Speaker 1: between A plot and B plot here if Katana for
Speaker 1: some reason didn't want like the shield to come down.
Speaker 1: But there's there's nothing on that. We would have to
Speaker 1: sit here and speculate all day to figure out how
Speaker 1: to connect these two plots and again make it it
Speaker 1: all sensible for Katana to send goons to Earth to
Speaker 1: take out Connor.
Speaker 3: Now, what if, for all I know, this could have
Speaker 3: been in the script at some point, But what if,
Speaker 3: for example, the shield being in place prevented Zeistians on
Speaker 3: Earth from leaving and returning?
Speaker 1: Desist they're all dead though.
Speaker 3: There's well, yeah, but if he wanted Connor to not
Speaker 3: come back, he would want the shield to stay in place.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I guess that could have worked had they
Speaker 1: established it.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, like, yeah, throwing ideas out there.
Speaker 1: There are ways they could have and maybe in some
Speaker 1: version of the script they did address this, but we
Speaker 1: don't get it here.
Speaker 3: Okay. So here, Connor goes to visit his old friend
Speaker 3: and partner Alan Nayman. They created the shield together, and
Speaker 3: Alan is shocked at how good Connor looks. He's like,
Speaker 3: did you get a facelift? Also, Allan's office here, I'm
Speaker 3: a pretty big fan of it. This is one of
Speaker 3: the offices where the only light source is moonlight shining
Speaker 3: in through a window where there is like a thirty
Speaker 3: foot fan spinning constantly outside right outside the window, and
Speaker 3: the silhouettes of the blades are just going round and round,
Speaker 3: so the light in the room is crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, this is like total Russell McKay music video style.
Speaker 1: You expect to like pan over and there's Simon Labon
Speaker 1: in the chair. We're in a fedora and he's gonna
Speaker 1: start belding out some Duran Duran tins looks great.
Speaker 3: Also at this meeting, Alan shares with Connor that the
Speaker 3: radiation levels above the shield are normal, but John C. McGinley,
Speaker 3: the Bad Shield executive, is spying on them from the
Speaker 3: next room. So this seems to be a corporation where
Speaker 3: the CEO stays late to personally spy on employees rather
Speaker 3: than having like software subordinates do it for him. McGinley
Speaker 3: then comes into the room and Connor starts like needling
Speaker 3: about how.
Speaker 4: What if one day the Shield doesn't need it anymore?
Speaker 4: Your profits would dry up? So it's like he's just
Speaker 4: Connor seems to be like wrapping out his friend who
Speaker 4: just told him about this in confidence.
Speaker 3: Next we cut to the planet Zeist and then we
Speaker 3: see Michael Ironside just standing in a cave by himself
Speaker 3: and he says, I guess if you want something done, right,
Speaker 3: you have to do it yourself. So then he goes
Speaker 3: to Earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he also would get the like his sci fi
Speaker 1: techno sword goes shashing to sell this, which I have
Speaker 1: to admit looks pretty cool. And I also have to
Speaker 1: point out this is also pretty much the exact post
Speaker 1: credit Thanos sequence from the Age of Ultron movie. It
Speaker 1: would come, you know, decades later, except with Thano's grabbing
Speaker 1: an Infinity Gauntlet instead of making his sword go shashing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny. I wonder if they got it from
Speaker 3: this maybe.
Speaker 1: So yeah, because it's like I had to go back
Speaker 1: and look at it. It's pretty much the exact same thing,
Speaker 1: Like Dano is like, you've go want something done, you
Speaker 1: got to do it yourself, and then that sets up
Speaker 1: him doing it himself.
Speaker 3: But speaking of so, you brought up a way in
Speaker 3: which General Katana's motivations don't make a lot of sense
Speaker 3: when he gets like all wrapped up in the Shield
Speaker 3: Corporation drama, which matters to him in no way whatsoever.
Speaker 3: But he gets tied up in that he is just
Speaker 3: off task in lots of ways because the first thing
Speaker 3: General Katana does when he arrives on Earth is hijack
Speaker 3: a subway car to no end whatsoever. It's just like
Speaker 3: because he wants to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this guy's not supposed to be like just the
Speaker 1: reckless enforcer that the loose cannon. He's supposed to be
Speaker 1: the mastermind. Like this is the big bad, like Thanos
Speaker 1: doesn't come to Earth in the Marvel movies and just
Speaker 1: like I love recking casinos. No, he's got an agenda.
Speaker 1: He's got things he definitely wants to do, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna mess with you if you get in the way
Speaker 1: of those goals. Katana doesn't operate like.
Speaker 3: That, right, So he like beams down into a subway car.
Speaker 3: He says, this doesn't look like Kansas. Great, great reference
Speaker 3: for Zeist culture.
Speaker 1: They love Wizard of Us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he then he kills a random passenger
Speaker 3: on the train. Then he goes up to a kid
Speaker 3: and he says, bet you've always wanted to drive one
Speaker 3: of these, haven't you? And the kid's like yeah, and
Speaker 3: then he goes me too. Then he goes up to
Speaker 3: the front of the subway car, conks out the driver,
Speaker 3: hijacks the train, and then like he makes the aphex
Speaker 3: twin face as he pushes the speed up to hundreds
Speaker 3: of miles per hour and then crashes through the side
Speaker 3: of a building.
Speaker 1: More more train wrecks Center train wreck of the movie, right.
Speaker 3: And then we get these these weird General Katana Connor interactions.
Speaker 3: We see Connor going to visit the grave of his
Speaker 3: earth wife, which is in some kind of urban cathedral,
Speaker 3: and then General Katana is just there to sarcastically slow
Speaker 3: clap after Connor finishes, saying a few words and another
Speaker 3: interesting choice. Ironside is just in full clown mode here.
Speaker 3: He's like kissing on a statue of an angel and
Speaker 3: he's making these quips he says to Connor after Connor's
Speaker 3: talking to his wife's grave, and Katana says, I always
Speaker 3: did admire a man who can talk to the dead.
Speaker 3: And then he says, the remains of your mortal wife
Speaker 3: so frail, so earthly, so very dead, And Connor says,
Speaker 3: at least she's at peace. Katana says peace is highly overrated,
Speaker 3: and then Connor says things don't change. Katana, I like that,
Speaker 3: after all these years, you're still a jerk, a jerk.
Speaker 3: But then they also say they can't they know they're
Speaker 3: gonna have to fight, but they say they can't fight
Speaker 3: here because of quote the Golden Rule, which is that
Speaker 3: we must never fight on holy ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is something, of course established in the first
Speaker 1: Highlander movie. And they do kind of try to address
Speaker 1: one problem that emerges and concerning all this in Highlander three,
Speaker 1: and that is, okay, it's one thing for Connor and
Speaker 1: other like, you know, some degree like chaotic good or
Speaker 1: neutral good immortals to honor this rule, I guess. But
Speaker 1: why do all these like clearly chaotic evil immortals care
Speaker 1: about the Golden rule concerning holy spaces? So credit to
Speaker 1: Highlander three. I won't spoil anything, but they do at
Speaker 1: least address that a little bit in that picture.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, you know, I have to watch Highlander three someday.
Speaker 3: I never made it that far.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's I remember, it's being fun. It's fun.
Speaker 1: It's got Mario van Peebles place the new villainous immortal,
Speaker 1: which I believe the whole idea is, Oh, Connor, you
Speaker 1: didn't win the prize after all, because there were three
Speaker 1: immortals that were trapped in a cave in somewhere and
Speaker 1: oh they just dug them.
Speaker 3: Out perfect completely ignores Holander two, right.
Speaker 1: Right, I guess technically occurs before Highlander two, but also
Speaker 1: ignores it.
Speaker 3: And then meanwhile, back in Scotland with Ramirez who has
Speaker 3: been reincarnated, we get a comedy makeover scene. I love
Speaker 3: that they included this in the movie. So Sean Connery
Speaker 3: goes into a men's tailor shop and he gets fancy
Speaker 3: modern clothes and they're like custom made. He played pays
Speaker 3: for them with a pearl ear ring. I guess there's
Speaker 3: just more use of Ramirez for comic relief, more fish
Speaker 3: out of time stuff, like before he goes in, he
Speaker 3: looks at TVs and a shop window and he is
Speaker 3: amazed about the concept of airplanes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I seem to recall reading that a lot of this,
Speaker 1: the Scotland stuff, was Connery's doing, Like I'll do it,
Speaker 1: but there need to be some scenes that are shot
Speaker 1: in Scotland. And I don't know if he had any
Speaker 1: influence over the flavor of these sequences, but you can
Speaker 1: imagine that as like, all right, if we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot these extra days. I want one day where
Speaker 1: I'm just getting fitted for a suit while I drink Scotch.
Speaker 1: That's the whole scene.
Speaker 3: I got it. He does look sharp. He looks great
Speaker 3: in the suit they give him.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he does. Yeah, i'd say. In general, though,
Speaker 1: Ramirez lacks the authentic charisma that he had in the
Speaker 1: first film, though, you know he's He's more of a
Speaker 1: comic relief character here, except for some key dramatic moments.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he then gets on an airplane to go
Speaker 3: I guess to America to find Connor, and he flirts
Speaker 3: with the woman in the seat next to him. There
Speaker 3: are some jokes about airplane food that somehow morph into
Speaker 3: sex jokes. That's all yuck, yuck. But also in this
Speaker 3: part there is a part that's supposed to be funny
Speaker 3: and does genuinely work. It's quite hilarious when Ramirez watches
Speaker 3: an aviation safety film on the video screen in front
Speaker 3: of him. That is quite funny.
Speaker 1: I didn't care for it, no, but it is kind
Speaker 1: of like it's very much of the sort of RoboCop
Speaker 1: vibe of parity, which I do admire. Isn't there another
Speaker 1: sequence like this that maybe Katanovius, maybe it's a different
Speaker 1: cut of the film where it's like a chef, like
Speaker 1: psychic chef or something. What was the.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think that's in another cut of the film.
Speaker 3: I think that's not in the American version. But yeah,
Speaker 3: there are like these weird media segments that are kind
Speaker 3: of robocopy, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Which I admire, and I would say that one's worth
Speaker 1: checking out. I just can't remember what it was. It's
Speaker 1: something like Psychic Chef or it's dumb but amusing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Psychic Chef.
Speaker 3: The joke is that the aviation Safety movie that's like
Speaker 3: you know where the emergency exits are and stuff on
Speaker 3: the plane is like actually incredibly violent and terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At any rate, the successfully flies all the way
Speaker 1: to wherever Shield City is, so that and we don't
Speaker 1: see the rest of it. We don't see him going
Speaker 1: through customs. We don't see arranging a travel figuring out
Speaker 1: exactly where Connor is. I mean, he's got the quickening,
Speaker 1: so I guess he can zone in on him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would. Oh, I'd love to see him going
Speaker 3: through customs. But oh, speaking of things to declare, there
Speaker 3: is a scene where Virginia Madsen's like wandering around Connor's apartment,
Speaker 3: goes through all this old stuff and know, and it's showing, Oh,
Speaker 3: he's lived for centuries. He played football, he sailed on
Speaker 3: the high seas. Here's his nineteen oh one football team picture,
Speaker 3: and there's a suit of armor in there, and like
Speaker 3: old bottles of wine and all that. Also in this room,
Speaker 3: is that a Confederate flag in there?
Speaker 1: Connor Well, I bet he took that off of Confederate troops.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but there. I don't remember where all
Speaker 1: this lands, but I know there were some deleted scenes
Speaker 1: in the for The First Highlander in which he fights
Speaker 1: the Nazis, so I'm guessing he fought for the Union
Speaker 1: during the Civil War.
Speaker 3: There's also a scene in here where General Katana rides
Speaker 3: in a cab. He's like, uh, well, so the cab
Speaker 3: driver loves General Katana. When he gets in, he's like, whoa,
Speaker 3: you're like a heavy metal dude. WHOA, you're so you're
Speaker 3: out of control.
Speaker 1: You're in the music business, aren't you.
Speaker 3: Katana is like, it's quite comfortable back here, like a coffin.
Speaker 1: What does Katana even like is what is this guy about?
Speaker 1: It's just bad, that's all he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah it So he's like, oh yeah, And then when
Speaker 3: they arrived at his destination, he just starts destroying the cab,
Speaker 3: like he stabs his sword through the window and he
Speaker 3: gets out and he kicks out the headlights and stabs
Speaker 3: the tires, and the whole time the driver, the taxi
Speaker 3: driver is going like awesome. But anyway, where was the
Speaker 3: cab taking him?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: It's Shield Corporation headquarters. So Michael Ironside walks into a
Speaker 3: board meeting with John C. McGinley and he starts just
Speaker 3: choking people and he says, I'd like to join your
Speaker 3: human corporation? Where do I sign up? And they try
Speaker 3: to have like a guy in the suit shoot him,
Speaker 3: but man, he's immortal.
Speaker 1: Whoops.
Speaker 3: Also, there are more jokes and references that don't make
Speaker 3: any sense, like General Katana gets up after being shot
Speaker 3: and he says, yes, you know, guys, this is no
Speaker 3: way to treat your number one draft choice. It's like,
Speaker 3: is that a foot metaphor?
Speaker 1: I guess they have football on Zeist?
Speaker 3: So I think based on this scene, General Katana is
Speaker 3: now CEO of the Shield Corporation.
Speaker 1: You know, I bet what happened is they had football
Speaker 1: on Zeist and who invented football on Earth? But immortals?
Speaker 1: Probably Connor did it.
Speaker 3: That makes so much sense, yes, but somehow, like General
Speaker 3: Katana getting tangled up with the Shield Corporation and seemingly
Speaker 3: becoming John C mcginley's partner, like accelerates them in just
Speaker 3: doing general badness. So John C McGinley goes into Alan
Speaker 3: Nayman's office from naming his Connor's old friend, and he's like,
Speaker 3: he's like, okay, I know you. You're telling people that
Speaker 3: the radiation levels are normal. I'm gonna throw you in
Speaker 3: Shield jail, which exists. Let me get some brief character
Speaker 3: moments where like Virginia Madsen is asking Connor about his
Speaker 3: previous wives and Connor is talking about them, but then
Speaker 3: they get interrupted when Connor senses a present nearby and
Speaker 3: a shadowy figure emerges, and Connor and this figure duel
Speaker 3: with swords, but then it's revealed that it is Sean
Speaker 3: Connery and he says, greetings, highlander, you called so again.
Speaker 3: Connor always had the power to resurrect Ramirez from the
Speaker 3: dead by yelling his name, and they have known this
Speaker 3: since they came from Zeist five hundred years ago, but
Speaker 3: he just now did it. Ye, So they have, you know,
Speaker 3: playful dueling and banter. I think they're trying to get
Speaker 3: the old Magic back from Highlander one. They're trying to
Speaker 3: get that feeling, that relationship re established. I think it's
Speaker 3: not quite clicking, but they try to do it with
Speaker 3: like them making fun of each other, Like Ramirez makes
Speaker 3: fun of Connor for having ridiculous art in his apartment,
Speaker 3: Connor makes fun of Ramirez for being old and for
Speaker 3: having been dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like what they should have and maybe
Speaker 1: even wanted to do. You should have had a flashback
Speaker 1: here to show like their relationship in maybe an outdoor setting,
Speaker 1: because here we do have this wonderful but very grimy, grungy,
Speaker 1: dark set, and I don't know, it's not a very
Speaker 1: lively place to establish a lively relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, though they do try to spice it up. They
Speaker 3: pour drinks and they have a toast, and the toast go.
Speaker 3: This is a direct quote Connor says to Magic, and
Speaker 3: Ramirez says to zeyst Oh. Also, Ramirez meets Virginia Mattson
Speaker 3: meets Louise Marcus and he says, you know, he's like, wow,
Speaker 3: you know, I like this eco terrorist and they immediately
Speaker 3: start scheming. Ramirez says, hey, Connor, the shield is ugly
Speaker 3: and it sucks, and Connor says, yeah, well it was
Speaker 3: necessary at the time, and then Ramirez says, so was
Speaker 3: Noah's Flood. But they they established that Connor's old friend
Speaker 3: Alan is being held in this secret, high security Shield
Speaker 3: prison and they have to go rescue him. Also, they
Speaker 3: established that General Katana is here and they have to
Speaker 3: go face him. So first of all, they go to
Speaker 3: the Shield corpse Slammer. So they go to the security
Speaker 3: gate and it's like Connor is driving a car and
Speaker 3: Ramirez is in the passenger seat and they just drive
Speaker 3: through the barricade into the Shield headquarters and they get
Speaker 3: blasted by guards with machine guns. Fortunately, they are immortal,
Speaker 3: so that when they get inside, they just sort of
Speaker 3: like pop up in the Shield prison morgue. Also, Louise
Speaker 3: is in there. She's like talking to the doctor and
Speaker 3: the morgue, and then he sees them, you know, Connor
Speaker 3: and Ramirez pop up and he just faints.
Speaker 1: Fun immortal hikings.
Speaker 3: Yes. Then they decide to split up, of course, and
Speaker 3: start running around in tunnels looking for Alan. I was like,
Speaker 3: is this a prison. It looks more like a sewer
Speaker 3: full of people living in rags and eating rats. It's
Speaker 3: like what the human hideout in Terminator is. Like, they
Speaker 3: go and find Alan, but he does one of those
Speaker 3: movie instant deaths where he's just like, oh, Connor, you know,
Speaker 3: we tell me we did the right thing by making
Speaker 3: the shield, and then he's like you were my best friend.
Speaker 3: Oh and just falls over dies. Meanwhile, John c McGinley
Speaker 3: and General Katana are like watching all this on closed
Speaker 3: circuit cameras, and General Katana says, well, well, well, like
Speaker 3: a high school reunion down there.
Speaker 1: And so the instantly once more he's got the drop
Speaker 1: and ramiras.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so here's what they're gonna do. Okay, they
Speaker 3: run them into a trap room, So our three heroes are.
Speaker 3: They go into a cylindrical room all at the same time.
Speaker 3: The doors slam and lock behind them, and then this
Speaker 3: is one of the greatest moments of the movie. A
Speaker 3: whirling fan starts lowering from the ceiling toward the floor,
Speaker 3: so like, oh no, the fan is descending on them.
Speaker 3: It's like the pit and the pendulum, except it's a fan.
Speaker 3: And I guess the implication is that the fan will
Speaker 3: lower until it hits the floor and just squashes them,
Speaker 3: or I suppose the threat to the Immortal is that
Speaker 3: the fan blades will chop off their heads. But then
Speaker 3: I was thinking, like, is that really physically? What would happen?
Speaker 3: Wouldn't they just kind of get more like like you know,
Speaker 3: like they're in a blender.
Speaker 1: I don't know, But I also like how this hell
Speaker 1: set kind of resembles the fizzy lifting drink scene from
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka. Yes, so the blades didn't lower in that
Speaker 1: our heroes floated up towards it. But I still can't
Speaker 1: help but connect the two.
Speaker 3: So how are our heroes going to get out of
Speaker 3: this jam?
Speaker 1: You tell me. I've seen it multiple times and I
Speaker 1: still don't know what happens.
Speaker 3: Here's what happens. So Ramirez says, you stay back. Connor
Speaker 3: says I can help. Ramirez says, no, you can't, not
Speaker 3: this time. And then Ramirez gives a speech. He's like
Speaker 3: standing in the middle of the room, the under the fan.
Speaker 3: He lifts his hands up and he says, most people
Speaker 3: have a full measure of life, and most people just
Speaker 3: watch it slowly drip away. But if you can summon
Speaker 3: it all up at one time, in one place, you
Speaker 3: can accomplish something glorious and then bagpipes start playing amazing Grace,
Speaker 3: and Ramirez, like light comes out of his hand and
Speaker 3: the fan, I guess, starts lifting back up from where
Speaker 3: it was. And he turns to Connor and Louise and
Speaker 3: he says, my time here is over. It'll take the
Speaker 3: power of both of you to destroy General Katana and
Speaker 3: the Shield, and Connor says, will I ever see you again?
Speaker 3: And Ramirez says, who knows, Hylander? Who knows? So Connor
Speaker 3: and Louise escape for some reason. The door pops open
Speaker 3: and Ramirez turns into light and explodes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what this is supposed to be,
Speaker 1: Like self quickeningly destroys the fan.
Speaker 3: It just feels like it feels like they had to
Speaker 3: wrap this thing up.
Speaker 1: Just a kind of magic. Can't question it.
Speaker 3: There's another quick scene where General Katana and John C.
Speaker 3: McGinley are talking and the latter is upset for some reason.
Speaker 3: Katana reacts by grabbing him by the crotch, lifting him
Speaker 3: in the air, and throwing him out a window. So
Speaker 3: that's the end of that character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this character in this relationship that we just
Speaker 1: had so little invested in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but now we're here for the final showdown. So
Speaker 3: Connor and Louise fight their way to the top of
Speaker 3: the Shield pyramid with guns, by the way, which feels
Speaker 3: wrong for Highlander.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uncivilized weapon. I think he does use a machine
Speaker 1: gun against the Nazis in a deleted scene from Highlander one.
Speaker 1: But still you didn't. You don't sign up to see
Speaker 1: Connor McLeod use machine gun.
Speaker 3: Right, So Connor like, he hands a rifle to Louise
Speaker 3: and he's like, okay, you go fight all the soldiers
Speaker 3: and destroy the Shield. I'll go cross swords with General Katana.
Speaker 3: I am not worried what will happen to you? And
Speaker 3: you know, he kisses her to let her know he
Speaker 3: means it. The location of the General Katana showdown is
Speaker 3: it's confusing here, and I think it's because what has
Speaker 3: happened in this scene in the American cut is that
Speaker 3: this is actually two completely separate fight scenes that happen
Speaker 3: at two different parts of the movie, and they've been
Speaker 3: edited together.
Speaker 1: That would make a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: But it's in a dark, empty warehouse with like that
Speaker 3: wet industrial feeling, you know, steam pipes, water is dripping,
Speaker 3: chains dangling everywhere. Metal grates, catwalks, sparks, shooting out of stuff.
Speaker 3: It's your basic final showdown sword fight. It's not great,
Speaker 3: but I have seen worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I can't again, I can't help but
Speaker 1: wonder too how injuries and clunky swords and so forth
Speaker 1: factored into this, because I don't think that the sword
Speaker 1: fights in Highland are one set an incredibly high standard
Speaker 1: like they're not. I wouldn't. I would never hold them
Speaker 1: up as being like the best sword fights in cinema.
Speaker 1: But they're really good, and I feel like what we
Speaker 1: get in this picture, you know, aside from flying space assassins,
Speaker 1: what we get in this picture feels mostly sub Highlander one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's one part in this fight where McLeod
Speaker 3: falls down an elevator shaft and breaks all his bones.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty interesting. I did like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he has to manually snap them back
Speaker 3: into place and then go up and fight again. I
Speaker 3: think that might have been the like break that the
Speaker 3: actual conclusion of one of the two original fight scenes.
Speaker 3: I'm not positive, but anyway, they start sword fighting right
Speaker 3: next to a giant beam. This is the source of
Speaker 3: the shield. It's kind of a cool set.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it looks really cool, big sets, you know,
Speaker 1: beam of light, very evocative. I love it. Though. Again,
Speaker 1: the actual sword fight, especially right here, feels kind of
Speaker 1: anticlimactic again, like it just didn't have much more gas
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 3: Tank that that's exactly right. So Connor wins. He chops
Speaker 3: off Katana's head. It does feel kind of anti climactic.
Speaker 3: Then he gets some quickening, you know, all this all
Speaker 3: the light shoots into him and he gets the electricity
Speaker 3: snakes and stuff. But like, is he mortal again?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: I would guess so. But then he walks into the
Speaker 3: shield beam huh, and Virginia Madsen's there looking at him
Speaker 3: and she's like no. And then the shield explodes. The
Speaker 3: satellite controlling the shield explodes, the sky clears and they
Speaker 3: can see stars. Wow, the shield is gone. And then
Speaker 3: the voice of Ramirez speaks in their minds and says, remember, highlander,
Speaker 3: you've both still got your full measure of life. Use
Speaker 3: it well and your future will be glorious end credits.
Speaker 1: Wow. So yeah, I guess he uses the power of
Speaker 1: this quickening, of this energy absorption of a powerful and
Speaker 1: mortal to short circuit all of the shield technology here
Speaker 1: and I guess yeah. And then at the end, is
Speaker 1: either mortal or is gonna get to return to Zeist?
Speaker 3: Doesn't doesn't make it, doesn't say ends incredibly abruptly with
Speaker 3: the voiceover by Sean Connery, which is calls back to
Speaker 3: the fun one of the funniest moments in the movie
Speaker 3: when he's pushing the fan measure of life. I don't
Speaker 3: know where any of that comes from.
Speaker 1: Now, tell me about this fairy tale ending. What is
Speaker 1: this return dezice thing that could have happened?
Speaker 3: So there are a couple of different endings. There is
Speaker 3: one ending in which after this Connor and Louise are
Speaker 3: like walking outside the shield pyramid and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we did it. You know, I love you, And then
Speaker 3: Connor returns to Zeist without her, you know. He's like,
Speaker 3: I love you, but I must leave you here on Earth.
Speaker 3: I've got it. I made a vow I would return dezeised,
Speaker 3: and he does. They like flies away into space. Then
Speaker 3: there's another ending where they both go dezeised, where he's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I love you, Come with me Dezeised and
Speaker 3: she's like, but I can't fly through space. And I
Speaker 3: think he's essentially like you know, it's a kind of magic.
Speaker 3: Just try it. And so she does and then she
Speaker 3: flies into space and they both fly into space and
Speaker 3: go Dezeice together.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know whether they're going to get up
Speaker 1: to there. We don't really know much about Zeius aside
Speaker 1: from conflict. Maybe they're they're good qualities. They have football apparently,
Speaker 1: and maybe high schools they don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're never shown like what's worth fighting for on Zeised?
Speaker 3: We should we should see like the good you know,
Speaker 3: the good life on Zeized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or the like the old Zeis that they're going
Speaker 1: to restore. I'm not sure again, why do we care
Speaker 1: about this? Why is it important? Why? Now?
Speaker 3: Anyway? That's Highland or two. The Quickening a movie that
Speaker 3: is so interesting to me. I mean it just in
Speaker 3: terms of a deeply hilarious, flawed movie. It is that,
Speaker 3: But it's also really interesting because there's a lot about
Speaker 3: it that is mostly buried in the American cut but
Speaker 3: is pretty good and just like isn't allowed to cohere
Speaker 3: into a full film. But if you can like look
Speaker 3: at those elements, they're they're really quite admirable in their
Speaker 3: own Like we were talking about some of the sets
Speaker 3: and some of the staging in the costumes, and like
Speaker 3: the actors are great, though I don't think anybody in
Speaker 3: this movie is on their a game, and so I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's just such an interesting creative product and
Speaker 3: whatever you think about it, I think it's undeniable that
Speaker 3: it is so funny and so perplexing and it's something
Speaker 3: that the people who are interested in filmmaking should see,
Speaker 3: I think, and and also learn watch the documentary and
Speaker 3: you know, learn learn about how it was made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like if you're if you're into that side,
Speaker 1: like what went wrong and how is it made? And
Speaker 1: so forth, Like Highlander two is a great story if
Speaker 1: you just want a bad movie, a movie with flaws
Speaker 1: that you can you can riff on, Highlander two is
Speaker 1: a great choice if you know, if you like to
Speaker 1: find the diamonds in the midst of the rough, if
Speaker 1: you want to find the shiny parts of otherwise flawed films,
Speaker 1: like Highlander two has riches for you to behold. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's one of those those weird films,
Speaker 1: those flawed films that has a lot to offer, two
Speaker 1: different different values, different audiences.
Speaker 3: Absolutely agree, Yeah, I love Highlander two.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
Speaker 1: this our second episode on Highlander two, second and final
Speaker 1: episode two, but we'd love to hear from everyone out
Speaker 1: there if you have thoughts on any of the various
Speaker 1: cuts of Highlander two, thoughts on the Highlander franchise in general,
Speaker 1: or you know other other films that you think meet
Speaker 1: these standards right in we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, a listener mail episode on Mondays, and
Speaker 1: a short form episode on Wednesdays. But on Fridays we
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want
Speaker 1: to see a list of all the movies we've covered
Speaker 1: thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead at what comes next,
Speaker 1: go on over to letterbox dot com. That's l E
Speaker 1: T T e r box d dot com our user
Speaker 1: profile there is weird House, and you will find the
Speaker 1: list that I just referenced.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
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