Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, this is
Speaker 1: another vacation week, so we figured this is another great
Speaker 1: opportunity to re air a past Weird House Cinema two parter.
Speaker 1: This is going to be part one of Joe and
Speaker 1: I's discussion of Highlander to the Quickening. I think if
Speaker 1: you're a long time listener to the show, you know
Speaker 1: that we have a strange appreciation for this weird, weird picture.
Speaker 1: This episode originally published four twenty seven, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and today on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: I am so excited because we're going to be talking
Speaker 3: about the nineteen ninety one sci fi fantasy action film
Speaker 3: Highlander to the Quickening, starring Christoph Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen,
Speaker 3: and Michael Ironside. This is the weird, dank, detested sequel
Speaker 3: to the original Highlander from nineteen eighty six. And I
Speaker 3: have butterflies in my stomach. I'm so happy to talk
Speaker 3: about this today.
Speaker 1: Now, some of our longtime listeners might say, whoa, wha, whoa.
Speaker 1: Didn't you guys already cover Highlander two? We have not
Speaker 1: covered it for Weird House Cinema. We did a pre
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema stuff to blow your Mind episode back
Speaker 1: when we really had to shoehorn a weird movie into
Speaker 1: a core episode if we really had it in our
Speaker 1: hearts to do so. But we did not get to
Speaker 1: give it the Weird House treatment.
Speaker 3: I think we ended up talking about some of the
Speaker 3: science of proposed geoengineering projects and stuff like that, which
Speaker 3: is a plot point in the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So we'll probably do less of that in
Speaker 1: this and focus more on everything else. But fortunately Highlander
Speaker 1: two is a film with plenty of everything else.
Speaker 3: Now, a little note at the top here, this episode
Speaker 3: of Weird House Cinema may well go to two parts.
Speaker 3: We don't usually do that on Weird House. We did
Speaker 3: recently do it when we talked about David Lynch's Dune,
Speaker 3: and we promised it would not become a regular thing.
Speaker 3: But David Lynch's Dune seemed deservingly massive, and while we
Speaker 3: still don't plan on making it a regular thing, to
Speaker 3: split weird house movies into multiple episodes. Highlander two just
Speaker 3: kind of seemed on par with Dune, you know, equally majestic,
Speaker 3: equally epic, equally deserving. So, while this is still not
Speaker 3: what we're usually going to do on the show, we're
Speaker 3: going to split today's episode into part one and part
Speaker 3: two as well. It'll make more sense once we start talking. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: So Highlander two is a movie that I have seen
Speaker 3: I don't know how many times, at least a dozen times,
Speaker 3: maybe two dozen times, if I'm honest, many many times.
Speaker 3: Going back to my high school years. This was a
Speaker 3: favorite movie of mind to watch with my friends when
Speaker 3: I was younger. I had a VHS tape of it
Speaker 3: that I would just show to everybody every time I
Speaker 3: made a new friend. It's like, let's watch Highlander two. So,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that this movie is infamous for its
Speaker 3: awfulness and hated by most Highlander fans, this is a
Speaker 3: movie I positively adore, and I really mean that. As
Speaker 3: Roger Ebert said in his review, Highlander two is a
Speaker 3: movie quote almost awesome in its badness. This is not
Speaker 3: just like your run of the mill bad movie. Bad
Speaker 3: movies can be dull, they can be off putting, they
Speaker 3: can be boring or distasteful. In Highlander two, it's like
Speaker 3: all great badness. The badness itself takes on characteristics that
Speaker 3: we really associate with greatness and specifically great storytelling. The
Speaker 3: badness of Highlander two is zesty, invigorating, hilarious, thought provoking,
Speaker 3: and emotionally powerful. This movie is completely malfunctioning in ways
Speaker 3: that make me want to live my life to the fullest.
Speaker 3: And so in that way, I think the closest thing
Speaker 3: I could think of to compare it to is like
Speaker 3: the best films of ed Wood. It's sort of like
Speaker 3: Plan nine from Outer Space. It's so dumb it becomes brilliant.
Speaker 3: It's so ugly it becomes beautiful, and every time I
Speaker 3: watch it it just puts a spring in my step.
Speaker 3: I love Highlander two.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I don't disagree with the positive spin on
Speaker 1: Highlander two at all. I will throw in there that
Speaker 1: it's especially in some of its best scenes, it's far
Speaker 1: more technically proficient than Plan nine from Outer Space. Oh yeah, certainly, yeah,
Speaker 1: But but it is it is still a train wreck
Speaker 1: of a film. Not only is it a train wreck,
Speaker 1: it features a train wreck with a sword fight on
Speaker 1: top of it.
Speaker 3: That's right, and then it has it has one of
Speaker 3: the most creative train related I can't even finish that
Speaker 3: sentence here. We'll just have to get into it with
Speaker 3: the plot. So holand or two is the story of
Speaker 3: a man in a downward spiral of loneliness, abjection, and
Speaker 3: physical decay. It is the story of an act of
Speaker 3: love and genius meant to save the world that instead
Speaker 3: only damns the world to a state of living hell.
Speaker 3: It is the story of people whose lives are governed
Speaker 3: by forces that can't really be understood, either as natural
Speaker 3: or supernatural. It's a world where magic is random and
Speaker 3: new rules are constantly revealed, and every time you learn
Speaker 3: something new, Sean Connery is just standing there winking at you, like,
Speaker 3: didn't you know this is how it worked? And I
Speaker 3: love that quality about it. There is a capriciousness to
Speaker 3: the rules of magic in this movie that is really intoxicating.
Speaker 3: It's like, what are we going to find out next?
Speaker 3: So this is going to preserve our long running tradition
Speaker 3: of jumping straight into a sequel without covering the original film,
Speaker 3: but in this case, to really understand Highlander two to
Speaker 3: understand it's surprising narrative choices, it's little cranky, little quirks,
Speaker 3: and what you might call its reception history by the
Speaker 3: fans and the general public. I think we do need
Speaker 3: to start with a basic rundown on the original Highlander,
Speaker 3: like what was this story about and how did it
Speaker 3: find such an enthusiastic fan base.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll try and keep it reasonably short, because we
Speaker 1: could easily do a whole weird Outs episode on nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six as Highlander, and we even we discussed it,
Speaker 1: we still might do it someday, because ultimately, Highlander is
Speaker 1: a weirder and more ridiculous film than I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people remember, especially when comparing it to Highlander two.
Speaker 1: Like you forget the like three dozen backflips that one
Speaker 1: of the immortals does in an early fight. You forget
Speaker 1: that it opens up in the bowels of a wrestling arena,
Speaker 1: and so forth. There's a lot of weird choices in
Speaker 1: the film.
Speaker 3: The first fight is like guys who are trying to
Speaker 3: cut each other's head off in a parking garage at
Speaker 3: a wrestling event at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: Is it's Madison Square Garden and it's like the fabulous
Speaker 1: Freebirds are.
Speaker 3: Wrestling and and they're trying to chop at each other,
Speaker 3: and you're right, one of them is doing backflips over
Speaker 3: the hoods of cars or something.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a film that's full of action
Speaker 1: movie machismo, but it also both just a deliriously fun
Speaker 1: queen soundtrack and I think is perhaps understudied as a
Speaker 1: film potentially exploring themes and subtext of gay identity in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. I keep looking around for examples of
Speaker 1: like cinema study scholarship that really digs into this, and
Speaker 1: I found some like passing references to Highlander, but nobody's
Speaker 1: really gotten in there, so I keep hoping that somebody will.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's your destiny to.
Speaker 1: Write I am I'm not the person to write it,
Speaker 1: but I would love to read someone's take on it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Highlander one nineteen eighty six is the tale
Speaker 1: of a sixteenth century man in the Scottish Highlands by
Speaker 1: the name of Connor MacLeod, who just lives seemingly ordinary
Speaker 1: life until he suffers a fatal wound at the hands
Speaker 1: of a strange foreign mercenary on the battlefield. But Hey,
Speaker 1: it looks like he's going to die, but he miraculously
Speaker 1: recovers miraculously. But that's not how the locals interpret it.
Speaker 1: They think this is witchcraft because he is completely healed
Speaker 1: from a fatal wound. So he is exiled from his community.
Speaker 1: And while he's wandering in sadness, he encounters a benevolent
Speaker 1: traveling immortal by the name of Ramirez, who played by
Speaker 1: Sean Connery, who initiates him into the secret knowledge of
Speaker 1: the game. Here so sprinkled throughout time. He learns are
Speaker 1: individuals who can miraculously recover from almost any wound and
Speaker 1: can only be killed via beheading these individuals, these immortals,
Speaker 1: are drawn to each other to engage in single combat,
Speaker 1: with the victor absorbing the powers of the loser, so
Speaker 1: that Strange a mercenary that cut into him on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: We learned that this is the Kurgan, one of the
Speaker 1: more powerful and ruthless immortals out there, and he was
Speaker 1: drawn to McLeod. And so this game of immortals is
Speaker 1: going to continue on through time until at some point
Speaker 1: in the future when the remaining immortals will be drawn
Speaker 1: to a place of final battle in the end, there's
Speaker 1: going to remain only one, and that immortal individual will
Speaker 1: not only claim the accumulated power of all the immortals
Speaker 1: that ever lived before them, but they shall claim quote
Speaker 1: the prize. More on the prize in a second.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is all information that Connor does not have.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know about any of this. He's explicitly being
Speaker 3: taught about all of these magical rules by Ramirez, by
Speaker 3: Sean Conner.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's being initiated into the world of immortals by Ramirez,
Speaker 1: and Ramirez trains him. He's like, I knew the Kurgan
Speaker 1: was after you, so I found you so that I
Speaker 1: could train you so that you could stand a chance
Speaker 1: against him.
Speaker 3: Clancy Brown by the yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, so fabulously over the top, like snarling, spitting performance.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately, in the midst of all this training, the
Speaker 1: Kurrigan returns. He wants to kill McLeod, but instead he
Speaker 1: kills Ramirez. So then we go centuries later in mid
Speaker 1: eighties New York City. This is where the last of
Speaker 1: the immortals have gathered to battle it out, and of
Speaker 1: course the last two end up being Connor, McLeod and
Speaker 1: the Kurrigan. McLeod is ultimately victorious and claims the mysterious
Speaker 1: prize and we get to find out what the prize is.
Speaker 1: We are told that this prize seems to give him
Speaker 1: two main features. First of all, he's finally mortal. This
Speaker 1: playing on the like a long running theme and myth
Speaker 1: making and storytelling that immortality is also a curse because
Speaker 1: you you know, and that's something that the film explores,
Speaker 1: and it times rather beautifully that you end up living
Speaker 1: longer than the people that you love, and the world
Speaker 1: that you love falls behind you, and therefore getting to
Speaker 1: become mortal again, getting to age and have children. We're
Speaker 1: told that immortals can't have children, but now he can
Speaker 1: if he wants. These things are opened up to him,
Speaker 1: so that's part of the prize. But more essentially, he
Speaker 1: can now read the thoughts and feelings of people around
Speaker 1: the world, and he can like orchestrate things, bring these
Speaker 1: people together and try and create a brighter future for
Speaker 1: all of humanity.
Speaker 3: Highlander one a brilliant summary, Rob, I think that gets
Speaker 3: all of the high points. Now. It's funny that I'm
Speaker 3: much more familiar with Highlander two than I am with
Speaker 3: Highlander one. I think I've seen Highlander one one or
Speaker 3: two times, whereas I've seen Highlander two who knows how
Speaker 3: many times? But you know, so I'm kind of coming
Speaker 3: at the series backwards. But it's interesting that a lot
Speaker 3: of the core features of the first movie are going
Speaker 3: to be completely ignored in the second one. Is there
Speaker 3: any indication in Highlander two that Connor McLeod can read
Speaker 3: people's thoughts.
Speaker 1: Only? I guess in the very beginning there's this idea
Speaker 1: like he didn't himself create the key technology that saves
Speaker 1: the world and becomes a major plot point of Islander two,
Speaker 1: but he brought people together to do it. So it
Speaker 1: is kind of like, if you know, Connor McLeod is
Speaker 1: able to realize, Okay, this person needs to work with
Speaker 1: this person. We need to get these people together. I
Speaker 1: know who has what knowledge, who has what sensibilities, and
Speaker 1: so he's able to sort of facilitate the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But they don't get into the details about how this
Speaker 1: actually works.
Speaker 3: Okay, I want to have follow up on that, But
Speaker 3: actually there's something we have to address before we go
Speaker 3: any further talking about Highlander two, which is the question
Speaker 3: of which Highlander two are we talking about? Because Highlander
Speaker 3: two is a movie that does not really have a
Speaker 3: canonical form. There are at least three major cuts, officially
Speaker 3: sanctioned cuts of this film that have been released, maybe four,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. And it gets especially confusing because when
Speaker 3: you go looking to watch Highlander two today and you
Speaker 3: find a streaming option, or you find a disc or whatever,
Speaker 3: it seems to me that it is often not made
Speaker 3: clear in the made clear in like the title which
Speaker 3: cut you're looking at. So there is a lot of confusion.
Speaker 3: But I found as a very helpful resource an incredibly impressive,
Speaker 3: nearly exhaustive guide to the different cuts of Highlander two
Speaker 3: as of the year nineteen ninety seven, at least, written
Speaker 3: by a critic named Sean Murphy, originally published in the
Speaker 3: video Watchdog magazine, which was like a magazine about like
Speaker 3: laser disc and video releases. So I can't keep track
Speaker 3: of all the different cuts of the movie, but here
Speaker 3: are at least several major ones. First of all, you
Speaker 3: had Highlander two the Quickening, the original theatrical cut released
Speaker 3: in the United States. This is sometimes called the American version.
Speaker 3: We will have a special name for it later. Then
Speaker 3: there was also a version of Highlander two released in
Speaker 3: the UK, it's sometimes called the British version, which has
Speaker 3: some differences, and then significantly later, like several years later,
Speaker 3: there was a home video release known as Russell Mulcahy's
Speaker 3: Renegade version also known as Highlander two the Director's cut,
Speaker 3: which is significantly longer, and so the major differences are
Speaker 3: that the British cut has about ten minutes more of
Speaker 3: material than the American theatrical cut, and it has a
Speaker 3: different edit. It rearranges some of the scenes in the
Speaker 3: movie in time and cuts them differently, and also has
Speaker 3: a different ending, which I want to discuss when we
Speaker 3: get to that part of the outline. But some of
Speaker 3: the differences in the British cutter that it contains flashbacks
Speaker 3: about the death of Connor's wife, Brenda, so it just
Speaker 3: has more sort of character development and backstory on Connor,
Speaker 3: and it makes some changes that are supposed to make
Speaker 3: better sense of the events in the story, because the
Speaker 3: theatrical release, which is the one we're going to be
Speaker 3: is famously a quite butchered edit that like splices together
Speaker 3: scenes that were not originally the same scene in the
Speaker 3: script or in how they were shot, and makes them
Speaker 3: the same scenes, so like suddenly in the middle of
Speaker 3: a scene characters are wearing different clothes. Then after all that,
Speaker 3: there's the Renegade version, which is I think eighteen minutes
Speaker 3: longer than the American cut, has major editing differences, It
Speaker 3: moves different scenes around in time within the story, and
Speaker 3: most notably, it removes all references to a couple of
Speaker 3: very important plot points that we'll get to in just
Speaker 3: a moment. So the version we are watching is the
Speaker 3: original theatrical cut of the American version, which we shall
Speaker 3: hereafter refer to as the Zeist cut, and which as
Speaker 3: I can't be sure about this so I'm sorry if
Speaker 3: I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell, is
Speaker 3: not available on Blu Ray, or at least not in
Speaker 3: US region Blu Ray. So why would this be called
Speaker 3: the Zeist cut? Well, it's because the theatrical cut is
Speaker 3: in one major sense true to the script of the film,
Speaker 3: even though it deviates in other ways. And the way
Speaker 3: in which it is true to the script is that
Speaker 3: it answers one of the burning mysteries raised by the
Speaker 3: original story. It tells us where the immortals of Highlander
Speaker 3: come from. It's got to be a huge question, right,
Speaker 3: you know, you know Connor MacLeod in sixteenth century Scotland
Speaker 3: or whatever. He wakes up and he's like, oh, I'm immortal. Why, Well,
Speaker 3: this movie has the answer. They are aliens, and they
Speaker 3: come from the planet Zeist. They've always been aliens, supposedly,
Speaker 3: they've always known they were aliens, and they the specific
Speaker 3: flavor of alien they are is Zeistians. And this is
Speaker 3: the thing that the Renegade version cuts out of the
Speaker 3: movie just takes out all references to the planet Zeist
Speaker 3: and to the fact that the immortals are aliens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oftentimes in kind of hilarious and choppy ways. For instance,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where Connery's Ramirez in the Flashback is
Speaker 1: on the planet speaking to the freedom fighters and says
Speaker 1: the line freemen of the planet Zeist. And then when
Speaker 1: they cut that, they cut it so that he says
Speaker 1: freemen of the planet, which is absolutely something no one
Speaker 1: has ever said.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So in that so in the Renegade version, Sean
Speaker 3: Connery is talking to guys on Earth long ago and
Speaker 3: I don't unspecified time and place in history, but he's
Speaker 3: just talking to people and says freemen of the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, yeah, and I'm not even gonna go down.
Speaker 1: I mean because obviously I watched part of the Renegade
Speaker 1: cut after I finished our cut, the Ice cut, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like you still have them battling with
Speaker 1: gas masks on and with guns and with explosions. But
Speaker 1: it's the ancient past. It it also, it doesn't streamline anything.
Speaker 1: It just creates even more problems for the plot, and
Speaker 1: there were already plenty of problems present now.
Speaker 3: Something raised in that video Watchdog article is the this
Speaker 3: plot detailed. The fact that the immortals are aliens and
Speaker 3: they come from the planet Zeist is something that Highlander
Speaker 3: fans especially hated about Highland or two. This was a
Speaker 3: detested plot innovation, but these fans were apparently the reason
Speaker 3: it happened. This article quotes Bill Panzer, who was a
Speaker 3: co writer on the script and co produced the movie,
Speaker 3: and Panser says the following quote. The question we were
Speaker 3: most asked by fans after the first film was where
Speaker 3: did the immortals come from? It made sense to answer
Speaker 3: that question in the second film. What we didn't realize
Speaker 3: at the time was that the fans didn't really want
Speaker 3: to know their origins, meaning the origins of the immortals,
Speaker 3: because then the romanticism and mystery of the story was
Speaker 3: stripped away. And I gotta say, I think Bill Panser's
Speaker 3: right on the money there that that is often how
Speaker 3: storytelling works. Fans want questions answered, and I think as
Speaker 3: a storyteller, you often have to tell the fans no,
Speaker 3: it is better not to have an answer to that.
Speaker 1: But it's also interesting to think about how, like long term,
Speaker 1: these things can go. Like I think a great thing
Speaker 1: to compare this to is in the Star Wars prequels
Speaker 1: the introduction of the Midichlorians as being this aspect oft
Speaker 1: of the micro organisms and the blood of a forced
Speaker 1: sensitive individuals that explains why they have the force and
Speaker 1: such quantities, and it's something that can be detected and
Speaker 1: like a blood test.
Speaker 3: Rob this is I was thinking of comparisons to the
Speaker 3: innovation of Zeist and that is literally exactly what I
Speaker 3: thought of as the Midichlorians. It's like it answers a question,
Speaker 3: but do you like having this answer now? I don't
Speaker 3: know if that improves the story.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting how the how it's gone with both
Speaker 1: of these franchises. So with Highlander, we get Highland or two.
Speaker 1: They introduce an answer and the fans decide, actually, we
Speaker 1: didn't want that answer, and then seemingly most of the
Speaker 1: people involved in the film are like, yeah, you're you're right,
Speaker 1: You're we shouldn't have answered it. We'll go back, We've
Speaker 1: changed it again, and and now we're at this point
Speaker 1: where we're like, that doesn't feel sufficient. I kind of,
Speaker 1: I mean, stick to your guns on it. And with
Speaker 1: the Midichlorians, I think you see a similar thing in that.
Speaker 1: When the Star Wars sequels came about, there seemed to
Speaker 1: be this deliberate attempt to just sort of skip over
Speaker 1: most of the prequel stuff just comment on the original trilogy.
Speaker 1: And I didn't hate the sequels. I rather liked the
Speaker 1: second one. But then you can see where the storytelling
Speaker 1: is now in the Star Wars franchise, particularly with like
Speaker 1: the Ahsoka A series and the Mandalorian and some of
Speaker 1: the animated shows. They've gone back and they're they're doing
Speaker 1: stuff with Mindichlorians again, while at the same time, to
Speaker 1: be clear, also building on things that were introduced in
Speaker 1: the sequel trilogy, but bringing it all together and kind
Speaker 1: of like sticking to it all and it's all really good,
Speaker 1: and fans seem to be digging it. So I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a lesson in here somewhere about
Speaker 1: you know, sticking to your guns, on your weird choices
Speaker 1: and like go with it, like make it work in
Speaker 1: the long term.
Speaker 3: I think they should have stuck with their guns. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's funny, Yeah, whatever I mean. I say to the
Speaker 3: Highlander fans in question, you got what you asked for,
Speaker 3: and maybe you didn't like it, but I like it.
Speaker 3: I like the planet Zeist. Let me have that, because
Speaker 3: real quick.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they did do with Highlander
Speaker 1: is they came back and made a third Highlander movie
Speaker 1: that was like, okay, we ignored the sequel completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then.
Speaker 1: And then we have the TV series. And I remember
Speaker 1: rather liking various episodes of the TV series for various reasons,
Speaker 1: like they often were in a much more limited scope
Speaker 1: in the story, like tell a story that takes place
Speaker 1: in the past and in the present concerning an immortal character,
Speaker 1: tended to work, often had some nice guest stars, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, like the Highlander of film franchise
Speaker 1: has not gone anywhere great since they since they cowardly
Speaker 1: gave in to the Highlander two criticism.
Speaker 3: Right, So the director's cut slash renegade version of the
Speaker 3: movie does away with this, removes all references to the
Speaker 3: planet Zeist, removes all references to the immortals being aliens.
Speaker 3: Also apparently removes all references to the Quickening. I don't
Speaker 3: know why it's that's some of the funniest stuff in
Speaker 3: the movie, come on, But I guess the deal is
Speaker 3: the Highlander fans, many of them, did not want the
Speaker 3: movie to be funny like. They didn't want anything that
Speaker 3: might seem silly or like or out of continuity with
Speaker 3: the rest of the series, which I get. Okay, I
Speaker 3: guess I can partially understand that, But on the other hand,
Speaker 3: I think that the removal of these elements really SAPs
Speaker 3: the life from the film. The theatrical cut, while quite silly,
Speaker 3: has this infectious, fun, crazy rhythm of plot developments. So
Speaker 3: these weird lines of dialogue and hilarious shots in the
Speaker 3: first fifteen minutes it's just amazing and upsetting that flow
Speaker 3: by making the movie less silly and less offensive to
Speaker 3: the continuity of the rest of the series, ultimately undercuts
Speaker 3: the flow of this movie as a movie, and I
Speaker 3: just consider it a crime against art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I also fondly look back on Highlander
Speaker 1: two in part because I think this was sort of
Speaker 1: my first experience with Highlander. So I to be clear,
Speaker 1: I did see Highlander one before I saw Highlander two,
Speaker 1: but it was only because I vaguely remember seeing the
Speaker 1: trailers for Highlander two and seeing like this scene with
Speaker 1: flying apocalyptic bird dudes with swords and instantly being like,
Speaker 1: I'm in I've got to see this. But I didn't
Speaker 1: get to go to the theater to see it, so
Speaker 1: I just had to go to the local video store
Speaker 1: and rent a VHS copy of Highlander, and of course
Speaker 1: that won me over. I mean, I think at the
Speaker 1: time I was just getting into Queen, I was just
Speaker 1: getting into dungeons and dragons. So you know, there was
Speaker 1: plenty to love in Highlander one.
Speaker 3: There clearly is, though I would say I would suspect
Speaker 3: that would be a surprising experience because you see a
Speaker 3: trailer for Highlander two, it's just full of like Blade
Speaker 3: runnery sci fi weirdness, you know, porcupine headed guys flying
Speaker 3: around on rocket boots with swords and all that, and
Speaker 3: then you rent Highlander and you're like, where are the
Speaker 3: rocket boots? There's nothing sci fi in it.
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember being kind of maybe not disappointed, but
Speaker 1: just kind of like, Oh, I really thought there was
Speaker 1: gonna be future stuff in this and there's not. But
Speaker 1: it was still still amazing. And for various reasons, I
Speaker 1: think possibly because I didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: but I had already been introduced to the work of
Speaker 1: this director due to his work in music videos.
Speaker 3: Ooh, he's got some really good music videos in the
Speaker 3: wizard bag here, doesn't he. But to come back to
Speaker 3: the leap from Highlander one to Highlander two again for
Speaker 3: reasons related to difficulties with the production and all that
Speaker 3: and problems with the script. Yes, the movie is ridiculous
Speaker 3: and it is silly, but I respect the choices. I
Speaker 3: respect them going in a different direction with it. I
Speaker 3: like the switch to sci fi. I think that's a
Speaker 3: great idea and it could have worked. It could have
Speaker 3: been not just like a great bad movie. It could
Speaker 3: have been a great good movie, you know, if realized
Speaker 3: a little bit different. And so there's actually a quote
Speaker 3: I came across that was in that video Watchdog article
Speaker 3: from Russell mulcahy, the director, and he's talking about these
Speaker 3: movies and he says, quote, all I can remember about
Speaker 3: the original Highlander is lots of guys in various eras
Speaker 3: bashing swords about That worked the first time, but Highlander
Speaker 3: two has to transcend that with more originality and the
Speaker 3: ability to turn unknown corners. And you know what, that
Speaker 3: is exactly what we got there is more originality. It
Speaker 3: definitely turns unknown corners and respect for trying.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the only way to do a sequel
Speaker 1: to a movie that wrapped everything up, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think it really isn't that all an unexpected direction
Speaker 1: to go in, because I want to point to two things.
Speaker 1: First of all, again, the first movie ends with our
Speaker 1: man becoming Prince of the Earth with psychic powers, and
Speaker 1: you know he's going to start bringing people together. He's
Speaker 1: like a messiah figure. And the Queen song, and I
Speaker 1: do believe that all of the Queen songs on the
Speaker 1: soundtrack for Highlander are cannon and arked to understanding the film.
Speaker 1: We have those lyrics here we are born to be Kings,
Speaker 1: were the princes of the universe. So Highlander two is
Speaker 1: the natural extrapolation of those lyrics, well said, all right,
Speaker 1: do you have an elevator pitches? An elevator pitch even necessary?
Speaker 3: At this point, I got one for you. Okay. So
Speaker 3: the formerly immortal head chopper Connor MacLeod is now mortal
Speaker 3: because he has chopped all the other immortals and now
Speaker 3: he is old. An ancient enemy from another planet sends
Speaker 3: more immortals to Earth, thus making Connor young and strapping again.
Speaker 3: For some reason, Connor must fight this ancient enemy, who,
Speaker 3: for some reason also comes to Earth himself. He must
Speaker 3: also destroy a geoengineering project that he invented decades before,
Speaker 3: because it sucks and is no longer necessary. Also, various
Speaker 3: people travel across space and time and come back from
Speaker 3: the dead and experience the year twenty twenty four? Can
Speaker 3: I get that in a robot voice?
Speaker 1: The year twenty twenty four? All right, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and have a taste of that original theatrical trailer for
Speaker 1: Highland or to the Quickening.
Speaker 4: Greeting Chila, that's some fun. In all, there's centuries long burst.
Speaker 4: Then nothing could have prepared them for lug quickening. Christopher
Speaker 4: Lambert Sean Connery, Highlander two lugged quickening.
Speaker 1: All right. Now, normally this is where we tell you
Speaker 1: exactly where to go see it, but as we've already
Speaker 1: discussed it's it's a bit difficult in terms of the
Speaker 1: original theatrical cut. We had to depend on on like
Speaker 1: YouTube for it, and I think in the past we
Speaker 1: had to depend on a VHS tape. I know that's
Speaker 1: how I originally saw it.
Speaker 3: I've got the VHS tape of Highlander to the Quickening,
Speaker 3: so I have the means to view the correct cut
Speaker 3: myself if I had a functioning VCR right now.
Speaker 1: And there are tons of there are various threads online
Speaker 1: with people discussing the different cuts where to find them.
Speaker 1: I'm to understand that the French DVD is mostly the
Speaker 1: Zeice cut. There was also recently some excitement over the
Speaker 1: fact that a British Amazon Prime stream of the film
Speaker 1: appeared to be and I'm not certain on this either
Speaker 1: the Zeice cut, the theatrical cut, or something close to
Speaker 1: it fitting the UK audience.
Speaker 3: I think it is so looking at that you can
Speaker 3: only judge by like the run times unless you're actually
Speaker 3: going to watch the whole thing. But I think that
Speaker 3: version on Amazon was the British cut, which is different
Speaker 3: than what we're calling the Zeice cut, but does also
Speaker 3: have Zeist. They don't take out Zeis. That's the renegade
Speaker 3: cut that does that, but the British cut adds in
Speaker 3: the x it re edits. The film adds in the
Speaker 3: extra stuff about Connor's wife dying in the past, adds
Speaker 3: in a few other character moments, and has the so
Speaker 3: called fairy tale ending where Connor MacLeod and Virginia mads
Speaker 3: and fly away into space and go to the planet Zeist.
Speaker 1: There are also plenty of f edits, with people putting
Speaker 1: together recutting the film to create like the ultimate Zeist
Speaker 1: cut and so forth. I saw one person who apparently
Speaker 1: had put together a Queen cut where and kudos to
Speaker 1: this individual, because I very much agree there is not
Speaker 1: enough queen music in this movie, and this person felt
Speaker 1: the same, so they added queen music to it. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff like that. I can't speak
Speaker 1: to its actual quality because I haven't looked at it.
Speaker 1: In My advice would be kind of weird on this,
Speaker 1: because not everyone needs to see this movie more than
Speaker 1: once to scratch that itch. But if you would all
Speaker 1: think you might need to, or you have any nostalgia
Speaker 1: for the film, I would recommend like rewatching the theatrical
Speaker 1: cut in whatever quality you can get, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to be great, and then potentially grab that renegade
Speaker 1: cut to rewatch your favorite scenes or particular scenes in
Speaker 1: a superior picture quality. Because we'll discuss like, there are
Speaker 1: plenty of scenes in this film that look amazing. There's
Speaker 1: some great sets, great costume and great lighting, and it
Speaker 1: is a shame that we can't watch that theatrical cut
Speaker 1: with the best possible picture quality.
Speaker 3: It's funny how some of the best looking stuff in
Speaker 3: the movie is kind of incidental to the story, Like
Speaker 3: the opera scene where Connor goes and watches Wagner is.
Speaker 3: The sets on the set within the movie are amazing.
Speaker 3: They look really cool, and the opera house is beautiful,
Speaker 3: and there are some of like there are clearly lots
Speaker 3: of indoor sets of streets that they created for Life
Speaker 3: under the Shield where they're in a sound stage where
Speaker 3: they were shooting in Argentina, and there's like streets with
Speaker 3: storefronts and all that that are You could argue about
Speaker 3: how effective they are as sets like that there they
Speaker 3: look They're very dimly lit, so you don't see a
Speaker 3: lot of detail, but they do create I think, the
Speaker 3: right kind of moody atmosphere that the movie was going for.
Speaker 3: There are other sets that feel a little more confusing,
Speaker 3: because it's like you'll be on the planet Zeist, but
Speaker 3: you appear to be in like an off Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Or there's that dungeon scene where General Katana strangles an.
Speaker 3: Eel and that's what I was thinking of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, was that an office?
Speaker 3: I don't know what that room is.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it felt suitably alien. And that's one
Speaker 1: that I had to go back and watch again on
Speaker 1: the Renegade cut, just to see all those like all
Speaker 1: that glorious glistening, you know, blackness in a superior picture quality.
Speaker 3: Oh, in all the executives' offices in the Shield Corporation building. Bands, Yes,
Speaker 3: it'd be way too dark to read in this room.
Speaker 3: I don't know why anybody would work in there, Like
Speaker 3: just super dark rooms with like the only light source
Speaker 3: being a window through which moonlight is shining and there
Speaker 3: are giant fan blades cutting in front of it constantly,
Speaker 3: so it's just like an intermittent light source.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Russell McKay likes his fan blades. There there's more
Speaker 1: than there are at least two major scenes in this
Speaker 1: that have big, big rotating fan blades. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: since we're already talking about him, Yeah, let's get into
Speaker 1: the connections here, starting with the director, Russell Makay born
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, Australian director who initially made his name
Speaker 1: directing some of the and most and I'm not over
Speaker 1: I'm not exaggerating here some of the most iconic music
Speaker 1: videos of the nineteen eighties. Like if you were watching
Speaker 1: MTV and then later vh one during like the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, you saw so much of this band's work.
Speaker 1: I'm talking some of the weirdest, most stylish examples of
Speaker 1: music video artistry, such as Duran Durand's Wild Boys amazing track,
Speaker 1: Amazing video. This is the one that has post apocalyptic windmills,
Speaker 1: you know, Simon Labon strapped to one of them, and
Speaker 1: like strange tribes of lads running around and android heads
Speaker 1: and so forth.
Speaker 3: Almost seems an inspiration for the war Boys in Mad
Speaker 3: Max Fury Road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, similar vibes, And there are a number of
Speaker 1: direct connections between Wild Boys and Hylander two, another big one,
Speaker 1: super weird, super stylish Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Speaker 1: I defy you to follow the plot of that music video,
Speaker 1: but it's so gorgeous to watch.
Speaker 3: You might not understand it, but you will feel it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't forget nineteen seventy nine's video Killed the Radio Star,
Speaker 1: the first music video ever played on MTV. And I
Speaker 1: didn't realize this until I was just researching it yesterday.
Speaker 1: But Hans Zimmer is in that music video. He's playing
Speaker 1: the keyboard. Huh yeah, idea Hans Zimmer of Doune Fame
Speaker 1: and so many other films, so Russell McKay plenty. I'm
Speaker 1: not even I'm barely scratching the surface on all the
Speaker 1: artists that he worked with, some of the biggest music
Speaker 1: artists of the day. His first film, however, was the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four Australian killer pig movie Razorback.
Speaker 3: I've seen this one. Did you watch this rope?
Speaker 1: I have not seen Razorback.
Speaker 3: Razorback. I sort of hesitate to recommend it just because
Speaker 3: it is texturally gross, like it's a cross between Jaws,
Speaker 3: but with a pig instead of a shark, and an
Speaker 3: Australian version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacres. So you're dealing
Speaker 3: with just like disgusting sort of outback hillbillies who work
Speaker 3: in a dog food factory, and so there's like gross
Speaker 3: gore stuff at the dog food factory, you know, that
Speaker 3: tcum kind of kind of slop. But also I remember
Speaker 3: some elements of the movie, apart from just the general grossness,
Speaker 3: being really compellingly funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is often a sense of humor that
Speaker 1: sprinkled in there somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, he followed up Razorback with Highlander in eighty six,
Speaker 1: and he's continuing to do like high end music videos
Speaker 1: the whole time, and then follows Highlander up in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one with its sequel Highlander two. Now afterwards, Okay,
Speaker 1: continue to direct TV and film through pretty much today.
Speaker 1: Recent credit was twenty twenty three's teen Wolf, the movie
Speaker 1: spinning off from the TV series Teen Wolf that he
Speaker 1: directed forty episodes of. So he's remained highly prolific and
Speaker 1: I've read no indication that he's done. Other credits of
Speaker 1: note include nineteen ninety four as the Shadow.
Speaker 3: Oh is that the one with Alec Baldwin as the shadow.
Speaker 1: YEP, that's it, which I haven't seen since the since
Speaker 1: it came out. I remember it being I remember finding
Speaker 1: it enthralling, but also kind of lackluster in some respects,
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I haven't revisited it. He did
Speaker 1: four episodes of Tales from the Crypt, including The Excellent
Speaker 1: People Who Live in brass Hearses, starring Bill Paxton, Brad Doriff,
Speaker 1: and Michael Lerner. You know, it's pretty much your standard
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt in many ways. You know, awful
Speaker 1: things happen to awful people, but with a cast like
Speaker 1: that and with a solid director, you're good to go.
Speaker 1: He also did the nineteen ninety nine seven inspired This
Speaker 1: is the Movie seven, often with the numeral seven in
Speaker 1: the middle, so I guess you could technically pronounce it
Speaker 1: seven seven inspired Resurrection. This starred Christoph Limbert and also
Speaker 1: featured David Cronenberg in a small role.
Speaker 3: I always love it when he shows up in the cast.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was a kind of again very seventy of kind
Speaker 1: of a flick, you know, had that kind of grungey, grimy,
Speaker 1: semi sort of ninety sleezy quality to it. About a
Speaker 1: serial murder trying to build a body for the Second
Speaker 1: Coming of Christ.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, cool, Yeah, it sounds about right for a
Speaker 3: movie inspired by seven.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, oh, and then you know. He also did
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven's Resident Evil Extinction, which I haven't
Speaker 1: watched in full. I think I started watching at one
Speaker 1: point and didn't finish it, but I will say that
Speaker 1: it is easily the most visually appealing of the Resident
Speaker 1: Evil films.
Speaker 3: I tried one or two of the Resident Evil movies
Speaker 3: and I never could get into them. I've liked a
Speaker 3: couple of the games, though, I feel like the games
Speaker 3: really feel like they would adapt well into movies and
Speaker 3: it just doesn't translate for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed the most recent Resident Evil game.
Speaker 3: Now, this is in no way a knock on Russell
Speaker 3: Mulkahee at all, but in thinking about his relationship to
Speaker 3: the creative material here, it feels significant and correct to
Speaker 3: me that he did not like write the script for
Speaker 3: Highlander or Highlander Too. This is not like his story,
Speaker 3: his narrative passion project that he's bringing to the screen.
Speaker 3: He is a professional director, and he's realizing a story
Speaker 3: that came from somewhere else. Does that feel right to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I believe so. I mean it varies from
Speaker 1: director to director, right, I mean exactly how much they
Speaker 1: are ultimately impacting or influencing the shape of the story
Speaker 1: and characterizations on screen. But yeah, he does not have
Speaker 1: a writing credit on this film or the first film,
Speaker 1: no official writing credit anyway.
Speaker 3: Though clearly does have creative influence and has some sense
Speaker 3: of ownership over the career direction. Because again, as we
Speaker 3: saw on that quote he said earlier like he felt
Speaker 3: like Highlander two had to go in a different direction,
Speaker 3: had to turn those unknown corners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about the folks who are credited
Speaker 1: on Highlander two, and it's kind of telling. So first
Speaker 1: of all, we have a character credit for Gregory Widen
Speaker 1: born nineteen fifty eight. This is the American screenwriter who
Speaker 1: wrote the screenplay for the original Highlander, initially as a
Speaker 1: class assignment in the writing program at UCLA. So basically
Speaker 1: the idea is, you know, he wrote it for class,
Speaker 1: his instructors and other folks encouraged him on the project
Speaker 1: and said, hey, you should fix us up a bet
Speaker 1: and start submitting it places, and so eventually it salve
Speaker 1: the Light of Day with some other writers involved as Highlander.
Speaker 1: Subsequent credits included nineteen ninety one's Back Draft, nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five's The Prophecy, This is the Angel movie with Christopher
Speaker 1: Walkin in it, which I'm very tempted to revisit on
Speaker 1: Weird House, and yeah, yeah, he also directed that one,
Speaker 1: and he also wrote twenty seventeen's Other Life.
Speaker 3: You know, thinking about him writing both Highlander and The Prophecy,
Speaker 3: it seems that he's got an attraction to the idea
Speaker 3: of these like outsider beings who have special powers and
Speaker 3: knowledge but sort of are limited in their interactions with
Speaker 3: the human world and must sort of wander among us,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, exploring themes of alienation in some way,
Speaker 3: people living among us with like special abilities and special
Speaker 3: destiny but not really being able to be a part
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And there are number of
Speaker 1: things you can compare on the Prophecy films and the
Speaker 1: Highlander franchise, you know, right down to if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: you have to kill the angels in a special way.
Speaker 1: They only died to like rip their heart out or something.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, could have that wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I like how he got to
Speaker 3: do a movie with both Christoff Lambert and Christoff Walkong.
Speaker 1: Now the story credit. One of the story credits here
Speaker 1: on Highlander two goes to Brian Clemens, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one through twenty fifteen. British screenwriter and producer, with
Speaker 1: credits going back to the late nineteen fifties. He did
Speaker 1: a lot of great TV work, including thirty two episodes
Speaker 1: of the Avengers. He also worked on a number of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies horror films, including Robert Foist's and Soon the
Speaker 1: Darkness in nineteen seventy See No Evil and the sex
Speaker 1: Flipping Doctor Jekyl and Sister Hide. Both of these last
Speaker 1: two were seventy one. He also worked on seventy threes,
Speaker 1: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in nineteen seventy four's Captain
Speaker 1: Cronos Vampire Hunter. We can also go ahead and throw
Speaker 1: in Walt Disney's nineteen eighty chiller Watcher in the Woods.
Speaker 1: So a very established name here, at least in TV
Speaker 1: and B cinema of the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, a lot of good titles in there, man,
Speaker 3: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is fun.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, absolutely, that's an all timer.
Speaker 3: That's got some really fantastic Ray Harry Housen stop motion
Speaker 3: monsters in it.
Speaker 1: All right. We also have William In Panser credited with
Speaker 1: a story credit. He is also one of the producers,
Speaker 1: so yes, we have a producer in the story credits here,
Speaker 1: which is sometimes something to give you pause. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying all producers that have story credits or writing credits
Speaker 1: are overreaching, but I think at the very least you
Speaker 1: have to wonder if that is the case when you
Speaker 1: encounter it. And this is certainly a film where there
Speaker 1: are stories about producers becoming involved and so forth in
Speaker 1: troubled production.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to know more about the troubled production,
Speaker 3: there's plenty you can read online about that. But famously
Speaker 3: it was shot in Argentina, I think for financial reasons,
Speaker 3: and there was some various changing of hands of creative
Speaker 3: control over the movie and what official what cut was
Speaker 3: eventually released.
Speaker 1: So Panzer lived nineteen forty two through two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: He was mostly a producer with hands and everything Highlander,
Speaker 1: so like he was definitely like one of the helmsmen
Speaker 1: of the Highlander franchise, and he has story credits on
Speaker 1: the third film and the fourth film. In addition, his
Speaker 1: only other writing credit is for nineteen seventy nine Steel,
Speaker 1: which he also produced. And then, finally, on the writing
Speaker 1: side of things, we have Peter Bellwood on the screenplay.
Speaker 1: Bellwood also worked on the screenplay for Highlander, having previously
Speaker 1: written on nineteen eighty's Phobia in nineteen eighty one's Saint Helen's.
Speaker 3: Now, I think it's time we get into the cast
Speaker 3: because there are some wonderfully charming actors in this movie,
Speaker 3: even if they don't always seem like they really understand
Speaker 3: what's supposed to be going on in the scene or not.
Speaker 3: But right at the top of the cast list here
Speaker 3: Highlander two has the same star as the original Highlander,
Speaker 3: which is Christoph Lambert as I've been calling him. That
Speaker 3: is the sort of the French pronunciation of his name,
Speaker 3: But it's okay if you call in Christopher Lambert. He
Speaker 3: said that in interviews he doesn't mind the American pronunciation either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's how I always thought it was
Speaker 1: pronounce when I was a kid. It's like a Christopher
Speaker 1: Lambert's great I want to see more Christopher Lambert films.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sort of half joking when I call
Speaker 3: him Christof Lambert, even though I guess that is what
Speaker 3: they call him at home.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So born nineteen fifty seven, actually us born technically
Speaker 1: a French actor seen here playing a Scottish man whose
Speaker 1: credits in French cinema go back to nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: but his first big international break came with the Academy
Speaker 1: Award winning nineteen eighty four Tarzan movie Gray Stoke, The
Speaker 1: Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. This, of course,
Speaker 1: we previously mentioned this in our Dragon Slayer episode because
Speaker 1: it co starred Sir Ralph Richardson, among others, several among
Speaker 1: several other.
Speaker 3: Big names, Ian Holmes in that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's got a great cast. I've never seen it,
Speaker 1: but it was highly thought of, at least at the time.
Speaker 3: This is one of those I caught parts of on
Speaker 3: TV back in the day, but.
Speaker 1: It was apparently this role as Tarzan. You know, his
Speaker 1: unique look and I think ultimately his just natural ability
Speaker 1: to play this sort of outsider character, like a charming like.
Speaker 1: It's weird that he hasn't played a vampire, right because
Speaker 1: all these things we're talking about with Christopher Lumbert. These
Speaker 1: are the qualities of casting a great vampire as well,
Speaker 1: like slightly aloof a little bit weird, but also very
Speaker 1: very handsome and charming and charismatic.
Speaker 3: There's a very strange duality to Limbert and the way
Speaker 3: he specifically in the way he plays the Connor McCloud role,
Speaker 3: which is that he alternates between being very kind of
Speaker 3: sad and dough wide, having this kind of you know, tearful,
Speaker 3: herbivorous sort of demeanor, and then shifting out of that
Speaker 3: into a a twinkle of the eye, wise cracking gunna
Speaker 3: get who just reacts to everything with a joke, saying
Speaker 3: like something like.
Speaker 1: That, Oh yeah, his little laugh is wonderful, creepy, almost
Speaker 1: Peter Laurie esque laugh. Yes, I love it, you get
Speaker 1: it in most of his roles, And I think it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of key to like the energy of Lambert,
Speaker 1: because I feel like everything he's in he feels at
Speaker 1: least slightly miscast, in part because he, like his co
Speaker 1: star here, is not exactly known for his chameleon likability
Speaker 1: to take on different accents and nationalities and his performances,
Speaker 1: you know, He's always Christoph Lambert, always a bit weird,
Speaker 1: always feels a bit like an odd character actor who
Speaker 1: just somehow came out a little too handsome to play anything,
Speaker 1: but leads.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And like I said, I see this energy
Speaker 1: in most of the films that come to mind, like
Speaker 1: just to name a few here. In nineteen eighty seven's
Speaker 1: The Sicilian he plays an Italian mobster perfect. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two's Night Moves that's spelled like night like an Armor,
Speaker 1: he plays a womanizing I think American chess master Oki Doki.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety five's Mortal Kombat, he plays a fictionalized, highly
Speaker 1: fictionalized Japanese thunder god.
Speaker 3: Wait, is he supposed to be a Japanese thunder god?
Speaker 3: He plays Raiden? Right? Does that right? He's in origin.
Speaker 1: Rayden is loosely related to an actual thunder deity in
Speaker 1: Japanese mythology. But I didn't know that heavy emphasis on
Speaker 1: the loosely here because we're talking about Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 3: I just assumed invented for the Mortal Kombat mythoughs. So yeah,
Speaker 3: a resident of outworld or maybe beyond out world.
Speaker 1: Oh, he's a god of Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's an earth guy. Okay, I apologize, but he
Speaker 3: he's so Mortal Kombat. The nineteen nineties Mortal Kombat is
Speaker 3: also really funny to go back and watch. I think
Speaker 3: maybe we could do that on Weird House one day.
Speaker 3: But Lambert and it is just perfect. He's like a
Speaker 3: he's got an attitude, you know, he's got that nineties
Speaker 3: movie attitude. So like the bad guy comes and does
Speaker 3: something and he suddenly the camera cuts to him sitting
Speaker 3: there and he wags a finger and little like lightning
Speaker 3: bolts come out of it and goes, heck, I don't think.
Speaker 1: So let's see nineteen ninety nine's Beowolf as some sort
Speaker 1: of a futuristic Beowolf, a film that's a movie. I
Speaker 1: can never make it through this one because the sort
Speaker 1: of like the futuristic, grungy aspect of it, like some
Speaker 1: sort of like futuristic medieval sci fi that always draws
Speaker 1: me in. And then I get to the part with
Speaker 1: the CGI and it's just like truly terrible CGI.
Speaker 3: It's that it's the worst of that, like nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine CGI. It's really bad. The Grendel Monster, I recall,
Speaker 3: looks terrible. The Grendel's Yeah, it's it's it's very dark
Speaker 3: and confusing, and nothing much happens in it from what
Speaker 3: I recall. But it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, box Art is promising, but it does not meet expectations.
Speaker 1: Let's see, in two thousand and one's Druids he plays
Speaker 1: a gol and he also plays the President of the
Speaker 1: United States in twenty thirteen's action Nosferatu spy movie Bloodshot.
Speaker 1: This one also has Brad Dorif in it. I think
Speaker 1: we've looked at this one before, but are not brave
Speaker 1: enough to actually check it out. Doesn't he play?
Speaker 3: Does he play like a film director or something? In
Speaker 3: Hail Caesar?
Speaker 1: He does? Yeah, I mean there are some other credits
Speaker 1: of note. Twenty sixteens Hail Caesar Coen Brothers film. There's
Speaker 1: a two part sci fi franchise, Fortress that a lot
Speaker 1: of people like. Two was the originally NATed A two
Speaker 1: thousand sequel, and then, of course, as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: he's in Resurrection playing the cop in this seven esque film.
Speaker 3: I gotta see some more of these B movie outings
Speaker 3: by Lambert, so let's see. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: could try to watch the Beol Wolf Again, Druids is
Speaker 3: more of like a historical drama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't and I don't have a good read
Speaker 1: on that one. If it's at all fun or indeed great,
Speaker 1: I just don't know much about it. And Bloodshot, ooh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just not I don't know if
Speaker 1: i'm it's got to be a special. We have not
Speaker 1: watched a film from the twenty teens the Weird House,
Speaker 1: and I think there are reasons for that. I don't
Speaker 1: think Bloodshot is going to be our first selection from
Speaker 1: that decade.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, anyway, My short review on Lambert in Highlander
Speaker 3: two is he has some surprisingly the poignant moments of
Speaker 3: acting that don't really fit in with how hilarious the
Speaker 3: rest of the movie is like, but there are moments
Speaker 3: where you really get that dough eyed sadness coming through.
Speaker 3: You feel for him, You feel the pain of his
Speaker 3: immortality and now the immortality being lost, that he's just
Speaker 3: sort of decaying physically while being emotionally alone, and it
Speaker 3: really is kind of sad. But also he does the
Speaker 3: wise cracking attitude raid and things saying little like ridiculous
Speaker 3: one liners. You can't believe the lines he says.
Speaker 1: Oh, everybody, all the immortals in this film are just
Speaker 1: here for a good time and just cutting up like crazy.
Speaker 1: General Katana has all sorts of laughs. The assassins, the
Speaker 1: bird guys also are real cut ups. Yeah, there's just
Speaker 1: there's really too much of it.
Speaker 3: Oh and of course, how lest we forget one of
Speaker 3: the greatest of the wise crackers, Ramirez.
Speaker 1: That's right, played by the great Sean Connery. I lived
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty through twenty twenty, very Scottish actor. Obviously, there's
Speaker 1: a lot to discuss with Sean Connery's career, very long career,
Speaker 1: you know, one of one of the most famous actors
Speaker 1: of his generation. But I will say there was an
Speaker 1: old Mystery Science Theater three thousand sketch that had Mike
Speaker 1: in the Bots plot the careers of Sean Connery and
Speaker 1: his brother Neil Connery in response to the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven Italian bond ripoff OK Connery aka Operation Kid Brother
Speaker 1: that they were watching on the show. So they have
Speaker 1: like the line graphs of the ups and downs of
Speaker 1: their careers. And the big gag was that Highlander two
Speaker 1: is the only point at which Shawn's career trajectory dips
Speaker 1: below Neil's and I think you know, I was looking
Speaker 1: at Sean Connery's filmography in full here, and you can
Speaker 1: kind of look at it in terms of pre and
Speaker 1: post Highlander two. Though to be fair, it's a very
Speaker 1: long career with various shifts and changes.
Speaker 3: I have seen him in movies that I enjoy far,
Speaker 3: far less than I enjoy Highlander two. He's the like
Speaker 3: get second billing is the voice of the dragon in Dragonheart,
Speaker 3: to the movie that I was getting confused with Dragon
Speaker 3: Slayer when we were doing Dragon Slayer on the show.
Speaker 3: I saw that in the theater as a kid. I mean,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it recently, but I recall that being
Speaker 3: just a mess and Highlander two is so much a
Speaker 3: much better use of your time than watching Dragonheart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dragonhart was a ninety six film that was post
Speaker 1: Highlander two. And indeed you look at some of the
Speaker 1: other posts Highlander two films and then include well, there
Speaker 1: was Robin Hood Prince with Thieves the same year. He
Speaker 1: has an uncredited cameo in that. But then it's stuff
Speaker 1: like ninety two's Medicine Man, ninety three's Rising Sun, ninety
Speaker 1: five's First Night the Rock in ninety six, The Avengers
Speaker 1: in ninety nine, and I'm sorry, The Avengers in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and Trapman in ninety nine, Finding Forrester in two thousand
Speaker 1: and then finally two thousand and threes, The Leave Extraordinary, Gentleman.
Speaker 1: And we don't have to talk about twenty twelve, Sir Billy,
Speaker 1: that was his final vocal performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that nineties, early two thousands Connery arc is a
Speaker 3: little rough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So not to say that there weren't entertaining or
Speaker 1: even great films. I mean, Finding Forrester got a lot
Speaker 1: of great reviews at the time. But does anyone The
Speaker 1: Rock is really fun? The Rock is fun. But does
Speaker 1: anyone consider these great Connery films? I don't know that
Speaker 1: they do. Meanwhile, just looking at his pre Highlander two films,
Speaker 1: going back no further than nineteen eighty, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of great stuff in there. There's nineteen eighty one's Outland,
Speaker 1: the sci fi western. There's Time Bandits from the same year.
Speaker 1: There's eighty seven's The Untouchables, eighty nine's Indiana Jenes and
Speaker 1: the last cru said nineteen ninety is The Hunt for
Speaker 1: Red October and nineteen eighty six is alone pretty impressive
Speaker 1: because you have Connery playing both the dashing mentor Ramires,
Speaker 1: who I think, if I'm using the term correctly, is
Speaker 1: like impure zady mode in Highland Er one, so you
Speaker 1: have that role as a mentor. But then at the
Speaker 1: same year he's playing Sir William of Basterville in the
Speaker 1: Name of the Rose, and I think these are both peak,
Speaker 1: you know, and he also rather different performances from Sean Connery.
Speaker 3: It is hard to believe he made Highlander two the
Speaker 3: year after he made The Hunt for Red October.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I haven't seen The Hunt for October in
Speaker 1: a while, but I have a friend who just very
Speaker 1: recently was just insisting that it is. It's really really good, and.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like the military thriller is not really
Speaker 3: my genre of choice, but I got to give it credit,
Speaker 3: like as an example of that genre. I think it's
Speaker 3: top notch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, Well, anyway, I think Sean Connery may come
Speaker 1: up again on Weird House Cinema at some point in
Speaker 1: the future. So we're gonna leave the rest of his
Speaker 1: filmography for later, but suffice to say that his pre
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty filmography is perhaps best known for his defining
Speaker 1: performances as James Bond, but there's even then, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of weirder and more daring work sprinkled throughout
Speaker 1: that time period. You know, like he was he was
Speaker 1: playing Bond, but he was also at times trying some
Speaker 1: really weird things. Not everything worked. There's some strange choices
Speaker 1: in there as well. Going through the rest of the cast.
Speaker 1: Here of note, Virginia Madsen is in it playing Louise Marcus.
Speaker 1: She's our environmental terrorist slash love interest for Connor born
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one. We recently talked about her because she
Speaker 1: is Princess Roulan from David Lynch's doune Oscar nominated actress
Speaker 1: for two thousand and five Sideways, whose credits also include
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two s Candy Man, nineteen ninety five's The Prophecy,
Speaker 1: The Angel one to be Sure not The Mutant Bear one,
Speaker 1: and then various TV projects as well.
Speaker 3: I think her relationship with Connor MacLeod in this movie
Speaker 3: is one of the most unearned romances in all of
Speaker 3: movie history. They literally just they don't know each other.
Speaker 3: They just meet and like get into a fight with
Speaker 3: some aliens who fly in from out of nowhere. Within
Speaker 3: moments they are kissing. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is ridiculous. So this is, as is often
Speaker 1: the case with films like this, not a great showcase
Speaker 1: for her talents. But she is as good as you
Speaker 1: might expect in this role.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Virginia Madison is a great actress, and she brings
Speaker 3: a levity to this role. And like there's even a
Speaker 3: part where she's quite literally just a scene where she
Speaker 3: is explaining back the premise of the movie to Christuff
Speaker 3: Limbert in his apartment and commenting on the fact that
Speaker 3: it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and he just replies
Speaker 3: by quoting the name of a queen song that's mentioned
Speaker 3: four or five times in the movie. He's like, it's
Speaker 3: just kind of magic.
Speaker 1: It's a great song. It's a great song.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, So in a way, she's sort of like
Speaker 3: the regular the observer character who's like looking on this
Speaker 3: with the audience and being like, what are you saying here?
Speaker 3: They come here and now you're immortal again. But if
Speaker 3: you chop their heads off, you become mortal. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Without her, everything makes even less sense because there's
Speaker 1: no one to explain it to. All right. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to villains, how do you top Clancy Brown
Speaker 1: as the Kuragan for to shear over the top evilness?
Speaker 1: I would argue that you don't. But what you can
Speaker 1: do is cast Michael Ironside and let him absolutely dial
Speaker 1: everything he does up to eleven.
Speaker 3: Rob, I am offended. How dare you say eleven? He
Speaker 3: is at twenty six? There is not a single line
Speaker 3: he says in this movie where you don't see his teeth.
Speaker 3: He's just like and it's all like he's in full
Speaker 3: clown mode.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've seen interview snippets from him where he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't like the script. Nobody liked the script. But you know,
Speaker 1: I was going to make sure that I was the
Speaker 1: most memorable part of any scene I was in, you know,
Speaker 1: and you got to admire that, you know, someone who's like,
Speaker 1: they're not going to phone it in, they are going
Speaker 1: to make sure that they are just delivering it completely
Speaker 1: gift wrapped to you, the full Michael Ironside experience. Now,
Speaker 1: we previously discussed Ironside in our episode on nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one Scanners, in which he played the rogue scanner Darryl Revick,
Speaker 1: and that's the film that helped propel him into villain
Speaker 1: roles like this one, like Total Recall and so forth.
Speaker 1: I think he's, without a doubt one of the best
Speaker 1: heavies of all time and certainly of this time period.
Speaker 1: Like this is the type of villain role that he
Speaker 1: could just absolutely inhabit.
Speaker 3: He is an all time movie villain. Got love Michael Ironside.
Speaker 3: Gotta love the menace he brings, and I love how
Speaker 3: in all of his movies from this period he plays
Speaker 3: a character whose name could be the name of a
Speaker 3: knife company. So he's always he's Richter, he's Katana, he's
Speaker 3: revoc like all the names that have like these hard
Speaker 3: angles in them and suggest cutting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even his actual name Ironside, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: could be a knife company, but yeah, And certainly his
Speaker 1: performance is cut there. He's always a treat in anything
Speaker 1: he's in. And there are a number of other Ironside
Speaker 1: films on the sort of waiting list for weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema that we'll have to get to, all right, A
Speaker 1: couple of other actors worth mentioning in passing here at
Speaker 1: least Alan rich plays the character name in this is
Speaker 1: one of the scientists of the Shield Corporation.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: He lived nineteen twenty six through twenty twenty character actor,
Speaker 1: with credit stretching from nineteen fifty three till twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: His roles include roles in such films as seventy three, Cerpico,
Speaker 1: ninety four's Disclosure, and Quiz Show. He also did a
Speaker 1: little directing, I think mostly like some short film projects.
Speaker 3: He does a really unceremonious cinematic ins to death in
Speaker 3: this movie, where you know, he just delivers a final,
Speaker 3: bittersweet final line and this then goes uugh, All's over, okay,
Speaker 3: done with him?
Speaker 1: All right? Then we also have John C McGinley in
Speaker 1: this playing the character Blake, who's like what the sea
Speaker 1: EO of Shield corp I.
Speaker 3: Don't know what John C McGinley is doing in this movie.
Speaker 3: This is one of the weirdest performances in it. It's
Speaker 3: not as like up to eleven or up to twenty
Speaker 3: six as Michael Ironside, but he's doing something strange.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is an American actor, perhaps best known to
Speaker 1: many for his long running role as what one of
Speaker 1: the doctors on the TV series Scrubs, but he was
Speaker 1: also in eighty six is Platoon, eighty seven's Wall Street,
Speaker 1: ninety one's Point Break, and he was actually in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five to seven. He was also in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six Is the Rock Wow. A number of connections here,
Speaker 1: so much crossover, Yeah, and nineteen ninety nine's Office Space.
Speaker 1: I would say he's definitely a guy who's great at
Speaker 1: playing a good suit. You know, when you need like
Speaker 1: that suit character that management slimy CEO type, this is
Speaker 1: your guy.
Speaker 3: He I mean, yeah, he generally is, though in this
Speaker 3: movie he's he's a little weirder than you would expect
Speaker 3: for that kind of character, isn't he. Like there are
Speaker 3: scenes where he's he's kind of hamming it up. You know,
Speaker 3: when General Katana walks into the board meeting, he's like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I've had enough of you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost like they realize, like this is unbelievable,
Speaker 1: Like this, this straight up space barbarian has walked into
Speaker 1: your boardroom, and you're gonna pretend that you're still in charge.
Speaker 1: Like there is a comic energy to this that needs
Speaker 1: to be enhanced, not ignored, Or at least that was
Speaker 1: my read on the situation.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. I think that's what he's going for.
Speaker 3: It just John C McGinley gives me the vibe, whereas
Speaker 3: like Michael ironside's playing the role pretty consistently in that
Speaker 3: it's always cranked to like twenty six with dashes of clown.
Speaker 3: John C McGinley seems to be trying something different in
Speaker 3: all of his scenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see what sticks all right. Finally the music on
Speaker 1: this one, So Michael came in did the score for
Speaker 1: the first film, and this time around it is American
Speaker 1: musician and composer Stuart Copeland born nineteen fifty two, best
Speaker 1: known as the drummer for the Police.
Speaker 3: Got to respect the drummer from the Police. If you
Speaker 3: listen to them, they've got some really complicated, difficult drum parts.
Speaker 3: Copeland knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I'll have to go back and listen to some Police tracks.
Speaker 1: But he's also done a lot of film scoring as well.
Speaker 1: His first score was for nineteen eighty three's Rumblefish, directed
Speaker 1: by Francis Ford Coppola, and he went on to score
Speaker 1: such films as Wall Street and Good Burger than a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff as well. No slam on Good Burger.
Speaker 1: I know people who are big fans of Good Burger.
Speaker 3: They couldn't get Hans Zimmer for Good Burger.
Speaker 1: Hans Zimmer has directed, as we've said, a lot of
Speaker 1: films and not I imagine some of them are maybe
Speaker 1: in like this same stratosphere as Good Burger.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine the trailer Welcome to Good Burger, Home
Speaker 3: of the Good Burger.
Speaker 1: Now, I would say in general this film suffers from
Speaker 1: a lack of Queen tracks. There was a rewatching it.
Speaker 1: There is more use of Queen music than I remembered,
Speaker 1: but it's still not enough. You can't fault Copeland for
Speaker 1: this though. But interestingly enough, the Police were also originally
Speaker 1: considered for the Highlander one soundtrack before they ended up
Speaker 1: going with Queen.
Speaker 3: Oh that would have been a different feeling, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to imagine it, you know,
Speaker 1: all respect in the world of the police. But I mean,
Speaker 1: that's Queen's movie, and it's not even Highlander without that
Speaker 1: awesome soundtrack by Queen. I listened to the full uh,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of magic album yesterday whilst working on
Speaker 1: some of these notes, and it's just it's just a
Speaker 1: treat here. We are, all right, let's let's start getting
Speaker 1: into the plot here a little bit. Let's start discussing
Speaker 1: Highlander two in earnest.
Speaker 3: Knowing that we will have to break for time soon,
Speaker 3: but I think we find we'll find a natural place
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So, because the first act of this cut of the
Speaker 3: movie is so relentlessly excellent, I admit I might be
Speaker 3: a little too detail oriented in recounting it. We'll see,
Speaker 3: but I do want to capture in this episode and
Speaker 3: the next, like the rhythm of plot developments, especially once
Speaker 3: you get to the year twenty twenty four, at least
Speaker 3: up until the part where Connor McLeod becomes hot again,
Speaker 3: because everything up to that point is just like a
Speaker 3: relentless tickle of my brain and it's so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then when he gets hot again, that's in
Speaker 1: the midst of one of the best sequences in the
Speaker 1: entire film.
Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, So we open on a cursed opaque sky
Speaker 3: filled with poisonous orange smog, and there's a dissonant minor
Speaker 3: chord playing on the soundtrack, and the title reads August
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, and we hear the voiceover of a
Speaker 3: newscaster who says, good morning, Today's top story is the
Speaker 3: Ozone Layer. Can you imagine that being the top story
Speaker 3: in the news. It says, today's top story is the
Speaker 3: ozone l It continues to disintegrate, taking with it our
Speaker 3: protection from the sun's rays. Then more voices join and
Speaker 3: we hear different news reports playing over one another about
Speaker 3: how it's too dangerous to go outside, the White House
Speaker 3: has declared a national emergency, etc.
Speaker 1: Now quick note here, if you want to hear us
Speaker 1: talk more about the ozone Layer aspect of this plot,
Speaker 1: go back into the archives and find the stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind episode about Highlander two, and that's where
Speaker 1: you will find extended discussion on bad aspect of the film.
Speaker 3: So then some newscaster says, in Africa, where shelter from
Speaker 3: the sun is almost non existent, the dead and dying
Speaker 3: number in the millions. I found that confusing. It's like,
Speaker 3: where shelter there are buildings with roofs in Africa, What
Speaker 3: are they talking about? But anyway, we're told that people
Speaker 3: are dying from exposure to the sun. And we see
Speaker 3: what looks like a giant warehouse full of patients and
Speaker 3: sick beds, with nurses running around and a sign tell
Speaker 3: us this is the solar radiation ward. Then another newscaster
Speaker 3: comes in and says it's just a few months now
Speaker 3: until the ozone layer is completely gone. A team of
Speaker 3: international scientists led by doctor Allan Naman and supervised by
Speaker 3: Connor McLeod work around the clock. This may be the
Speaker 3: last chance for planet Earth. And here we see Christopher
Speaker 3: Lambert as Connor MacLeod wearing a suit and tie. He's
Speaker 3: gathered with other scientists and some kind of concrete bunker
Speaker 3: with light pouring in from a horizontal window on the side,
Speaker 3: like they're about to observe the trinity test. It looks
Speaker 3: like that one of the nuclear observation bunkers, a shorter
Speaker 3: man in a bow tie, hugs Connor and says they'll
Speaker 3: remember this day for a thousand years, the day we
Speaker 3: protected the planet from the Sun. I don't know why
Speaker 3: that's so funny, but it is from the Sun. So
Speaker 3: we hear a countdown began, and they're preparing to activate
Speaker 3: the shield which is going to protect the Earth from
Speaker 3: the Sun. And we see dudes in yellow devo suits
Speaker 3: sprinting away from the direction of a giant concrete pyramid.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they have to sprint again. This
Speaker 3: seems like a planned event, so they could be on
Speaker 3: a car or something, but a satellite in space rotates
Speaker 3: into position. We see technicians and operators in a command center,
Speaker 3: all confirming that they are ready to go. I have
Speaker 3: to say a lot of the technicians really are dressed
Speaker 3: like LDS missionaries, like the crisp white shirt and the
Speaker 3: black tie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a choice.
Speaker 3: And then we see the pyramid and there's like the
Speaker 3: big concrete pyramid with sort of skyscrapers on top of
Speaker 3: the pyramid, and then a giant beam of energy starts
Speaker 3: shooting out of it, goes up into the sky and
Speaker 3: the shield is turned on, and so it looks kind
Speaker 3: of like a lightsaber beam going out of the pyramid
Speaker 3: into space. It connects with the beam from a satellite
Speaker 3: and establishes some kind of multicolored laser aurora net that
Speaker 3: spreads out over the surface of the Earth, blocking the
Speaker 3: Sun's rays and shrouding the Earth in darkness.
Speaker 1: I want to throw in that if you watch carefully,
Speaker 1: at least one of these sci fi ground command guys
Speaker 1: is Russell McKay in a director's cameo, which is pretty fun.
Speaker 3: Oh I don't know which one though.
Speaker 1: He says a line or two. So, but he's just
Speaker 1: one of the one of the crew there behind a
Speaker 1: computer screen.
Speaker 3: I wonder if he's the guy with the ponytail.
Speaker 1: This one in the still that you have in the outline. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's not him. It's another guy, but he's in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: So as far as the prolog goes like, this is
Speaker 1: a success story, right, this is essentially how Connor McLeod
Speaker 1: uses the prize to save the world. He's able to
Speaker 1: orchestrate this massive technoscientific effort to save the world from
Speaker 1: its own depleted ozone layer and protect it from solar radiation.
Speaker 3: Really appreciate your reading of how the prize is actually
Speaker 3: being used in the setup of the movie here. I
Speaker 3: had never put that together before, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3: If he can read everyone's minds to establish peace and harmony,
Speaker 3: he would be a great uh well actually, and maybe
Speaker 3: I'm taking this for granted that that would make one
Speaker 3: a great organizer of people, but it seems like it could.
Speaker 1: Seems like it could. Yeah, Like once you get down
Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty of it, I don't know, you're
Speaker 1: still dealing with very difficult problems of international cooperation and
Speaker 1: corporate interests and public sentiment and so forth. But if
Speaker 1: anybody can do it, it's the immortal guy who can
Speaker 1: read everybody's mind.
Speaker 3: That's right. So he gets all of the scientists together
Speaker 3: and they're ready to protect the earth. But as we
Speaker 3: learn as the film progresses, this protective shield does succeed
Speaker 3: in its goal. It does protect the Earth from the sun,
Speaker 3: but it comes with a lot of downsides, and those
Speaker 3: downsides will ultimately make everyone hate Connor mcleoughd, make him
Speaker 3: very alone, and literally people come up to him in
Speaker 3: the streets saying, like, you put that puke in the sky.
Speaker 3: I hate you. You ruined my life.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder if the screenwriters here were perhaps
Speaker 1: dipping a little bit into some of the themes and the
Speaker 1: Dune sequels where you know, like in Doune Messiah and
Speaker 1: then also in God Emperor of Dune in Post God
Speaker 1: improv of Doom books, where you know, you're dealing with
Speaker 1: interpretations of rulers and you know, major players in history
Speaker 1: that then cast them as devils and tyrants and so forth,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like Connor does save the world
Speaker 1: and does the world thank him. No, they really get
Speaker 1: sick of his solution.
Speaker 3: They literally throw bottles at him in bars.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, But.
Speaker 3: It's also funny because it presumes anybody would know what
Speaker 3: a like scientist looks like or the administrator of a
Speaker 3: scientific project looks like like twenty five years after it's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I don't know. I guess he was that
Speaker 1: of a celebrity. It's like knowing what Einstein looked like,
Speaker 1: except I don't know, except more handsome.
Speaker 3: So I think we're gonna have to end part one
Speaker 3: of our discussion of Highlander two the Quickening, but we
Speaker 3: will be back with more because right after what we've
Speaker 3: gotten to in the plot, it cuts to twenty five
Speaker 3: years in the future, to the year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That's right, Like this is a contemporary story.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to leave you wondering until next week
Speaker 3: how future events such as these will affect you in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 1: That's right. So make sure you go ahead and tune in.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you listen to this entire episode and
Speaker 1: you still haven't watched Highlander two in full, here's a
Speaker 1: great chance to do it. Fill the time between this
Speaker 1: episode and the next watching some version of Highland or two,
Speaker 1: you know, preferably the theatrical cut, the ice cut. But hey,
Speaker 1: work with what you got because some of these sequences
Speaker 1: are still gonna be mindlessly stupid or just amazingly awesome,
Speaker 1: so you'll still be able to relate to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 3: It'll be a good time no matter what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well just remind you here. The Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a signs and culture podcast,
Speaker 1: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener mail and
Speaker 1: Mondays short form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want to
Speaker 1: see a complete list of everything we've talked about so far,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next,
Speaker 1: go on over to letterbox dot com. That's l E
Speaker 1: T T E R bo x D dot com. Once
Speaker 1: you're there, you can look for our username it's weird House,
Speaker 1: and you'll find a list of everything we've covered. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty remarkable little website. You know, you can essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, blog and social media about the various films
Speaker 1: that you've watched or want to watch, and it's a
Speaker 1: great way to just see in a glance what we've
Speaker 1: been up to as well.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact that's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: Your Mind.
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