Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, 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 to the Quickening, starring Christoph Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen,
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 theatric 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 2: Yeah, Yeah, they've got to put it back out. They've
Speaker 2: got to make the theatrical cut, the seist cut, available
Speaker 2: for everyone so they can experience the true broken, weirdness
Speaker 2: and an awesomeness of this picture because you know, like
Speaker 2: a lot of like awesome flawed films, Yeah, there is this,
Speaker 2: there is this nagging question what could have been? How
Speaker 2: could you make this better? And it's often i mean
Speaker 2: the legacy of even great films that get a lot
Speaker 2: of recuts. You know, I'm thinking about Ridley Scott getting
Speaker 2: in there and tinkering a lot with some of his pictures.
Speaker 2: You know, it's I feel like, I mean, there are cases, yeah,
Speaker 2: where a fan seem to have a consensus about, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the best cut, this is the best way
Speaker 2: to watch particular film, certainly, but a lot of times
Speaker 2: you just end up with this kind of ambiguity, like
Speaker 2: there is no key picture. So I really admire some
Speaker 2: of those filmmakers out there who are like, no, no,
Speaker 2: there's just one cut that is the director's cut, and
Speaker 2: of course there are a lot of moving parts there.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to have a position where the
Speaker 2: director has enough to say that they feel like that
Speaker 2: is their cut. 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 removed moves
Speaker 3: all references to the immortals being aliens, and removes all
Speaker 3: references to the planet Zeist, and also, in a rather
Speaker 3: confusing move, removes all references to the Quickening, which is
Speaker 3: in the title of the movie Highland or two the Quickening.
Speaker 3: But it's largely 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 2: And I would love to hear from many Highlander fans
Speaker 2: out there, of varying degrees, for for your take on
Speaker 2: the franchise as a whole, because I think by and large,
Speaker 2: fans of anything Highlander have at this point been presented
Speaker 2: with numerous things to find lackluster, but also, you know,
Speaker 2: some things to genuinely enjoy and find awesome. And they're
Speaker 2: eventually going to get a reboot, so potentially even more
Speaker 2: stuff to be perturbed or excited about. So yeah, write in,
Speaker 2: We'd love to know your thoughts on it. Me. I'm
Speaker 2: very much you know H one, H two, and I
Speaker 2: enjoyed H three for what it is, And then I
Speaker 2: have seen many, but not all, of the episodes of
Speaker 2: the TV series, and I thought that could be quite
Speaker 2: 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 The 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 effect. 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 to buy the
Speaker 3: producers and the moneymen, and David Lynch has said that
Speaker 3: his experience with Dune taught him that he would rather
Speaker 3: not make a movie at all than make one without
Speaker 3: having 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: Christoff 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 cheaper 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 a lavish production with with you know,
Speaker 3: great intentions behind it. But a lot of these teams
Speaker 3: also ended up working with weird logistical constraints and limitations.
Speaker 3: And this included all kinds of different things like lack
Speaker 3: of certain materials they needed, lack of access to crew
Speaker 3: with certain kinds of industry know how to the fact
Speaker 3: that 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 2: Yeah, yeah, I think they might have shot some of
Speaker 2: his scenes in Scotland, like the initial Scotland scenes.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, but still.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff with him in the
Speaker 2: futuristic setting. So that's a lot ultimately to pack into
Speaker 2: 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 interview 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 2: Yeah, I've read that. One particular detail of all this
Speaker 2: is that both Michael Ironside and Christoph Lambert apparently sustained
Speaker 2: injuries in their sword fighting sequences, which you know is
Speaker 2: always a risk if you have actors doing their own
Speaker 2: action scenes and fight choreography and so forth. But you know,
Speaker 2: looking back at like assuming for a minute, I don't
Speaker 2: know if this is correct, but assuming that they shot
Speaker 2: the final epic sword fight between General Katana and Connor
Speaker 2: MacLeod in sequence, by the end of it it looked
Speaker 2: really looks like they're not able to do much. And
Speaker 2: I've also read that like the General Katana ironically fights
Speaker 2: with a broad sword, which was apparently difficult to wield
Speaker 2: as well. So like, by the end of this big
Speaker 2: epic fight scene with an amazing set, everything feels a
Speaker 2: little clunky and kind of tired, Like they just look
Speaker 2: like maybe they're out of steam, and if they're working
Speaker 2: 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 I
Speaker 3: want to have like a real sword, and so they
Speaker 3: were doing that. But apparently Limbert's eyesight is not great
Speaker 3: and he you know, couldn't wear glasses for filming the scenes,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, they were just Oh and also he
Speaker 3: did a lot of his own stunts in the movie,
Speaker 3: including us the scenes we'll talk about later with like
Speaker 3: an elevator falling down an elevator shaft and flying around
Speaker 3: on rocket boots and stuff. So like in some ways
Speaker 3: it's kind of exciting, you know, stories of Bravado from
Speaker 3: from the film Star. But also yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 3: it was. It was not the safest set ever, but anyway,
Speaker 3: all working with all these limitations, things keep happening. Also,
Speaker 3: I think in the background here, uh, there is a
Speaker 3: major inflation problem in Argentina while they're shooting it. So
Speaker 3: like the money, the value of the money they're using
Speaker 3: to make the movie is like all over the place,
Speaker 3: and that's causing production problems as well. So they were
Speaker 3: just like basic logistical problems and production financing problems and
Speaker 3: the movie was apparently taking way too long and going
Speaker 3: over budget. So, in a move that absolutely always goes
Speaker 3: well more than halfway through production, creative control was taken
Speaker 3: over by an insurance company.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that does 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 2: I mean, especially if you're dealing with with filmmakers they
Speaker 2: want to take big swings that they want to you know,
Speaker 2: go big or you know, or go home, and you
Speaker 2: have the insurance people coming in and say, actually, it
Speaker 2: is time to go home, It is time to wrap
Speaker 2: this up.
Speaker 3: So I think I think a lot of the deficiencies
Speaker 3: of highland Er two, a lot of the things that
Speaker 3: are very funny and bad about it can be chalked
Speaker 3: up to the this thing that had the takeover of
Speaker 3: the movie by the insurance company. But not all of
Speaker 3: the funny stuff or the stuff that fans consider bad
Speaker 3: can be can be chalked up to that. For example,
Speaker 3: many fans apparently you know, the fans who thought it
Speaker 3: was weird to introduce the sci fi elements and make
Speaker 3: the immortals aliens. They would end up blaming that choice
Speaker 3: on the creative takeover by the bonding company. But that
Speaker 3: is not the case. The suits from the insurance company
Speaker 3: did not make up the planet Zeist that's in the script.
Speaker 3: From what I can tell, it seems like the choices
Speaker 3: made by the Bonding company consists more of like wrapping
Speaker 3: production without filming major scenes and then trying to paper
Speaker 3: over those holes with a bizarre Frankenstein edit, and also
Speaker 3: just like lots of choices of I guess like bad
Speaker 3: takes and terrible looking visual effects shots and just you know,
Speaker 3: late stage script rewrits to change things up to just
Speaker 3: finish it faster, and so I think this is one reason.
Speaker 3: Like in the documentary they show some examples of how
Speaker 3: this is a movie that has some great looking visual
Speaker 3: effects shots and some great looking effects and sets in
Speaker 3: certain scenes, and those will be contrasted almost immediately, like
Speaker 3: you'll cut back and forth between stuff that looks great
Speaker 3: and stuff that looks terrible. And apparently the at least
Speaker 3: some of the crew involved in, people who were working
Speaker 3: on the visual effects for the movie, chalk this up
Speaker 3: to the Bonding company. They say, like that they came
Speaker 3: in and they commissioned the you know, completion of the
Speaker 3: film with these terrible looking visual effects and put those in,
Speaker 3: so you've got those right next to stuff that looks
Speaker 3: really good, and that would explain a lot of that
Speaker 3: weird contrast when you're watching the movie. Apparently they also
Speaker 3: cut out a lot of stuff that would have made
Speaker 3: sense of the plot holes created by making the immortals aliens.
Speaker 3: So you know, this movie it's like Swiss cheese. You
Speaker 3: could poke a million holes and be like, none of
Speaker 3: this makes sense with these plot innovations. Apparently it would
Speaker 3: make more sense if we had a full film based
Speaker 3: on the original script, because some of the differences are
Speaker 3: actually explained, some of the gaps are actually explained, but
Speaker 3: we just don't get that.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, and like you've been saying, like ultimately the
Speaker 2: filmmakers themselves run from the Zeist concept. So yeah, we
Speaker 2: just get even further and further away from some sort
Speaker 2: of like concrete vision of what this film was meant
Speaker 2: 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 proof to me that to take out
Speaker 3: the Planet Zeist is to excise the beating heart from
Speaker 3: this film. So Highland or two people, the people who
Speaker 3: are behind making all these cuts, you've already made like
Speaker 3: four or five of them, or however many there are,
Speaker 3: give us the ultimate Zeist cut, you know, give us
Speaker 3: the edit that the release that looks great, has the
Speaker 3: updated picture and sound and all that, but keeps all
Speaker 3: the Zeist content and has the nice looking, the better
Speaker 3: selected visual effects shots. Give us the ultimate cut that
Speaker 3: still has Zeist, unless you've already done that and I'm
Speaker 3: simply not aware of it, in which case I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I don't think they have, because I feel like we've
Speaker 2: wasted a lot of time looking for it. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm up into open to whatever. Like put it
Speaker 2: out as a single disc, I'll buy it. Put it
Speaker 2: out as like the third disc in a multi disc
Speaker 2: release like Ultimate release of Highlander two. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: fine with that. You can even have an optional commentary
Speaker 2: track where you you know, rip into it and talk
Speaker 2: about everything that went wrong, as long as I have
Speaker 2: like just one version of this that I can watch
Speaker 2: and you know, in inacceptable quality, and like you know,
Speaker 2: you know, we we've already touched on some of the
Speaker 2: problems with some of the effects. But yeah, just just
Speaker 2: give me a solid ice cut, that's all I Askay.
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 2: No, I think we just jumped right back into it.
Speaker 2: We established the zeis well or did we What did
Speaker 2: we establish? You established just the building of the shield, right, yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So we'll do a real fast recap of that.
Speaker 3: So the opening of the film is in the year
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, when the human race is in dire
Speaker 3: peril due to the depletion of the ozone layer and
Speaker 3: the resulting exposure of the Earth's surface to deadly radiation
Speaker 3: from the Sun. Connor McLoud, the main character of Highlander one,
Speaker 3: the victorious age old warrior who won the game of
Speaker 3: Immortal Combat and achieved human mortality and the ability to
Speaker 3: have children at the end of the first movie. He
Speaker 3: uses his centuries of wisdom and presumably also his magical
Speaker 3: ability to read minds, though the movie doesn't really address this,
Speaker 3: to organize a team of scientists to create the Shield,
Speaker 3: which is a giant geoengineering project that forms a sort
Speaker 3: of laser net over the Earth's atmosphere and protects the
Speaker 3: surface of the planet from the Sun. It looks kind
Speaker 3: of like a gigantic lightsaber blade blasting out of a
Speaker 3: huge concrete pyramid and then forms a laser net in
Speaker 3: the sky, sort of connects with a satellite somehow, and
Speaker 3: it shields us from the Sun, and Connor and his
Speaker 3: scientist friend Alan Nayman they celebrate their accomplishment they have
Speaker 3: saved the world. This surely was a good use of
Speaker 3: the prize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what morchy do you ask for? Seemingly save the
Speaker 2: 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 eight year twenty four.
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean, this is this was the perfect
Speaker 2: time to really jump in and discuss Islander two on
Speaker 2: Weird House.
Speaker 3: So we see Christophe Limbert driving a car. He's driving
Speaker 3: a convertible down a dark, wet street in what looks
Speaker 3: is not great makeup and terrible old man makeup. His
Speaker 3: face looks like a bowl of porridge. It's not great.
Speaker 3: But we hear his voice over McLeod says, the shield
Speaker 3: twenty five years ago it was our savior. But now
Speaker 3: no sun, no stars, only heat and humidity. It drains
Speaker 3: the energy from the whole world. We're falling apart, going backward,
Speaker 3: old cars, old planes, old dreams. The cure is worse
Speaker 3: than the disease.
Speaker 2: Now already we have so much unpack like, well, why
Speaker 2: are they using old cars, old planes and old dreams
Speaker 2: because of some sort of energy shortage? I mean the
Speaker 2: real answer is it lets them do this, this kind
Speaker 2: of neo noir look for the film, which I do
Speaker 2: quite like, but it doesn't really make any sense where
Speaker 2: it's like, we can't use a car that was made
Speaker 2: post nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: Now. I think they wanted to use some of these
Speaker 3: beautiful old building facades from Buenos Aires, and they were like,
Speaker 3: let's see what everything looks old. Now we'll say for
Speaker 3: some reason, yeah, we're using old cars and planes. What
Speaker 3: would that have to do with anything?
Speaker 2: We also, when we're panning past, does some statue or something.
Speaker 2: There's a plaque that commemorates the shield and it has
Speaker 2: the dates nineteen ninety nine through twenty twenty four on there,
Speaker 2: and I was wondering, do they just update it every year,
Speaker 2: like it's like, okay, it's a new year, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: let's add that, like it's say, you know, no work
Speaker 2: injuries for X number of days sort of a thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, because there's no indication that there
Speaker 2: are no plans to bring the shield down in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, as well, as we'll discuss and 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 there they're like on the sidewalks getting up to
Speaker 3: no good. Connor is driving past them and like glancing
Speaker 3: nervously out the windows of his car looking at them
Speaker 3: as he drives by. We can hear them yelling. Then
Speaker 3: when we actually see them, they're crowded around some kind
Speaker 3: of machine that distributes gas through a face mask attached
Speaker 3: to a hose, and they're like kicking and beating on
Speaker 3: the machine to make it work and then taking turns
Speaker 3: huffing out of the mask. Is this supposed to be
Speaker 3: a vending machine for inhalance?
Speaker 2: I don't know es your neighborhood huffing station. I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there are a lot of wild boys in
Speaker 2: this 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. They have
Speaker 3: those now, Yeah, oo, it's exactly what cars need. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So Connor is watching the news while driving, and the
Speaker 3: news anchor says that the Shield Corporation, which is the
Speaker 3: world's largest company, was today accused of monopoly and price fixing.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking, how do you do price fixing
Speaker 3: if your product is the shield? Like who are the
Speaker 3: market competitors of the Shield Corporation that they would be colluding.
Speaker 2: With the Yeah.
Speaker 3: And other shield companies, and they're making an agreement to
Speaker 3: fix prices.
Speaker 2: And it does seem like it's the same shield for
Speaker 2: the entire planet, Like you can't you know, pick and
Speaker 2: choose like how much shield different regions are getting, or
Speaker 2: there's no indication or even a hint of how that
Speaker 2: would 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 Naman,
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 2: I mean, it's predictable, you know, yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: know what to wear. There's not a lot of questions
Speaker 2: about what you're gonna wear tomorrow. So we can say
Speaker 2: that for it.
Speaker 3: At least, now here is a question I do have.
Speaker 3: So Connor is like driving past these future punks and
Speaker 3: he's 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 2: I mean, this is always the question of any kind
Speaker 2: of apocalyptic hellscape or or urban hell setting. It's why
Speaker 2: are the garbage cans on fire? Maybe just because they
Speaker 2: can be on fire?
Speaker 3: Right? They're cooking with it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, cooking up some assuming rat, some.
Speaker 3: Charproiled rat in the garbage can. Yeah. Okay, So where
Speaker 3: 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 a it does
Speaker 3: have a somewhat derivative kind of blade runneriness about the
Speaker 3: sci fi style, but it also it has a style
Speaker 3: of its own, like the opera has this red blinking
Speaker 3: neon sign like an all night diner. It's a very
Speaker 3: weird choice, but I think it looks really cool and
Speaker 3: inside it's it's beautiful. So Connor is going to see
Speaker 3: this Vagnerian production. I think it's actually he's watching Twilight
Speaker 3: with gods and we hear this, you know, the sweet
Speaker 3: and tortured melodies of a dying world. As the name
Speaker 3: John C. McGinley pops up on the credits, by the way,
Speaker 3: which is funny.
Speaker 2: The set for this opera does look amazing. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen a lot of operas, maybe only ever one opera
Speaker 2: live and in full, and I have to say, give
Speaker 2: me an opera with a set 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 movie 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 is kind of like a religious catechism to me.
Speaker 3: Sean Connery says, remember Highlander, Remember your home another galaxy,
Speaker 3: you were chosen Remember, And then the Wagner music swells
Speaker 3: and the camera zooms in on Connor's face in a
Speaker 3: weirdly unflattering off center shot. His eyes are sort of
Speaker 3: half closed, his fake gray hair is lit up in
Speaker 3: a peculiar way by off camera lights, and we hear
Speaker 3: his thoughts as he says, yes, yes, I remember the
Speaker 3: beginning five hundred years ago on the planet Zeist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is this is a moment where you know,
Speaker 2: you can you can definitely feel fans dropping out because yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm tuning in, because I mean, either this is something
Speaker 2: that Connor McLeod conveniently forgot his entire time on Earth
Speaker 2: throughout the first film, or he knew the whole time
Speaker 2: and just it didn't factor into any of his thoughts
Speaker 2: or actions or anything. And like either either version, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can see that being interpreted is kind of like
Speaker 2: a cheap shot of the experience of the first film,
Speaker 2: you know, and could even be seen as like cheapening, yeah,
Speaker 2: the experience of the first film, But I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's 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 a 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 matte 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 2: Yeah, I mean, the film has just made a very
Speaker 2: wacky choice. And initially here at least, you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: all right, this looks awesome. Let's give it a try.
Speaker 2: 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 2: We get an ancient city escape instead of that crash
Speaker 2: spaceship or airship or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And I think it doesn't look as good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I thought it looked good,
Speaker 2: but it's not as interesting. And it just raises all
Speaker 2: these questions because again you're about to see some sequences
Speaker 2: where guys are clearly fighting with gas masks and modern
Speaker 2: looking weapons and explosions. So to take it away from
Speaker 2: an alien planet and put it into the ancient past
Speaker 2: actually just creates more problems, yes, more logical problems for
Speaker 2: 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 and lined 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 everybody
Speaker 3: turns and looks, and among them in the crowd is
Speaker 3: Christoph Limbert. He's standing there with wind blowing in his
Speaker 3: hair like he's in a Creed music video, and he
Speaker 3: looks very grave and heavy with the burden of this
Speaker 3: new responsibility. And Sean Connery says, yes.
Speaker 2: You, this is how the leaders of all great rebellions
Speaker 2: are chosen, by the way. Yeah, just just sort of
Speaker 2: randomly picked out of the crowd, and like you, Yep,
Speaker 2: you're the one. You're gonna leave the rebellion. That's just
Speaker 2: 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 2: The quickening in the First Highlander also it felt a
Speaker 2: little vague. It was something magical about connection between immortals,
Speaker 2: and we basically hear about it the most in that
Speaker 2: scene where where it really a nice scene where Ramirez
Speaker 2: and Connor during the midst of all their training, run
Speaker 2: on the beach, maybe while a horse is running, I think,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's like I think about it whenever
Speaker 2: I run on a beach. I'm like, yeah, the quickening.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it was more of a feeling
Speaker 2: than a codified lower thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's about it's about their relationship, it's about their bond,
Speaker 2: and this is I guess, trying to channel that as
Speaker 2: well into some sort of like magical thing that connects
Speaker 2: them across time 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 fund pot for glowing magical energy. They
Speaker 3: like dip their fingers in and they get some of
Speaker 3: the magic on their fingertips, and then they touch their
Speaker 3: hands together and then there's like light that shoots out
Speaker 3: of their hands, and Connor looks very again. He looks
Speaker 3: very grave. He's like, oh no, what's happening. But Ramirez
Speaker 3: is just grinning wildly, and he says, the ancient power
Speaker 3: of the quickening has joined us. We are now as one.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know how this is going to result
Speaker 2: in a successful rebellion. But you know, all right, fine,
Speaker 2: we've done the quickening and now it's time to go
Speaker 2: ahead and win this thing, right.
Speaker 3: 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 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 concept sketches for it that have
Speaker 3: all these strange rock formations and these aliens fighting in
Speaker 3: weird costumes and all that. We don't really get to
Speaker 3: see any of that. Instead, we just sort of see
Speaker 3: some guys running in the sand and some things blow
Speaker 3: up and then it's over.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Nothing you really haven't seen in other post apocalyptic
Speaker 2: battle movies. They're 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 enemy being annihilated.
Speaker 3: He says he wants Connor McLeod and Ramirez captured as
Speaker 3: for everybody else, he wants their heads.
Speaker 2: And Katana does look pretty awesome here. You know, he's
Speaker 2: a little bit industrial metal but with a stylish dueling scar,
Speaker 2: and he has this like long he has long, dark hair,
Speaker 2: but he has the streak of gray or white through it,
Speaker 2: so it's a solid look. And you know it's Ironside,
Speaker 2: so he can definitely sell the menace.
Speaker 3: So now Michael Ironside, who we just met seconds ago,
Speaker 3: he has Connor McLoud captured and held prisoner in this
Speaker 3: kind of some kind of like office slash dungeon. It's
Speaker 3: it's I guess Rob, I think you brought this up
Speaker 3: in the last episode that this is a cool looking interior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is a really cool look, Concett, This
Speaker 2: is definitely a scene that I recommend going back and
Speaker 2: watching in like the highest picture quality possible. Like I
Speaker 2: went back and watched this scene in the Renegade cut
Speaker 2: just because it's it's it's just shot so well. It
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: different you and I, and then he says, so deadly
Speaker 3: in their own environment, so tame and servile in mine.
Speaker 3: I think he means out of the water. And then
Speaker 3: Connor says, maybe they're just waiting, and then Katana says
Speaker 3: waiting for what And then Connor says, for you to
Speaker 3: get careless. I get what he's saying, But how would
Speaker 3: that apply to an eel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. It's wait, he looks good. It
Speaker 2: 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 dim
Speaker 3: straits his power by like squeezing the eel in his
Speaker 3: fist until it basically he like cuts it in half
Speaker 3: and it splats on the floor. Uh. And then it
Speaker 3: just seems that General Katana is going to execute Connor MacLeod,
Speaker 3: a resident of the planet Zeist, for his crimes against
Speaker 3: the planet Zeist. 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 2: Okay, so yeah, certainly a liberal and overly complex exile
Speaker 2: process that also kind of functions like a loser's bracket
Speaker 2: right in a tournament. So it's like all the people
Speaker 2: that were enemies of our planet, they're sent away, but
Speaker 2: then you compete against each other and then like the
Speaker 2: most powerful of you can then come back and I
Speaker 2: don't know, have another go at ruining the planet or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, I don't quite get it, but.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe it's just codified in their religious
Speaker 2: thinking and their traditions. I don't know. Fine enough, they've
Speaker 2: explained what's going on in the first Highlander film. They've
Speaker 2: read cond it Yeah, we'll make do it, dear.
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 2: Oh it's like the friends in Labyrinth, you know at
Speaker 2: the end where Sarah can just call on them and
Speaker 2: they come.
Speaker 3: But why did we know this in the first movie.
Speaker 2: No, when Ramirez his dad in the first movie, he's
Speaker 2: dead for centuries and there's no indication that he could
Speaker 2: ever call out to his old friend, though he clearly
Speaker 2: missed him. That's the thing, like, if he could have
Speaker 2: done this, there would have been opportunities to do it.
Speaker 2: 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 2: 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, wait, 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 2: It's a kind of magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a kind of magic. How many times do
Speaker 3: they bring this up in the movie.
Speaker 2: Oh, way too many. I mean, it's a great song,
Speaker 2: we all love it, but they go to the well
Speaker 2: 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 2: They should have referenced the other songs, though I don't
Speaker 2: think they directly reference Princes of the Universe at all.
Speaker 2: He could have said that he could just remember Highlander
Speaker 2: with Princes of the Universe.
Speaker 3: Here, we are born to be kings.
Speaker 2: Exactly till your mother down, Highlander.
Speaker 3: We will not let you go.
Speaker 2: 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 m hm.
Speaker 3: And then Connor and Ramirez get zapped by a big
Speaker 3: machine that's like a like an exxystraator, and General Katana
Speaker 3: looks on angrily. I guess he did not get his
Speaker 3: way at the sentencing here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not down with his culture's very forgiving system
Speaker 2: 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 of his past.
Speaker 3: The show is over and an usher is asking him
Speaker 3: to leave the theater, and he's so old and weak
Speaker 3: and feeble he can barely croak out a friendly response
Speaker 3: to the usher.
Speaker 2: In Michael Weldon's little review for this in The Psychotronic
Speaker 2: Film Guides, he points out that he it's a review
Speaker 2: where he says, like, there's definitely some awesome stuff in
Speaker 2: this in this film, but he's like, oh, it spends
Speaker 2: way too much time with Lambert convincingly playing an old
Speaker 2: Connor McCloud yes and yeah, quibbles about the makeup aside, Like,
Speaker 2: he does really sell this idea of here's your hero
Speaker 2: from the first film, old and feeble. But there's gonna
Speaker 2: be payoff for that. There's gonna be payoff.
Speaker 3: It takes a third of the movie for him to
Speaker 3: get hot again.
Speaker 2: 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 like
Speaker 3: different Shield Corporation locations were separate, discrete locations with different
Speaker 3: kinds of buildings, But this cut just makes it look
Speaker 3: like everything Shield related is taking place in the pyramid.
Speaker 3: So at this pyramid we see a group of operatives
Speaker 3: sneaking past security guards with grappling hooks and zip lines.
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 Madsen says impossible, radiation levels
Speaker 3: can't be normal. Then the infiltrators trigger the alarm and
Speaker 3: security comes running, so Virginia Madson'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 2: Yeah, I mean, this makes you look like they're on
Speaker 2: the industrial Death Star sort of a set. It looks good,
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: newspaper and they're like no colors apart from the neon
Speaker 3: signs 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 kind of color. And then the only other colors
Speaker 3: are just like lights and say like a bar or
Speaker 3: opera or you know, or show like advertisements.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I keep expecting Deran Duran Simon Labon to walk
Speaker 2: into frame here and start belding out some lyrics or
Speaker 2: you know, to rotate into frame strap to a windmill
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: Wild boys indeed.
Speaker 2: 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 2: Oh it's from Highlander one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that's right. Okay, So it's a callback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a callback. It's a great track. It's great
Speaker 2: to hear it again and does kind of like remind
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: exists in Connor is a fan of It's a kind
Speaker 3: of magic. Yes, that's his like, don't stop believing it's
Speaker 3: his jukebox tune. So this is a bar where Connor
Speaker 3: is a regular. He sits down for a drink. He
Speaker 3: knows the bartender. He watches the news on TV and
Speaker 3: it's a report that there has been a terrorist attack
Speaker 3: on Shield headquarters by an eco terrorist group called Cobalt,
Speaker 3: led by a woman named Louise Marcus. That's Virginia Madsen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we see COBALT's call sign is essentially the Zodiac
Speaker 2: 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 of the Shield Corporation, but here
Speaker 3: they say John c McGinley is the president of the
Speaker 3: 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 Madson
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 2: I'm increasingly struck by the fact that her character is
Speaker 2: essentially Gracie Law, the Kim Cattrell character from Big Trouble
Speaker 2: in Little China. You know, she's there. She's a spunky,
Speaker 2: go getter, you know, a little bit of a hoxy
Speaker 2: and female, you know, trope character, but also is just
Speaker 2: ultimately there to be the love interest in the long run.
Speaker 2: Gracie Law, to be clear, is a much 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 2: Yeah? Yeah. She's basically also there to be like like
Speaker 2: wake up and get excited about the B plot and
Speaker 2: he's like, well, let me tell you about the A plot,
Speaker 2: 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 into street wear
Speaker 3: in an alley outside the bar. And then she like
Speaker 3: unfolds a piece of paper and the paper just says,
Speaker 3: McLoud twenty third Street bar. Huh, how does she have
Speaker 3: that information?
Speaker 2: 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, McLoud, I am the
Speaker 3: terrorist woman you just saw on TV. Except I'm I'm
Speaker 3: not a terrorist. I've got business with you, and he
Speaker 3: tries to brush her off and get in his car.
Speaker 3: He seems to he has lost his passion for peace
Speaker 3: and harmony and doing good in the world. He just
Speaker 3: he seems to just want to, you know, mind his
Speaker 3: own business and be old and lonely. But she says,
Speaker 3: you know, I used to read about you. You had
Speaker 3: such great passion for the world. I admired you. I
Speaker 3: can see that's all gone. Now you're nothing but a
Speaker 3: tired old man. And he tries to get in his
Speaker 3: car and drive away, but she just jumps in the
Speaker 3: car with him, and then he drives away anyway, Like
Speaker 3: why is she hounding him? I don't know, But they
Speaker 3: drive off and she says, the world is dying, McLeod,
Speaker 3: I need your help. Then suddenly a highly WTF cut,
Speaker 3: So we go straight from that conversation in the car
Speaker 3: to crazy rock formations in the desert and a title
Speaker 3: says the planet Zeist, And then we see Michael Ironside
Speaker 3: and he's just like Hinchminton. And a couple of guys
Speaker 3: walk up and these are a pair of pale bird
Speaker 3: like men wearing welding goggles with porcupine quills for hair.
Speaker 2: Yes, major wild boy energy to these two. I mean,
Speaker 2: these two really could have just walked right out of
Speaker 2: the Wild Boy's music video.
Speaker 3: General Katana says to them, you leave for the planet Earth,
Speaker 3: immediately find McLoud and kill him. The Benjaman says, but
Speaker 3: I thought you said McLeod was mortal and could never return.
Speaker 2: And this is actually an excellent and unaddressed point. So
Speaker 2: on Planet Zeis, everyone here seems to be a mortal
Speaker 2: as well, because Katana has not seemingly aged at all,
Speaker 2: these guys presumably are part of the Zeistian order from
Speaker 2: centuries prior as well. And yeah, it's like for some reason,
Speaker 2: Katana's saying, okay, go find the guy that won the
Speaker 2: prize and is doing all this stuff and hasn't hasn't
Speaker 2: come back to Zeist is not in any way seemingly
Speaker 2: planning to or or working on interfering with our stuff. Here,
Speaker 2: go back and him and and they're like, but why
Speaker 2: why now? Why are we doing this? And he just
Speaker 2: like slaps him around a little and like, go do it,
Speaker 2: you dummies. But why, there's no reason for this to happen.
Speaker 2: There's never a reason for this to happen in the movie.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, Like why now why why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I was thinking about this, Okay, assuming Katana
Speaker 2: wanted to interfere with the exile system and the you know,
Speaker 2: the game towards the prize, he would have done it
Speaker 2: ages ago. And maybe the idea here is like, I
Speaker 2: know they wanted to get consequency Brown in here to
Speaker 2: reprise the role of the Kurgan to some degree. So
Speaker 2: maybe the idea is like, at some level, the Kurgan
Speaker 2: was like their dude that they sent back. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: go win this prize thing, so we don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about Connor. And he fails, But even then it's
Speaker 2: like that was the time to interfere at this point.
Speaker 2: Connor won the prize and ended up not doing the
Speaker 2: thing you were afraid he was gonna do. No reason
Speaker 2: to go back.
Speaker 3: And get Yes, that is what I've read that they
Speaker 3: wanted Clancy Brown to come back and play the Kurgan again,
Speaker 3: to 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. But still
Speaker 3: I wonder, like, why 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 2: Yeah, you've about outlived Connor McLeod. He is mortal. He's
Speaker 2: going to die of mortal death. What does it matter, desist.
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 bread.
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 them to fly,
Speaker 3: and one of them has wings on his back, and
Speaker 3: they sort of like they at the beginning, they like
Speaker 3: loaf around in an alley way, arguing over who gets
Speaker 3: to cut off McLeod's head. Again, Connor McLeod is his
Speaker 3: Zeist name, that's the name they know him from there,
Speaker 3: and then this fight kicks off, and man, I have
Speaker 3: so like, I think that the edit that is available
Speaker 3: does not give the best does not show the best
Speaker 3: sides of this fight very well. But actually, if you
Speaker 3: look at the individual shots, this is a pretty great
Speaker 3: looking fight scene and a lot of these stunts and
Speaker 3: effects are quite impressive and do look good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very ambitious. In my opinion, this is the
Speaker 2: best part of the film, a truly awesome sci fi
Speaker 2: action set piece and sequence that really gives you everything
Speaker 2: you want. Like, this is the part of the film
Speaker 2: where you really feel like everyone's heart was in it.
Speaker 2: The vision was on point, the execution is mostly pitch perfect,
Speaker 2: and I can quibble about one or two of the
Speaker 2: effects towards the end. I'll come back to that, But
Speaker 2: otherwise this is Highlander two at its best. This is
Speaker 2: the thing in the trailers that pulled me in to
Speaker 2: Highlander 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 elastics 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 2: It's great, yeah, yeah, if anyone listening is not familiar
Speaker 2: with it. Essentially, this is like the little hoverboard that
Speaker 2: the Green Goblin uses in Spider Man and in the
Speaker 2: snider 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 what they
Speaker 3: were able to achieve on set looked great. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so during this fight the two aliens from Zeist attack him,
Speaker 3: Connor seems to defend himself pretty well for a guy
Speaker 3: who just seemed almost too weak to talk earlier this evening.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, maybe the arrival of the guys
Speaker 3: from Zeist has sort of partially reinvigorated him, given him
Speaker 3: back some of that immortal strength, and they like fight.
Speaker 3: They go up with fire escape and they start fighting
Speaker 3: on these catwalks that go over the city streets. The
Speaker 3: guy from Zeist has a sword, and at first Connor
Speaker 3: is defending himself with just like a steel rod, like
Speaker 3: a metal bar. Uh. 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.
Speaker 2: It's it's great, yeah, yeah, yeah there. They are a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. I mean they're just completely over the top. Uh.
Speaker 2: And and again I love the action and these sequences
Speaker 2: with old man Connor, uh, you know, mustering up and
Speaker 2: just enough energy to fight them off using a pipe
Speaker 2: 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 the 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 2: Yeah, he really lucked out on that one. But it's
Speaker 2: 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 exploding.
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, his 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 happen,
Speaker 3: and he giggles triumphantly. But uh oh, Connor McLeod walks
Speaker 3: out of the fireball from the gas truck and we're
Speaker 3: back friends. I think we are back in business. Christoph
Speaker 3: Lambert is hot again. He looks like he's young again,
Speaker 3: and he is ready to fight.
Speaker 2: This is the eg Zach moment in the film at
Speaker 2: which Princes of the Universe should have played. My number
Speaker 2: one criticism of the film is that the is that
Speaker 2: Princes of the Universe does not play at this moment.
Speaker 2: I would also settle for some off album choices. They
Speaker 2: could have gone with, keep Yourself Alive, or if they
Speaker 2: wanted to be a little cheeky, don't stop me now.
Speaker 2: But it needed it needed that, it needed that oomph.
Speaker 2: And it's still it's still a very dramatic and nice
Speaker 2: moment because yeah, he's back, he's young again, he's hot again,
Speaker 2: he's powerful enough to take on this other assassin, this
Speaker 2: remaining assassin from the planet's heist. And oh and I
Speaker 2: want to add the whole destructive quickening thing. I kind
Speaker 2: of forgot that they also call that the quickening, like
Speaker 2: the quickening is, to my understanding, simultaneously both the transfer
Speaker 2: of energy between a slain immortal and the immortal slayer
Speaker 2: and also running on the beach with your best friend.
Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: Highly 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, maybe more oblique kind
Speaker 3: of queen song choice I think they could have done.
Speaker 3: I'm in Love with my car. You know, it's the
Speaker 3: right feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the feeling is key. It's I think
Speaker 2: you'd want to go with the like a nice building,
Speaker 2: heavier track. Another one buys the dust I think could
Speaker 2: also work. Yeah, I mean, there are a number of
Speaker 2: 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 seceed 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 zeice Tinchman know that the blaster won't do
Speaker 3: anything because Connor is once again immortal.
Speaker 2: Well, he can't kill him with the blaster, probably, but
Speaker 2: he could wound him enough to have a better chance
Speaker 2: 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 conn 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 2: 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 2: I mean his name's McLeod too. Yeah, it makes no sense.
Speaker 3: He says, say goodbye highlander, and then Connor replies, why
Speaker 3: you going somewhere?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I think they could workshop that a
Speaker 2: little Okay.
Speaker 3: And then also the bird henchman randomly incinerates. Just there's
Speaker 3: a guy on the sidewalk who asks this alien if
Speaker 3: he has a light, and then he just blows him up.
Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah, this moment is still awesome. But this is the
Speaker 2: moment where I feel like the effects could have been
Speaker 2: a little bit tighter, it could have moved a little faster.
Speaker 2: Still great, but I see where like maybe they didn't
Speaker 2: 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: Rem 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 cramy
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 2: Yeah, Ramirez, who we know traversed multiple cultures, absorbing their
Speaker 2: cultures and sometimes their accents at every turn. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: 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 making fun of the actors, and the audience
Speaker 3: 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 they 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 in this
Speaker 3: in the future.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Shield City.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, ye, shield City. Connor is explaining to
Speaker 3: Virginia Madsen the whole thing. You know, I was banished
Speaker 3: from the planet's ice five hundred years ago. I cannot die,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And then they just kiss passionately. That's absolute
Speaker 3: We said this in the last episode, but this has
Speaker 3: got to be one of the most unearned romances in
Speaker 3: movie history. They just met moments ago, and their meeting
Speaker 3: was entirely business. There was had nothing like, no initial
Speaker 3: connection whatsoever. But he just got quickening and now he's
Speaker 3: young and good looking, and now they're just smooth and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I referenced Gracie Law
Speaker 2: Kim Katrall's character from Big Trouble and Little China earlier.
Speaker 2: But at least in Big Trouble Little China, which I
Speaker 2: still hold up as being pretty great, you do get
Speaker 2: development of the relationship, the romantic tension between Jack Burton
Speaker 2: and Gracie Law. It is ultimately earned that they fall
Speaker 2: in love with each other, at least for a little
Speaker 2: bit or something like love, you know. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: totally unearned here. But this is not the kind of
Speaker 2: 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: at 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 2: Yeah yeah, it's kind of like, you know, called back
Speaker 2: to the first film in which his home is kind
Speaker 2: of like a museum because his life is like this
Speaker 2: museum and all these memories.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, so she's this is the scene where
Speaker 3: Louise is like, Okay, let me just see if I
Speaker 3: can get this straight. You come from another planet. You're
Speaker 3: mortal there, but you're immortal here until you kill all
Speaker 3: the guys from there who have come here, and then
Speaker 3: you're mortal here unless you go back there or some
Speaker 3: more guys from there came here, in which case you
Speaker 3: become immortal here again. And then Connor says in his
Speaker 3: with his wonderful little voice and chuckle something like that,
Speaker 3: and she expresses disbelief. And then Connor love these adding
Speaker 3: up here. He says, let's just say it's a kind
Speaker 3: of magic.
Speaker 2: 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 is
Speaker 3: something's going wrong. They're hiding something and you've got to
Speaker 3: help me expose it.
Speaker 2: And again I want to point out that Katana has
Speaker 2: zero steak in all of this, Like this would ultimately
Speaker 2: everything would make more sense if there was any connection
Speaker 2: between A plot and B plot here if Katana for
Speaker 2: some reason didn't want like the shield to come down,
Speaker 2: but there's there's nothing on that. We would have to
Speaker 2: sit here and speculate all day to figure out how
Speaker 2: to connect these two plots and again, make it it
Speaker 2: all sensible for Katana to send goons to Earth to
Speaker 2: 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 2: Desist they're all dead though there's.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but if he wanted Connor to not come back,
Speaker 3: he would want the shield to stay in place.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I guess that could have worked had they
Speaker 2: established it.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying like, yeah, is out there.
Speaker 2: There ways they could have and maybe in some version
Speaker 2: of the script. They did address this, but we don't
Speaker 2: get it here.
Speaker 3: Okay. So here Connor goes to visit his old friend
Speaker 3: and partner, Alan Naman. 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, Alan'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 2: Yeah. Again, this is like total Russell McKay music video style.
Speaker 2: You expect to like pan over and there's Simon Labon
Speaker 2: in the chair. We're in a fedora and he's gonna
Speaker 2: start belding out some Duran Duran tuns. 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 Shield executive, is spying on them from the next room.
Speaker 3: So this seems to be a corporation where the CEO
Speaker 3: stays late to personally spy on employees rather than having
Speaker 3: like software or subordinates do it for him. McGinley then
Speaker 3: comes into the room and Connor starts like needling him
Speaker 3: about how what if one day the Shield doesn't need
Speaker 3: it anymore, your profits would dry up. So it's like
Speaker 3: he's just Connor seems to be like wrapping out his
Speaker 3: friend who just told him about this in confidence. Next
Speaker 3: we cut to the planet Zeist, and then we see
Speaker 3: Michael Ironside just standing in a cave by himself, and
Speaker 3: 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 2: Yeah, he also would get the like his sci fi
Speaker 2: techno sword goes shishing to sell this, which I have
Speaker 2: to admit looks pretty cool. And I also have to
Speaker 2: point out this is also pretty much the exact post
Speaker 2: credit Thanos sequence from the Age of Ultron movie. It
Speaker 2: would come you know, decades later, except with Thanos grabbing
Speaker 2: an Infinity Gauntlet instead of making his sword ghoshashing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny. I wonder if they got it from this.
Speaker 2: Maybe so yeah, because it's like I had to go
Speaker 2: back and look at it. It's pretty much the exact
Speaker 2: same thing, like Thanos is, like you want something done,
Speaker 2: you got to do it yourself, and then that sets
Speaker 2: up 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 2: Yeah, this guy's not supposed to be like just the
Speaker 2: reckless enforcer that the loose cannon. He's supposed to be
Speaker 2: the mastermind, Like this is the big bad like Thanos
Speaker 2: doesn't come to Earth in the Marvel movies just like
Speaker 2: I love recking casinos. No, he's got an agenda, He's
Speaker 2: got things he definitely wants to do, and he's gonna
Speaker 2: mess with you if you get in the way of
Speaker 2: 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 2: They love Wizard of Us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he kills a random passenger on the train.
Speaker 3: Then he goes up to a kid and he says,
Speaker 3: bet you've always wanted to drive one of these, haven't you.
Speaker 3: And the kid's like yeah, and then he goes me too.
Speaker 3: Then he goes up to the front of the subway car,
Speaker 3: conks out the driver, hijacks the train, and then like
Speaker 3: he makes the aphex twin face as he pushes the
Speaker 3: speed up to hundreds of miles per hour and then
Speaker 3: crashes through the side of a building.
Speaker 2: More train wrecks center train wreck of the movie.
Speaker 3: Right, and then we get these these weird General Katana
Speaker 3: Connor interactions. We see Connor going to visit the grave
Speaker 3: of his Earth wife, which is in some kind of
Speaker 3: urban cathedral, and then General Katana's just there to sarcastically
Speaker 3: slow clap after Connor finishes saying a few words and
Speaker 3: another 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 you
Speaker 3: know Connor's talking to his wife's grave, and Katana says,
Speaker 3: I always did admire a man who can talk to
Speaker 3: the dead. And then he says, the remains of your
Speaker 3: mortal wife so frail, so earthly, so very dead, And
Speaker 3: Connor says, at least she's at peace. Katana says peace
Speaker 3: is highly overrated, and then Connor says things don't change. Katana,
Speaker 3: I like that, after all these years, you're still a jerk,
Speaker 3: a jerk. But then they also say they can't They
Speaker 3: know they're gonna have to fight, but they say they
Speaker 3: can't fight here because of quote the Golden Rule, which
Speaker 3: is that we must never fight on holy ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something, of course established in the first
Speaker 2: Highlander movie. And they do kind of try to address
Speaker 2: one problem that emerges concerning all this in Highlander three,
Speaker 2: and that is, okay, it's one thing for Connor and
Speaker 2: other like, you know, some degree like chaotic good or
Speaker 2: neutral good immortals to honor this rule, I guess. But
Speaker 2: why do all these like clearly chaotic evil immortals care
Speaker 2: about the Golden rule concerning holy spaces? So credit to
Speaker 2: Highlander three. I won't spoil anything, but they do at
Speaker 2: 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 2: I mean, it's it's I remember, it's being fun. It's fun.
Speaker 2: It's got Mario vn Peebles place the new villainous Immortal,
Speaker 2: which I believe the whole idea is, oh, Connor, you
Speaker 2: didn't win the prize after all, because there were three
Speaker 2: immortals that were trapped in a cave in somewhere and oh,
Speaker 2: they just dug him.
Speaker 3: Out perfect completely ignores Islander two, right.
Speaker 2: Right, I guess technically occurs before highland Er two, but
Speaker 2: also 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 play 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. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I seem to recall reading that a lot of this,
Speaker 2: the Scotland stuff, was Connery's doing, Like, I'll do it,
Speaker 2: but there need to be some scenes that are shot
Speaker 2: in Scotland. And I don't know if he had any
Speaker 2: influence over the flavor of these sequences, but you can
Speaker 2: imagine that as like, all right, if we're gonna we're
Speaker 2: gonna shoot these extra days. I want one day where
Speaker 2: I'm just getting fitted for a suit while I drink scotch.
Speaker 2: 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. Oh yeah, yeah, he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say. In general, though, Ramirez lacks the authentic
Speaker 2: charisma that he had in the first film. Though, you know,
Speaker 2: he's more of a comic relief character here except for
Speaker 2: 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 part,
Speaker 3: there is a part that's supposed to be funny and
Speaker 3: does genuinely work. It's quite hilarious when Ramirez watches an
Speaker 3: aviation safety film on the you know, video screen in
Speaker 3: front of him. That is quite funny.
Speaker 2: I didn't care for it, but no, but it is
Speaker 2: kind of like it's very much of the sort of
Speaker 2: RoboCop vibe of parity, which I do admire. Isn't there
Speaker 2: another sequel it's like this that maybe Katanovius maybe it's
Speaker 2: a different cut of the film where it's like a chef,
Speaker 2: like 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 2: Which I admire, and I would say that one's worth
Speaker 2: checking out. I just can't remember what it was. It's
Speaker 2: something like Psychic Chef or it's dumb but amusing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah, at any rate, the successfully flies all the way
Speaker 2: to wherever Shield City is. So that and we don't
Speaker 2: see the rest of it. We don't see him going
Speaker 2: through Custa, we don't see arranging travel figuring out exactly
Speaker 2: where Connor is. I mean, he's got the quickening, so
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: apartment and goes through all this old stuff and know,
Speaker 3: and it's showing, Oh, he's lived for centuries, he played football,
Speaker 3: he sailed on the high seas. Here's his nineteen oh
Speaker 3: one football team picture, and there's a suit of armor
Speaker 3: in there, and like old bottles of wine and all that.
Speaker 3: Also in this room, is that a Confederate flag in there? Connor?
Speaker 2: Well, I bet he took that off of Confederate troops.
Speaker 2: I don't remember, but there. I don't remember where all
Speaker 2: this lands, but I know there were some deleted scenes
Speaker 2: in the for The First Highlander in which he fights
Speaker 2: the Nazis, so I'm guessing he fought for the Union
Speaker 2: 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, well, so the cab driver
Speaker 3: 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 2: You're in them music business, aren't you.
Speaker 3: Katana is like, it's quite comfortable back here, like a coffin.
Speaker 2: What does Katana even? Like? What is what does this
Speaker 2: guy about? It's just bad, that's all he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a he's like, oh yeah. And then when
Speaker 3: they arrive 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? Why? It's Shield Corporation headquarters. So Michael
Speaker 3: Ironside walks into a board meeting with John C. McGinley
Speaker 3: and he starts just choking people and he says, I'd
Speaker 3: like to join your human Corporation? Where do I sign up?
Speaker 3: And they try to have like a guy the suit
Speaker 3: shoot him, but man, he's a mortal whoops. Also, there
Speaker 3: are more jokes and references that don't make any sense,
Speaker 3: like General Katana gets up after being shot and he says, yes,
Speaker 3: you know, guys, this is no way to treat your
Speaker 3: number one draft choice. It's like, is that a football metaphor?
Speaker 2: 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 2: You know, I bet what happened is they had football
Speaker 2: on Zeist and who invented football on Earth? But immortals?
Speaker 2: 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 both
Speaker 3: at the radiation levels are normal. I'm gonna throw you
Speaker 3: in Shield jail, which exists. Let me get some brief
Speaker 3: character moments where like Virginia Madson is asking Connor about
Speaker 3: his previous wives and Connor is talking about them, but
Speaker 3: then they get interrupted when Connor senses a presence nearby
Speaker 3: and a shadowy figure emerges, and Connor and this figure
Speaker 3: duel with swords, but then it's revealed that it is
Speaker 3: Sean 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 2: Yeah, it's almost like what they should have and maybe
Speaker 2: even wanted to do. You should have had a flashback
Speaker 2: here to show like their relationship in a maybe an
Speaker 2: outdoor setting, because here we do have this wonderful but
Speaker 2: very grimy, grungy, dark set, and I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: not a very 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 seyst Also, Ramirez meets Virginia Mattson meets
Speaker 3: 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: necess 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 2: Fun immortal hikks.
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.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: They go and find Alan, but he does one of
Speaker 3: those movie instant deaths where he's just like, oh, Connor,
Speaker 3: you know, we tell me we did the right thing
Speaker 3: by making the shield, and then he's like you were
Speaker 3: my best friend, oh and just falls over dies. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: John c McGinley and General Katana are like watching all
Speaker 3: this on closed circuit cameras, and General Katana says, well, well,
Speaker 3: well like a high school reunion down there.
Speaker 2: And so the instantly once more he's got the drop,
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: are They go into a cylindrical room all at the
Speaker 3: same time. The doors slam and lock behind them, and
Speaker 3: then this is one of the greatest moments of the movie.
Speaker 3: A whirling fans 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 immortals 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 2: I don't know, But I also like how this hall
Speaker 2: set kind of resembles the fizzy lifting drink scene from
Speaker 2: Willy Wonka.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the.
Speaker 2: Blades didn't lower in that our heroes floated up towards it.
Speaker 2: But I still can't help but connect the two.
Speaker 3: So, how are our heroes going to get out of
Speaker 3: this jam?
Speaker 2: You tell me. I've seen it multiple times and I
Speaker 2: 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 go a speech. He's like
Speaker 3: standing in the middle of the room 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 he turns to Connor and Louise
Speaker 3: and he says, my time here is over. It'll take
Speaker 3: the power of both of you to destroy General Katana
Speaker 3: and the Shield, and Connor says, will I ever see
Speaker 3: you again? And Ramirez says, who knows, Hylander, who knows?
Speaker 3: So Connor and Louise escape for some reason. The door
Speaker 3: pops open and Ramirez turns into light and explodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no idea what this is supposed to
Speaker 2: be 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 2: 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
Speaker 3: reason and Katana reacts by grabbing him by the crotch,
Speaker 3: lifting him in the air, and throwing him out a window.
Speaker 3: So that's the end of that character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this character in this relationship that we just
Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah, uncivilized weapon. I think he does use a machine
Speaker 2: gun against the Nazis and a deleted scene from Highlander one.
Speaker 2: But still you didn't You don't sign up to see
Speaker 2: 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 there a letter, know he means it.
Speaker 3: The location of the General Katana Showdown is it's confusing here,
Speaker 3: and I think it's because what has happened in this
Speaker 3: scene in the American cut is that this is actually
Speaker 3: two completely separate fight scenes that happen at two different
Speaker 3: parts of the movie, and they've been edited together.
Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah yeah, and I can't again, I can't help but
Speaker 2: wonder too how injuries and clunky swords and so forth
Speaker 2: factored into this, because I don't think that the sword
Speaker 2: fights in Highland are one set an incredibly high standard,
Speaker 2: like they're not. I wouldn't. I would never hold them
Speaker 2: them up as being like the best sword fights in cinema.
Speaker 2: But they're really good, and I feel like what we
Speaker 2: get in this picture, you know, aside from flying space assassins.
Speaker 2: 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 2: 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 2: Yeah, yeah, it looks really cool, big sets, you know,
Speaker 2: beam of light, very evocative. I love it. Though. Again,
Speaker 2: the actual sword fight, especially right here, feels kind of anticlimactic. Again,
Speaker 2: like it just didn't have much more gas 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 the light
Speaker 3: shoots into him and he gets the electricity snakes and stuff.
Speaker 3: But like, is he mortal again now? I would guess so.
Speaker 3: But then he walks into the shield beam huh and
Speaker 3: Virginia Madison's there looking at him and she's like no.
Speaker 3: And then the shield explodes. The satellite controlling the shield explodes,
Speaker 3: the sky clears and they can see stars. Wow, the
Speaker 3: shield is gone. And then the voice of Ramirez speaks
Speaker 3: in their minds and says, remember, highlander, you've both still
Speaker 3: got your full measure of life. Use it well and
Speaker 3: your future will be glorious. End credits.
Speaker 2: Wow. So yeah, I guess he uses the power of
Speaker 2: this quickening, of this energy absorption of a powerful immortal
Speaker 2: to short circuit all of the shield technology here.
Speaker 3: And I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: And then at the end, is either mortal or is
Speaker 2: gonna get to return to.
Speaker 3: Zeist 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 in full measure of life.
Speaker 3: I don't know where any of that comes from.
Speaker 2: Now, tell me about this fairy tale ending. What is
Speaker 2: 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 Dezeist,
Speaker 3: and he does. He like flies away into space. Then
Speaker 3: there's another ending where they both go to Seist where
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, I love you, Come with me
Speaker 3: Dezeised and she's like, but I can't fly through space.
Speaker 3: And I think he I think he's essentially like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a kind of magic. Just try it, and so
Speaker 3: she does, and then she flies into space and they
Speaker 3: both fly into space and go to Zeis together.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know whether they're going to get up
Speaker 2: to there. We don't really know much about Zis aside
Speaker 2: from conflict, but maybe they're they're good qualities. They have
Speaker 2: football apparently, 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 Zeised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or the like the old Zeis that they're going
Speaker 2: to restore I'm not sure again, why do we care
Speaker 2: 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. Uh, And so
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's just such an interesting creative product
Speaker 3: and whatever you think about it, I think it's undeniable
Speaker 3: that it is so funny and so perplexing and it's
Speaker 3: something 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 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like if you're if you're into that side,
Speaker 2: like what went wrong and how is it made and
Speaker 2: so forth, Like Highlander two is a great story if
Speaker 2: you just want a bad movie, a movie with flaws
Speaker 2: that you can you can riff on. Highlander two is
Speaker 2: a great choice if you know, if you like to
Speaker 2: find that the diamonds in the midst of the raw,
Speaker 2: if you want to find the shiny parts of otherwise
Speaker 2: flawed films, like Highlander two has riches for you to behold.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I feel like it's one of those those
Speaker 2: weird films, those flawed films, that has a lot to offer,
Speaker 2: two different different values, different audiences.
Speaker 3: Absolutely agree. Yeah, I love Highlander two.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 2: out this our second episode on Highlander two. Second and
Speaker 2: final episode isunder two. But we'd love to hear from
Speaker 2: everyone out there if you have thoughts on any of
Speaker 2: the various cuts of Highlander two, thoughts on the Highlander
Speaker 2: franchise in general, or you know other films that you
Speaker 2: think meet these standards right in we would love to
Speaker 2: hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A listener mail episode
Speaker 2: on Mondays and a short form episode on Wednesdays, But
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: If you want to see a list of all the
Speaker 2: movies we've covered the US far, and sometimes a peek
Speaker 2: ahead at what comes next, go on over to letterbox
Speaker 2: dot com. That's L E T T E R B
Speaker 2: O x D dot com our user profile there is
Speaker 2: weird House, and you will find the list that I
Speaker 2: just referenced.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
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