Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: I am so excited because we're going to be talking
Speaker 3: about the nineteen ninety one sci fi fantasy action film
Speaker 3: Highlander two The Quickening, starring Christoph Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen,
Speaker 3: and Michael Ironside. This is the weird, dank, detested sequel
Speaker 3: to the original Highlander from nineteen eighty six, and I
Speaker 3: have butterflies in my stomach. I'm so happy to talk
Speaker 3: about this today.
Speaker 2: Now, some of our longtime listeners might say, WHOAOA, WHOA.
Speaker 2: Didn't you guys already cover Highlander two? We have not
Speaker 2: covered it for Weird House Cinema. We did a pre
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema Stuff to Blow Your Mind episode back
Speaker 2: when we really had to shown a weird movie into
Speaker 2: a core episode if we really had it in our
Speaker 2: hearts to do so. But we did not get to
Speaker 2: give it the Weird House treatment.
Speaker 3: I think we ended up talking about some of the
Speaker 3: science of proposed geoengineering projects and stuff like that, which
Speaker 3: is a plot point in the film.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we'll probably do less of that in this
Speaker 2: and focus more on everything else. But fortunately Highlander two
Speaker 2: is a film with plenty of everything else.
Speaker 3: Now, a little note at the top here, this episode
Speaker 3: of Weird House Cinema may well go to two parts.
Speaker 3: We don't usually do that on Weird House. We did
Speaker 3: recently do it when we talked about David Lynch's Dune,
Speaker 3: and we promised it would not become a regular thing.
Speaker 3: But David Lynch's Dune seemed deservingly massive, and while we
Speaker 3: still don't plan on making it a regular thing to
Speaker 3: split weird House movies into multiple episodes, Highlander two just
Speaker 3: kind of seemed on par with Dune, you know, equally majestic,
Speaker 3: equally epic, equally deserving. So, while this is still not
Speaker 3: what we're usual going to do on the show, we're
Speaker 3: gonna split today's episode into part one and part two
Speaker 3: as well. It'll make more sense once we start talking.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So.
Speaker 3: Highlander two is a movie that I have seen I
Speaker 3: don't know how many times, at least a dozen times,
Speaker 3: maybe two dozen times, if I'm honest, many many times,
Speaker 3: going back to my high school years. This was a
Speaker 3: favorite movie of mine to watch with my friends. When
Speaker 3: I was younger. I had a VHS tape of it
Speaker 3: that I would just show to everybody every time I
Speaker 3: made a new friend. It's like, let's watch Highlander two. So,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that this movie is infamous for its
Speaker 3: awfulness and hated by most Highlander fans, this is a
Speaker 3: movie I positively adore, and I really mean that. As
Speaker 3: Roger Ebert said in his review, Highlander two is a
Speaker 3: movie quote almost awesome in its badness. This is not
Speaker 3: just like your run of the mill bad movie. Bad
Speaker 3: movies can be dull, they can be off putting, they
Speaker 3: can be boring or distasteful. In Highlander two, it's like
Speaker 3: all great badness. The badness itself takes on characteristics that
Speaker 3: we really associate with greatness and specifically great storytelling. The
Speaker 3: badness of Highlander two is zesty, invigorating, hilarious, thought provoking,
Speaker 3: and emotionally powerful. This movie is completely malfunctioning in ways
Speaker 3: that make me want to live my life to the fullest.
Speaker 3: And so in that way, I think the closest thing
Speaker 3: I could think of to compare it to is like
Speaker 3: the best films of ed Wood. It's sort of like
Speaker 3: Plan nine from Outer Space. It's so dumb it becomes brilliant.
Speaker 3: It's so ugly it becomes beautiful, and every time I
Speaker 3: watch it it just puts a spring in my step.
Speaker 3: I love Highlander two.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I don't disagree with the positive spin on
Speaker 2: Highlander two at all. I will throw in there that
Speaker 2: it's especially in some of its best sayes, it's far
Speaker 2: more technically proficient Plan nine from Outer Space.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, certainly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But but it is it is still a train
Speaker 2: wreck of a film. Not only is it a train wreck,
Speaker 2: it features a train wreck with a sword fight on
Speaker 2: top of it.
Speaker 3: That's right. And then it has it has one of
Speaker 3: the most creative train related I can't even finish that
Speaker 3: sentence here. We'll just have to get into it with
Speaker 3: the plot. So holand or two is the story of
Speaker 3: a man in a downward spiral of loneliness, abjection, and
Speaker 3: physical decay. It is the story of an act of
Speaker 3: love and genius meant to save the world, that instead
Speaker 3: only damns the world to a state of living hell.
Speaker 3: It is the story of people whose lives are governed
Speaker 3: by forces that can't really be understood either as natural
Speaker 3: or supernatural. It's a world where magic is random and
Speaker 3: new rules are constantly revealed, and every time you learn
Speaker 3: something new, Sean Connery is just standing there winking at you, like,
Speaker 3: didn't you know? This is how it worked? And I
Speaker 3: love that quality about it. There is a capriciousness to
Speaker 3: the rules of magic in this movie that is really intoxicating.
Speaker 3: It's like, what are we going to find out next?
Speaker 3: So this is going to preserve our long running tradition
Speaker 3: of jumping straight into a sequel without covering the original film,
Speaker 3: but in this case, to really understand Highlander two, to
Speaker 3: understand its surprising narrative choices, it's little cranky, little quirks,
Speaker 3: and what you might call its reception history by the
Speaker 3: fans and the general public, I think we do need
Speaker 3: to start with a basic rundown on the original Highlander,
Speaker 3: like what was this story about and how did it
Speaker 3: find such an enthusiastic fan base.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll try and keep it reasonably short, because we
Speaker 2: could easily do a whole weird Outs episode on nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six as Highlander, and we even we discussed it,
Speaker 2: we still might do it. Someday, because ultimately Highlander is
Speaker 2: a weirder and more ridiculous film than I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people remember, especially when comparing it to Highland
Speaker 2: Er two. Like you forget the like three dozen backflips
Speaker 2: that one of the immortals does in an early fight.
Speaker 2: You forget that it opens up in the bowels of
Speaker 2: a wrestling arena, and so forth. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: weird choices in the film.
Speaker 3: The first fight is like guys who are trying to
Speaker 3: cut each other's heads off in a parking garage at
Speaker 3: a wrestling event at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 2: Is it's Madison Square Garden, and it's like the fabulous
Speaker 2: Freebirds are wrestling.
Speaker 3: And and they're trying to chop at each other, and
Speaker 3: you're right, one of them is doing backflips over the
Speaker 3: hoods of cars or something.
Speaker 2: So it's a film that's full of action movie machismo.
Speaker 2: But it also boath just a deliriously fun queen soundtrack,
Speaker 2: and I think is perhaps understudied as a film potentially
Speaker 2: exploring themes and subtext of gay identity in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: I keep looking around for examples of like Center must
Speaker 2: study scholarship that really digs into this, and I've found
Speaker 2: some passing references to Highlander, but nobody's really gotten in there,
Speaker 2: so I keep hoping that somebody will.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not your destiny to rite.
Speaker 2: I'm not the person to write it, but I would
Speaker 2: love to read someone's take on it. But anyway. Highlander
Speaker 2: one nineteen eighty six is the tale of a sixteenth
Speaker 2: century man in the Scottish Highlands by the name of
Speaker 2: Connor MacLeod who just lives seemingly ordinary life until he
Speaker 2: suffers a fatal wound at the hands of a strange
Speaker 2: foreign mercenary on the battlefield. But hey, it looks like
Speaker 2: he's going to die, but he miraculously recovers miraculously. But
Speaker 2: that's not how the locals interpret it. They think this
Speaker 2: is witchcraft because he is completely healed from a fatal wound,
Speaker 2: so he is exiled from his community, and while he's
Speaker 2: wandering in sadness, he encounters a benevolent traveling immortal by
Speaker 2: the name of Ramirez, who played by Sean Connery, who
Speaker 2: initiates him into the secret knowledge of the game. Here
Speaker 2: so sprinkled throughout time, he learns are individuals who can
Speaker 2: miraculously recover from almost any wound and can only be
Speaker 2: killed via beheading. These individuals, these immortals, are drawn to
Speaker 2: each other to engage in single combat, with the victor
Speaker 2: absorbing the powers of the loser. So that strange alien
Speaker 2: mercenary that cut into him on the battlefield, we learn
Speaker 2: that this is the Kurgan, one of the more powerful
Speaker 2: and ruthless immortals out there, and he was drawn to McLeod.
Speaker 2: And so this game of immortals is going to continue
Speaker 2: on through time until at some point in the future
Speaker 2: when the remaining immortals will be drawn to a place
Speaker 2: of final battle. In the end, there's going to remain
Speaker 2: only one, and that immortal individual will not only claim
Speaker 2: the accumulated power of all the immortals that ever lived
Speaker 2: before them, but they shall claim quote the prize. More
Speaker 2: on the prize in a second.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is all information that Connor does not have.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know about any of this. He's explicitly being
Speaker 3: taught about all of these magical rules by Ramirez, by
Speaker 3: Sean Conners.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's being initiated into the world of immortals by Ramirez,
Speaker 2: and Ramirez trains him. He's like I knew the Kurgan
Speaker 2: was after you, so I found you so that I
Speaker 2: could train you, so that you could stand a chance
Speaker 2: against him.
Speaker 3: The Kurgin played by Clancy Brown, by.
Speaker 2: The way, yes, yes, so fabulously over the top like snarling,
Speaker 2: spitting performance. So unfortunately, in the midst of all this training,
Speaker 2: the Kurgan returns. He wants to kill McLeod, but instead
Speaker 2: he kills Ramirez. So then we go centuries later in
Speaker 2: mid eighties New York City. This is where the last
Speaker 2: of the immortals have gathered to battle it out, and
Speaker 2: of course the last two end up being Connor McLeod
Speaker 2: and the Kurgan. McLeod is ultimately victorious and claims the
Speaker 2: mysterious prize and we get to find out what the
Speaker 2: prize is. We are told that this prize seems to
Speaker 2: give him two man features. First of all, he's finally mortal.
Speaker 2: This playing on the like a long running theme and
Speaker 2: myth making and storytelling that immortality is also a curse
Speaker 2: because you you know, and that's something that the film
Speaker 2: explores and at times rather beautifully, that you end up
Speaker 2: living longer than the people that you love, and the
Speaker 2: world that you love falls behind you, and therefore getting
Speaker 2: to become mortal again, getting to age and have children.
Speaker 2: We're told that immortals can't have children, but now he
Speaker 2: can if he wants. These things are opened up to him,
Speaker 2: So that's part of the prize. But more essentially, he
Speaker 2: can now read the thoughts and feelings of people around
Speaker 2: the world, and he can like orchestrate things, bring these
Speaker 2: people together and try and create a brighter future for
Speaker 2: all of humanity.
Speaker 3: Highlander one a brilliant summary, Rob, I think that gets
Speaker 3: all of the high points. Now, It's funny that I'm
Speaker 3: much more familiar with Highlander two than I am with
Speaker 3: Highlander one. I think I've seen Highlander one one or
Speaker 3: two times, whereas I've seen Islander two who knows how
Speaker 3: many times? But you know, so, I'm kind of coming
Speaker 3: at the series backwards. But it's interesting that a lot
Speaker 3: of the core features of the first movie are going
Speaker 3: to be completely ignored in the second one. Is there
Speaker 3: any indication in Highland or two that Connor McLeod can
Speaker 3: read people's thoughts.
Speaker 2: Only? I guess in the very beginning, there's this idea
Speaker 2: like he didn't himself create the key technology that saves
Speaker 2: the world and becomes a major plot point of Islander two,
Speaker 2: but he brought people together to do it. So it
Speaker 2: is kind of like, if you know, Connor McLeod is
Speaker 2: able to realize, Okay, this person needs to work with
Speaker 2: this person. We need to get these people together. I
Speaker 2: know who has what knowledge, who has what sensibilities, and
Speaker 2: so he's able to sort of facilitate the whole thing,
Speaker 2: but they don't get into the details about how this
Speaker 2: actually works.
Speaker 3: Okay, I want to have follow up on that, but
Speaker 3: actually there's something we have to address before we go
Speaker 3: any further talking about Highlander two, which is the question
Speaker 3: of which Highlander two are we talking about? Because Highlander
Speaker 3: two is a movie that does not really have a
Speaker 3: canonical form. There are at least three major cuts, officially
Speaker 3: sanctioned cuts of this film that have been released, maybe four,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. And it gets especially confusing because when
Speaker 3: you go looking to watch Highlander two today and you
Speaker 3: find a streaming option or you find a disc or whatever,
Speaker 3: it seems to me that it is often not made
Speaker 3: clear in the made clear in like the title which
Speaker 3: cut you're looking at, So there is a lot of confusion.
Speaker 3: But I found as a very helpful resource, an incredibly impressive,
Speaker 3: nearly exhaustive guide to the different cuts of Highlander two
Speaker 3: as of the year nineteen ninety seven, at least, written
Speaker 3: by a critic named Sean Murphy, originally published in the
Speaker 3: video Watchdog magazine, which was like a magazine about like
Speaker 3: laser disc and video releases. So I can't keep track
Speaker 3: of all the different cuts of the movie, but here
Speaker 3: are at least several major ones. First of all, you
Speaker 3: had Highlander two the Quickening, the original theatrical cut released
Speaker 3: in the United States. This is sometimes called the American version.
Speaker 3: We will have a special name for it later. Then
Speaker 3: there was also a version of Highlander two released in
Speaker 3: the UK. It's sometimes called the British version, which has
Speaker 3: some differences. And then significantly later, like several years later,
Speaker 3: there was a home video release known as Russell Mulcahy's
Speaker 3: Renegade Version, also known as Highlander two the Director's Cut,
Speaker 3: which is significantly longer, and so the major differences are
Speaker 3: that the British cut has about ten minutes more of
Speaker 3: material than the American theatrical cut, and it has a
Speaker 3: different edit. It rearranges some of the scenes in the
Speaker 3: movie in time and cuts them differently, and also has
Speaker 3: a different ending, which I want to discuss when we
Speaker 3: get to that part of the outline. But some of
Speaker 3: the differences in the British cutter that it contains flashbacks
Speaker 3: about the death of Connor's wife, Brenda, so it just
Speaker 3: has more sort of character development and backstory on Connor,
Speaker 3: and it makes some changes that are supposed to make
Speaker 3: better sense of the events in the story. Because the
Speaker 3: theatrical release, which is the one we're going to be watching,
Speaker 3: is famously a quite butchered edit that splices together scenes
Speaker 3: that were not originally the same scene in the script
Speaker 3: or in how they were shot, and makes them the
Speaker 3: same scenes, so like suddenly in the middle of a scene,
Speaker 3: characters are wearing different clothes. Then after all that, there's
Speaker 3: the Renegade version, which is I think eighteen minutes longer
Speaker 3: than the American cut, has major editing differences. It moves
Speaker 3: different scenes around in time within the story, and most notably,
Speaker 3: it removes all references to a couple of very important
Speaker 3: plot points that we'll get to in just a moment.
Speaker 3: So the version and we are watching is the original
Speaker 3: theatrical cut of the American version, which we shall hereafter
Speaker 3: refer to as the Zeist cut, and which as I
Speaker 3: can't be sure about this, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong,
Speaker 3: but as far as I can tell, is not available
Speaker 3: on Blu Ray, or at least not in US region
Speaker 3: Blu Ray. So why would this be called the Zeist Cut. Well,
Speaker 3: it's because the theatrical cut is in one major sense
Speaker 3: true to the script of the film, even though it
Speaker 3: deviates in other ways. And the way in which it
Speaker 3: is true to the script is that it answers one
Speaker 3: of the burning mysteries raised by the original story. It
Speaker 3: tells us where the immortals of Highlander come from. It's
Speaker 3: got to be a huge question, right, you know Connor
Speaker 3: MacLeod in sixteenth century Scotland or whatever. He wakes up
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, I'm immortal.
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 3: Well, this movie has the answer. They are aliens and
Speaker 3: they come from the planet Zeist. They've always been aliens,
Speaker 3: supposed to, They've always known they were aliens, and they
Speaker 3: the specific flavor of alien they are is Zeistians. And
Speaker 3: this is the thing that the renegade version cuts out
Speaker 3: of the movie. Just takes out all references to the
Speaker 3: planet Zeist and to the fact that the immortals are aliens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oftentimes and kind of hilarious and choppy ways. For instance,
Speaker 2: there's a scene where Connery's Ramirez in the Flashback is
Speaker 2: on the planet speaking to the freedom fighters and says
Speaker 2: the line freemen of the planet zeist And then when
Speaker 2: they cut that, they cut it so that he says
Speaker 2: freemen of the planet, which is absolutely something no one
Speaker 2: has ever said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so in that so in the Renegade version, Sean
Speaker 3: Connery is talking to guys on Earth long ago and
Speaker 3: I don't unspecified time and place in history, but he's
Speaker 3: just talking to people and says freemen of the planet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, And I'm not even gonna go down,
Speaker 2: I mean, because obviously I watched part of the Renegade
Speaker 2: cut after finished our cut, the z Ice cut, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like you still have them battling with
Speaker 2: gas masks on and with guns and with explosions. But
Speaker 2: it's the ancient past. It also, it doesn't streamline anything.
Speaker 2: It just creates even more problems for the plot, and
Speaker 2: there were already plenty of problems present. Now.
Speaker 3: Something raised in that video Watchdog article is that this
Speaker 3: plot detailed the fact that the immortals are aliens and
Speaker 3: they come from the planet Zeist is something that Highlander
Speaker 3: fans especially hated about highland Er two. This was a
Speaker 3: detested plot innovation, but these fans were apparently the reason
Speaker 3: it happened. This article quotes Bill Panzer, who was a
Speaker 3: co writer on the script and co produced the movie,
Speaker 3: and Panser says the following quote. The question we were
Speaker 3: most asked by fans after the first film was where
Speaker 3: did the immortals come from? It made sense to answer
Speaker 3: that question in the second film. We we didn't realize
Speaker 3: that the time was that the fans didn't really want
Speaker 3: to know their origins, meaning the origins of the immortals,
Speaker 3: because then the romanticism and mystery of the story was
Speaker 3: stripped away. And I gotta say, I think Bill Panzer's
Speaker 3: right on the money there that that is often how
Speaker 3: storytelling works. Fans want questions answered, and I think as
Speaker 3: a storyteller you often have to tell the fans no,
Speaker 3: it is better not to have an answer to that.
Speaker 2: But it's also interesting to think about how, like long
Speaker 2: term these things can go. Like I think a great
Speaker 2: thing to compare this to is in the Star Wars
Speaker 2: prequels the introduction of the Midichlorians as being this aspect.
Speaker 2: There'st of micro organisms and the blood of a forced
Speaker 2: sensitive individuals that explains why they have the force and
Speaker 2: such quantities, and it's something that can be detected and
Speaker 2: like a blood test.
Speaker 3: Rob this is I was thinking of comparisons to the
Speaker 3: innovation of Zeist and that is literally exactly what I
Speaker 3: thought of. As the Midichlorians, it's like it answers a question,
Speaker 3: but do you like having this answer now? I don't
Speaker 3: know if that improves the story.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting how the how it's gone with both
Speaker 2: of these franchises. So with Highlander, we get Highland or two,
Speaker 2: they introduce an answer and the fans dec I, actually,
Speaker 2: we didn't want that answer, And then seemingly most of
Speaker 2: the people involved in the film are like, yeah, you're
Speaker 2: you're right, You're we shouldn't have answered it. We'll go back.
Speaker 2: We've changed it again, and and now we're at this
Speaker 2: point where we're like, that doesn't feel sufficient. I kind of,
Speaker 2: I mean, stick to your guns on it. And with
Speaker 2: the Midichlorians, I think you see a similar thing in that.
Speaker 2: When the Star Wars sequels came about. There seem to
Speaker 2: be this deliberate attempt to just sort of skip over
Speaker 2: most of the prequel stuff just comment on the original trilogy.
Speaker 2: And I didn't hate the sequels. I rather liked the
Speaker 2: second one. But then you can see where the storytelling
Speaker 2: is now in the Star Wars franchise, particularly with like
Speaker 2: the Ahsoka A series and the Mandalorian and in some
Speaker 2: of the animated shows, they've gone back and they're they're
Speaker 2: doing stuff with miny Chlorians again, while at the same time,
Speaker 2: to be clear, also building on things that were introduced
Speaker 2: in the sequel trilogy, but bringing it all together and
Speaker 2: kind of like sticking to it all, and it's all
Speaker 2: really good, and fans seem to be digging it. So
Speaker 2: I think, I don't know, there's a lesson in here
Speaker 2: somewhere about, you know, sticking to your guns, on your
Speaker 2: weird choices and like go with it, like make it
Speaker 2: work in the long term.
Speaker 3: I think they should have stuck with their guns. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's funny, yeah, whatever, I mean. I say to the
Speaker 3: Highlander fans in question, you got what you asked for,
Speaker 3: and maybe you didn't like it, but I like it.
Speaker 3: I like the planet Zeist let me have that.
Speaker 2: Because real quick, one of the things that they did
Speaker 2: do with Highlander is they came back and made a
Speaker 2: third Highlander movie that was like, okay, we ignored the
Speaker 2: sequel completely. Yeah, and then and then we have the
Speaker 2: TV series. And I remember rather liking various episodes of
Speaker 2: the TV series various reasons, like they often were in
Speaker 2: a much more limited scope in the story like tell
Speaker 2: a story that takes place in the past and in
Speaker 2: the present concerning an immortal character, tended to work. Often
Speaker 2: had some nice guest stars, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: like the Highlander film franchise has not gone anywhere great
Speaker 2: since they since they cowardly gave in to the Highlander
Speaker 2: two criticism.
Speaker 3: Right, So the director's cut slash renegade version of the
Speaker 3: movie does away with this, removes all references to the
Speaker 3: planet Zeist, removes all references to the immortals being aliens.
Speaker 3: Also apparently removes all references to the Quickening. I don't
Speaker 3: know why, it's that's some of the funniest stuff in
Speaker 3: the movie, come on, But I guess the deal is
Speaker 3: the Highlander fans, many of them, did not want the
Speaker 3: movie to be funny, Like they didn't want anything that
Speaker 3: might seem silly or you like, or out of continuity
Speaker 3: with the rest of the series, which I get. Okay,
Speaker 3: I guess I can partially understand that, But on the
Speaker 3: other hand, I think that the removal of these elements
Speaker 3: really SAPs the life from the film. The theatrical cut,
Speaker 3: while quite silly, has this infectious, fun, crazy rhythm of
Speaker 3: plot developments, these weird lines of dialogue and hilarious shots
Speaker 3: in the first fifteen minutes. It's just amazing, and upsetting
Speaker 3: that flow by making the movie less silly and less
Speaker 3: offensive to the continuity of the rest of the series
Speaker 3: ultimately undercuts the flow of this movie as a movie,
Speaker 3: and I just consider it a crime against art.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. I also fondly look back on Highlander
Speaker 2: two in part because I think this was sort of
Speaker 2: my first experience with Highlander. So I to be clear,
Speaker 2: I did see Highlander one before I saw Highlander two,
Speaker 2: but it was only because I vaguely remember seeing the
Speaker 2: trailers for Highlander two and seeing like this scene with
Speaker 2: flying apocalyptic bird dudes with swords and instantly being like,
Speaker 2: I'm in I've got to see this. But I didn't
Speaker 2: get to go to the theater to see it. So
Speaker 2: I just had to go to the local video store
Speaker 2: and rent a VHS copy of Highlander, and of course
Speaker 2: that won me over. I mean, I think at the
Speaker 2: time I was just getting into Queen. I was just
Speaker 2: getting into dungeons and dragons. So you know, there was
Speaker 2: plenty to love in Highlander one.
Speaker 3: There clearly is, though I would say I would suspect
Speaker 3: that would be a surprising experience because you see a
Speaker 3: trailer for Highlander two it's just full of like Blade
Speaker 3: runnery sci fi weirdness, you know, porcupine headed guys flying
Speaker 3: around on rocket boots with swords and all that, and
Speaker 3: then you rent Highlander and you're like, where are the
Speaker 3: rocket boots? There's nothing sci fi in it.
Speaker 2: I vaguely remember being kind of maybe not disappointed, but
Speaker 2: just kind of like, oh, I really thought there was
Speaker 2: gonna be future stuff in this, and there's not. But
Speaker 2: it was still still amazing, and for various reasons, I think,
Speaker 2: possibly because I didn't know it at the time, but
Speaker 2: I had already been introduced to the work of this
Speaker 2: director due to his work in music videos.
Speaker 3: Oh he's got some really good music videos in the
Speaker 3: wizard Bag here doesn't he but to come back to
Speaker 3: the leap from Highlander one to Highlander two again for
Speaker 3: reasons related to difficulties with the production and all that,
Speaker 3: and problems with the script. Yes, the movie is ridiculous
Speaker 3: and it is silly, but I respect the choices. I
Speaker 3: respect them going in a different direction with it. I
Speaker 3: like the switch to sci fi. I think that's a
Speaker 3: great idea, and it could have worked. It could have
Speaker 3: been not just like a great bad movie. It could
Speaker 3: have been a great good movie. You know, I realized
Speaker 3: a little bit different. And so there's actually a quote
Speaker 3: I came across that was in that video Watchdog article
Speaker 3: from Russell Mulkahy, the director, and he's talking about these movies,
Speaker 3: and he says, quote, all I can remember about the
Speaker 3: original Highlander is lots of guys in various eras bashing
Speaker 3: swords about That worked the first time, but Highlander two
Speaker 3: has to transcend that with more originality and the ability
Speaker 3: to turn unknown corners. And you know what, that is
Speaker 3: exactly what we got. There is more originality, It definitely
Speaker 3: turns unknown corners and respect for trying.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the only way to do a sequel
Speaker 2: to a movie that wrapped everything up, you know, And
Speaker 2: I think it really isn't that all an unexpected direction
Speaker 2: to go in, because I want to point to two things.
Speaker 2: First of all, again, the first movie ends with our
Speaker 2: man becoming prince of the Earth with psychic powers, and
Speaker 2: you know he's going to start bringing people together. He's
Speaker 2: like a messiah figure. And the Queen song, and I
Speaker 2: do believe that all of the Queen songs on the
Speaker 2: soundtrack for Highland or are canon and ARKEI to understanding
Speaker 2: the film, we have those lyrics here. We are born
Speaker 2: to be kings, We're the princes of the universe. So
Speaker 2: Highlander two is the natural extrapolation of those lyrics. Well said,
Speaker 2: all right, do you have an l vator pitch? Is
Speaker 2: an elevator pitch even necessary? At this point?
Speaker 3: I got one for you. Okay. So the formerly immortal
Speaker 3: head chopper Connor McLeod is now mortal because he has
Speaker 3: chopped all the other immortals and now he is old.
Speaker 3: An ancient enemy from another planet sends more immortals to Earth,
Speaker 3: thus making Connor young and strapping again. For some reason,
Speaker 3: Connor must fight this ancient enemy, who, for some reason
Speaker 3: also comes to Earth himself. He must also destroy a
Speaker 3: geoengineering project that he invented decades before because it sucks
Speaker 3: and is no longer necessary. Also, various people travel across
Speaker 3: space and time and come back from the dead and
Speaker 3: experience the year twenty twenty four? Can I get that
Speaker 3: in a robot voice?
Speaker 2: The year twenty twenty four? All right, let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and have a taste of that original theatrical trailer for
Speaker 2: Highlander two, The Quickening.
Speaker 5: Greeting Chilada, Let's have some fun.
Speaker 4: In all, there's centuries on Earth. Nothing could have prepared
Speaker 4: them for the Quickening. Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Highlander two,
Speaker 4: The Quickening.
Speaker 2: All right, Now, normally this is where we tell you
Speaker 2: exactly where to go see it, but as we've already discussed,
Speaker 2: it's it's a bit difficult. In terms of the original
Speaker 2: theatrical We had to depend on YouTube for it, and
Speaker 2: I think in the past we had to depend on
Speaker 2: a VHS tape. I know that's how I originally saw it.
Speaker 3: I've got the VHS tape of Islander too, the Quickening,
Speaker 3: so I have the means to view the correct cut myself.
Speaker 3: If I had a functioning VCR right now.
Speaker 2: And there are tons of There are various threads online
Speaker 2: with people discussing the different cuts where to find them.
Speaker 2: I'm to understand that the French DVD is mostly the
Speaker 2: z Ice cut. There was also recently some excitement over
Speaker 2: the fact that a British Amazon Prime stream of the
Speaker 2: film appeared to be and I'm not certain on this
Speaker 2: either the z Ice cut, the theatrical cut, or something close
Speaker 2: to it fitting the UK audience.
Speaker 3: I think it is so looking at that you can
Speaker 3: only judge by like the run times, unless you're actually
Speaker 3: going to watch the whole thing. But I think that
Speaker 3: version on Amazon was the British cut, which is different
Speaker 3: than what we're calling the Ice cut, but does also
Speaker 3: have Zeis. Don't take out Zeis. That's the renegade cut
Speaker 3: that does that, But the British cut adds in the
Speaker 3: x it re edits. The film, adds in the extra
Speaker 3: stuff about Connor's wife dying in the past, adds in
Speaker 3: a few other character moments, and has the so called
Speaker 3: fairy tale ending where Connor MacLeod and Virginia Madsen fly
Speaker 3: away into space and go to the planet Zeist.
Speaker 2: There are also plenty of fan edits with people putting
Speaker 2: together recutting the film to create like the ultimate Zeist
Speaker 2: cut and so forth. I saw one person who apparently
Speaker 2: had put together a queen cut where and kudos to
Speaker 2: this individual, because I very much agree there is not
Speaker 2: enough queen music in this movie, and this person felt
Speaker 2: the same, so they added queen music to it. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff like that. I can't speak
Speaker 2: to its actual quality because I haven't looked at it.
Speaker 2: In My advice would be kind of weird on this
Speaker 2: because not everyone needs to see this movie more than
Speaker 2: once to scratch that itch, but you would all think
Speaker 2: you might need to, or you have any nostalgia for
Speaker 2: the film. I would recommend like rewatching the theatrical cut
Speaker 2: in whatever quality you can get, and it's not going
Speaker 2: to be great, and then potentially grab that renegade cut
Speaker 2: to rewatch your favorite scenes or particular scenes in a
Speaker 2: superior picture quality, because as we'll discuss, like, there are
Speaker 2: plenty of scenes in this film that look amazing. There's
Speaker 2: some great sets, great costume, and great lighting, and it
Speaker 2: is a shame that we can't watch that theatrical cut
Speaker 2: with the best possible picture quality.
Speaker 3: It's funny how some of the best looking stuff in
Speaker 3: the movie is kind of incidental to the story, like
Speaker 3: the opera scene where Connor goes and watches Wagner Is.
Speaker 3: The sets on the set within the movie are amazing.
Speaker 3: They look really cool, and the opera house is beautiful,
Speaker 3: and there are some of like there are clearly lots
Speaker 3: of indoor sets of streets that they created for Life
Speaker 3: under the Shield where they're in a sound stage where
Speaker 3: they were shooting in Argentina, and there's like eats with
Speaker 3: storefronts and all that that are. You could argue about
Speaker 3: how effective they are as sets like that. They're they
Speaker 3: look they're very dimly lit, so you don't see a
Speaker 3: lot of detail, but they do create I think the
Speaker 3: right kind of moody atmosphere that the movie was going for.
Speaker 3: There are other sets that feel a little more confusing
Speaker 3: because it's like you'll be on the planet Zeist, but
Speaker 3: you appear to be in like an office.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, or that's there's that dungeon scene where General
Speaker 2: Katana strangles.
Speaker 3: An eel and that's what I was thinking of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh was that in an office?
Speaker 3: I don't know what that room is.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, it felt suitably alien and that's one
Speaker 2: that I had to go back and watch again on
Speaker 2: the renegade cut just to see all those like all
Speaker 2: that glorious glistening, you know, blackness in a superior picture quality.
Speaker 3: Oh, in all the executives' offices in the Shield Corporation buildings. Yes,
Speaker 3: it'd be way too dark to read in this room.
Speaker 3: I don't know why anybody would work in there, Like
Speaker 3: just super dark rooms with like the only light source
Speaker 3: being a window through which moonlight is shining and there
Speaker 3: are giant fan blades cutting in front of it constantly,
Speaker 3: so it's just like an intermittent light source.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Russell McKay likes his fan blades. There's more than
Speaker 2: There are at least two major scenes in this that
Speaker 2: have big, big rotating fan blades. All right, well, since
Speaker 2: we're already talking about him, Yeah, let's get into the
Speaker 2: connections here, starting with the director. Russell McKay born nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty three, Australian director who initially made his name directing
Speaker 2: some of the and most and I'm not over I'm
Speaker 2: not exaggerating here, some of the most iconic music videos
Speaker 2: of the nineteen eighties, like if you were watching MTV
Speaker 2: and then later VH one. During the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 2: you saw so much of this band's work. I'm talking
Speaker 2: some of the weirdest, most stylish examples of music video artistry,
Speaker 2: such as Duran Durand's Wild Boys amazing track, amazing video.
Speaker 2: This is the one that has post apocalyptic windmills, you know,
Speaker 2: Simon Labon strapped to one of them, and like strange
Speaker 2: tribes of lads running around and android heads and so forth.
Speaker 3: Almost seems an inspiration for the war Boys in Mad
Speaker 3: Max Fury Road.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, similar vibes, and there are a number of direct
Speaker 2: connections between Wild Boys and Hilander two. Another big one,
Speaker 2: super weird, super stylish Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Speaker 2: I defy you to follow the plot of that music video,
Speaker 2: but it's so gorgeous to watch.
Speaker 3: You might not understand it, but you will feel it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't forget nineteen seventy nine's video Killed the Radio Star,
Speaker 2: the first music video ever played on MTV. And I
Speaker 2: didn't realize this until I was just researching it yesterday,
Speaker 2: But Hans Zimmer is in that music video. He's playing
Speaker 2: the keyboard. Huh yeah, yeah, Ida Hans Zimmer of of
Speaker 2: Doune Fame and so many other films. So Russell McKay plenty,
Speaker 2: I'm not even I'm barely scratching the surface on all
Speaker 2: the artists that he worked with, some of the biggest
Speaker 2: music artists of the day. His first film, however, was
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty four Australian killer pig movie Razorback.
Speaker 3: I've seen this one. Did you watch this rope?
Speaker 2: I have not seen Razorback.
Speaker 3: Razorback. I sort of hesitate to recommend it just because
Speaker 3: it is texturally gross, Like it's a cross between Jaws,
Speaker 3: but with a pig instead of a shark, and an
Speaker 3: Australian version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So you're dealing
Speaker 3: with just like disgusting sort of outback hillbillies who work
Speaker 3: in a dog food factory, and so there's like gross
Speaker 3: gore stuff at the dog food factory, you know that
Speaker 3: TCM kind of kind of slop. But also I remember
Speaker 3: some elements of the movie, apart from just the general grossness,
Speaker 3: being really compellingly funny.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is often a sense of humor sprinkled
Speaker 2: in there somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: So anyway, he followed up razorback with Highlander in eighty six,
Speaker 2: and he's continuing to do like high end music videos
Speaker 2: the whole time, and then follows Highlander up in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one with its sequel Highlander two. Now afterwards, Okay
Speaker 2: continued to direct TV in film through pretty much today.
Speaker 2: His most recent credit was twenty twenty three's teen Wolf,
Speaker 2: the movie spinning off from the TV series Teen Wolf
Speaker 2: that he directed forty episodes of. So he's remained highly
Speaker 2: prolific and I've read no indication that he's done. Other
Speaker 2: credits of note include nineteen ninety four as the Shadow.
Speaker 3: Oh is that the one with Alec Baldwin as the
Speaker 3: Shadow YEP?
Speaker 2: That's it, which I haven't seen since the since it
Speaker 2: came out, I remember it being I remember finding it enthralling,
Speaker 2: but also kind of lackluster in some respects. So I
Speaker 2: don't know, I haven't revisited it. He did four episodes
Speaker 2: of Tales from the Crypt, including the excellent People Who
Speaker 2: Live in Brass Versus, starring Bill Paxton, Brad Dorif, and
Speaker 2: Michael Lerner. You know, it's it's pretty much your standard
Speaker 2: Tales from the Crypt in many ways, you know, awful
Speaker 2: things happen to awful people. But with a cast like
Speaker 2: that and with a solid director, you're good to go.
Speaker 2: He also did the nineteen ninety nine seven inspired This
Speaker 2: is the Movie seven, often with the numeral seven in
Speaker 2: the middle, so I guess you could technically pronounce it
Speaker 2: seven seven inspired Resurrection. This starred Christoph Limbert and also
Speaker 2: featured David Cronenberg in a small role.
Speaker 3: I always love it when he shows up in the cast.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a kind of again very seventy of
Speaker 2: kind of a flick, you know, had that kind of grungey, grimey,
Speaker 2: semi sort of ninety sleazy quality to it about a
Speaker 2: serial murder trying to build a body for the second
Speaker 2: coming of Christ.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, cool, Yeah, it sounds about right for a
Speaker 3: movie inspired by seven then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, and then you know. He also did two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven's Resident Evil Extinction, which I haven't watched
Speaker 2: in full. I think I started watching at one point
Speaker 2: and didn't finish it, but I will say that it
Speaker 2: is easily the most visually appealing of the Resident Evil films.
Speaker 3: I tried one or two of the Resident Evil movies
Speaker 3: and I never could get into them. I've liked a
Speaker 3: couple of the games, though, I feel like the games
Speaker 3: really feel like they would adapt well into movies and
Speaker 3: it just doesn't translate for some reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed the most recent Resident Evil game.
Speaker 3: Now, this is in no way a knock on Russell
Speaker 3: Mulkahee at all, but in thinking about his relationship to
Speaker 3: the creative material here, it feels significant and correct to
Speaker 3: me that he did not, like write the script for
Speaker 3: Highlander or Highlander two. This is not like his story,
Speaker 3: his narrative, passion project that he's bringing to the screen.
Speaker 3: He is a professional director and he's realizing a story
Speaker 3: that came from somewhere else. Does that feel right to you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe so. I mean it varies from director
Speaker 2: to director, I mean exactly how much they are ultimately
Speaker 2: impacting or influencing the shape of the story and characterizations
Speaker 2: on screen. But yeah, he does not have a writing
Speaker 2: credit on this film or the first film, no official
Speaker 2: writing credit anyway.
Speaker 3: Though clearly does have creative influence and has some sense
Speaker 3: of ownership over the creative direction. Because again, as we
Speaker 3: saw on that quote he said earlier like he felt
Speaker 3: like Highlander two had to go in a different direction,
Speaker 3: had to turn those unknown corners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk about the folks who are credited
Speaker 2: on Highlander two and its kind of telling. So, first
Speaker 2: of all, we have a character credit for Gregory Widen
Speaker 2: born nineteen fifty eight. This is the American screenwriter who
Speaker 2: wrote the screenplay for the original Highlander, initially as a
Speaker 2: class assignment in the writing program at UCLA. So basically
Speaker 2: the idea is, you know, he wrote it for class,
Speaker 2: his instructors and other folks encouraged him on the project
Speaker 2: and said, hey, you should fix us up a bet
Speaker 2: and start submitting it places, and so eventually it salve
Speaker 2: the light of day with some other writers involved as Highlander.
Speaker 2: Subsequent credits included nineteen ninety one's Backdraft, nineteen ninety five's
Speaker 2: The Prophecy, This is the Angel movie with Christopher Walkin
Speaker 2: in it, which I'm very tempted to revisit on Weird House.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he also directed that one, and he also
Speaker 2: wrote twenty seventeen's Other Life.
Speaker 3: You know, thinking about him writing both Highlander and The Prophecy,
Speaker 3: it seems that he's got an attraction to the idea
Speaker 3: of these outsider beings who have special powers and knowledge
Speaker 3: but sort of are limited in their interactions with the
Speaker 3: human world and must sort of wander among us. And
Speaker 3: I don't know, exploring themes of alienation in some way,
Speaker 3: people living among us with like special abilities and special
Speaker 3: destiny but not really being able to be a part
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so, And there are a number of things
Speaker 2: you can compare on the Prophecy films and the Highlander franchise,
Speaker 2: you know, right down to if I remember correctly, you
Speaker 2: have to kill the angels in a special way. They
Speaker 2: only dive to, like rip their heart out or something.
Speaker 2: It's been a while, could have that wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I like how he got to
Speaker 3: do a movie with both Christoph Lambert and Christoph Walcom.
Speaker 2: Now the story credit. One of the story credits here
Speaker 2: on Highlander two goes to Brian Clemens, who lived nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty one through twenty fifteen. British screenwriter and producer with
Speaker 2: credits going back to the late nineteen fifties. He did
Speaker 2: a lot of great TV work, including thirty two episodes
Speaker 2: of The Avengers. He also worked on a number of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies horror films, including Robert Foists and Soon the
Speaker 2: Darkness in nineteen seventy see No Evil and the sex
Speaker 2: Flipping Doctor Jekyl and Sister Hide. Both of these last
Speaker 2: two were seventy one. He also worked on seventy threes,
Speaker 2: The Golden Voyage of Sindbad in nineteen seventy four's Captain
Speaker 2: Cronos Vampire Hunter. We can also go ahead and throw
Speaker 2: in Walt Disney's nineteen eighty chiller Watcher in the Woods.
Speaker 2: So a very established name here, at least in TV
Speaker 2: and B cinema of the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, a lot of good titles in there.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is fun.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, absolutely, that's an all timer.
Speaker 3: That's got some really fantastic ray Harry Housen stop motion
Speaker 3: monsters in it.
Speaker 2: All right. We also have William N. Panzer credited with
Speaker 2: a story credit. He is also one of the producers,
Speaker 2: So yes, we have a producer in the story credits here,
Speaker 2: which is sometimes something to give you pause. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying all producers that have story credits or writing credits
Speaker 2: are overreaching, but I think at the very least you
Speaker 2: have to wonder if that is the case when you
Speaker 2: encounter it and This is certainly a film where there
Speaker 2: are stories about producers becoming involved and so forth in
Speaker 2: troubled production.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to know more about the troubled production,
Speaker 3: there's plenty you can read online about that. But famously
Speaker 3: it was shot in our Gentina, I think for financial reasons,
Speaker 3: and there was some various changing of hands of creative
Speaker 3: control over the movie and what official what cut was
Speaker 3: eventually released.
Speaker 2: So Panzer I lived nineteen forty two through two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven. He was mostly a producer with hands and
Speaker 2: everything Highlander, so like, he was definitely one of the
Speaker 2: helmsmen of the Highlander franchise, and he has story credits
Speaker 2: on the third film and the fourth film. In addition,
Speaker 2: his only other writing credit is for nineteen seventy nine Steel,
Speaker 2: which he also produced. And then finally on the writing
Speaker 2: side of things, we have Peter bell Wood on the screenplay.
Speaker 2: Bellwood also worked on the screenplay for Highlander, having previously
Speaker 2: written on nineteen eighty's Phobia in nineteen eighty one's Saint Helen's.
Speaker 3: Now, I think it's time we get into the cast
Speaker 3: because there are some wonderfully charming actors in this movie,
Speaker 3: even if they don't always seem like they really understand
Speaker 3: what's supposed to be going on in the scene or not.
Speaker 3: But right at the top of the cast list here
Speaker 3: Highlander two as the same star as the original Highlander,
Speaker 3: which is Christoph Lambert as I've been calling him. That
Speaker 3: is the sort of the French pronunciation of his name.
Speaker 3: But it's okay if you call him Christopher Lambert. He
Speaker 3: said that in interviews he doesn't mind the American pronunciation either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's how I always thought it was
Speaker 2: pronouncing I was a kid. It's like a Christopher Lambert's
Speaker 2: great want to see more Christopher Lambert films.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sort of half joking when I call
Speaker 3: him Christoff Lambert, even though I guess that is what
Speaker 3: they call him at home.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So born nineteen fifty seven, actually us born technically
Speaker 2: a French actor seen here playing a Scottish man whose
Speaker 2: credits in French cinema go back to nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: but his first big international break came with the Academy
Speaker 2: Award winning nineteen eighty four Tarzan movie Gray Stoke, the
Speaker 2: Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. This, of course,
Speaker 2: we previously mentioned this in our Dragon Slayer episode because
Speaker 2: it co starred Sir Ralph Richardson, among other several among
Speaker 2: several other.
Speaker 3: Big names, Ian Holmes in that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's got a great cast. I've never seen it,
Speaker 2: but it was highly thought of, at least at the time.
Speaker 3: This is one of those caught parts of on TV
Speaker 3: back in the day.
Speaker 2: But it was apparently this role as Tarzan, you know,
Speaker 2: his unique look and I think ultimately his just natural
Speaker 2: ability to play this sort of outsider character, like a
Speaker 2: charming like it's weird that he hasn't played a vampire,
Speaker 2: right because all these things we're talking about with Christoph Lambert,
Speaker 2: these are the qualities of casting a great vampire as well,
Speaker 2: like slightly aloof, a little bit weird, but also very
Speaker 2: very handsome and charming and charismatic.
Speaker 3: There's a very strange duality to Limbert and the way
Speaker 3: he specifically in the way he plays the Connor McCloud role,
Speaker 3: which is that he alternates between being very kind of
Speaker 3: sad and do wide having this kind of you know, tearful,
Speaker 3: herbivorous sort of demeanor, shifting out of that into a
Speaker 3: a twinkle of the eye, wise cracking gunna guy who
Speaker 3: just reacts to everything with a joke, saying like something
Speaker 3: like that, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his little laugh is wonderful, creepy, almost Peter Laurie
Speaker 2: esque laugh. Yes, I love it, you get it in
Speaker 2: most of his roles. And I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: key to like the energy of Lambert, because I feel
Speaker 2: like everything he's in he feels at least slightly miscast,
Speaker 2: in part because he, like his co star here, is
Speaker 2: not exactly known for his chameleon li likeability to take
Speaker 2: on different accents and nationalities, and his performances. You know,
Speaker 2: he's always Christoph Lambert, always a bit weird, always feels
Speaker 2: a bit like an odd character actor who just somehow
Speaker 2: came out a little too handsome to play anything, but
Speaker 2: leads I like that, Yes, yeah, And like I said,
Speaker 2: I see this energy in most of the films that
Speaker 2: come to mind, like just to name a few. Here,
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty seven, The Sicilian, he plays an Italian
Speaker 2: mobster perfect. In nineteen ninety two's Night Moves that's spelled
Speaker 2: like night Like an Armor, he plays a womanizing I
Speaker 2: think American chess master Oki Doki nineteen ninety five's Mortal
Speaker 2: Kombat he plays a fictionalized, highly fictionalized Japanese thunder god.
Speaker 3: Wait, is he supposed to be a Japanese thunder god?
Speaker 3: He plays Raydon right? Is that rights in origin?
Speaker 2: Rayden is loosely related to an actual thunder deity in
Speaker 2: Japanese mythology. But I didn't know that heavy emphasis on
Speaker 2: the looseley here because we're talking about Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 3: I just assumed invented for the Mortal Kombat mythoughs. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: a resident of outworld or maybe beyond out world.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's a god of Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's an Earth guy. Okay, I apologize, but he uh,
Speaker 3: he's so Mortal Kombat. The nineteen nineties Mortal Kombat is
Speaker 3: also really funny to go back and watch. I think
Speaker 3: maybe we could do that on Weird House one day.
Speaker 3: But Lambert and it is just perfect. He's like a
Speaker 3: he's got an attitude, you know, he's got that nineties
Speaker 3: movie attitude. So like the bad guy comes and does
Speaker 3: something and he suddenly the camera cuts to him sitting
Speaker 3: there and he wags a finger and little like lightning
Speaker 3: bolts come out of it and he goes, heck, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think so, let's see nineteen ninety nine's Beowolf as some
Speaker 2: sort of a futuristic Beowolf, a film that's a movie.
Speaker 2: I can never make it through this one because the
Speaker 2: sort of like the futuristic, grungy aspect of it, like
Speaker 2: some sort of like futuristic medieval sci fi that always
Speaker 2: draws me in. And then I get to the part
Speaker 2: with the CGI and it's just like truly terrible CGI.
Speaker 3: It's that it's the worst of that, like nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine CGI. It's really bad. The Grendel monster, I recall,
Speaker 3: looks terrible. The Grendel's Yeah, it's it's it's very dark
Speaker 3: and confusing, and nothing much happens in it from what
Speaker 3: I recall. But it's been a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, box art is promising, but it does not meet expectations.
Speaker 2: See in two thousand and one's Druids he plays a
Speaker 2: golf and he also plays the President of the United
Speaker 2: States in twenty thirteen's action Nosferatu spy movie Bloodshot. This
Speaker 2: one also has Brad dorifin it. I think we've looked
Speaker 2: at this one before but are not brave enough to
Speaker 2: actually check it out.
Speaker 3: Doesn't he play? Does he play like a film director?
Speaker 3: Or something in Hail Caesar.
Speaker 2: He does, Yeah, I mean there's some other yeah credits
Speaker 2: of Note twenty sixteen's Hail Caesar Cohen Brothers film. There's
Speaker 2: a two part sci fi franchise, Fortress that a lot
Speaker 2: of people like. Ninety two was the originally NATed A
Speaker 2: two thousand sequel, and then, of course, as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: he's in Resurrection playing the cop in this seven esque film.
Speaker 3: I gotta see some more of these B movie outings
Speaker 3: by Lambert, so I let's see. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I could try to watch the Beowulf again. Druids is
Speaker 3: more of like a historical drama.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't, And I don't have a good read
Speaker 2: on that one. If it's at all fun or indeed great,
Speaker 2: I just don't know much about it. And Bloodshot, ooh,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm just not. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'm it's got to be a special. We have not
Speaker 2: watched a film from the twenty teams the Weird House,
Speaker 2: and I think there are reasons for that. I don't
Speaker 2: think Bloodshot is going to be our first selection from
Speaker 2: that decade.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, anyway, My short review on Lambert in Highlander
Speaker 3: two is he has some surprisingly poignant moments of acting
Speaker 3: that don't really fit in with how hilarious the rest
Speaker 3: of the movie is like, But there are moments where
Speaker 3: you really get that dough eyed sadness coming through. You
Speaker 3: feel for him, You feel the pain of his immortality
Speaker 3: and now the immortality being lost, that he's just sort
Speaker 3: of decaying physically while being emotionally alone, and it really
Speaker 3: is kind of sad. But also he does the wise
Speaker 3: cracking attitude, raid and things, saying little like ridiculous one liners.
Speaker 3: You can't believe the lines he says.
Speaker 2: Oh, everybody, all the immortals in this film are just
Speaker 2: here for a good time and just cutting up. Crazy.
Speaker 2: General Katana has all sorts of laughs. The assassins, the
Speaker 2: bird guys also are real cutups. Yeah, there's just there's
Speaker 2: really too much of it.
Speaker 3: Oh and of course, how lest we forget one of
Speaker 3: the greatest of the wise crackers, Ramirez.
Speaker 2: That's right, played by the great Sean Connery who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty through twenty twenty, legendary Scottish actor. Obviously, there's
Speaker 2: a lot to discuss with Sean Connery's career, very long career.
Speaker 2: You know, one of one of the most famous actors
Speaker 2: of his generation. But I will say there was an
Speaker 2: old Mystery Science Theater three thousand sketch that had Mike
Speaker 2: and the Bots plot the careers of Sean Connery and
Speaker 2: his brother Neil Connery in response to the nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: seven Italian bond ripoff ok Connery aka Operation Kid Brother
Speaker 2: that they were watching on the show. So they have
Speaker 2: like the line grafts of the ups and downs of
Speaker 2: their careers. And the big gag was that Highlander two
Speaker 2: is the only point at which Shawn's career trajectory dips
Speaker 2: below Nils. And I think you know, I was looking
Speaker 2: at Sean Connery's filmography in full here and you can
Speaker 2: kind of look at it in terms of pre and
Speaker 2: post Highlander two. Though to be fair, it's a very
Speaker 2: long career with various shifts and changes.
Speaker 3: I have seen him in movies that I enjoy far,
Speaker 3: far less than I enjoy Highlander two. He's the like
Speaker 3: get second Billing is the voice of the dragon in
Speaker 3: Dragonhart to the movie that I was getting confused with
Speaker 3: Dragon Slayer when we were doing Dragon Slayer on the show.
Speaker 3: I saw that in the theater as a kid, I mean,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it recently, but I recall that being
Speaker 3: just a mess and Highlander two is so much a
Speaker 3: much better use of your time than watching Dragonheart.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Dragonhart was a ninety six film that was post
Speaker 2: Highlander two, And indeed, you look at some of the
Speaker 2: other post Highlander two films and then include, well, there
Speaker 2: was Robin Hood Prince with Thieves the same year. He
Speaker 2: has an uncredited cameo in that. But then it's stuff
Speaker 2: like ninety two's Medicine Man, ninety three's Rising Sun, his
Speaker 2: First Night, The Rock in ninety six, The Avengers in
Speaker 2: ninety nine, and I'm sorry, The Avengers in ninety eight,
Speaker 2: and Trapman in ninety nine, Finding Forrester in two thousand
Speaker 2: and then finally two thousand and threes, The Leave Extraordinary, gentlemen,
Speaker 2: And we don't have to talk about twenty twelve, Sir Billy,
Speaker 2: that was his final vocal performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that nineties to early two thousands Connery arc is
Speaker 3: a little rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So not to say that there weren't entertaining or
Speaker 2: even great films. I mean, Finding Forrester got a lot
Speaker 2: of great reviews at the time, but does anyone The
Speaker 2: Rock is really fun The Rock is fun. But does
Speaker 2: anyone consider these great Connery films. I don't know that
Speaker 2: they do. Meanwhile, just looking at his pre Highlander two films,
Speaker 2: going back no further than nineteen eighty there's a lot
Speaker 2: of great stuff in there. There's nineteen eighty one's Outland,
Speaker 2: the sci fi western, There's Time Bandits from the same year.
Speaker 2: There's eighty seven's The Untouchables, eighty nine's Indiana Jenes and
Speaker 2: The Last Crusade nineteen nineties. The Hunt for Rock Red
Speaker 2: October in nineteen eighty six is alone pretty impressive because
Speaker 2: you have Connery playing both the dashing mentor Ramires, who
Speaker 2: I think, if I'm using the term correctly, is like
Speaker 2: in pure Zaddy mode in Highlander one, so you have
Speaker 2: you have that role as a mentor. But then at
Speaker 2: the same year he's playing Sir William of Baskerville in
Speaker 2: the Name of the Rose, and I think these are
Speaker 2: both peak you know, and he also rather different performances
Speaker 2: from Sean Connery.
Speaker 3: It is hard to believe he made Highland or two
Speaker 3: the year after he made The Hunt for Red October.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I haven't seen The Hunt for October in
Speaker 2: a while, but I have a friend who just very
Speaker 2: recently was just insisting that it is. It's really really good,
Speaker 2: and you know.
Speaker 3: It's like the military thriller is not really my genre
Speaker 3: of choice, but I got to give it credit, like
Speaker 3: as an example of that genre. I think it's top notch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, Well, anyway, I think Sean Connery may come
Speaker 2: up again on Weird House Cinema at some point in
Speaker 2: the future. So we're gonna leave the rest of his
Speaker 2: filmography for later, but suffice to say that his pre
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty filmography is perhaps best known for his defining
Speaker 2: performances as James Bond, but even then there's still a
Speaker 2: lot of weirder and more daring work sprinkled throughout that
Speaker 2: time period. You know, like he was playing Bond, but
Speaker 2: he was also at times trying some really weird things.
Speaker 2: Not everything worked. There's some strange choices in there as well.
Speaker 2: Going through the rest of the cast here of note,
Speaker 2: Virginia Madsen is in it playing Louise Marcus. She's our
Speaker 2: environmental terrorist slash love interest for Connor. Born nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 2: We recently talked about her because she is Princess Roulan
Speaker 2: from David Lynch's doune Oscar nominated actress for two thousand
Speaker 2: and five Sideways, whose credits also include nineteen ninety two
Speaker 2: S Candy Man, nineteen ninety five's The Prophecy to be
Speaker 2: Sure Not the Mutant Bear One, and in various TV
Speaker 2: projects as well.
Speaker 3: I think her relationship with Connor MacLeod in this movie
Speaker 3: is one of the most unearned romances in all of
Speaker 3: movie history. They literally just they don't know each other.
Speaker 3: They just meet and like get into a fight with
Speaker 3: some aliens who fly in from out of nowhere, and
Speaker 3: within moments they are kissing. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is ridiculous. So this is, as is often
Speaker 2: the case with films like this, not a great showcase
Speaker 2: for her talents. But she is as good as you
Speaker 2: might expect in this role.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Virginia Madison is a great actress, and she brings
Speaker 3: a levity to this role. And like there's even a
Speaker 3: part where she's quite literally just a scene where she
Speaker 3: is explaining back the premise of the movie to Christuff
Speaker 3: Lambert in his apartment and commenting on the fact that
Speaker 3: it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and he just replies
Speaker 3: by quoting the name of a queen song that's mentioned
Speaker 3: for or five times in the movie. He's like, it's
Speaker 3: just kind of magic.
Speaker 2: It's a great song. It's a great song.
Speaker 3: H But yeah, So in a way, she's sort of
Speaker 3: like the regular the observer character who's like looking on
Speaker 3: this with the audience and being like, what what are
Speaker 3: you saying? Here? They come here and now you're immortal again.
Speaker 3: But if you chop their heads off, you become mortal. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Without her everything makes even less sense because there's
Speaker 2: no one to explain it to. All Right, So when
Speaker 2: it comes to villains, how do you top Clancy Brown
Speaker 2: as the Kuragan for to shear over the top evilness?
Speaker 2: I would argue that you don't. But what you can
Speaker 2: do is cast Michael ironside and let him absolutely dial
Speaker 2: everything he does up to eleven.
Speaker 3: Rob I am offended. How dare you say eleven? He
Speaker 3: is at twenty six? There is not a single line
Speaker 3: he says in this movie where you don't see his teeth.
Speaker 3: He's just like and it's all like he's in full
Speaker 3: clown mode.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've seen interview snippets from him where he was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: didn't like the script, nobody liked the script, but you know,
Speaker 2: I was going to make sure that I was the
Speaker 2: most memorable part of any scene I was in, you know,
Speaker 2: And you got to admire that, you know, someone who's like,
Speaker 2: they're not going to phone it in, they are going
Speaker 2: to make sure that they are just delivering it completely
Speaker 2: gift wrapped to you the full Michael Ironside experience. Now,
Speaker 2: we previously discussed Ironside in our episode on nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one Scanners, in which he played the rogue scanner Darryl Revick,
Speaker 2: and that's the film that helped propel him into villain
Speaker 2: roles like this one, like Total Recall and so forth.
Speaker 2: I think he's, without a doubt, one of the best
Speaker 2: heavies of all time and certainly of this time period.
Speaker 2: Like this is the type of villain role that he
Speaker 2: could just absolutely inhabit.
Speaker 3: He is an all time movie villain. Got love Michael Ironside.
Speaker 3: Gotta love the menace he brings, and I love how
Speaker 3: in all of his movies from this period he plays
Speaker 3: a character whose name could be the name of a
Speaker 3: knife company. So he's always He's Richter, he's Katana, he's
Speaker 3: revoc like all the names that have like these hard
Speaker 3: angles in them and suggest cutting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even his actual name Ironside, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: could be a knife company, but yeah, and certainly his
Speaker 2: performance is cut. He's always a treat in anything he's in.
Speaker 2: And there are a number of other iron Side films
Speaker 2: on the sort of waiting list for weird house cinema
Speaker 2: that we'll have to get to, all right. A couple
Speaker 2: of other actors worth mentioning in passing here at least.
Speaker 2: Alan Rich plays the character name in this is one
Speaker 2: of the scientists of the Shield Corporation m He lived
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty six through twenty twenty character actor, with credit
Speaker 2: stretching from nineteen fifty three till twenty fourteen. His roles
Speaker 2: include roles in such films as seventy three, Cerpico, ninety
Speaker 2: four's Disclosure, and Quiz Show. He also did a little
Speaker 2: I think mostly like some short film projects.
Speaker 3: He does a really unceremonious cinematic inst to death in
Speaker 3: this movie, where you know, he just delivers a final,
Speaker 3: bittersweet final line and this then goes uugh falls over. Okay,
Speaker 3: done with him?
Speaker 2: All right? Then we also have John C. McGinley in this,
Speaker 2: playing the character Blake, who's like, what the CEO of
Speaker 2: Shield Corp?
Speaker 3: I don't know what John C. McGinley is doing in
Speaker 3: this movie. This is one of the weirdest performances in it.
Speaker 3: It's not as like up to eleven or up to
Speaker 3: twenty six as Michael Ironside, but he's doing something strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is an American actor, perhaps best known to
Speaker 2: many for his long running role as what one of
Speaker 2: the doctors on the TV series Scrubs, But he was
Speaker 2: also in eighty six is Platoon, eighty seven's Wall Street,
Speaker 2: ninety one's Point Break, and he was actually in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five to seven. He was also in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: six Is the Rock Wow. A number of connections here,
Speaker 2: so much crossover, Yeah, and nineteen ninety nine's Office Space.
Speaker 2: I would say he's definitely a guy who's great at
Speaker 2: playing a good suit. You know, when you need like
Speaker 2: that suit character, that management, slimy CEO type, this is
Speaker 2: your guy.
Speaker 3: He I mean, yeah, he generally is, though in this
Speaker 3: movie he's he's a little weirder than you would expect
Speaker 3: for that kind of character, and he like there are
Speaker 3: scenes where he's he's kind of hammered it up. You know,
Speaker 3: when General Katana walks into the board meeting, he's like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I've had enough of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's almost like they realize, like this
Speaker 2: is unbelievable, Like this, this straight up space barbarian has
Speaker 2: walked into your boardroom, and you're gonna pretend that you're
Speaker 2: still in charge. Like there is a comic energy to
Speaker 2: this that needs to be enhanced, not ignored, or at
Speaker 2: least that was my read on the situation.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. I think that's what he's going for.
Speaker 3: It just John C McGinley gives me the vibe. Whereas
Speaker 3: like Michael Ironside's playing the role pretty consistently that it's
Speaker 3: always cranked to like twenty six with dashes of clown.
Speaker 3: John C McGinley seems to be trying something different in
Speaker 3: all of his scenes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see what sticks all right. Finally, the music on
Speaker 2: this one, So Michael came in did the score for
Speaker 2: the first film, and this time around it is American
Speaker 2: musician and composer Stuart Copeland born nineteen fifty two, best
Speaker 2: known as the drummer for the Police.
Speaker 3: Got to respect the Drummer from the Police. If you
Speaker 3: listen to them. They've got some really complicated, difficult drum parts.
Speaker 3: Copeland knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2: I'll have to go back and listen to some Police tracks.
Speaker 2: But he's also done a lot of film scoring as well.
Speaker 2: His first score was for nineteen eighty three's Rumblefish, directed
Speaker 2: by Francis Ford Coppola, and he went on to score
Speaker 2: such films as Wall Street and Goudburger, then a lot
Speaker 2: of other stuff as well. No slam on Good Burger.
Speaker 2: I know people who are big fans of Good Burger.
Speaker 3: Couldn't get Hans Zimmer for Goudburger.
Speaker 2: Hans Zimmer has directed, as we've said, a lot of
Speaker 2: films and not I imagine some of them are maybe in
Speaker 2: like this same stratosphere as Good Burger.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine the trailer Welcome to Good Burger, Home
Speaker 3: of the Good Burger.
Speaker 2: Now? I would say in general this film suffers from
Speaker 2: a lack of queen tracks. There was. Upon rewatching it,
Speaker 2: there is more use of queen music than I remembered,
Speaker 2: but it's still not enough. You can't fault Copeland for
Speaker 2: this though. But interestingly enough, the Police were also originally
Speaker 2: considered for the Highlander one soundtrack before they ended up
Speaker 2: going with Queen.
Speaker 3: Oh, that would have been a different feeling, wouldn't it.
Speaker 2: Don't I don't want to imagine it, you know, all
Speaker 2: respect in the world of the police. But I mean,
Speaker 2: that's Queen's movie, and it's not even Highlander without that
Speaker 2: awesome soundtrack by Queen. I listened to the full It's
Speaker 2: a kind of Magic album yesterday whilst working on some
Speaker 2: of these notes, and it's just it's just a tree
Speaker 2: here we are, all right, Let's let's start getting into
Speaker 2: the plot here a little bit. Let's start discussing Highlander
Speaker 2: two in earnest.
Speaker 3: Knowing that we will have to break for time soon,
Speaker 3: but I think we find we'll find a natural place
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So, because the first act of this cut of the
Speaker 3: movie is so relentlessly excellent, I admit I might be
Speaker 3: a little too detail oriented in recounting it. We'll see,
Speaker 3: but I do want to capture in this episode and
Speaker 3: the next, like the rhythm of plot developments, especially once
Speaker 3: you get to the year twenty twenty four, at least
Speaker 3: up until the part where Connor McLeod becomes hot again,
Speaker 3: because everything up to that point is just like a
Speaker 3: relentless tickle of my brain and it's so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then when he gets hot again, that's in
Speaker 2: the midst of one of the best sequences in the
Speaker 2: entire film.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, So we open on a curse opaque sky
Speaker 3: filled with poisonous orange smog, and there's a dissonant minor
Speaker 3: chord playing on the soundtrack, and the title reads August
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, and we hear the voiceover of a
Speaker 3: newscaster who says, good morning, Today's top story is the
Speaker 3: Ozone Layer. Can you imagine that being the top story
Speaker 3: in the news. It says, Today's top story is the
Speaker 3: Ozone Layer. It continues to disintegrate, taking with it our
Speaker 3: protection from the sun's rays. Then more voices join and
Speaker 3: we hear different news reports playing over one another about
Speaker 3: how it's too dangerous to go outside, the White House
Speaker 3: has declared a national emergency, etc.
Speaker 2: Now quick note here. If you want to hear us
Speaker 2: talk more about the Ozone Layer aspect of this plot,
Speaker 2: go back into the archives and find the Stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind episode about Highlander two, and that's where
Speaker 2: you'll find extended discussion on that aspect of the film.
Speaker 3: So then some newscaster says, in Africa, where shelter from
Speaker 3: the sun is almost non existent, the dead and dying
Speaker 3: number in the millions. I found that confusing. It's like
Speaker 3: we're shelter. There are buildings with roofs in Africa. What
Speaker 3: are they talking about? But anyway, we're told that people
Speaker 3: are dying from exposure to the sun. And we see
Speaker 3: what looks like a giant warehouse full of patients and
Speaker 3: sick beds with nurses running around, and a sign tells
Speaker 3: us this is the solar radiation ward. Then another newscaster
Speaker 3: comes in and says it's just a few months now
Speaker 3: until the ozone layer is completely gone. A team of
Speaker 3: international scientists led by doctor Allan Naman and supervised by
Speaker 3: Connor McLeod work around the clock. This may be the
Speaker 3: last chance for planet Earth. And here we see Christopher
Speaker 3: Lambert as Connor McLeod wearing a suit and tie. He's
Speaker 3: gathered with other scientists and some kind of concrete bunker
Speaker 3: with light pouring in from a horizontal window in the side,
Speaker 3: like they're about to observe the trinity test. It looks
Speaker 3: like that one of the nuclear observation bunkers, a shorter
Speaker 3: man in a bow tie hugs Connor and says they'll
Speaker 3: remember this day for a thousand years, the day we
Speaker 3: protected the planet from the Sun. I don't know why
Speaker 3: that's so funny, but it is from the Sun. So
Speaker 3: we hear a countdown began, and they're they're preparing to
Speaker 3: activate the shield which is going to protect the Earth
Speaker 3: from the Sun, and we see dudes in yellow devo
Speaker 3: suits sprinting away from the direction of a giant concrete pyramid.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they have to sprint again. This
Speaker 3: seems like a planned event, so they could be on
Speaker 3: a car or something, but a satellite in space rotates
Speaker 3: into position. We see technicians and operators in a command
Speaker 3: center all confirming that they are ready to go. I
Speaker 3: have to say a lot of the technicians really are
Speaker 3: dressed like LDS missionaries, like the crisp white shirt and
Speaker 3: the black tie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a choice.
Speaker 3: And then we see we see the pyramid and the
Speaker 3: there's like the big concrete pyramid with sort of skyscrapers
Speaker 3: on top of the pyramid, and then a giant beam
Speaker 3: of energy starts shooting out of it, goes up into
Speaker 3: the sky and the shield is turned on and so
Speaker 3: it looks kind of like a lightsaber beam going out
Speaker 3: of the pyramid into space. It connects with the beam
Speaker 3: from a satellite and establishes some kind of multicolored laser
Speaker 3: aurora net that spreads out over the surface of the Earth,
Speaker 3: blocking the Sun's rays and shrouding the Earth in darkness.
Speaker 2: I want to throw in that if you watch carefully,
Speaker 2: at least one of these sci fi Ground Command guys
Speaker 2: is Russell McKay in a director's cameo, which is pretty fun. Oh.
Speaker 2: I don't know which one though, he says a line
Speaker 2: or two. So, but he's just one of the one
Speaker 2: of the crew there behind a computer screen.
Speaker 3: Wonder if he's the guy with the ponytail.
Speaker 2: This one in the still that you have in the outline. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's not in another guy, but he's in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: So as far as the prolog goes like, this is
Speaker 2: a success story, right, This is essentially how Connor McLeod
Speaker 2: uses the prize to save the world. He's able to
Speaker 2: orchestrate this massive technoscientific effort to save the world from
Speaker 2: its own depleted ozone layer and protect it from solar radiation.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate your reading of how the prize is
Speaker 3: actually being used in the setup of the movie here.
Speaker 3: I had never put that together before, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3: If he can read everyone's minds to establish peace and harmony,
Speaker 3: he would be a great uh well actually, and maybe
Speaker 3: I'm taking this for granted that that would make one
Speaker 3: a great organizer of people, But it seems like it could.
Speaker 2: It seems like it could. Yeah, Like, once you get
Speaker 2: down to the nitty gritty of it, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you're still dealing with very difficult problems of international cooperation
Speaker 2: and corporate interests and public sentiment and so forth. But
Speaker 2: if anybody can do it, it's the immortal guy who
Speaker 2: can read everybody mind.
Speaker 3: That's right. So he gets all of the scientists together
Speaker 3: and they're ready to protect the Earth. But as we
Speaker 3: learn as the film progresses, this protective shield does succeed
Speaker 3: in its goal. It does protect the Earth from the sun,
Speaker 3: but it comes with a lot of downsides, and those
Speaker 3: downsides will ultimately make everyone hate Connor MacLeod, make him
Speaker 3: very alone, and literally people come up to him in
Speaker 3: the streets saying, like, you put that puke in the sky,
Speaker 3: I hate you. You ruined my life.
Speaker 2: It makes me wonder if the screenwriters here were perhaps
Speaker 2: dipping a little bit into some of the themes and
Speaker 2: the Dune sequels, where you know, like in Doune Messiah
Speaker 2: and then also in God Emperor of Dune in post
Speaker 2: God impro of Doom books, where you know, you're dealing
Speaker 2: with interpretations of rulers and you know, major players in
Speaker 2: history that then cast them as devils and tyrants and
Speaker 2: so forth, you know, And it's like Connor does save
Speaker 2: the world, and does the world thank him. No, they
Speaker 2: really get sick of his solution.
Speaker 3: They literally throw bottles at him in bars.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But it's also funny because it presumes anybody would
Speaker 3: know what a scientist looks like or the administrator of
Speaker 3: a scientific project looks like, like twenty five years after
Speaker 3: it's over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I guess he was that
Speaker 2: big of a celebrity. It's like knowing what Einstein looked like,
Speaker 2: except I don't know, except more handsome.
Speaker 3: So I think we're gonna have to end part one
Speaker 3: of our discussion of Highlander two the Quickening, but we
Speaker 3: will be back with more because right after what we've
Speaker 3: gotten to in the plot it cuts to twenty five
Speaker 3: years in the future, to the year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: That's right. Like this is a contemporary story.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to leave you wondering until next week
Speaker 3: how future events such as these will affect you in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 2: That's right. So make sure you go ahead and tune in.
Speaker 2: And hey, if you listen to this entire episode and
Speaker 2: you still haven't watched Islander two and full, here's a
Speaker 2: great chance to do it. Fill the time between this
Speaker 2: episode and the next watching some version of Highland or two,
Speaker 2: you know, preferably the theatrical cut, the zeist cut. But hey,
Speaker 2: work with what you got because some of these sequences
Speaker 2: are still going to be mindlessly stupid or just amazingly awesome,
Speaker 2: so you'll still be able to relate to what we're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: It'll be a good time no matter what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well just remind you here. The Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a signs and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener mail on Mondays,
Speaker 2: short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays. We set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see
Speaker 2: a complete list of everything we've talked about so far,
Speaker 2: and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next,
Speaker 2: go on over to letterbox dot com. That's L E
Speaker 2: T T E R B O x D dot com.
Speaker 2: Once you're there, you can look for our username, it's
Speaker 2: weird House. You'll find a list of everything we've covered.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty remarkable little website. You know, you can essentially,
Speaker 2: you know, blog against social media about the various films
Speaker 2: that you've watched or want to watch, and it's a
Speaker 2: great way to just see in a glance what we've
Speaker 2: been up to as well.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.