I saw the first one back in like '90 and saw parts of the individual episodes of the series. I recall enjoying the movie when I was in Junior High and being annoyed at the legion of TV-series fans when I was in high school, but I never really had the desire to revisit any of it.
Until I read the Wikipedia entry on them.
I came across on the random page search (or at least that’s all I’ll admit to) and stopped long enough to read it.
Was Highlander II really as bad as it sounds? I have a hard time believing it.
I also don’t want to watch it and risk the chance that it might actually be that bad.
Whatever anyone has ever told you, or whatever you may have read, it’s actually worse than that. Highlander II basically shat on the first movie’s entire back story.
I think I read somewhere that there was some infighting between the creators, owners and suits, and this was the result. They should have just kept it in the can.
If you enjoyed the first movie, I highly recommend that you avoid the second.
There’s a very funny bit on MST 3k when they were showing a movie called “Double 007” starring Neal Connery (Sean’s brother). They showed a chart comparing the careers of the two. The only point where Sean’s drops below Neal’s is when he does Highland 2.
Yeah, it truly was that bad. And worse. It basically took the viewers and destroyed them to no good purpose while changing the basic premise of the universe.
It was horrible. Even Endgame was better, and Endgame was pretty bad.
Aliens. Oy. From what I understand though, the director’s cut of the movie makes absolutely no reference to aliens. I have to track that down at some point.
You must be thinking of some other movie. They never made any Highlander 2. Nope. Never happened. No way, no how. Uh-uh. No freaking chance. Never occured.
Yes, it’s pretty damn bad. Although rewatching the original Highlander movie I can say that it wasn’t all that good either. A lot better then the sequels though.
I think the sentiments of Kat, Silenus, and VampyChick were pretty much echoed by the creators, since, IIRC, there was no mention of the wacky alien idea in the series or in any of the other movies.
Whacky aliens makes me think that the original premise was that General Katana (or whoever)/Michael Ironside came to Earth but was unfamiliar with our ways and then had to hitchike across the country where he:
a) Met an older hot pants-wearing woman who taught him about love
b) Got shot at by a crazy motel owner
c) Realized that he had a test due the next day back home…in Zeist (or wherever)
d) smoked joints with the hippies
e) Learned about himself
Sounds like that would have made a better movie.
General Katana? Seriously.
Now, I have to ask - why did you people who saw it go and see it? Surely you didn’t all go the midnight show before everyone knew it was that bad.
Worse than that. The movie was being produced in Argentina, and during production the economy and currency collapsed, which meant that the local producers could no longer afford to complete the job and the insurance company became the owner of the whole project. They completed the work in an attempt to recoup their losses.
The result, therefore, is a movie created by a committee of accountants from an insurance company.
Read that line a few more times to absorb the full horror of its implications.
Every creative decision was made by accountants. A committee of accountants. Insurance accountants. Everything aspect of the film became solely a matter of “will it make money or cost money?” Aliens? Make money, put it in. Environmentalist message? Make money, put it in. Good writer? Costs money, leave it out. Continuing storyline? Irrelevant and probably costs money, cut it out.
The people involved in the later movies and TV series probably all disregard this one because it can’t really be said to have shared in any of the same creative processes. If it had a creative process at all.
I wouldn’t if I were you. Not only does it stink as well, it makes an even bigger, confusing mess because the cuts have removed the relevancy (what little there was) between the scenes.
I mean, if you’re going to watch a bad movie, it might as well be the one with aliens.
My roommate had that version of it - in fact, it’s the only one I’ve seen. IIRC, they weren’t traveling to Earth from another planet, they were moving back and forth between the present and the far far past - like before civilization. It made a modicum more sense that way. Not that that’s saying much.
The best I can describe it is that it feels as if it were written form the immagination of a 13 year-old. Writing all the characters as he thinks would make them cool.
Have you ever seen something that is so bad that you are cringing in embarasment? That is how the entire movie leaves you.
A God damned enviromental message…
Yes it was. It was every bit as bad as everyone says.
…And no, it wasn’t. If you had taken the “Highlander” part out, you had the makings of an interesting SciFi movie. I have always thought that they had a script laying about that no one wanted to film and they grafted a Highlander monstrosity onto it. The core movie itself may have been OK.