I’m waaaaay behind the times here but. . . I saw The Highlander for the first time this weekend and I’ve got questions.
First let me start off with that I thought it was a fun movie. Let me also say that I thought the other movie I saw this weekend, Battleship, was also fun and I don’t understand the hatred. But that’s another thread. So, to the questions.
Do you have to be from some sort of Highlands to be a Highlander? Was the black guy from the highlands of Zimbabwe or something?
The forensic cop, all she was interested in was anceint metal-- and boners too, it seemed? She was not investigating all the chopped off heads? She was a cop, wasn’t she?
And the primary investigative policeman. Once the guy who got gut-stabbed (picked up by the sword, flung across the alleyway and lived to tell about it!) didn’t identify Tarzan as the guy who stabbed him the investigation was over?
What was up with the WWII girl? Just some chick he picked up as a kid and kept around like a pet?
Are the sequels any good. And by that I mean do they build on the first movie in any logical way? Are more Highlanders born and Tarzan is compelled through time to seek them out and kill them?
And lastly, not a question so much as an observation. That gift that Tarzan got? Not much of a gift, if you ask me. Sounds much, much more like a curse. To be able to hear people’s thoughts from all over the world? I hope he can turn that noise off. A better gift would be to not have the girl he’s boning die on him all the time.
You have to be from the Scottish Highlands to be a Highlander. You don’t have to be from anywhere in particular to be an Immortal. They just decided “Highlander” made a better movie title than “Immortal”.
IIRC, she was a police consultant, not an actual officer. She had written a book on ancient weapons - remember Connor gave her a copy of her own book as a gift, as a way of showing he knew who she was?
It wasn’t that the investigation was over - it was that without a witness to finger Connor, there was nothing else the cop could do about him.
Pretty much. I think she was in there to show some of the pathos of being immortal. You stay young forever, while everyone around you ages. So he rescued her as a young girl, but now she’s his aging assistant.
The sequels are horrible. They make no sense, add in a bunch of useless plot that wasn’t in the original (the immortals are really aliens exiled from their home planet for heresy ?). It’s a trope here on the Dope to deny they ever existed, they’re so bad. Stay away.
Part of the “gift” was that he could make them understand each other better, leading to world peace or something. Yeah, it didn’t make much sense.
The TV series based on the movie wasn’t too bad though.
Yer killin’ me Biggirl :D. No,they are the exact opposite of that. THE. EXACT. OPPOSITE. Highlander 2 is in the running for worst film in the history of the world and despite some mighty stiff competition, it may just be edging into the lead.
Just MHO of course. We’ll see how many people stop in here to disagree with me ;).
Big recurring theme with the films and the tv show. I got so sick of the clip of Freddie Mercury wailing “Who wants to live forever when love must dieeeeee?”
The TV series is good - it gets off to a shaky start, and you NEED to bail as soon as name Ahriman appears (except there’s an entertaining It’s a Wonderful Life style episode, where Duncan finds out what it would be like if he’d never born, or if his head had been taken early), but there’s 4, maybe 5 good seasons worth, in there, and between where it first finds its feet, and when it goes off the rails, it’s generally better than the movie. The spin-off The Raven wasn’t bad, but never really had a chance to get running, so it’s better than the movie sequels, but still not the best outing for the series.
The movie sequels, as a whole, are best avoided.
The cartoon is…entertaining, but pretty much requires ignoring the movie and live action series. It’s better than the movie sequels, again, but…that’s a very low bar.
Oh, and, BTW, the TV series retcons the end of the movie - Connor didn’t win the Game, it’s still ongoing. The movie was just the beginning of the Gathering, and there’s quite a few Immortals who ignored it (such as Connor’s cousin, Duncan, who stars in the TV series).
Oh, and a hint of you watch the series, or the sequels. If an Immortal shows up, listen to their name. If it contains a prominent ‘k’ sound, and it’s not Connor or Fitzcairn? That’s the bad guy.
Clearly, if you keep referring to Christopher Lambert’s roll in Greystoke. He is well known by a long career of other terrible films, most recently the Ghost Rider sequel.
No, only Connor MaCleod (of the clan MaCleod ) is the “Highlander”. As in he’s from the Highlands of Scotland. The race of immortals are not Highlanders.
Although since they seem to give them nicknames based on their tribe (The Highlander, The Kurgan), I suppose Kastigir might have been called “The Black African” or whatever within the Immortal community.
If you ever happen to take a vacation in Scotland, every tour makes a point of mentioning Highlanded, Braveheart and Rob Roy.
I think she was a local academic who occassionally consults for the police on matters related to…I don’t know…murders involving midevil weapons or something.
I suppose the investigation would have turned in a different direction. For example, the eight foot broadsword weilding Kurgan rampaging through New York City.
Rachel Ellenstein was a girl Connor rescued from the Nazis. He raised her as his daughter but as she aged (and he didn’t obviously) she also became his companion and business partner and he became her “adopted son”. Part of the challenge of being immortal is figuring out how to transfer your assets to yourself without appearing 500 years old.
There were never any sequels. You would do well to remember that.
There was a tv series on USA that wasn’t too bad IIRC. It lasted six seasons.
The Gift and The Quickening is really just a MacGuffin (of the clan MacGuffin). Just something to drive the plot. You don’t want to think too much on why there is a race of immortals who don’t know they are immortal who have to kill each other until one is left. The sequal (that doesn’t exist) tries to do this and the results are …unsatisfying.
No, that is just where the title character is from.
One of the sequels is a passably good, the one with Mario Van Peebles as the bad buy. Forgot the name.
The TV series was actually entertaining beyond any of the movies. But hardly high quality stuff. Skip The Raven, which is a second TV series sequel starring Elizabeth Gracen, former Miss Arkansas and Bill Clinton squeeze. She plays an interesting character in the first series. I disagree on the part about skip the Ahriman stuff toward the end of the series. In my opinion it gets really crappy after that.
Seriously, just watch the Wizard of Oz instead. It has as much continuity with the original Highlander as Highlander 2 does, and it has better flying monkeys.
But the TV series really was good, for most of its run.
The first movie wasn’t too bad when it originally came out… it just didn’t age well and the sequels…
The series was much more fun, especially for the females, Duncan MacCloud, Adrian Paul, would occasionally get almost naked…those were the eps I really enjoyed.
I think the main problem with the original movie, besides its pervasive 80’sness, is that Christopher Lambert is a horrible, horrible actor, and about as convincing a Scotsman as he is a Namibian.
Incidentally, did you know that Clancy Brown (the Kurgan) (a) is the blue-blooded son of a congressman and newspaper magnate and (b) plays the voice of Mr. Krabs on Spongebob?
Are we talking about those two awful flicks in which Sean Connery is first beheaded and then brought back to life with no other explanation than “Here’s to magic!”* :dubious: :smack:
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