I lost my post, I think it’s gone to Zeist. (And who knows what they’ll make of it…)
Well, um, anyone who saw the TV series first is gonna have a distorted viewpoint. Not only is it like reading the end of a mystery first, but the TV series is a distortion, even a wreck, of the original concept.
As for the movie being “that cool,” well, how cool is “that cool”? Highlander was silly, over the top, & simply bizarre. On the plus side, it had probably the coolest approach to movie music ever, it was entirely shot on location, it had sharp dialogue, it was incredibly original, & very bizarre. The first attempt at a sequel missed most of this. It had generic classical music, was entirely shot in studio, had lame dialogue, ripped off Blade Runner (badly) for its vision of the future, & was, well, revisionistly & excessively bizarre.
Not that Highlander should have had a sequel. Or been made into a TV series. The TV series is a remarkable achievement, in that it’s a horrible idea done watchably, with characters that are sympathetic enough to hook fans despite the fact that this concept should never have been extended to this degree, it doesn’t bear looking at that closely.
The third & fourth theatrical releases are in something like the TV continuity, hence not in the movie continuity, & they’re not even that good as TV eps. Basically, they figured out that good art direction mattered after the failure of their first attempt at a sequel, & unfortunately, that’s all they learned.
Highlander III should be shown in film schools next to Highlander as a textbook example of how not to write a sequel. It tries to grab the fans by repeatedly quoting emotionally evocative phrases from the original while trashing the premise of said original so they can reiterate a travesty of the plot of same original. You know, in lieu of script.
And the “fourth movie” not only makes no sense at all except in the weird little alternate continuity of the TV version (Way to alienate the movie fans!), but pretty well actively contradicts what we know of the personal history of MacLeod. Even for something in the TV continuity, it seems off. And the acting is wooden.
All of which proves that the first one was at least somewhat cool, since it sequels are all horrible, horrible in different ways, & the first one… isn’t horrible in those ways. Well, it can’t be horrible in all those ways, it’s not a sequel. But still, it’s a little bit cool.
Ah, well, not everyone appreciates it. “I knew you guys were bottle-fed.”
