Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Highlander II, Part 2
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is the anchor. For NBC Nightly News, I'm Tom Yamas. A new chapter begins. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb. We're airing the second part of...

of our Highlander 2 episodes. This episode originally published 5-3-2024. If you didn't hear the first one, just go back a few. We re-ran part one on Monday, and today, on Friday, we're going to be doing part two.

we're rerunning part two to complete our perhaps overlong discussion of this super weird movie. I don't think it's actually overlong. I think there's so much to talk about here. It's a marvelously, marvelously weird and fun flick. So let's dive right in for the second half. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And this is Joe McCormick. And we are back today with part two of our discussion of the 1991 sci-fi fantasy action movie Highlander 2 The Quickening, starring Christophe Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironside. Highlander 2 is a movie that is infamous for its awfulness and positively anathematized as a movie.

by most Highlander fans. Highlander fans, a lot of them will say, don't watch this movie at all. If they do tell you to watch it, they'll usually say, you know, prefer one of the like recut versions, such as the Renegade cut or whatever. We'll get into those in just a moment. But Highlander 2, The Quickening, in its original theatrical release, is a film that I love and I have loved for years. I have watched it

So many times, more times than I can count, really. And I'm actually worried for the physical integrity of my legacy VHS tape. I fear that one day the tape may snap.

Yeah, yeah. They've got to put it back out. They've got to make the theatrical cut, the Zeist cut available for everyone so they can experience the the true broken weirdness and an awesomeness of this picture. Because, you know, like a lot of like awesome flawed films. Yeah, there is this there is this nagging question. What could have been? How could you make this better? And it's often.

I mean, the legacy of even great films that get a lot of recuts, you know, I'm thinking about Ridley Scott getting in there and tinkering a lot with some of his pictures, you know, it's I feel like.

I mean, there are cases, yeah, where fans seem to have a consensus about, OK, this is the best cut. This is the best way to watch a particular film, certainly. But a lot of times you just end up with this kind of ambiguity, like there is no key picture. So I really admire some of those filmmakers out there who are like, no, no, there's just one cut. That is the director's cut. And of course, there are a lot of moving parts there. You know, you have to have a position where the director has enough say that they feel like,

that is their cut. But anyway, I digress. Well, maybe we should start, but because in the last episode we did a significant segment talking about the different cuts of the film available because that will come up again in today's episode. Maybe we should do just a really fast rundown of what they are again. So you've got the original American theatrical release,

This is the one we're watching, the one we're talking about today. This is the one that is most generally hated by Highlander fans. It's like 80-something minutes long, and it preserves the big plot innovation from the script, which is that the immortals from the original Highlander are actually immortals.

aliens from the planet zeist so it takes something that was originally mysterious fantasy uh just kind of magic with an unknown source and makes it concrete science fiction then there's also the british version which uh

preserves these main details, but it's also longer. It includes some extra character development scenes and rearranges the edit. It also has the so-called fairy tale ending, which we'll talk about at the end of this episode. Then there is the home video release known as the Renegade version. This is even longer. It includes more scenes and some different takes. I believe it also includes some additional footage that's

that was shot after the production. Like, I think they actually got Christophe Lambert, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironside to come back to shoot like an action scene that was supposed to be a big set piece in the movie, but was never completed during filming. This movie, this version, the Renegade version, has a totally different edit. Most notably, it removes...

All references to the immortals being aliens and removes all references to the planet Zeiss and also in a rather confusing move removes all references to the quickening, which is in the title of the movie Highlander to the quickening.

Uh, but it's largely thought that the removal of, uh, the immortals being aliens and the planet Zeist and all that is due to fan backlash. Fans did not like that. Uh, you know, they were probably getting a lot of angry questions about it at the conventions. So that that's just gone. And, and I would love to hear from any Highlander fans out there of varying degrees for, for your take on the franchise as a whole, because I think by and large fans of anything Highlander have at this point, uh,

been presented with numerous things to find lackluster. But also, you know, some things to genuinely enjoy and find awesome. And they're eventually going to get a reboot. So potentially even more stuff to be perturbed or excited about. So yeah, write in. We'd love to know your thoughts on it. Me, I'm very much, you know, H1, H2, and I enjoyed H3 for what it is. And then I have seen many but not all of the episodes of the

TV series. And I thought that could be quite good at times. Well, I'm the kind of person who thinks there's a lot to love and enjoy in Highlander 2 as is, especially in the most hated version, the American theatrical release, which has lots of stuff that is immensely pleasurable because it's good and fun

probably even more stuff that's immensely pleasurable because of how bad it is. It's, it's just a mix of the best of both worlds. Oh, but then also I, I think there is actually, I alluded to this in part one, but I wasn't sure. I think there is another home video release after the renegade version. It's called like the ultimate version or something. I don't know much about that one, but I think possibly it includes some updated and supposedly improved visual effects. Yeah.

So as we've said, in defiance of conventional wisdom, we are watching the original American theatrical release, which we will hereafter refer to as the Zeist cut because it's where the Zeist stuff is left in. Now, another thing I wanted to address is that.

We don't normally split Weird House Cinema episodes into two parts, but we've done it a couple of times recently for deservingly massive and to us at least fascinating movies. First of all, we did it for David Lynch's adaptation of Dune, and now we're doing it again for Highlander 2 The Quickening.

And one thing I don't think we pointed out last time is that while these movies are in many ways quite different, they have some things in common. They are both troubled, big budget, incoherent,

English-language sci-fi productions filmed in Latin American countries, and in both cases, there were bitter struggles for creative control over the film's contents and the final edit. So in the case of David Lynch's Dune, this was a big-budget sci-fi production shot largely in Mexico, and it was well known that David Lynch was

extremely unhappy with the theatrical release of the film, which was strongly influenced by the producers and the money men. And David Lynch has said that his experience with Dune taught him that he would rather not make a movie at all than make one without having full creative control or full control over the final cut.

Well, last night I learned some interesting resonances between this story and the story of the making of Highlander 2 because I watched a making of documentary called, I think this was a strange choice for the title, it's called Seduced by Argentina. This is a featurette that's included on one of the home video releases of the movie.

This has interviews with the director, Russell Mulcahy, with the producers, with Christophe Lambert, and with many of the crew. And it explores the strange, wonderful, and also somewhat cursed process of making Highlander 2. So the film's production was moved to the country of Argentina for a number of reasons. One of the major reasons just being financial. It was a lot cheaper to make it there.

Uh, and there are a lot of stories about how the production sort of turned into a big party. Like a lot of the cast and crew got to Argentina. We're spending time in Buenos Aires and they, they sort of fell in love with the, with the city and with the culture. And we're spending a lot of time like going out to nightclubs and just hanging out and partying and drinking and doing whatever. And that this, uh,

created some kind of problems with like staying on task with the making of the film. Uh, but also the movie was, this was a big production. This is a big budget movie involving major talent in terms of set design, costume design, visual effects and so forth. And, uh,

And though there was a lot of talent working on this film and they put in a great effort in many ways and some of like the sets and stuff, you can really see that this is a a lavish production with with, you know, great intentions behind it.

But a lot of these teams also ended up working with weird logistical constraints and limitations. And this included all kinds of different things like lack of certain materials they needed, lack of access to crew with certain kinds of industry know-how.

to the fact that I think they had, I could be wrong about this, but I think they had a very tight window in which to shoot all of Sean Connery's scenes. Like I think he was only going to be in town for like six days or something. And he is not a cameo in Highlander 2. He's a major character. Yeah, yeah. I,

I think they might have shot some of his scenes in Scotland, like the initial Scotland scenes. Oh, yeah. But still, yeah, there's a lot of stuff with him in the futuristic setting. So that's a lot ultimately to pack in into six days, especially in a big production like this.

Also, it sounds like this was not the safest set anyone ever worked on. Just like some of the footage you see, like some of the crew they interview allude to this, that they were kind of moving fast and cutting corners and, you know, doing things that were not would not be considered, I don't know, taking optimal safety precautions that you would in a regular production. And by the way, I love movies and I can get really precious about

preserving a filmmaker's vision at many costs, but not at any cost. Nobody needs to die or get injured making a film. You know, that's just, you know, keep it safe on set. Yeah, I've read that one particular detail of all this is that both Michael Ironside and Christophe Lambert apparently sustained injuries in their sword fighting sequences, which, you know, is always a risk if you have actors doing their own action scenes and fight choreography and so forth. But

And, you know, looking back at like assuming for a minute, I don't know if this is correct, but assuming that they shot the final epic sword fight between General Katana and Connor McCloud in sequence by the end of it, it really looks like they're not able to do much. And I've also read that like the General Katana ironically fights with a broadsword.

which was apparently difficult to wield as well. So like by the end of the, this big epic fight scene with an amazing set, everything feels a little clunky and kind of tired. Like they just look like maybe they're out of steam. And if they're working through injuries, you can understand that. Yeah. I don't know what the source of this information is. Cause I didn't see this mentioned in any of the interviews that I recall, but I know I've read that like,

I think it was Christophe Lambert wanted to work with real swords. He was like, I don't want this plastic prop. I don't know.

um, you know, I want to, I want to have like a real sword. And so they were doing that, but apparently, uh, Lambert's eyesight is not great. And, uh, he, you know, couldn't wear glasses for filming the scenes. And, um, so yeah, there, there were just, oh, and also he did a lot of his own stunts in the movie, including the scenes we'll talk about later with like an elevator falling down an elevator shaft and, uh, flying around on rocket boots and stuff. So like, uh,

In some ways, it's kind of exciting stories of bravado from the film's star. But also, yeah, it sounds like it was not the safest set ever.

But anyway, working with all these limitations, things keep happening. Also, I think in the background here, there is a major inflation problem in Argentina while they're shooting it. So like money, the value of the money they're using to make the movie is like all over the place. And that's causing production problems as well. So there were just like billions.

basic logistical problems and production financing problems. And the movie was apparently taking way too long and going over budget. So,

So in a move that absolutely always goes well, more than halfway through production, creative control was taken over by an insurance company. Oh, yeah, that does not bode well. So for those of you not familiar with the film bonding process, there's a thing in the film industry called a completion bond, which is...

essentially an insurance policy for the film's investors. So if a movie is not coming in on time or not staying within budget, the bonding company that has been contracted can step in supposedly to protect the interests of the investors of the film and

You can kind of imagine how cool that would be. Yeah.

I mean, especially if you're dealing with filmmakers that want to take big swings, that want to go big or go home. And you have the insurance people coming in and saying, actually, it is time to go home. It is time to wrap this up. So I think a lot of the deficiencies of Highlander 2, a lot of the things that are very funny and bad about it, can be chalked up to this thing

thing that had the takeover of the movie by the insurance company, but not all of the funny stuff or the stuff that fans consider bad can be can be chalked up to that. For example, many fans apparently, you know, fans who thought it was weird to introduce the sci fi elements and make the immortals aliens and

they would end up blaming that choice on the creative takeover by the bonding company. But that is not the case. The suits from the insurance company did not make up the planet Zeist. That's in the script. From what I can tell, it seems like the choices made by the bonding company, uh, consist more of like wrapping production without filming major scenes and then trying to paper over those holes with a bizarre Frankenstein edit, uh,

And also just like lots of choices, I guess, like bad takes and terrible looking visual effects shots and just, you know, late stage script rewrites to change things up to just finish it faster. And so I think this is one reason, like in the documentary, they show some examples of how

This is a movie that has some great looking visual effects shots and some great looking effects and sets in certain scenes. And those will be contrasted almost immediately, like you'll cut back and forth between stuff that looks great and stuff that looks terrible. And apparently the at least some of the crew involved and people who were working on the visual effects for the movie chalk this up to the bonding company. They say like they came in.

And they commissioned the completion of the film with these terrible looking visual effects and put those in. So you've got those right next to stuff that looks really good. And that would explain a lot of that weird contrast when you're watching the movie.

Apparently, they also cut out a lot of stuff that would have made sense of the plot holes created by making the Immortals aliens. So, you know, this movie, it's like Swiss cheese. You could poke a million holes and be like, none of this makes sense with these plot innovations.

Apparently, it would make more sense if we if we had a full film based on the original script, because some of the differences are actually explained. Some of the gaps are actually explained, but we just don't get that. Yeah. And like you've been saying, like ultimately the filmmakers themselves run from the Zeist concept. So, yeah, we just get even further and further away from some sort of like concrete vision of.

of what this film was meant to be. But anyway, the fact that the, the planet Zeist stuff does not come from the bonding company that is originally there. This is just more proof to me that to take out the planet Zeist is to excise the beating heart from this film. Uh, so, so Highlander two people, the people who are behind making all these cuts, uh,

You've already made like four or five of them or however many there are. Give us the ultimate Zeist cut. You know, give us the edit, the release that looks great, has the updated picture and sound and all that, but keeps all the Zeist content and has the nice looking, the better selected visual effects shots. Give us the ultimate cut that still has Zeist.

Uh, unless you've already done that and I'm simply not aware of it, in which case I'm sorry. I don't think they have, because I feel like we've wasted a lot of time looking for it. But, um,

But yeah, and I'm open to whatever. Like, put it out as a single disc, I'll buy it. Put it out as like the third disc in a multi-disc release, like ultimate release of Highlander 2. You know, I'm fine with that. You can even have an optional commentary track where you, you know, rip into it and talk about everything that went wrong. As long as I have like just one version of this that I can watch and, you know, in acceptable quality and, you know...

You know, we've already touched on some of the problems with some of the effects. But yeah, just give me a solid Zeiss cut. That's all I have to say. There are places on Earth where science and mystery collide. And Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most fascinating examples.

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What did we establish? You established just the building of the shield, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll do a real fast recap of that. So the opening of the film is in the year 1999 when the human race is in dire peril due to the depletion of the ozone layer and the resulting exposure of the Earth's surface to deadly radiation from the sun.

Connor McCloud, the main character of Highlander 1, the victorious age-old warrior who won the game of immortal combat and achieved human mortality and the ability to have children at the end of the first movie. He uses his centuries of wisdom and presumably also his magical ability to read minds, though the movie doesn't really address this.

to organize a team of scientists to create the shield, which is a giant geoengineering project that forms a sort of laser net over the Earth's atmosphere and protects the surface of the planet from the sun. It looks kind of like a gigantic lightsaber blade blasting out of a huge concrete pyramid, and then it forms a laser net in the sky, sort of connects with a satellite somehow, and it shields us from the sun.

And Connor and his scientist friend, Alan Naiman, they celebrate their accomplishment. They have saved the world. This surely was a good use of the prize. Yeah, what more could you ask for? Seemingly saved the world and to some degree helped ensure peace. Yeah. Happy ending right at the beginning. Yeah. But then we cut to 25 years later to... The year 2024.

That's right. I mean, this is this is this was the perfect time to really jump in and discuss Highlander 2 on Weird House. So we see Christophe Lambert driving a car. He's driving a convertible down a dark, wet street in what is not great makeup and terrible old man makeup. His face looks like a bowl of porridge. It's not it's it's not great.

But we hear his voiceover. McLeod says,

Now, already we have so much to unpack. Like, well, why are they using old cars, old planes and old dreams because of some sort of energy shortage? I mean, the real answer is it lets them do this kind of neo-noir look for the film, which I do quite like, but it doesn't really make any sense. It's like, we can't use a car that was made post-1953 now. I think they wanted to use some of these beautiful building facades from Buenos Aires, and they were like,

Like, let's see, how do we, what, everything looks old now, we'll say, for some reason. Yeah, using old cars and planes, what would that have to do with anything?

We also were panning past some sort of statue or something. There's a plaque that commemorates the shield and it has the dates 1999 through 2024 on there. And I was wondering, do they just update it every year? Like it's like, OK, it's it's a new year, 2024. Let's add that. Like it's a, you know, no work injuries for X number of days sort of a thing. I don't know. Yeah.

Because there's no indication that there are no plans to bring the shield down in 2024, as we'll discuss and as we'll see. OK, so we see Connor driving his convertible through this this dark city and we gather that the world here is now squalid, polluted and dark.

The sky is always covered with this shimmering burnt orange Aurora in which shadowy triangles and pyramid shapes appear. There are also in this world, just future punks everywhere. I love a good future punk. And here again,

They're like on the sidewalks getting up to no good. Connor is driving past them and like glancing nervously at the windows of his car, looking at them as he drives by. We can hear them yelling. Then when we actually see them, they're crowded around some kind of machine that distributes gas.

gas through a face mask attached to a hose and they're like kicking and beating on the machine to make it work and then taking turns huffing out of the mask. Is this supposed to be a vending machine for inhalants? I don't know. Is this your neighborhood huffing station? I'm not sure, but...

Yeah, there are a lot of wild boys in this feature, for sure. Yeah, wild boys, yeah. Then in the car, the TV comes on. Great. This is one of those futuristic old cars from 2024. It's an old car, but it has a TV in the dashboard. Well, they have those now. Yeah. It's exactly what cars need, yeah. So Connor is watching the news while driving.

And the news anchor says that the Shield Corporation, which is the world's largest company, was today accused of monopoly and price fixing. I was just thinking, how do you do price fixing if your product is the Shield? Like, who are the market competitors of the Shield Corporation that they would be colluding with? Yeah.

Yeah. Other shield companies and they're making an agreement to fix prices. And it does seem like it's the same shield for the entire planet. Like you can't, you know, pick and choose like how much shield different regions are getting or there's no indication or even a hint of how that would be possible. Yeah. Maybe they make other products, too. Maybe the price fixing is on whatever these these huffing stations are.

They also say that the president of the shield corporation, Alan Naiman, remember that was Connor's partner in creating the shield 25 years ago. He could not be reached for comment. Um,

And then they say that the Shield Corporation just posted record profits. Oh, and also there's a weather report. Tomorrow's high is going to be 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds like the low is also 97 degrees Fahrenheit with a humidity of 97 percent. Same as every other day. I mean, it's predictable, you know. Yeah. You know what to wear. There's not a lot of questions about what you're going to wear tomorrow. So we can save that for it at least.

Now, here is a question I do have. So Connor is like driving past these future punks and he's like checking to see if his car doors are locked. And the future punks are dancing aggressively at his car as he goes past next to their flaming steel garbage cans. And I'm like, why would you have a flaming garbage can in a world where there's like 90, it's 97 degrees and maybe they need it for light. I don't know, but you don't need it for heat. I think this is always the question of any kind of conversation.

uh, apocalyptic hellscape or, or, um, or urban hell, uh, setting is why are the garbage cans on fire? Uh, maybe just because they can be on fire, right? Maybe they're cooking with it. Yeah. Yeah. Cooking up some, I'm assuming rat, uh, some charbroiled rat on the garbage can. Yeah. Okay. So where is Connor headed? He's going to the opera, of course. Uh,

And here's one of these cases where we were talking about the contrast of like you'll have these bad looking scenes and then great looking scenes. I feel like the whole opera scene from the outside and the inside, the set within a set on the stage, the interior of the opera, it's all beautiful. It has a it does have a.

somewhat derivative kind of blade runneriness about the sci-fi style. But it also, it has a style of its own. Like the opera has this red blinking neon sign, like an all night diner. It's a very weird choice, but I think it looks really cool. And inside it's, it's beautiful. So Connor's going to see this Vagnerian production. I think it's actually, he's watching Twilight of the Gods and,

We hear these sweet and tortured melodies of a dying world as the name John C. McGinley pops up on the credits, by the way, which is funny. The set for this opera does look amazing. I haven't seen a lot of operas, maybe only ever one opera live and in full. And I have to say, give me an opera with a set like this, I'll show up.

So we pan around the audience at the opera and we see all the fancy people in the balconies sporting their evening attire. And eventually we land on a private box where Connor McCloud sits, sad and alone, dozing off with his chin on his chest.

until he is startled awake by a voice echoing inside his head. It is the voice of Sean Connery. And here, basically right at this moment in the American theatrical release,

begins a truly remarkable several minutes of film, one that I have essentially memorized. Highlander 2 was one of the, I've said this earlier, but it was one of the first movies in the sort of glorious failure genre that I ever came to appreciate. And after I got my hands on my first VHS copy, of course I watched it with my friends lots of times, but on top of watching the movie as a whole lots of times, we probably rewound the next few minutes of the movie completely

several times every time we watched it. So this is kind of like a religious catechism to me. Sean Connery says, Remember Highlander. Remember your home. Another galaxy. You were chosen. Remember...

And then the Wagner music swells and the camera zooms in on Connor's face in a weirdly unflattering off-center shot. His eyes are sort of half closed. His fake gray hair is lit up in a peculiar way by off-camera lights. And we hear his thoughts as he says, Yes, yes, I remember the beginning 500 years ago on the planet Zeist.

Yeah. And this is this is a moment where, you know, you can you can definitely feel fans dropping out because I'm tuning in because I mean, either this is something that Connor McCloud conveniently forgot his entire time on Earth.

throughout the first film or he knew the whole time and just it didn't factor into any of his thoughts or actions or anything. And like either either version. Yeah, I can see that being interpreted as kind of like a cheap shot of the experience of the first film, you know, and could even be seen as like cheapening the experience of the first film. But it's also one of the things to love about Highlander, too.

It's so beautiful. And then, so there, like we were saying about the, the differing, you know, uh, quality of the textures of the movie, uh,

The next thing they show us is the planet Zeist. And what we get is a beautiful matte painting of a big desert with mountains in the background and the crescent moon in the sky and some kind of giant crashed airship in the desert. You know, it looks like some kind of airship the size of a skyscraper and it's just plowed into the sand of the desert. It looks like almost like a relic, like it could have been crashed there for a long time. And,

And the context is hilarious, but I think the matte painting looks so good. The fact that it looks so good makes it even funnier. And like it's got a good contrast in the shot with characters in the foreground as these silhouettes covered up in desert clothing, you know, moving down the hills into the airship. It's a great looking moment. Yeah. I mean, the film has just made a very wacky choice and it's

Initially here, at least, you know, it's like, all right, this looks awesome. Let's give it a try. Let's see. See how it fits. This is one moment where I can point out that like the renegade cut. I think I've seen this. They like change this to it's not the planet Zeist, of course, because they cut that out entirely. This is supposed to be sometime in the ancient past. Right. So we get an ancient city set scape instead of that that's crash spaceship or airship or whatever it is.

And I think it doesn't look as good. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I thought it looked good, but it's not as interesting. And it just raises all these questions because, again, you're about to see some sequences where guys are clearly fighting with gas masks and modern looking weapons and explosions. So to take it away from an alien planet and put it into the ancient past actually just creates more problems. Yes. More logical problems for the film.

Okay, Connor McCloud's voiceover goes on. He says, We planned rebellion. We met in secret, always careful to avoid our deadly enemy, General Katana. This is not a character that was mentioned in the first movie, so this is

brand new. So we see a bunch of sweaty guys with like head wrappings and desert cloaks gathering in the ruins of the airship. And then Sean Connery walks out on a platform to address them. And his speech goes as follows. He says, free men of the planet Zeist, hear me. We gather together in secret for the last time. You suffer under the yoke of General Katana's rule for the last time.

and you stand without a leader for the last time.

And the people call out for Sean Connery to lead them. You know, Ramirez. By the way, this character on Zeist, his name is Ramirez on Zeist. And Connor McCloud's name is Connor McCloud on Zeist. So Ramirez says he's not going to lead them. But he says because he sees with eyes different from theirs, he knows that one among them has a great destiny. And the people call out, who is he? Show him to us. And then in what

what I think is probably one of the funniest single shots in line deliveries in like all of cinema history. Sean Connery draws his sword and he says, let him show himself. Let him feel the quickening waggles his sword and lightning flashes and

And then Ramirez, there's like a foley of sort of electricity arcing. And then somehow everybody turns and looks and among them in the crowd is Christophe Lambert. He's standing there with wind blowing in his hair like he's in a Creed music video. And he looks very grave and heavy with the burden of this new responsibility.

And Sean Connery says, yes, you. This is how the leaders of all great rebellions are chosen, by the way. Just sort of randomly picked out of the crowd. They're like, you, yep, you're the one. You're going to lead the rebellion. That's just how it works. Yes.

Yes, you. And then it doesn't stop. Like it just goes so fast straight into, I guess we're about to see what the quickening is as realized by this movie. Now, Rob quickly, no pun intended. What was the quickening in the first Highlander? The quickening in the first Highlander also felt a little vague. It was something magical about connection between immortals. And we basically hear about it the most in that scene where, um,

where it really a nice scene where Ramirez and Connor during the midst of all their training, uh, run on the beach, maybe while a horse is running, I think, but you know, it's like, uh, I think about it whenever I run on a beach, I'm like, yeah, the quickening, you know, it's like, it was more of a feeling than a codified lower thing. You know, it's about, it's about their relationship. It's about their bond. And this is, I guess, trying to channel that as well into some sort of like magical thing that connects them across time and space. Um,

as we'll see. Yes. So what happens next is Ramirez and McLeod sit across from each other and dip their fingers into like, it's like a fondue pot for glowing magical energy. They like dip their fingers in and they get some of the magic on their fingertips and then they touch their hands together. And then there's like light that shoots out of their hands and

And Connor looks very, again, he looks very grave. He's like, oh no, what's happening? But Ramirez is just grinning wildly. And he says, the ancient power of the quickening has joined us. We are now as one.

Okay. I don't know how this is going to result in a successful rebellion, but, you know, all right, fine. We've done the quickening, and now it's time to go ahead and win this thing, right? That's right. So they've got to go beat General Katana. So right then, immediately, explosions start popping off outside. Ramirez says Connor McCloud, he has to go defeat the general. So we cut to...

A few fleeting shots of a battlefield charge, a disastrous battlefield charge by the rebels. Connor tries to rally them to coordinate the attack, but it ultimately fails. This is where we're about to meet General Katana. But I did just want to say about this battle scene, it seems like this is one of the scenes that was supposed to be a big battle.

beautiful, fascinating action scene, like a massive action scene in the sci-fi landscape. I think in the documentary they referred to it as like the Battle of the Valley of the Moon or something. And they show these

These concept sketches for it that have all these strange rock formations and these aliens fighting in weird costumes and all that. We don't really get to see any of that. Instead, we just sort of see some guys running in the sand and some things blow up and then it's over. Yeah, nothing you really haven't seen in other post-apocalyptic battle movies or just war movies in general. Yeah, it's a shame because just based on the concept sketches in the documentary, it looks like this could have been a really beautiful, awesome looking sequence. Yeah.

But this is where we first meet the villain of the movie, Michael Ironside, playing General Katana. Now, he stands over the battlefield. He looks very pleased about all of his enemies being annihilated. He says he wants Connor McCloud and Ramirez captured. As for everybody else, he wants their heads.

And Katana does look pretty awesome here. You know, he's a little bit industrial metal, but with a stylish dueling scar. And he has this like long, he has long dark hair, but he has the streak of gray or white through it. So it's a solid look. And, you know, it's Ironside. So he can definitely sell the menace. So now Michael Ironside, who we just met seconds ago, he has Connor McCloud captured and held prisoner in.

in this kind of some kind of like office slash dungeon. It's it's I guess, Rob, I think you, you brought this up in the last episode. This is a cool looking interior. Yeah. Yeah. This is a really cool looking set. This is definitely a scene that I recommend. Yeah.

going back and watching in like the highest picture quality possible. Like I went back and watched this scene in the renegade cut just because it's, it's, it's just shot so well, it looks great. Yeah. Yeah. And this is one of the examples of how in the renegade cut, a lot of scenes that you do get a glimpse of in the theatrical release do look better in, in that version.

But also the content of what's happening in the scene is like General Katana is giving a speech to an eel. He grabs an eel out of the tank and he starts giving it a, you know, a good old like, we're not so different, you and I. And then he says, so deadly in their own environment. So tame and servile in mine. I think he means out of the water.

And then Connor says, maybe they're just waiting. And then Katana says, waiting for what? And then Connor says, for you to get careless. I get what he's saying, but how would that apply to an eel? Yeah, I don't know. It looks good. It looks good. Okay. Wait for you to fall asleep in the tank where they can get you.

Anyway, so General Katana demonstrates his power by like squeezing the eel in his fist until it basically he like cuts it in half and it splats on the floor.

And then it just seems that General Katana is going to execute Connor McCloud, resident of Planet Zeist, for his crimes against the Planet Zeist. But instead, we cut straight from this to Connor and Ramirez standing in a dark hall with some kind of priest of Zeist reading out their sentencing.

So this priest, there's like several bald priests in robes standing up on these huge pedestals like way above them. And the priest says,

You can only die when your head is cut from your body. When one of you becomes the last of us on Earth, he will claim the prize. He can return to Zeist or choose to grow old and die on Earth.

Okay. So yeah, certainly a liberal and overly complex exile process that also kind of functions like a loser's bracket, right? In a tournament. So it's like all the people that were enemies of our planet, they're sent away, but then you compete against each other. And then like the most powerful of you can then come back and I don't know, have another go at ruining the planet or whatever. Yeah, exactly. I don't quite get it. But,

But I don't know. Maybe it's just codified in their religious thinking and their traditions. I don't know. Fine enough. They've explained what's going on in the first Highlander film. They've retconned it. Yeah, we'll make do with it here.

But I love how also they're literally they're getting their, you know, life in exile sentence read out and they just start talking to Connor and Ramirez start like talking in class. Connor's like, will we be together on Earth? And Ramirez says, not at first, but we're joined in a way that can never be broken, not even by death. And then he says, when you need me, you'll only have to call my name. Oh, it's like.

It's like the friends in Labyrinth, you know, at the end where Sarah can just call on them and they come.

But why did we know this in the first movie? No. When Ramirez is dead in the first movie, he's dead for centuries. And there's no indication that he could ever call out to his old friend, though he clearly missed him. That's the thing. Like, if he could have done this, there would have been opportunities to do it. But oh, well. Oh, and also Connor gives a solemn vow. He promises that if he wins the prize, he'll be back back to the planet Zeist. So remember that that's a vow. That's a promise. OK.

Oh, also, another thing to remember, Sean Connery just kind of leans over at the end and he says, just remember the quickening. Okay.

Oh, God, no, wait. It's not even over yet. Because Connor then says, it sounds like magic. And then Ramirez says, well, it is. A kind of. Here's our first of many, many references to the Queen song, A Kind of Magic or Some Kind of Magic, which is a... It's a kind of magic, yeah. It's a kind of magic. How many times do they bring this up in the movie? Oh, way too many. I mean, it's a great song. We all love it.

But they go to the well a little too often on this. I think they wanted to put a bunch of references in there in case you didn't get some of them. You could still get the others. They should have referenced the other songs, though. I don't think they directly reference Princes of the Universe at all. He could have said that. He could have said, just remember, Highlander, we're princes of the universe. Here we are, born to be kings. Exactly. Tie your mother down, Highlander. We will not let you go.

I want to break free. So the priests say, prepare yourself. There can only be one.

And then the priests like lower swords like they're knighting them sort of, but they're standing way above them. And then Connor and Ramirez get zapped by a big machine that's like an ex-zeisterator. And General Katana looks on angrily. I guess he did not get his way at the sentencing here. Yeah, he's not down with his culture's very forgiving system of exile.

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So next, Connor wakes up in 2024 on Earth in the opera house. I guess all that was a dream, a memory, you know, of his of his past. The show is over and an usher is asking him to leave the theater. And he's so old and weak and feeble, he can barely croak out a friendly response to the usher.

In Michael Weldon's little review for this in the Psychotronic Film Guides, he points out that it's a review where he says there's definitely some awesome stuff in this film.

But he's like, oh, it's been way too much time with Lambert convincingly playing an old Connor McCloud. Yes. And, you know, quibbles about the makeup aside, like he does really sell this idea of here's your hero from the first film, old and feeble. But there's going to be payoff for that. There's going to be payoff. It takes a third of the movie for him to get hot again. Yeah.

Oh, also, there's a scene here where we see like, meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Shield Corporation. I remember this is a giant concrete pyramid surrounded by like rushing canals of water and armed guards. I think this is another thing that gets mixed up between the different cuts of the film, because I believe originally more of the like different Shield Corporation locations were

separate discrete locations with different kinds of buildings but this cut just makes it look like everything shield related is taking place in the pyramid so at this pyramid we see a group of operatives sneaking past security guards with grappling hooks and zip lines what is their purpose and

Well, inside the facility, the infiltrators remove their helmets and it's revealed that their leader is Virginia Madsen. Hey, there she is. So what are they here for? It is to hack the shield specifically to get into the computer and find out what the readings above the shield are. And it turns out they are normal, which is a funny reveal. It's like a gasp moment, but just because it says normal. Yeah.

So Virginia Madsen says impossible radiation levels can't be normal. Uh, then the infiltrators trigger the alarm and security comes running. So Virginia Madsen's crew has to, they flee. Uh, and we see some very, again, some very nice sets and Matt paintings as they run away. There's like one shot that you only see for a second, but it's like a walkway running over this deep, you know, uh, column shaped, uh,

with like beams running up and down the sides. And, uh, you know, the actors are running across this walkway, uh, way up above the pit in the foreground and it looks great, but it's just like a moment and then it's gone. And then you see some other stuff that looks not so good. Yeah. I mean, this makes it look like they're on the, an industrial, um, death star sort of a set. Uh, it looks good, but yeah. Uh, then we're through with it. So they split up as they're running away. They're being pursued by shield, uh, corporation mercenaries, uh,

Meanwhile, back in the city, we follow Connor as he goes out to a bar after the opera. And the city set here is so gross. They did a great job of making this look like just a disgusting place to live here under the shield. Like the streets look like they're made out of wet newspaper. And there are like no colors apart from the neon signs over businesses, which I think is also a nice touch. It almost feels like kind of thematically unkind.

uh meaningful that like all of the buildings and the streets and the sky and everything is like the same kind of gray brown mud kind of color and then the the only other colors are just like lights and say like a bar or opera or you know or show like advertisements yeah i i keep expecting duran duran simon laban to to walk into frame here and start belting out some lyrics or you know to rotate into frame strapped to a windmill or something wild boys indeed yeah yeah

But we are about to get some music, though. That's right. So in a restaurant, Connor puts a quarter in a jukebox and he cues up a kind of magic or it's a kind of magic by Queen. So like we get a needle drop in the movie here. The song about Highlander 2, I guess. Is it about Highlander or Highlander 2? Oh, it's from Highlander 1. Yeah. Oh, that's right. OK, so it's a callback. Yeah, it's a callback. It's a great track. It's great to hear it again and does kind of like remind us like, yeah, this is a Highlander movie. Gosh, darn it.

But it's nice to know that within the story of the movie, like it is diegetically the case that Queen exists and Connor is a fan of It's a Kind of Magic. Yes.

That's his like, don't stop believing it's his jukebox tune. So this is a bar where Connor is a regular. He sits down for a drink. He knows the bartender. He watches the news on TV. And it's a report that there has been a terrorist attack on shield headquarters by an eco terrorist group called Cobalt led by a woman named Louise Marcus. That's Virginia Madsen. Yeah. We see Cobalt's call sign is essentially the Zodiac killer symbol for some reason. Yeah. Nice selection there.

And then the news interviews John C. McGinley, who is playing. They said earlier that Alan Naiman was the president of the Shield Corporation. But here they say John C. McGinley is the president of the Shield Corporation. So I don't know what the deal is.

He says that any attempt to undermine the shield is insane. Without it, every single human being on the planet would instantly die. Connor's main reaction to the news is to comment that the terrorist lady is pretty. That's Virginia Madsen. And also, I think we learned either here or maybe later that she used to work for the Shield Corporation before she became the eco-terrorist.

I'm increasingly struck by the fact that her character is essentially Gracie Law, the Kim Cattrall character from Big Trouble in Little China. You know, she's there. She's she's a spunky go getter, you know, a little bit of a Hoxian female, you know, trope character, but also is just ultimately there to be the love interest in the long run.

Gracie Law, to be clear, is a much better defined character. Gracie Law is a lot funnier. Yeah. Virginia Madsen has some moments in this, but they're mostly like, as we said in the last episode, she is sort of the human character who's here to process the mythology. So we see her like working through things.

And like she's getting all the Zeist stuff explained to her and she's like, am I understanding this right? Yeah. Yeah. She's basically also there to be like, like, wake up and get get excited about the B plot. And he's like, well, let me tell you about the A plot. And then we have conversations about that.

There you go. That's exactly right. Also, meanwhile, well, like Connor's inside looking at her on TV. She happens to be changing out of her terrorist clothes into street wear in an alley outside the bar. And then she like unfolds a piece of paper and the paper just says McLeod 23rd Street Bar. How does she have that information? Informants, I guess.

And then a drunk lady tries to pick a fight with Connor. She recognizes him by sight and tells him that her life is bad and it's his fault. She says, you covered the sky with that puke. And then she bashes him with a glass bottle.

And so in, in the world of this movie, like Connor is recognizable by sight to just random members of the public and they all hate him. So as Connor is leaving the barge, having just been bashed with a bottle, he's clutching his wounded arm. Virginia Madsen just walks up to him in the street and she says, Connor McCloud, I am the terrorist woman you just saw on TV, except I'm not a terrorist. Uh,

Uh, I've got business with you. And he tries to brush her off and get in his car. He seems to, he has lost his passion for peace and harmony and doing good in the world. He just, he seems to just want to, you know, mind his own business and be old and lonely. Uh, but she says, you know, I used to read about you. You had such great passion for the world. I admired you. I can see that's all gone now. You're nothing but a tired old man. Uh,

and he tries to get in his car and drive away, but she just jumps in the car with him, and then he drives away anyway. Like, why is she hounding him? I don't know, but they drive off, and she says, the world is dying, McCloud. I need your help. Then suddenly a highly WTF cut, so we go straight from that conversation in the car to...

crazy rock formations in the desert and a title that says the planet Zeist. And then we see Michael Ironside and he's just like henchmen. And a couple of guys walk up and these are a pair of pale bird-like men wearing welding goggles with porcupine quills for hair. Yes. Major wild boy energy to these two. I mean, these two really could have just walked right out of the wild boys music video.

General Katana says to them, you leave for the planet Earth immediately. Find McCloud and kill him. The henchman says, but I thought you said McCloud was mortal and could never return. And this is actually an excellent and unaddressed point. So on planet Zeist, everyone here seems to be immortal as well because Katana has not seemingly aged at all. These guys presumably are part of the Zeistian order from centuries prior as well. And

Yeah, it's like for some reason Katana's saying, okay, go find the guy that won the prize and is doing all this stuff and hasn't come back to Zeist. Right. Is not in any way seemingly planning to or working on interfering with our stuff here. Go back and kill him. And...

And they're like, but why? Why now? Why are we doing this? And he just like slaps him around a little and like, go do it, you dummies. But why? There's no reason for this to happen. There's never a reason for this to happen in the movie. That's exactly right. Like, why now? Why? Yeah. Like, I was thinking about this. Okay.

Assuming Katana wanted to interfere with the exile system and the game towards the prize, right?

He would have done it ages ago. And maybe the idea here is like, I know they wanted to get Clancy Clancy Brown in here to reprise the role of the Kurgan to some degree. So maybe the idea is like at some level, the Kurgan was like their dude that they sent back. It's like, OK, go win this prize thing so we don't have to worry about Connor. And and he fails. But even then, it's like that was the time to interfere. At this point, Connor won the prize and ended up not doing the thing you were afraid he was going to do. No reason to go back and kill him.

Yes, that is what I've read that they wanted Clancy Brown to come back and play the Kurgan again to establish that the Kurgan, the villain of the first movie was another henchman of General Katana's who had been sent there to kill Connor. But he was defeated. And but but still, I wonder, like, why is it now in like twenty twenty four on Earth that.

where he's like, okay, I'm ready to send two more guys. Yeah, you've about outlived Connor McCloud. He is mortal. He's going to die a mortal death.

What does it matter to Zeist? But Katana, like you said, he just kind of like slaps these guys around and says, find him, kill him. And they nod. And then one of them cackles like one of those motion sensing Halloween decorations. You know, the witch that cackles when you walk by. It sounds exactly like that. Then they beam themselves to Earth, which is apparently instantaneous. So back on Earth, McCloud and Virginia Madsen, they're still driving around. And suddenly McCloud gasps for breath and

Then again, it's as if he can sense in his guts whenever someone arrives from Zeist and Connor pulls over, gets out of the car. And then the two porcupine bird henchmen are here and they've got rocket boots or like a floating rocket skateboard that allows them to fly. And one of them has wings on his back.

And they sort of like, at the beginning, they like loaf around in an alleyway arguing over who gets to cut off McCloud's head. Again, Connor McCloud is his ZEIST name. That's the name they know him from there. And then this fight kicks off. And man, I have, so like, I think that the edit that is available does not give the best sense

does not show the best sides of this fight very well. But actually, if you look at the individual shots, this is a pretty great looking fight scene. And a lot of the stunts and effects are quite impressive and do look good. Yeah, it's very ambitious. In my opinion, this is the best part of the film, a truly awesome sci-fi action set piece and sequence that really gives you everything you want.

Like this is the part of the film where you really feel like everyone's heart was in it. The vision was on point. The execution is mostly pitch perfect. Uh, and I can quibble about one or two of the effects towards the end. I'll come back to that, but otherwise this is Highlander two at its best. Uh, this is the thing in the trailers that, that pulled me in to Highlander films in general. Yeah. They actually talk about this in the documentary where they show how they achieved, uh,

specifically the effect of Connor McCloud riding the sort of, I don't know, rocket skateboard or whatever, the hoverboard. And it's a really cool effect because it really does look like he's floating in the air and kind of riding it like it's bouncing up and down. And the way they achieved that was, you know, they had him on a wire system, of course, but they,

But the board was strapped to his feet and they had it suspended from an elastic system. So the board would actually sort of bounce up and down with the weight of his body as it was adjusting and moving through the air. And it creates a really cool looking effect. It's great. Yeah, yeah. If anyone listening is not familiar with it, essentially this is like the little hoverboard that the Green Goblin uses in Spider-Man and in the Spider-Man movies.

And it's almost entirely like in-camera effects. It's not post-production stuff. It looks great because what they were able to achieve on set looked great. But anyway, so during this fight, the two aliens from Zeist attack him. Connor seems to defend himself pretty well for a guy who just seemed almost too weak to talk earlier this evening. But I don't know, maybe the arrival of the guys from Zeist has sort of partially reinvigorated him, given him back some of that immortal strength.

Um, and they like fight, they go up a fire escape and, they start fighting on these catwalks that go over the city streets. Uh, the, the guy from Zeist has a sword and at first Connor is defending himself with just like a steel rod, like a metal bar. Uh,

And I love the like these henchmen are super weird, but they're very expressive. They keep doing the witch cackling thing. They stick their tongues out grotesquely and they try to mock McCloud and these weird high pitched voices. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're they're they're a lot of fun. I mean, they're just completely over the top.

And again, I love the action in these sequences with old man Connor mustering up just enough energy to fight them off using a pipe against swords. Now, what comes next, I think, is also a quite inspired action staging choice. You know, action choreography here is smart. They fall from the catwalk onto a passing train and.

And Connor, the fight on the train, then Connor manages to knock one of the bird warriors off the train and his body falls in just the right way so that the wheels of the train remove his head. Yeah. Yeah. He really lucked out on that one, but it's a cool, cool moment. And then the quickening, there's like the snakes of lightning jumping out of the, the severed Zystean head and,

And then they wrap around Connor and he screams and everything starts exploding. Nearby storefronts explode, paint cans, another garbage in the street. It all explodes. A passing gasoline truck, uh, like a, you know, this gas transport tankers, it explodes, uh,

And then the fireball envelops Connor. And you're like, oh, no. Oh, no. Connor must have been destroyed by this explosion. And the remaining Zeist henchman clearly thinks that because he sees it happen and he giggles triumphantly. But, uh-oh.

Connor McCloud walks out of the fireball from the gas truck and we're back, friends. I think we are back in business. Christophe Lambert is hot again. He looks like he's young again and he is ready to fight. This is the exact moment in the film at which Princes of the Universe should have played. My number one criticism of the film is that the

is that Princes of the Universe does not play at this moment. I would also settle for some off-album choices they could have gone with Keep Yourself Alive or if they wanted to be a little cheeky, Don't Stop Me Now. But it needed that. It needed that oomph.

And it's still a very dramatic and nice moment because, yeah, he's back. He's young again. He's hot again. He's powerful enough to take on this other assassin, this remaining assassin from the planet Zeist. Oh, and I want to add the whole destructive quickening thing. I kind of forgot that they also call that the quickening. The quickening is, to my understanding, simultaneously both the transfer of energy between a slain immortal and the immortal slayer and also running on the beach with your best friend.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I can't correct you. Oh, yeah. But fans, maybe. OK, I trust you, Rob. I think you're right about that. But can I go with another maybe maybe more oblique kind of Queen song choice? I think they could have done. I'm in love with my car. You know, it's the right feeling. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the feeling is key. I think you'd want to go with like a nice building heavier track. Another One Bites the Dust, I think could also work. Yeah. I mean, there are a number of great Queen songs. Oh, also, Virginia Madsen is peeking out of a dumpster that I guess she hid in. I don't think we see how she gets in the dumpster, but she like looks out at Connor McLeod and she's obviously like, oh, he looks good now. Yeah.

And the second Zeist henchman starts flying around on his wings, like swooping at Connor and shooting at him with a blaster from Star Wars. But wait, shouldn't the Zeist henchman know that the blaster won't do anything because Connor is once again immortal? Well, he can't kill him with the blaster, probably, but he could wound him enough to have a better chance of cutting his head off, I guess. OK, actually, that does make sense. I withdraw my criticism there. You're right.

But Connor gets into the fight by putting on the other Birdman's rocket boots. So he's zooming around on the rocket boots. The other guy's got the wings and it becomes an air joust and it's great. Yeah, I legitimately love this whole sequence here. It's good.

But there are also like just some weird in this scene. There are these weird little dialogue moments that I don't know if they're quite firing on all cylinders. Like the henchman yells, say goodbye, Highlander. But why does he call him a Highlander? That's just like random earth topography. I mean, his name's McCloud, too. But yeah, it makes no sense.

He says, say goodbye, Highlander. And then Connor replies, why are you going somewhere? Yeah, I think I think they could workshop that a little. OK. And then also the bird henchman randomly incinerates. Just there's a guy on the sidewalk who asks this alien if he has a light and then he just blows him up. OK, this is this is a great moment. This is perfect. No notes on that.

But anyway, Connor manages to decapitate the second Zeist fighter here with a clothesline trap made out of electrical wire. Yeah, this moment is still awesome. But this is the moment where I feel like the effects could have been a little bit tighter. It could have moved a little faster. Still great. But I see where like maybe they didn't hit exactly where they envisioned. I agree. But OK, so Connor, he's he's.

the two aliens from Zeiss. Now he gets quickening once again. He gets all the lightning coming up on him and things blowing up and he's just like flowing with that immortal energy. And when he does, he drops to his knees in the middle of the street and screams into the sky, Ramirez! Ramirez!

Next thing we are on stage at a play in a theater in Scotland. It's a performance of Hamlet and Sean Connery zaps into existence in the middle of the actors.

This descends into what I think is a fairly cringy comedy scene where Sean Connery starts talking to the actors mischievously while they're trying to perform. And they're like running around the stage trying to escape him while reciting their lines. And I think the joke is like, oh, Ramirez has no idea what's going on. He doesn't know what a play is.

But like hundreds of years ago, when Ramirez was alive, there were plays. Plays existed then. Yeah. Ramirez, who we know traversed multiple cultures, absorbing their cultures and sometimes their accents at every turn. Yeah.

Yeah, he knows what a play is. This is just this is just beyond ridiculous. Also, the audience loves Ramirez. He's here disrupting this play and like like making fun of the actors and the audience is eating him up. They're like, get off of here, Hamlet. I want more Ramirez. Ridiculous. There are places on Earth where science and mystery collide. And Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most fascinating examples.

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So we will continue to get to some more, frankly, pretty cringy fish out of time gags with Sean Connery. Like he walks into the street somewhere in Scotland and he almost gets hit by a truck and then mutters to himself so much for the horse and cart. What? OK.

Uh, and then back in wherever Connor is, did they say where Connor is in this, in the future? I don't know. I don't know. Shield city. I'm not sure. Yeah. Shield city. Uh, Connor is explaining to Virginia Madsen that the whole thing, you know, I was banished from the planet Zeist 500 years ago. I cannot die, et cetera. Uh, and then they just kiss passionately.

That's what we said this in the last episode, but this has got to be one of the most unearned romances in movie history. They just met moments ago and their meeting was entirely business. There was had nothing like no initial connection whatsoever, but he just got quickeninged.

And now he's young and good looking. And now they're just smooching. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I referenced Gracie Law, Kim Cattrall's character from Big Trouble in Little China earlier, but at least in Big Trouble in Little China, which I still hold up as being pretty great. You do get development of the relationship, the romantic tension between Jack Burton and Gracie Law. It is ultimately earned that they fall in love with each other, at least for a little bit or something like love, you know.

But yeah, it's totally unearned here. But this is not the kind of movie where you necessarily expect it, I guess. Yeah, there's not a moment of romantic tension at all between them until like the kissing starts, basically. Anyway, then they're back at Connor's pad. And by the way, look at look at that. I've got a screenshot of his apartment. It's full of like these giant marble statues inside the apartment. It looks like a train station. Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of like, you know, call back to the first film in which his home is kind of like a museum because his life is like this museum and all these memories and so forth. So she's this is the scene where where Louise is like, OK, let me just see if I can get this straight. You come from another planet. You're mortal there.

but you're immortal here until you kill all the guys from there who have come here. And then you're mortal here, unless you go back there or some more guys from there came here, in which case you become immortal here again. And then Connor says in his, with his wonderful little voice and chuckle, something like that.

And, uh, she expresses disbelief and then Connor, uh, get love these adding up here. He says, let's just say it's a kind of magic. Just repeat to yourself. It's just a show. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um,

But anyway, so Louise tells Connor that, oh, back to business. We got to remember the whole reason we met is she's like, I need your help with the shield. We got to save the earth. She's like, something's wrong with the shield. The B plot is something's going wrong. They're hiding something and you've got to help me expose it. And again, I want to point out that

Katana has zero stake in all of this. Ultimately, everything would make more sense if there was any connection between A plot and B plot here. If Katana, for some reason, didn't want the shield to come down. But there's nothing on that. We would have to sit here and speculate all day to figure out how to connect these two plots. And again, make it at all sensible for Katana to send goons to Earth to take out Connor now. What if...

for all I know, this could have been in the script at some point. But what if, for example, the shield being in place prevented Zeistians on Earth from leaving and returning to Zeist? They're all dead, though. There's... Well, yeah, but if you wanted Connor to not come back, he would want the shield to stay in place. Mm.

OK, yeah, I guess that could have worked had they established it. I'm just saying like, yeah, there are ways. Yes. Throwing ideas out there. There are ways they could and maybe in some version of the script they did address this, but we don't get it here.

Okay, so here Connor goes to visit his old friend and partner, Alan Naiman. They created the shield together, and Alan is shocked at how good Connor looks. He's like, did you get a facelift? Also, Alan's office here, I'm a pretty big fan of it. This is one of the offices where the only light source is moonlight shining in through a window where there is like a 30-foot fence.

fan spinning constantly outside right outside the window and the silhouettes of the blades are just going round and round so the light in the room is crazy yeah again this is like total russell mckay music video style you expect to like pan over and there's simon lebon in the chair wearing a fedora and he's going to start belting out some duran duran tunes looks great also at this meeting alan shares with uh connor that the radiation levels above the shield are normal

But John C. McGinley, the bad shield executive, is spying on them from the next room. So this seems to be a corporation where the CEO stays late to personally spy on employees rather than having like software subordinates do it for him. McGinley then comes into the room and Connor starts like needling him about how what if one day the shield isn't needed anymore? Your profits would dry up.

So it's like he's just Connor seems to be like ratting out his friend who just told him about this in confidence. Yeah.

Next, we cut to the planet Zeist. And then we see Michael Ironside just standing in a cave by himself. And he says, I guess if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. So then he goes to Earth. Yeah. He also, we get the, like, his sci-fi technosaur goes fishing to sell this. Yeah.

Which, I have to admit, looks pretty cool. And I also have to point out, this is also pretty much the exact post-credit Thanos sequence from the Age of Ultron movie that would come decades later, except with

With Thanos grabbing an Infinity Gauntlet instead of making his sword go shushing. Oh, that's funny. I wonder if they got it from this. Maybe so, yeah. Because it's like, I had to go back and look at it. It's pretty much the exact same thing. Like, Thanos is like, you want something done, you got to do it yourself. And then that sets up him doing it himself. But speaking of... So you brought up a way in which...

General Katana's motivations don't make a lot of sense when he gets like all wrapped up in the shield corporation drama, which matters to him in no way whatsoever. But he gets tied up in that he, he is just off task in lots of ways because the first thing general Katana does when he arrives on earth is hijack a subway car to no end whatsoever. It's just like, cause he wants to. Yeah. This guy's not supposed to be like just the reckless enforcer that the loose cannon is

He's supposed to be the mastermind. Like, this is the big bad. Like, Thanos doesn't come to Earth in the Marvel movies and just like, I love wrecking casinos. No, he's got an agenda. He's got things he definitely wants to do. And he's going to mess with you if you get in the way of those goals. Katana doesn't operate like that. Right. So he like beams down into a subway car. He says, this doesn't look like Kansas. Right.

Great, great reference for Zeist culture. They love Wizard of Oz. Yeah. And then he, uh, then he kills a random passenger on the train. Then he goes up to a kid and he says, bet you've always wanted to drive one of these, haven't you? And the kid's like, yeah. And then he goes, me too.

Then he goes up to the front of the subway car, conks out the driver, hijacks the train, and then like he makes the apex twin face as he pushes the speed up to hundreds of miles per hour and then crashes through the side of a building.

More train wrecks than our train wreck of the movie. Right. And then we get these weird General Katana-Connor interactions. We see Connor going to visit the grave of his Earth wife, which is in some kind of urban cathedral. And then General Katana is just there to sarcastically slow clap after Connor finishes saying a few words. Mm-hmm.

And another interesting choice, Ironside is just in full clown mode here. He's like kissing on a statue of an angel and he's making these quips. He says to Connor after, you know, Connor's talking to his wife's grave and Katana says, I always did admire a man who can talk to the dead.

Um, and then he says the remains of your mortal wife. So frail, so earthly, so very dead. And Connor says, at least she's at peace. Katana says, peace is highly overrated. And then Connor says, things don't change Katana. I like that. After all these years, you're still a jerk, a jerk.

But then they also say they know they're going to have to fight, but they say they can't fight here because of, quote, the golden rule, which is that we must never fight on holy ground. Yeah, this is something, of course, established in the first Highlander movie. And they do kind of try to address one problem that emerges concerning all this in Highlander 3. And that is, OK, it's one thing for Connor and other like, you know.

to some degree like chaotic good or neutral good, uh, immortals to honor this rule, I guess. But why do all these like clearly chaotic evil immortals care about the golden rule concerning holy spaces? Uh, so credit to Highlander three, uh, I won't spoil anything, but they do at least address that a little bit in that picture. Oh, okay.

You know, I'll have to watch Highlander 3 someday. I never made it that far. I mean, it's it's I remember it as being fun. It's it's fun. It's got Mario Van Peebles plays the the new villainous immortal, which I believe the whole idea is, oh, Connor, you didn't win the prize after all, because there were three immortals that were trapped in a cave in somewhere. And oh, they just dug them out.

Perfect. Completely ignores Highlander 2, right? Right. I guess technically occurs before Highlander 2, but also ignores it. And then meanwhile, back in Scotland with Ramirez, who has been reincarnated, we get a comedy makeover scene. I love that they included this in the movie. So Sean Connery goes into a men's tailor shop and he gets fancy modern clothes and they're like custom made. He pays for them with a pearl earring. Yeah.

I guess this is just more use of Ramirez for comic relief, more fish out of time stuff. Like before he goes in, he looks at TVs in the shop window and he is amazed about the concept of airplanes. Yeah, I seem to recall reading that a lot of this Scotland stuff was Connery's doing. Like, I'll do it, but there need to be some scenes that are shot in Scotland. And I don't know if he had any influence over the flavor of these sequences.

But you can imagine that it's like, all right, if we're going to we're going to shoot these extra days, I want one day where I'm just getting fitted for a suit while I drink scotch. That's the whole scene. I got he does look sharp. He looks great in the suit they give him. Oh, yeah, he does. Yeah. I'd say in general, though, Ramirez lacks the authentic charisma that he had in the first film, though, you know, he's more of a comic relief character here, except for some key dramatic moments.

Yeah. So he then he gets on an airplane to go, I guess, to America to find Connor and he flirts with the woman in the seat next to him. There are some jokes about airplane food that somehow morph into sex jokes. That's all yuck, yuck.

But also in this part, there is a part that's supposed to be funny and does genuinely work. It's quite hilarious when Ramirez watches an aviation safety film on the video screen in front of him that is quite funny.

I didn't care for it, but, uh, but, uh, but it is kind of like, it's very much of the sort of Robocop vibe of, uh, parody, which I, I do admire. Isn't there another sequence, uh, like this that maybe Katana views? Maybe it's a different cut of the film where it's like, uh, a chef, uh,

Like Psychic Chef or something? What was the... Oh, I think that's in another cut of the film. I think that's not in the American version. But yeah, there are like these weird media segments that are kind of Robocopy. Yeah. Which I admire. And I would say that one's worth checking out. I just can't remember what it was. It's something like Psychic Chef or... It's dumb, but amusing. Yeah, Psychic Chef.

The joke is that the aviation safety movie that's like, you know, where the emergency exits are and stuff on the plane is like actually incredibly violent and terrifying. Yeah. At any rate, the successfully flies all the way to wherever Shield City is so that and we don't see the rest of it. We don't see him going through customs. We don't see arranging a travel.

of figuring out exactly where Connor is. I mean, he's got the quickening, so I guess he can zone in on him. Yeah, I would. Oh, I'd love to see him going through customs. But oh, speaking of things to declare, there is a scene where Virginia Madsen's like wandering around Connor's apartment and goes through all his old stuff. And it's showing, oh, he's lived for centuries. He played football. He sailed on the high seas. Here's his 1901 football team picture.

Uh, and there's a suit of armor in there and like old bottles of wine and all that.

Also in this room, is that a Confederate flag in there, Connor? Well, I bet he took that off of Confederate troops. I don't remember where all this lands, but I know there were some deleted scenes for the first Highlander in which he fights the Nazis. So I'm guessing he fought for the Union during the Civil War. There's also a scene in here where General Katana rides in a cab, right?

He's like, well, so the cab driver loves General Katana. When he gets in, he's like, whoa, you're like a heavy metal dude. Whoa, you're so you're out of control. Yeah, you're in the music business, aren't you? Yeah. Katana's like, it's quite comfortable back here. Like a coffin.

What does Katana even like? What is this guy about? It's just bad. That's all he is. Yeah. So he's like, oh, yeah. And then when they arrive at his destination, he just starts destroying the cab. Like he stabs his sword through the window and he gets out and he kicks out the headlights and stabs the tires. And the whole time the taxi driver is going like, awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

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But anyway, where was the cab taking him? Why it's shield corporation headquarters. Uh, so Michael Ironside walks into a board meeting with John C. McGinley and he starts just choking people. And he says, I'd like to join your human corporation. Where do I sign up? And, uh, they try to have like a guy in a suit, shoot him, but man, he's immortal. Whoops. Uh,

Also, there are more jokes and references that don't make any sense. Like General Katana gets up after being shot and he says, yes, you know, guys, this is no way to treat your number one draft choice. Is that a football metaphor? I guess they have football on Zeist. So I think based on this scene, General Katana is now CEO of the Shield Corporation. You know, I bet what happened is they had football on Zeist. And who invented football on Earth?

But in Mortals, probably Connor did it. That makes so much sense. Yes. But somehow, like General Katana getting tangled up with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Corporation and seemingly becoming John C. McGinley's partner, like accelerates them in just doing general badness. So John C. McGinley is...

goes into Alan Naiman's office, remember Naiman is Connor's old friend, and he's like, okay, I know you're telling people that the radiation levels are normal, I'm going to throw you in S.H.I.E.L.D. jail, which exists.

Then we get some brief character moments where like Virginia Madsen is asking Connor about his previous wives and Connor is talking about them. But then they get interrupted when Connor senses a presence nearby and a shadowy figure emerges and Connor and this figure duel with swords. But then it's revealed that it is Sean Connery. And he says, Greetings, Highlander. You called?

Uh, so again, Connor always had the power to resurrect Ramirez from the dead by yelling his name. And they have known this since they came from Zeist 500 years ago, but he, he just now did it. So they have, you know, playful dueling and banter. I think they're, they're trying to get the old magic back from Highlander one. They're trying to get that, that,

feeling that relationship reestablished I think it's not quite clicking but they try to do it with like them making fun of each other like Ramirez makes fun of Connor for having ridiculous art in his apartment Connor makes fun of Ramirez for being old and for having been dead yeah it's almost like what they should have and maybe even you know wanted to do you should have had a flashback here to

to show like their relationship in a maybe an outdoor setting because here we do have this wonderful but very grimy grungy dark set and I don't know it's not a very lively place to establish a lively relationship yeah though they do try to spice it up they pour drinks and they have a toast and the toast this is a direct quote Connor says to magic and Ramirez says to Zeist oh

Also, Ramirez meets meets Virginia Madsen, meets Louise Marcus. And he says, you know, he's like, wow, you know, I like this eco terrorist.

And they immediately start scheming. Ramirez says, hey, Connor, the shield is ugly and it sucks. And Connor says, yeah, well, it was necessary at the time. And then Ramirez says, so was Noah's flood. But they they establish that Connor's old friend, Alan, is being held in the secret high security shield prison and they have to go rescue him. Also, they establish that General Katana is here and they have to go face him.

So first of all, they go to the shield corpse slammer. Uh, so they go to the security gate and it's like Connor is driving a car and Ramirez is in the passenger seat and they just drive through the barricade into the shield headquarters and they get blasted by guards with machine guns. Fortunately, they are immortal. Uh, so that when they get inside, they just sort of like pop up in the shield prison morgue. Also Louise is in there. Um,

She's like talking to the doctor in the morgue and then he sees them, you know, Connor and Ramirez pop up and he just faints. Funny mortal hijinks. Yes. Then they decide to split up, of course, and start running around in tunnels looking for Alan and.

Uh, I was like, is this a prison? It looks more like a sewer full of people living in rags and eating rats. It's like what the human hideout in Terminator is like. They go and find Alan, but he does one of those movie instant deaths where he's just like, Oh, Connor, you know, we tell me we did the right thing by making the shield. And then he's like, Oh, you were my best friend. Oh, and just falls over, dies.

Meanwhile, John C. McGinley and General Katana are like watching all this on closed circuit cameras. And General Katana says, well, well, well, like a high school reunion down there. And so instantly, once more, he's got the drop on Connor and Ramirez. Yeah. And so here's what they're going to do. Okay. They...

run them into a trap room so our three heroes are they go into a cylindrical room all at the same time the doors slam and lock behind them and then this is one of the greatest moments of the movie a whirling fan starts lowering from the ceiling toward the floor so like oh no the fan is descending on them it's like the pit in the pendulum except it's a fan and

And I guess the implication is that the fan will lower until it hits the floor and just squashes them. Or I suppose the threat to the immortals is that the fan blades will chop off their heads. Um,

Um, but then I was thinking like, is that really physically what would happen? Wouldn't they just kind of get more like, like, you know, like they're in a blender? I don't know, but I also like how this whole set, uh, kind of resembles the fizzy lifting drink scene from Willy Wonka. Uh, so the blades didn't lower in that or, or, or heroes floated up towards it, but I still can't help but connect the two.

So how are our heroes going to get out of this jam? You tell me. I've seen it multiple times and I still don't know what happens. Here's what happens. So Ramirez says, you stay back. Connor says, I can help. Ramirez says, no, you can't. Not this time. And then Ramirez gives a speech. He's like standing in the middle of the room under the under the fan. He lifts his hands up and he says, most people have a full measure of life.

and most people just watch it slowly drip away. But if you can summon it all up at one time, in one place, you can accomplish something great.

glorious and then bagpipes start playing amazing grace and ramirez like light comes out of his hand and the fan i guess starts lifting back up from where it was and he turns to connor and louise and he says my time here is over it'll take the power of both of you to destroy general katana and the shield

And Connor says, will I ever see you again? And Ramirez says, who knows Highlander? Who knows? So Connor and Louise escape. For some reason, the door pops open and Ramirez turns into light and explodes. Yeah, I have no idea what this is supposed to be. Like self-quickeningly destroys the fan. It just feels like it feels like they had to wrap this thing up. Just a kind of magic. Can't question it.

There's another quick scene where General Katana and John C. McGinley are talking and the latter is upset for some reason. And Katana reacts by grabbing him by the crotch, lifting him in the air and throwing him out a window. So that's the end of that character. Yeah. And this character in this relationship that we just had so little invested in. Yeah. Yeah.

But now we're here for the final showdown. So Connor and Louise fight their way to the top of the shield pyramid with guns, by the way, which feels wrong for Highlander. Yeah, uncivilized weapon. I think he does use a machine gun against the Nazis in a deleted scene from Highlander one. But still, you didn't you don't sign up to see Connor McCloud use machine gun.

Right. So Connor, like he hands a rifle to Louise and he's like, okay, you go fight all the soldiers and destroy the shield. I'll go cross swords with General Katana. I am not worried what will happen to you. And, you know, he kisses her to let her know he means it. The location of the General Katana showdown is it's confusing here. And I think it's because what has happened in this scene in the American cut is.

is that this is actually two completely separate fight scenes that happen at two different parts of the movie and they've been edited together that would make a lot of sense but it's in a dark empty warehouse uh with like that wet industrial feeling you know steam pipes water is dripping chains dangling everywhere metal grates catwalks sparks shooting out of stuff uh it's your basic final showdown sword fight it's not great but i have seen worse

Yeah, yeah. And I can't again, I can't help but wonder to how injuries and clunky swords and so forth factored into this, because I don't think that the sword fights in Highlander one set an incredibly high standard. Like they're not I wouldn't I would never hold them up as being like the best sword fights in cinema, but they're they're really good. And I feel like what we get.

In this picture, you know, aside from flying space assassins, what we get in this picture feels mostly sub Highlander one. Yeah. And there's one part in this fight where McCloud falls down an elevator shaft and breaks all his bones. Oh, that's pretty interesting. I did like that. Yeah. And then he has to manually snap them back into place and then go up and fight again. Mm hmm.

I think that might've been the like break that the actual conclusion of one of the two original fight scenes. I'm not positive. Um,

But anyway, they start sword fighting right next to a giant beam. This is the source of the shield. It's kind of a cool set. Yeah, yeah. It looks really cool. Big sets, you know, beam of light. Very evocative. I love it. Though, again, the actual sword fight, especially right here, feels kind of anticlimactic. Again, like they just didn't have much more gas in the tank. That's exactly right. So Connor wins. He chops off Katana's head. It does feel kind of anticlimactic.

Then he gets some quickening, you know, all the light shoots into him and he gets the electricity snakes and stuff. But like, is he mortal again now? I would guess so. But then he walks into the shield beam. Huh? And Virginia Madsen's there looking at him and she's like, no. And then the shield explodes. The satellite controlling the shield explodes. The sky clears and they can see stars. Wow. The shield is gone. Wow.

And then the voice of Ramirez speaks in their minds and says, remember Highlander, you've both still got your full measure of life. Use it well and your future will be glorious. End credits. Wow. So yeah, I guess he uses the power of this quickening of this energy absorption of a powerful immortal to short circuit all of the shield technology here.

I guess. Yeah. And then at the end is either mortal or is going to get to return to Zeist. Doesn't doesn't make it doesn't say ends incredibly abruptly with the voiceover by Sean Connery, which is.

calls back to one of the funniest moments in the movie when he's pushing the fan in full measure of life. I don't know where any of that comes from. Now tell me about this fairytale ending. What is this return to Zeiss thing that could have happened? So there are a couple of different endings. There is one ending in which

after this, Connor and Louise are like walking outside the shield pyramid and they're like, Oh, we did it. You know, I love you. And then Connor returns to Zeist without her. You know, he's like, I love you, but I must leave you here on earth. I've got to, I made a vow. I would return to Zeist. And he does. They like flies away into space. And then there's another ending, uh,

uh, where they both go to Zeist where he's like, you know, I love you come with me to Zeist. And she's like, but I can't fly through space. And I think he, I think he's essentially like, you know, it's a kind of magic just try. And so she does. And then she flies into space and they both fly into space and go to Zeist together. Okay. I don't know what they're going to get up to there. We don't, we don't really know much about Zeist aside from conflict, uh,

But maybe they're good qualities. They have football, apparently, and maybe high schools. Yeah, we're never shown what's worth fighting for on Zeist. We should see the good life on Zeist. Yeah, or the old Zeist that they're going to restore. I'm not sure.

Again, why do we care about this? Why is it important? Why now? Anyway, that's Highlander 2, The Quickening, a movie that is so interesting to me. I mean, just in terms of a deeply hilarious, flawed movie, it is that. But it's also really interesting because there's a lot about it that is mostly buried in the American cut, but is pretty good overall.

and just isn't allowed to cohere into a full film. But if you can look at those elements, they're really quite admirable in their own. We were talking about some of the sets and some of the staging and the costumes. The actors are great, though I don't think anybody in this movie is on their A-game. And so, I don't know. It's just such an interesting creative product. And whatever you think about it,

I think it's undeniable that it is so funny and so, uh,

perplexing. And it's something that the people who are interested in filmmaking should see, I think, and, and also learn, watch the documentary and, you know, learn, learn about how it was made. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like if you're, if you're into that side, like what went wrong and how was it made and so forth, like Highlander two is a great story. If you just want a bad movie, a movie with flaws that you can, you can riff on Highlander two is a great choice. If, you know, if you like to find the,

the the the diamonds and in in the midst of the rough you want to find the the shiny parts of otherwise flawed films like highlander 2 has riches for you to behold so uh yeah i feel like it's one of those those weird films those flawed films that has a lot to offer to different uh different values different audiences absolutely agree yeah i love highlander 2

All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and close out this, our second episode on Highlander 2. Second and final episode on Highlander 2.

But we'd love to hear from everyone out there. If you have thoughts on any of the various cuts of Highlander to thoughts on the Highlander franchise in general or, you know, other films that you think meet these standards, write in. We would love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A podcast

Listener mail episode on Mondays and a short forum episode on Wednesdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see a list of all the movies we've covered thus far and sometimes a peek ahead at what comes next, go on over to Letterboxd.com. That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D dot com. Our user profile there is Weird House, and you will find the list that I just referenced.

Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

This episode is brought to you by Microsoft. Developers like you are building the future, but you need the right tools to push what's possible. That's where Microsoft comes in, with GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Azure AI Foundry, and more. You have the tools to build your way and bring your ideas to life. You can build confidently, securely, and focus on creating the next big thing. Learn more at developer.microsoft.com slash AI. Microsoft, yours to build.

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