Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Highlander II, Part 2

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
We're airing the second part of our Highlander two episodes.
This episode originally published five three, twenty twenty four. If
you didn't hear the first one, just go back a
few We reran part one on Monday, and today on Friday,

(00:25):
we're rerunning part two to complete our perhaps an overlong
discussion of this super weird movie. I don't think it's
actually over long. 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.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCory. And
we are back today with part two of our discussion
of the nineteen ninety one sci fi fantasy action movie
Highlander two The Quickening, starring christof Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madson,
and Michael Ironside. Highlander two is a movie that is

(01:17):
infamous for its awfulness and positively anathematized by most Highlander fans.
Highlander fans, a lot of them will say, don't watch
this movie at all. If they 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.

(01:38):
But Highlander two 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.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, yeah, they I'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 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?

(02:19):
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 a fan seem to have
a consensus about, Okay, this is the best cut, this

(02:39):
is the best way to watch particular film, certainly, but
a lot of times you just end up with this
kind of ambiguity, like there is no 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 that they feel like that is their cut.

(03:02):
But anyway, I digress.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
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 it, 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

(03:27):
is the one that is most generally hated by Highlander fans.
It's like eighty something minutes long, and it preserves the
big plot innovation from the script, which is that the
immortals from the original Highlander are actually aliens from the
planet Zeist. So it takes something that was originally mysterious
fantasy just kind of magic with an unknown source, and

(03:51):
makes it concrete science fiction. Then there's also the British version,
which 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.

(04:14):
This is even longer, It includes more scenes and some
different takes. I believe also includes some additional footage that
was shot after the production, like I think they actually
got Christoph 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 version, the Renegade version,

(04:39):
has a totally different edit. Most notably, it removes all
references to the immortals being aliens and removes all references
to the planet Zeist, and also in a rather confusing
move removes all references to the Quickening, which is in
the title of the movie Highland or two the Quickening.
But it's large thought that the removal of the immortals

(05:03):
being aliens and the planet Zeist and all that is
due to fan backlash. Fans did not like that, you know,
they were probably getting a lot of angry questions about
it at the conventions. So that that's just gone.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
And I would love to hear from many Highlander fans
out there, of varying degrees, for your take on the
franchise as a whole, because I think by and large,
fans of anything Highlander have at this point been presented
with numerous things to find lackluster, but also, you know,
some things to genuinely enjoy and find awesome. And they're

(05:36):
eventually going to get a reboot, so potentially even more
stuff to be perturbed or excited about. So yeah, right in,
we'd love to have to know your thoughts on it.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Me.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm very much you know H one, H two, and
I enjoyed H three 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.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Well, I'm the kind of person who thinks there's a
lot to love and enjoy in a Highlander two, 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 probably even more stuff that's immensely pleasurable
because of how bad it is. It's just a mix

(06:21):
of the best of both worlds. Oh. But then also,
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. So, as we've said,

(06:44):
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

(07:04):
recently for deservingly massive and to us at least fascinating movies.
First of all, we did it for David Lynch's adaptation
of Done, and now we're doing it again for Highlander
two 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.

(07:28):
They are both troubled, big budget 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

(07:52):
that David Lynch was extremely unhappy with the theatrical release
of the film, which was strongly influenced by the producers
and the moneymen. 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,

(08:14):
last night I learned some interesting resonances between this story
and the story of the making of Highlander two, 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

(08:36):
interviews with the director, Russell mulcahe with the producers, with
Christoph Lambert, and with many of the crew, and it
explores the strange, wonderful and also somewhat cursed process of
making Highlander two. So the film's production was moved to
the country of Argentina for a number of reasons. One

(08:57):
of the major reasons just being financial. It was a
lot deeper to make it there. 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 sort of fell in love with the city
and with the culture, and we're spending a lot of

(09:18):
time like going out to nightclubs and just hanging out
and partying and drinking and doing whatever. And that this
created some kind of problems with like staying on task
with the making of the film, but also the movie
was this was a big production this is a big
budget movie involving major talent in terms of set design,

(09:42):
costume design, visual effects, and so forth. And though there
was a lot of talent working on this film and
they put in a great effort in any ways, and
some of the sets and stuff, you can really see
that this is a lavish production with you know, great
intentions behind it. But a lot of these teams also

(10:02):
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

(10:24):
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 two. He's a major character.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, yeah, I think they might have shot some of
his scenes in Scotland, like the initial Scotland scenes.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
But still, yeah, there's a lot of stuff with him
in the futuristic setting, So that's a lot ultimately to
pack into six days. Especially in a big production like this.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Also 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 you 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

(11:11):
you would and 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.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I've read that. One particular detail of all this
is that both Michael Ironside and Christoph 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 you know,
looking back at like assuming for a minute, I don't

(11:50):
know if this is correct, but assuming that they shot
the final epic sword fight between General Katana and Connor
McLeod in sequence. By the end of it, it looked
really looks like they're not able to do much. And
I've also read that like the general Katana ironically fights
with a broad sword, which was apparently difficult to wield

(12:12):
as well. So like by the end of 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.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah. I don't know what the source of this information
is because I didn't see this mentioned in any of
the interviews that I recall, but I know I've read
that like that. I think it was Christoph Limbert wanted
to work with real swords. He was like, I don't
want this plastic crop, you know, I want to have
like a real sword, And so they were doing that,

(12:45):
but apparently Limber's eyesight is not great and he you know,
couldn't wear glasses for filming the scenes, and so yeah,
they were just Oh and also he did a lot
of his own stunts in the movie, including us the
scenes we'll talk about later with like an elevator, falling
down an elevator shaft and flying around on rocket boots.
And stuff, so like, in some ways it's kind of exciting,

(13:09):
you know, stories of Bravado from the film Star. But
also yeah, it sounds like it was not the safest
set ever. But anyway, all 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

(13:30):
shooting it, so like the 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 basic logistical problems and production
financing problems, and the movie was apparently taking way too
long and going over budget. So in a move that
absolutely always goes well more than halfway through production, creative

(13:54):
control was taken over by an insurance company.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh yeah, that is not bode well.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
So for those of you who 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

(14:23):
to protect the interests of the investors of the film
to take over production and guarantee a completed film within
a certain budget and by a certain time. And this
is what happened with Highlander two. So things are not
going well, they're spending too much money, it's taking too long.
The insurance company steps in and says, we're in charge. Now.

(14:44):
You can kind of imagine how cool that would be.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
I mean, especially if you're dealing with filmmakers they want
to take big swings that they want to know, go
big or you know, or go home, and you have
the insurance people coming in and saying, actu, it is
time to go home. It is time to wrap it up.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
So I think I think a lot of the deficiencies
of Highlander two, a lot of the things that are
very funny and bad about it can be chalked up
to this thing that had the takeover of the movie
by the insurance company. But not all of the funny

(15:24):
stuff or the stuff that fans consider bad can be
can be chalked up to that. For example, many fans
apparently you know, the fans who thought it was weird
to introduce the sci fi elements and make the immortals aliens.
They would end up blaming that choice on the creative
takeover by the Bonding Company, but that is not the case.

(15:45):
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 consists more of like wrapping production without filming
major sceness and then trying to paper over those holes
with a bizarre Frankenstein edit, and also just like lots

(16:07):
of choices of I guess, like bad takes and terrible
looking visual effects shots and just you know, late stage
scriptory rights 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

(16:27):
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 in, people who were working on the
visual effects for the movie, chalk this up to the

(16:49):
Bonding Company. They say like that they came in and
they commissioned the you know, 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

(17:10):
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 had a full film based on

(17:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
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 what this film was meant to be.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
But anyway, the fact that the planet Zeist stuff does
not come from the bonding company that is originally there,
it's just more to me that to take out the
Planet Zeist is to excise the beating heart from this film,
so so Highlander two. People, the people who are behind
making all these cuts, you've already made like four or
five of them, or however many there are. Give us

(18:14):
the ultimate Zeist cut, you know, give us the edit
that 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
Zeyist unless you've already done that and I'm simply not

(18:35):
aware of it, in which case I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
I don't think they have because I feel like we've
wasted a lot of time looking for it. But but yeah,
and I'm up into 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 multidisc release,
like Ultimate Release of Highlander two. You know, I'm fine
with that. You can even have an optional commentary track

(18:57):
where you you know, rip into it and talk about
everything wrong, as long as I have like just one
version of this that I can watch and you know,
in inacceptable 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 z ice cut.
That's all I say.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
All right, Rob, Now, we just started talking about the plot.
In the previous episode, we talked about the prologue with
the Shield. Do you want to jump back into the
plot or do you have anything to address first?

Speaker 1 (19:35):
No, I think we just jumped right back into it.
We established the zeis well or did we What did
we establish? We established just the building of the shield, right.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we'll do a real fast recap
of that. So the opening of the film is in
the year nineteen ninety nine, 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 or McLoud. The main character
of Highlander one, the victorious age old warrior who won

(20:05):
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

(20:28):
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.

(20:49):
And Connor and his scientist friend Alan Nayman they celebrate
their accomplishment. They have saved the world. This surely was
a good use of the prize, is.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, what mornchy do you ask for? Seemingly save the
world and to some degree helped in sure peace.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, happy ending, right at the beginning, But then we
cut to twenty five years later, two.

Speaker 4 (21:14):
Eight year twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's right, I mean this is this was the perfect
time to really jump in and discuss Islander too.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
On Weird House, so we see Christophe Lambert driving a car.
He's driving a convertible down a dark, wet street in
what looks is not great makeup and terrible old man makeup.
His face looks like a bowl of porridge. It's not great,
but we hear his voiceover, McLeod says, the shield twenty

(21:46):
five years ago it was our savior. But now no sun,
no stars, only heat and humidity. It drains the energy
from the whole world. We're falling apart, going backward old cars,
old planes, old dreams. The cure is worse than the disease.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now already we have so much 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 this kind
of neo noir look for the film, which I do
quite like, but it doesn't really make any sense where
it's like, we can't use a car that was made
post nineteen fifty three. Now.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
I think they wanted to use some of these beautiful
old building facades from Buenos Aires, and they were like,
let's see, how do 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?

Speaker 1 (22:44):
We also, when we're panning past, does some sort of
statue or something. There's this plaque that commemorates the shield,
and it has the dates nineteen ninety nine through twenty
twenty four on there and I was wondering, do they
just update it every year, like it's like, okay, it's
a new year, twenty twenty. Let's add that, like it's say,
you know, no work injuries for X number of days,

(23:05):
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 twenty twenty four, as we'll discuss, and
as we'll see.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Okay, so we see Connor driving as convertible through this
dark city, and we gathered 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

(23:36):
just future punks everywhere. I love good future punk, and
here they're like on the sidewalks getting up to no good.
Connor is driving past them and like glancing nervously out
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

(23:57):
that distributes 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 inhalance?

Speaker 1 (24:12):
I don't know es your neighborhood huffing station. I'm not sure,
but yeah, there are a lot of wild boys in
the future for sure.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, yeah, wild boys. Yeah. Then in the car, the
TV comes on. Great, this is one of those futuristic
old cars from twenty twenty four. It's an old car,
but it has a TV in the dashboard.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
They have those now.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah oo, 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

(24:56):
of the Shield Corporation that they would be colluding with? Yeah,
other Shield companies and they're making an agreement to fix prices.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
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.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, maybe they make other products too, Maybe the price
fixing is on whatever these these huffing stations. They also
say that the president of the Shield Corporation, Alan Nayman,
remember that was Connor's partner in creating the Shield twenty
five years ago, he could not be reached for comment.
And then they say that the Shield Corporation just posted

(25:39):
record profits. Oh and also there's a weather report. Tomorrow's
high is going to be ninety seven degrees fahrenheit. Sounds
like the low is also ninety seven degrees fahrenheit with
a humidity of ninety seven percent, same as every other day.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
I mean, it's predictable, you know. Yeah, you know, you
know what to wear. There's not a lot of questions
about what you're gonna wear tomorrow, So we can say
that for it, at.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
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 it's ninety seven

(26:24):
degrees And maybe they need it for light, I don't know,
but you don't need it for heat.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
I mean, this is always the question of any kind
of apocalyptic hellscape or or urban hell setting. It's why
are the garbage cans on fire? Maybe just because they
can be on.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Fire, right, Maybe they're cooking with it.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, cooking up some assuming rat.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Some charproiled rat in the garbage can. Yeah, okay, So
where is Connor headed? He's going to the opera, of course.
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

(27:09):
the opera, it's all beautiful. It has 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

(27:32):
it's beautiful. So Connor is going to see this Vagnerian production.
I think it's Actually he's watching Twilight with gods and
we hear this, you know, the sweet and tortured melodies
of a dying world, as the name John C. McGinley
pops up on the credits. By the way, just funny.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
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 the said like this, I'll show up.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
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 MacLeod 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

(28:23):
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 two was one of the I've said this earlier,
but it was one of the first movies in this
sort of glorious failure genre that I ever came to appreciate.

(28:46):
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've probably rewound the next few minutes
of the movie several times every time we watched it.
So this, this is kind of like a religious catechism
to me. Sean Connery says, Remember Highlander, Remember your home

(29:10):
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 his fake gray hair is
lit up in a peculiar way by off camera lights,

(29:31):
and we hear his thoughts as he says, yes, yes,
I remember the beginning five hundred years ago on the
planet Zeist.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, and this is this is a moment where you know,
you can you can definitely feel fans dropping out because yeah,
I'm tuning in, because I mean, either this is something
that Connor MacLeod conveniently forgot his entire time on Earth
throughout the first film, or he knew the whole time

(30:04):
and just it didn't factor into any of his thoughts
or actions or anything. And like either version, yeah, I
can see that being interpreted is kind of like a
cheap shot of the experience of the first film, you know,
and could even be seen as like cheapening, yeah, the
experience of the first film, But I don't know. It's

(30:25):
also one of the things to love about Highlander too.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's so beautiful and then so there, like we were
saying about the differing, you know, quality of the textures
of the movie, 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

(30:50):
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. Looks like almost like a relic, like it
could have been crashed there for a long time. And
the context is hilarious. But I think the Matt painting
looks so good. The fact that it looks so good

(31:14):
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. But it's a great
looking moment.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, I mean the film has just made a very
wacky choice. And initially here at least, you know, it's like,
all right, this looks awesome. Let's give it a try,
let's see, let's see how it fits.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
We get an ancient city escape instead of that crash
spaceship or airship or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
And I think it doesn't look as good.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Well, 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

(32:21):
problems for the film.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Okay. Connor McLeod'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,

(32:45):
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,

(33:08):
and the people call out for Sean Connery to lead them.
You know Ramirez well, by the way, this character on Zeist,
his name is Ramirez on Zeist, and Connor MacLeod's name
is Connor MacLeod on zeist. Okay, yeah, so Ramirez says
he's not going to lead them, but he says, because
he sees with eyes different from theirs, he knows that

(33:28):
one among them has a great destiny. And the people
call out who is he show him to us, And then,
in 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. He waggles his

(33:50):
sword and lightning flashes, and then Ramirez, there's like a
folly of sort of electricity arcing. And then somehow every
turns and looks, and among them in the crowd is
Christophe Limberry'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,

(34:13):
and Sean Connery says, yes.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
You, this is how the leaders of all great rebellions
are chosen, by the way, Yeah, just just sort of
randomly picked out of the crowd and like you, yep,
you're the one you're gonna leave the rebellion. That's just
how it works, yes, you.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
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?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
The quickening in the First Highlander also it felt a
little vague. It was something magical about connection between immortals,
and we basically hear about it the most in that
scene where where it really a nice scene where Ramires
and Connor, during the midst of all their training run
on the beach, maybe while a horse is running, I think,

(35:05):
but you know, it's like 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, as we'll see.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yes, So what happens next is Ramirez and McLeod sit
across from each other and dip their fingers into like
it's like a fun du 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

(35:49):
out of their hands. 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.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
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.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Right, that's right, So they got to go beat General Katana,
so right then, immediately explosions start popping off outside Ramire,
says Connor McLoud. 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

(36:33):
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, weird, beautiful, fascinating action scene,
like a massive action scene in this sci fi landscape.

(36:54):
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

(37:16):
blow up, and then it's over.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah. Nothing you really haven't seen in other post apocalyptic
battle movies. They are just war movies in general.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
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. 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.

(37:43):
He says he wants Connor MacLeod and Ramirez captured. As
for everybody else, he wants their heads.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
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 street of gray or white through it,
so it's a solid look, and you know it's Iron Side,
so he can definitely sell the menace.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
So now Michael Ironside, who we just met seconds ago,
he has Connor mcleoud captured and held prisoner in this
kind of some kind of like office slash dungeons. It's
I guess Rob, I think you brought this up in
the last episode that this is a cool looking interior.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, yeah, this is a really cool loo Consett. This
is definitely a scene that I recommend 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 just shot so well it looks great.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah. Yeah. 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 that version. But also The content of
what's happening in the scene is that, like General Katana
is giving a speech to an eel. He grabs an
eel out of the tank and he starts giving it

(39:02):
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

(39:27):
get what he's saying, but how would that apply to
an eel?

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, I don't know. It's wait, he looks good. It
looks good.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
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. Uh. And then it just
seems that General Katana is going to execute Connor MacLeod,

(39:55):
a resident of the planet zeised for his crimes against
the planet's iis. 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.
And so this priest, there's like several bald priests in
robes standing up on these huge pedestals like way above them,

(40:19):
and the priest says, leaders of the Rebellion, you have
been found guilty of treason. We hereby sentence you to
exile from Zeist. You will be sent to the planet Earth.
Once there, you will be immortal. You can only die
when your head is cut from your body. When one
of you becomes the last of us on Earth, he

(40:40):
will claim the prize. He can return to Zeist or
choose to grow old and die on Earth.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
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.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yeah, exactly, I don't quite get it, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
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 read cond it. Yeah,
we'll make do with it here.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
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. Like 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.

(41:45):
And then he says, when you need me, you'll only
have to call my name.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Oh it's like like the friends in Labyrinth, you know
at the end, where Sarah can just call on them
and they come.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
But why did we know this in the first movie.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
No, when Rami is his dad 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.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
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.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Oh also another thing to remember. Sean Connery just kind
of leans over at the end and he says, just
remember the quickening. Okay, okay, oh God, no way, 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

(42:48):
the Queen song. A kind of magic or some kind
of magic. Which is it.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
It's a kind of magic.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
It's a kind of magic. How many times do they
bring this up in the movie?

Speaker 1 (42:57):
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.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
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 just remember Highlander
with Princes of the Universe.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Here we are born to be kings.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Exactly till your mother down, highlander.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
We will not let you go.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
I want to break free.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
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 a like an exxeistorator, and General Katana looks

(43:52):
on angrily. I guess he did not get his way
at the sentencing here.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, he's not down with his cultures, very forgiving system
of exile.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
So next Connor wakes up in twenty twenty four on
Earth in the opera house. I guess all that was
a dream, a memory, you know, 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.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
In Michael Weldon's little review for this in The Psychotronic
Film Guides, he points out that it's a review where
he says, like, there's definitely some awesome stuff in this
in this film, but he's like, oh, it spends way
too much time with Lambert convincingly playing an old Connor McLeod,
Yes and yeah, quibbles about the makeup aside, Like, he

(44:50):
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.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
It takes a third of the movie for him to
get hot again.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
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 different

(45:22):
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? Well, inside the facility, the infiltrators remove

(45:47):
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

(46:09):
it says normal, so Virginia Madison says impossible, radiation levels
can't be normal. Then the infiltrators trigger the alarm and
security comes running, so Virginia Madison's crew has to They
flee and we see some very again, some very nice
sets and matte paintings as they run away. There's like
one shot you only see for a second, but it's

(46:30):
like a walkway running over this deep, you know, column
shaped chasm with like beams running up and down the sides,
and you know, the actors are running across this walkway
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

(46:50):
looks not so good.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah, I mean, this makes you look like they're on
the Industrial Death Star sort of a set. It looks good,
but yeah, then we're through with it.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
So they split up. As they're running away, they're being
pursued by Shield Corporation mercenaries. 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,

(47:22):
and they're 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 meaningful that like
all of the buildings and the streets and the sky
and everything is like the same kind of gray brown
mud to kind of color. And then the only other

(47:43):
colors are just like lights that say like a bar
or opera or you know, or show like advertisements.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah. I keep expecting Deran Duranz Simon Labon to walk
into frame here and start belding out some lyrics or
you know, to rotate into frame strap to a windmill
or something.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Boys.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Indeed, Yeah, but we are about to get some music though.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
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 two, I guess, or is it
about Highlander or Highlander two?

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Oh it's from Highlander one.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah, oh that's right. Okay, So it's a callback.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
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.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
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

(48:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, we see. COBALT's call sign is essentially the Zodiac
killer symbol. For some reason.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yeah, nice selection there, and then the News interviews John
C McGinley, who was playing. They said earlier that Alan
Naman was the president 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.

(49:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I'm increasingly struck by the fact that her character is
essentially Gracie Law, the Kim Cattrell character from Big Trouble
in Little China. You know, she's there. She's a spunky
go getter, you know, a little bit of a hoxy
and female all 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

(50:09):
better defined character.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
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, like she's getting all the
zised stuff explained to her and she's like, am I

(50:30):
understanding this right?

Speaker 1 (50:32):
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.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
There you go, that's exactly right. Also, meanwhile, while like
Connor's inside looking at her on TV, she happens to
be changing out of her terrorist clothes in the street
wear in an alley outside the bar, and then she
like unfolds a piece of paper and the paper just
says McLoud twenty third Street bar. Huh, how does she

(51:02):
have that information?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Informants? I guess?

Speaker 3 (51:06):
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, as
she says, you covered the sky with that puke, and
then she bashes him with a glass bottle, and so
in the world of this movie, like Connor is recognizable
by sight to just random members of the public and

(51:27):
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 Madson just walks up to him in
the street and she says, Connor macloud, I am the
terrorist woman you just saw on TV. Except I'm not
a terrorist. I've got business with you. And he tries
to brush her off and get in his car. He

(51:47):
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. 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.

(52:08):
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, McLeod, 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

(52:30):
the desert, and a title says the planet Zeist And
then we see Michael Ironside and he's just like Hinchminton.
And a couple of guys walk up and these are
a pair of pale birdlike men wearing welding goggles with
porcupine quills for hair.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yes, major wild Boy energy to these two. I mean
these two, yes, really could have just walked right out
of the Wild Boy's music video.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
General Katana says to them, you leave for the planet
Earth and media, find McLeod and kill him. The Benjamin says,
but I thought you said McLeod was mortal and could
never return.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
And this is actually an excellent and unaddressed point. So
on planet Zeis, everyone here seems to be a mortal
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,

(53:30):
and he's doing all this stuff and hasn't hasn't come
back to Zeist, is not in any way seemingly planning
to or 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

(53:53):
this to happen. There's never a reason for this to
happen in the movie.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
That's exactly right, Like why now?

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Why?

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Why?

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Yeah, Like I was thinking about this, Okay, assuming Katana
wanted to interfere with the exile system and the you know,
the game towards the prize, 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

(54:24):
maybe the idea is like, at some level, the Kurgan
was like their dude that they sent back. It's like, okay,
go win this prize thing so we don't have to
worry about Connor. 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 gonna do. No reason
to go back and kill him.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
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 Hinchman of General Katanas, who had been sent
there to kill Connor. But he was defeated. And but
still I wonder, like, why is it now in like

(55:03):
twenty twenty four on Earth where he's like, Okay, I'm
ready to send two more guys.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Yeah, you've about outlived Connor McLeod. He is mortal, He's
going to die of mortal death. What does it matter,
de Ist?

Speaker 3 (55:16):
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 motions 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, McLeod and Virginia Madson.

(55:38):
They're still driving around and suddenly McLeod gasps for breath.
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 to fly, and oh,

(56:02):
one of them has wings on his back, and they
sort of like they at the beginning, they like loaf
around in an alley way, arguing over who gets to
cut off McLeod's head. Again, Connor McLeod is his Zeis's name,
that's the name they know him from there, and then
this fight kicks off, and man, I have so like

(56:22):
I think that the edit that is available does not
give the best 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 these stunts and effects are
quite impressive and do look good.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
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,
and I can quibble about one or two of the
effects towards the end. I'll come back to that, but otherwise,

(57:05):
this is Highlander two at its best. This is the
thing in the trailers that pulled me in to Highlander
films in general.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Yeah. They actually talk about this in the documentary where
they show how they achieved specifically the effect of Connor
McLeod 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,

(57:34):
they had him on a wire system, of course, 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.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
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 Snyder Man movies.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
And it's almost entirely like in camera effects. It's not
post production stuff. It looks great because they they what
they were able to achieve on set looked great. But anyway,
so during this fight, the two aliens from Zeis to
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

(58:23):
of the guys from Zeist has sort of partially reinvigorated him,
given him back some of that immortal strength, and they
like fight. They go up a fire escape and they
start fighting on these catwalks that go over the city streets.
The guy from Zeist has a sword and at first
Connor is defending himself with just like a steel rod,
like a metal bar. And I love the like these

(58:47):
henchmen are super weird, but they're very expressive. They keep
doing the witch cackling thing they like, stick their tongues
out grotesquely and they try to mock McLoud and these
weird high pitched voices. It's great.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are a lot of fun I
mean they're just completely over the top. Uh. And and
again I love the action and these sequences with old
man Connor, uh, you know, mustering up and just enough
energy to fight them off using a pipe against swords.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Now, what comes next, I think is also a quite
inspired action staging choice. You know, action choreography here is smart.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
They fall from the catwalk onto a passing train and
Connor they 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.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah yeah, he really lucked out on that one. But
it's a cool, cool moment.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
And then the quickening. There's like the snakes of lightning
jumping out of the severed Zeistian head and then they
wrap around Connor and he screams and everything starts loading.
Nearby storefronts explode, paint cans and other garbage in the street.
It all explodes. A passing gasoline truck as like a

(01:00:09):
you know, the gas transport tankers. It explodes, and then
the fireball envelopes 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 McLeod
walks out of the fireball from the gas truck and

(01:00:32):
we're back, friends. I think we are back in business.
Christoph Lambert is hot again, he looks like he's young again,
and he is ready to fight.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
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 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

(01:01:04):
needed it needed that, it needed that oomph. And it's
still 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's heist, and oh, and I want to
add the whole destructive quickening thing. I kind of forgot
that they also call that the quickening, Like the quickening is,

(01:01:24):
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 highlight.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
I can't correct you. Oh yeah, but fans maybe, Okay,
I trust you, Rob, I think you're right about that.
But can I go with another, uh 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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Yeah, I mean, the feeling is key. It's 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.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
Oh. Also, Virginia Madsen is peaking 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. And the second zeised Henchman starts
flying around on his wings, like swooping at Connor and
shooting at him with a blaster from Star Wars. But wait,

(01:02:24):
shouldn't the zeis Tinchman know that the blaster won't do
anything because Connor is once again immortal.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
I guess that. Okay, 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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yeah, I legitimately love this whole sequence here. It's good.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
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 a highlander, But why does he
call him a highlander? That's just like random Earth topography.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
I mean, his name's McLeod too, but yeah, it makes
no sense.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
He says, say goodbye, highlander, and then Connor replies, why
you going somewhere?

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Yeah, I think I think they could have workshopped that
a little.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Okay, 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.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Okay, this is a great moment. This is perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
No notes on that, but anyway, Connor manages to decapitate
the second Zeist fighter here with a clothes line trap
made out of electrical wire.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
I agree, But okay, so Connor, he's defeated the two
aliens from Zeis. 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.
Ram next thing, we're on stage at a play in

(01:04:29):
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 cringey
comedy scene where Sean Connery starts talking to the actors
mischievously while they're trying to perform, and they're like running

(01:04:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yeah, Ramirez, who we know traversed multiple cultures, absorbing their
cultures and sometimes their accents at every turn. Yeah, he
knows what a play is. Just this is just beyond ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
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, So we will continue to

(01:05:43):
get some more frankly pretty cringey 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 caught what okay? And then back in wherever
Connor is? Do they say where Connor is this in

(01:06:04):
the future. I don't know, Shield City. I'm not sure
Shield City. Connor is explaining to Virginia Madsen the whole thing.
You know, I was banished from the planet Zeis five
hundred years ago, I cannot die, et cetera. And then
they just kiss passionately. That's absolute. We said this in
the last episode, but this has got to be one

(01:06:25):
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 quickening and now he's young and good looking
and now they're just smooching.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I referenced Gracie Law
Kim Katrall's character from Big Trouble and Little China earlier,
but at least in Big Trouble 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 Grace Law. It is ultimately earned that they fall

(01:07:03):
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 does this not the kind of
movie where you necessarily expected I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
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
a look at the 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.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
Yeah, so she's this is the scene where Louise is like, Okay,
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.

(01:08:06):
And then Connor says in his with his wonderful little
voice and chuckle something like that, and she expresses disbelief.
And then Connor love these adding up here. He says,
let's just say it's a kind of magic.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Just repeat to yourself. It's just a show.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But anyway, so Louise tells Connor that, oh,
you're 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

(01:08:47):
me expose it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
And again I want to point out that Katana had
zero stake in all of this, like this would 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 like the shield to come down.
But there's 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 it

(01:09:09):
all sensible for Katana to send goons to Earth to
take out Connor.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
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?

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Desist they're all dead though.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
There's well, yeah, but if he wanted Connor to not
come back, he would want the shield to stay in place.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Okay, yeah, I guess that could have worked had they
established it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
I'm just saying, like, yeah, throwing ideas out there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
There are ways they could have and maybe in some
version of the script they did address this, but we
don't get it here.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Okay. So here, Connor goes to visit his old friend
and partner Alan Nayman. They created the shield together, and
Alan is shocked at how good Connor looks. He's like,
did you get a facelift? Also, Allan'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 thirty

(01:10:12):
foot 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.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Yeah. Again, this is like total Russell McKay music video style.
You expect to like pan over and there's Simon Labon
in the chair. We're in a fedora and he's gonna
start belding out some Duran Duran tins looks great.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Also at this meeting, Alan shares with 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

(01:10:56):
then comes into the room and Connor starts like needling
about how.

Speaker 4 (01:11:01):
What if one day the Shield doesn't need it anymore?
Your profits would dry up? So it's like he's just
Connor seems to be like wrapping out his friend who
just told him about this in confidence.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Yeah, he also would get the like his sci fi
techno sword goes shashing to sell this, 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. It
would come, you know, decades later, except with Thano's grabbing

(01:11:49):
an Infinity Gauntlet instead of making his sword go shashing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
Oh that's funny. I wonder if they got it from
this maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
So yeah, because it's like I had to go back
and look at it. It's pretty much the exact same thing,
Like Dano is like, you've go want something done, you
got to do it yourself, and then that sets up
him doing it himself.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
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 is just
off task in lots of ways because the first thing
General Katana does when he arrives on Earth is hijack

(01:12:25):
a subway car to no end whatsoever. It's just like
because he wants to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Yeah, this guy's not supposed to be like just the
reckless enforcer that the loose cannon. 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 recking casinos. No, he's got an agenda.
He's got things he definitely wants to do, and he's
gonna mess with you if you get in the way

(01:12:50):
of those goals. Katana doesn't operate like.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
That, right, So he like beams down into a subway car.
He says, this doesn't look like Kansas. Great, great reference
for Zeist culture.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
They love Wizard of Us.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
Yeah, and then he 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 aphex

(01:13:24):
twin face as he pushes the speed up to hundreds
of miles per hour and then crashes through the side
of a building.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
More more train wrecks Center train wreck of the movie, right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
And then we get these 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 and another
interesting choice. Ironside is just in full clown mode here.

(01:14:00):
He's like kissing on a statue of an angel and
he's making these quips he says to Connor after Connor's
talking to his wife's grave, and Katana says, I always
did admire a man who can talk to the dead.
And then he says, the remains of your mortal wife
so frail, so earthly, so very dead, And Connor says,

(01:14:21):
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 can't they know they're
gonna have to fight, but they say they can't fight

(01:14:42):
here because of quote the Golden Rule, which is that
we must never fight on holy ground.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Yeah. This is something, of course established in the first
Highlander movie. And they do kind of try to address
one problem that emerges and concerning all this in Highlander three,
and that is, okay, it's one thing for Connor and
other like, you know, some degree like chaotic good or
neutral good immortals to honor this rule, I guess. But
why do all these like clearly chaotic evil immortals care

(01:15:10):
about the Golden rule concerning holy spaces? So credit to
Highlander three. I won't spoil anything, but they do at
least address that a little bit in that picture.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
Oh okay, you know, I have to watch Highlander three someday.
I never made it that far.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
I mean, it's it's I remember, it's being fun. It's fun.
It's got Mario van Peebles place 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.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
Out perfect completely ignores Holander two, right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
Right, I guess technically occurs before Highlander two, but also
ignores it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
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 played pays
for them with a pearl ear ring. I guess there's

(01:16:11):
just more use of Ramirez for comic relief, more fish
out of time stuff, like before he goes in, he
looks at TVs and a shop window and he is
amazed about the concept of airplanes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Yeah. I seem to recall reading that a lot of this,
the 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 as like, all right, if we're gonna we're
gonna 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.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
I got it. He does look sharp. He looks great
in the suit they give him.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Oh yeah, 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 He's more of a
comic relief character here, except for some key dramatic moments.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
Yeah. So he then 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

(01:17:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
I didn't care for it, no, but it is kind
of like it's very much of the sort of RoboCop
vibe of parity, which I do admire. Isn't there another
sequence like this that maybe Katanovius, maybe it's a different
cut of the film where it's like a chef, like
psychic chef or something. What was the.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
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 figuring out
exactly where Connor is. I mean, he's got the quickening,
so I guess he can zone in on him.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
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,
goes through all this old stuff and know, and it's showing, Oh,
he's lived for centuries. He played football, he sailed on
the high seas. Here's his nineteen oh one football team picture,
and there's a suit of armor in there, and like

(01:19:02):
old bottles of wine and all that. Also in this room,
is that a Confederate flag in there?

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Connor Well, I bet he took that off of Confederate troops.
I don't remember, but there. I don't remember where all
this lands, but I know there were some deleted scenes
in the for The First Highlander in which he fights
the Nazis, so I'm guessing he fought for the Union
during the Civil War.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
There's also a scene in here where General Katana rides
in a cab. He's like, uh, 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.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
You're in the music business, aren't you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
Katana is like, it's quite comfortable back here, like a coffin.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
What does Katana even like is what is this guy about?
It's just bad, that's all he is.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
Yeah it So he's like, oh yeah, And then when
they arrived 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 driver, the taxi
driver is going like awesome. But anyway, where was the

(01:20:25):
cab taking him?

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
Why?

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
It's Shield Corporation headquarters. 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 they try
to have like a guy in the suit shoot him,
but man, he's immortal.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
Whoops.

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
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. It's like,
is that a foot metaphor?

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
I guess they have football on Zeist?

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
So I think based on this scene, General Katana is
now CEO of the Shield Corporation.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
You know, I bet what happened is they had football
on Zeist and who invented football on Earth? But immortals?
Probably Connor did it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
That makes so much sense, yes, but somehow, like General
Katana getting tangled up with the Shield Corporation and seemingly
becoming John C mcginley's partner, like accelerates them in just
doing general badness. So John C McGinley goes into Alan
Nayman's office from naming his Connor's old friend, and he's like,

(01:21:39):
he's like, okay, I know you. You're telling people that
the radiation levels are normal. I'm gonna throw you in
Shield jail, which exists. Let me 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 present nearby and

(01:22:01):
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 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 five hundred years ago, but

(01:22:22):
he just now did it. Ye, So they have, you know,
playful dueling and banter. I think they're trying to get
the old Magic back from Highlander one. They're trying to
get that feeling, that relationship re established. 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,

(01:22:44):
Connor makes fun of Ramirez for being old and for
having been dead.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
Yeah, it's almost like what they should have and maybe
even wanted to do. You should have had a flashback
here to show like their relationship in 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.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
Yeah, though they do try to spice it up. They
pour drinks and they have a toast, and the toast go.
This is a direct quote Connor says to Magic, and
Ramirez says to zeyst Oh. Also, Ramirez meets Virginia Mattson
meets Louise Marcus and he says, you know, he's like, wow,

(01:23:31):
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 established that Connor's old friend
Alan is being held in this secret, high security Shield

(01:23:53):
prison and they have to go rescue him. Also, they
established that General Katana is here and they have to
go face him. So first of all, they go to
the Shield corpse Slammer. 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

(01:24:15):
blasted by guards with machine guns. Fortunately, they are immortal,
so that when they get inside, they just sort of
like pop up in the Shield prison morgue. Also, Louise
is in there. She's like talking to the doctor and
the morgue, and then he sees them, you know, Connor
and Ramirez pop up and he just faints.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Fun immortal hikings.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
Yes. Then they decide to split up, of course, and
start running around in tunnels looking for Alan. 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,

(01:24:59):
we tell me we did the right thing by making
the shield, and then he's like 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.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
And so the instantly once more he's got the drop
and ramiras.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
Yeah, and so here's what they're gonna 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,

(01:25:46):
so like, oh no, the fan is descending on them.
It's like the pit and the pendulum, except it's a fan.
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 Immortal is that
the fan blades will chop off their heads. But then
I was thinking, like, is that really physically? What would happen?

(01:26:07):
Wouldn't they just kind of get more like like you know,
like they're in a blender.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
I don't know, But I also like how this hell
set kind of resembles the fizzy lifting drink scene from
Willy Wonka. Yes, so the blades didn't lower in that
our heroes floated up towards it. But I still can't
help but connect the two.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
So how are our heroes going to get out of
this jam?

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
You tell me. I've seen it multiple times and I
still don't know what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
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, the under the fan.
He lifts his hands up and he says, most people
have a full measure of life, and most people just

(01:26:53):
watch it slowly drip away. But if you can summon
it all up at one time, in one place, you
can accomplish something 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

(01:27:15):
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, Hylander? Who knows? So Connor
and Louise escape for some reason. The door pops open

(01:27:35):
and Ramirez turns into light and explodes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
I have no idea what this is supposed to be,
Like self quickeningly destroys the fan.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
It just feels like it feels like they had to
wrap this thing up.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Just a kind of magic. Can't question it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
There's another quick scene where General Katana and John C.
McGinley are talking and the latter is upset for some reason.
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.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
Yeah, and this character in this relationship that we just
had so little invested in.

Speaker 3 (01:28:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
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 McLeod use machine gun.

Speaker 3 (01:28:30):
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

(01:28:51):
happened in this scene in the American cut 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.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
That would make a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
But it's in a dark, empty warehouse with like that
wet industrial feeling, you know, steam pipes, water is dripping,
chains dangling everywhere. Metal grates, catwalks, sparks, shooting out of stuff.
It's your basic final showdown sword fight. It's not great,
but I have seen worse.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Yeah, yeah, and I can't again, I can't help but
wonder too how injuries and clunky swords and so forth
factored into this, because I don't think that the sword
fights in Highland are 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 really good, and I feel like what we

(01:29:44):
get in this picture, you know, aside from flying space assassins,
what we get in this picture feels mostly sub Highlander one.

Speaker 3 (01:29:54):
Yeah, and there's one part in this fight where McLeod
falls down an elevator shaft and breaks all his bones.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
So that's pretty interesting. I did like that.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Yeah, and then he has to manually snap them back
into place and then go up and fight again. I
think that might have been the like break that the
actual conclusion of one of the two original fight scenes.
I'm not positive, 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.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
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 it just didn't have much more gas
in the.

Speaker 3 (01:30:38):
Tank that that's exactly right. So Connor wins. He chops
off Katana's head. It does feel kind of anti climactic.
Then he gets some quickening, you know, all this all
the light shoots into him and he gets the electricity
snakes and stuff. But like, is he mortal again?

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
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. And then

(01:31:14):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Wow. So yeah, I guess he uses the power of
this quickening, of this energy absorption of a powerful and
mortal to short circuit all of the shield technology here
and I guess yeah. And then at the end, is
either mortal or is gonna get to return to Zeist?

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
Doesn't doesn't make it, doesn't say ends incredibly abruptly with
the voiceover by Sean Connery, which is calls back to
the fun one of the funniest moments in the movie
when he's pushing the fan measure of life. I don't
know where any of that comes from.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
Now, tell me about this fairy tale ending. What is
this return dezice thing that could have happened?

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
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 it. I made a vow I would return dezeised,

(01:32:29):
and he does. They like flies away into space. Then
there's another ending where they both go dezeised, where he's like,
you know, I love you, Come with me Dezeised and
she's like, but I can't fly through space. And I
think he's essentially like you know, it's a kind of magic.
Just try it. And so she does and then she

(01:32:50):
flies into space and they both fly into space and
go Dezeice together.

Speaker 1 (01:32:53):
Okay, I don't know whether they're going to get up
to there. We don't really know much about Zeius aside
from conflict. Maybe they're they're good qualities. They have football apparently,
and maybe high schools they don't.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
Yeah, we're never shown like what's worth fighting for on Zeised?
We should we should see like the good you know,
the good life on Zeized.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
Yeah, or the like the old Zeis that they're going
to restore. I'm not sure again, why do we care
about this? Why is it important? Why? Now?

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
Anyway? That's Highland or two. The Quickening a movie that
is so interesting to me. I mean it 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 and just like isn't allowed to cohere

(01:33:43):
into a full film. But if you can like look
at those elements, they're they're really quite admirable in their
own Like we were talking about some of the sets
and some of the staging in the costumes, and like
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

(01:34:05):
whatever you think about it, I think it's undeniable that
it is so funny and so 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.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like if you're if you're into that side,
like what went wrong and how is 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 diamonds in the midst of the rough, if

(01:34:42):
you want to find the shiny parts of otherwise flawed films,
like Highlander two has riches for you to behold. So yeah,
I feel like it's one of those those weird films,
those flawed films that has a lot to offer, two
different different values, different audiences.

Speaker 3 (01:34:57):
Absolutely agree, Yeah, I love Highlander two.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
this our second episode on Highlander two, second and final
episode two, but we'd love to hear from everyone out
there if you have thoughts on any of the various
cuts of Highlander two, thoughts on the Highlander franchise in general,
or you know other other films that you think meet
these standards right in we would love to hear from you.

(01:35:24):
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, a listener mail episode on Mondays, and
a short form 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,

(01:35:45):
go on over to letterbox dot com. That's l E
T T e r box d dot com our user
profile there is weird House, and you will find the
list that I just referenced.

Speaker 3 (01:35:54):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get to 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 stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:36:16):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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