Entry tags:

highlander, rant, remake

Highlander: Yeah, Ctrl-Alt-Del that...

From the dawn of time, it came. A movie before franchises were all studios seemed to care about, a film that was self-contained and had a compelling premise. It also had truckloads of awesomeness in the form of Sean Connery (for the young'uns out there, he's Indy's dad) and Clancy Brown (for the young'uns out there, he's the sarge that kept yelling 'medic' in Starship Troopers). It also had Christopher Lambert before his name became synonymous with "what's on the SciFi channel at 3am." There was swordfightin' and heads rollin' and some nudie scenes and a big scary guy in leather who just had one of the best "do NOT even MAKE me say 'leggo my Eggo'" vibes in film.

Naturally, they're going to re-make it. Before my geek knee-jerk reaction to remaking a film from my youth that has actually aged pretty well and remains watchable, I had a think and came up with some reasons pro and con for a Highlander remake.

The Case Against Remaking 'Highlander': "There can be only one." That was the tagline, and it described the film perfectly. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. The good guy killed the bad guy, saved the girl, saved the world, and if it had stopped there, it would still be a classic and not something we remember as preceeding "Highlander 2: Sean Connery Should Have Read His Contract More Closely." It was bad enough arguing what was the worst Connery film between 'Zardoz' and 'Sword of the Valiant' without adding a third candidate.

No remake will be able to re-create the "Darth Vader before he was called Anakin" villain-cool that The Kurgan radiated everywhere. Brown's voice is iconic to the character in every way, and not even The Rock would do the role justice. Similarly, Sean Connery can't be beat, even if he is playing a Scottish Egyptian. The man played a Scottish Russian in "Hunt for Red October," and he pulled it off as well.

The music. You cannot have Highlander without Queen. Re-recording the songs from the soundtrack would probably give me more fits than casting a Wayans as Connor. Even the TV series knew it couldn't get away without bringing "Princes of the Universe" into the show. Somehow, I'd lay better than even odds that in the new movie, we'll get a version by Coldplay.

The special effects. After years of seeing CGI play across my retinas, that final quickening scene with its hand-drawn energy tendrils going everywhere is still a high water mark for FX craftsmanship and creative "let's just go completely nuts" visual fun.

So yes, it's far from perfect, but it's still one I'd gladly re-watch on DvD over many recent releases in the same genre.

The Case for Remaking 'Highlander': By today's standards, there are many rough edges in 'Highlander' that could use a bit of polish. While not embarassingly bad, the swordfighting choreography could be kicked up a few notches, perhaps even with a few Matrix-style camera swoops and, if I know my Hollywood, a slow-mo shot of a severed head ascending on a fountain of Quickening neck-lightning. There's also the casting for the original, which had a Frenchman playing a Scot, a Scot playing an Egyptian, and an American playing a Russian. I think they actually got an African to play an African, but since he dies pretty early on, it's not a big plus for the agent that got him the gig. I'm not entirely sure that we'd get a better array of nationalities as dictated by the script in a remake, but I can dream.

Side note: Many say that casting Lambert as a Scotsman was the worst mis-cast of his career. I disagree. That honor goes to whoever cast him as Raiden in "Mortal Kombat: The Movie," when it should have been one of these guys.

But the biggest factor of any for remaking the first film is that if Highlander is determined to remain an ongoing franchise, then it probably needs to retcon its first "episode" to not be the end of the story. As cool as the original film was, it's kind of hard to continue the tale of immortals vying for being the last one with a neck intact when supposedly the last one has already been cleaved. I didn't follow the TV series closely, as my brain rejected things like a woman in a cat-suit being able to pull a sword from the pocket of "malletspace" behind her head, but I understand that the writers of the show did some song-and-dance about the first film being a delusion on the part of Connor Macleod and that he didn't really get The Prize. Add to that the introduction of new players like "The Watchers" and 6,000 year old immortals that had gone previously unnoticed and it's only a matter of time before the path the Highlander mythos follows to get where it is today begins to look like a tesseract thats been put through a blender.

So if the studio that owns Clan Macleod is planning on rescuing Highlander before it plunges completely into the North Sea, then a reboot is probably a smart move, so long as they're actually planning for the future. It's being written by the same guys who did "Iron Man," so I'm willing to give it a chance... and I saw "Highlander 2" in a theater... that I paid to get into.

End Highlander Rantings

Whew! Thank goodnes my caffeine rush has ebbed. So how about Doctor Who last week, huh? Yeah, it wasn't the most incredible episode, but the semi-mockery of the British "TV mystery adaptation" genre was pretty amusing. The one to be broadcast on the 31st holds out some interesting "big set piece" concepts, in a Douglas Addams-like location, I think. Lastly, in UK geek-goodie bag, comes from Alert Reader Oliver who sends Radio 4 Interview (Real Audio link) with Pratchett.

There can't be only one (link). That would be boring:

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