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Brett Leonard promises to ignore the crap continuity in HIGHLANDER 2, and will reveal the Highlanders to be the result of a futuristic genetic experiment gone wrong and sent back in time to kill the woman who will give birth to the scientist who made them.

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GAG!

Mark, I thought you said sci-fi was doing a mini-series. Not anymore?
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Ugh - replacing one crap continuity with another? >.<;;

Last I heard, yes - there was another miniseries proposed for Sci-Fi. Reports have been sketchy ever since though, and this wouldn't be the first time the whole thing was abandonned, resurrected, and completely changed.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Termilanders!

Mabye Adrian Paul will run for public office on a slogan of "There can be only one".

Holy shit: if they made an all drag-queen-sock-puppett version of the Highlander cartoon, it couldn't possiby sound any worse.
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
When it says "...will reveal the Highlanders to be the result of a...", does it mean "..will reveal the *Immortals* to be..." Because if he does, the way he says it sounds like how my mom would describe the plot. If he actually just means the clan of McCleods that seem to have an abnormal amount of Immortals in their bloodline, then that's just an even dumber plotline.

Whatever happened to the brilliant backstory from the first movie. They left it largely open to interpretation, but the idea was that the Immortals were just an aspect of nature, and when the last One finally emerged, he or she would possess the collective knowledge of all humanity, from every race, in every age of the Earth. Now that was good. Space men from the future and genetic experiments... pure shite.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
The producers of the original movie have wanted to explain the "true" origin of the Immortals for some time. During the TV series DVD releases, they hint at Immortals possibly being created at a mystical place called "The Source", which was a (previous?) plot of the next movie. I think that this report might be fake, and whoever made it up knows to rile the fans.

Besides, it's just the plot of "Terminator". Terminator Highlander? Termilander?

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Nguyen:
Besides, it's just the plot of "Terminator". Terminator Highlander? Termilander?

Mark

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It is?

The TV series ran dry on ideas about halfway through: they got all "goofy-mystical" with that crystal trinket Methose needed to cure his all-too-mortal girlfriend and then "turned to the darkside" in a Darth vader-esque 80 parter.....it got BAD.

The most intresting characters are those with mysterious origins- even to themselves!

Look at Wolverine: any origin they come up with lessens the character because 99% of all fans have a half-idea of what that origin should be and are always let down by the "official version".

In conclusion: first Highlander movie- VERY good.
All subsequent sequels- so embarrasingly bad and determental to the first movie, that I have my Highlander DVD hidden far behind even the most geeky Trek moments.
Like, waaaaay behind Nemesis....
...less visible to guests than porn- that's how bad the Highlander movie was hurt by it's sequels.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
I'm a great fan of Highlander, and stuck with it right to the end - however, I will admit that the series really ran out of ideas in the fifth season, and the sixth held no real gems for me. The fifth had a great two-parter involving Methos' past, and the fourth had both "Double Eagle" and "Till Death", hands-down the best of the comedy episodes of the show. Hghlander had slightly more than its share of stinkers in the first three seasons IMO. "The Zone", anyone?

The "Raven" spinoff series likewise didn't do anything for me until the last few episodes when they were getting the hang of it, though unfortunately it was too late.

The unknown mysticism thing was what endeared the series for me too, though I liked "Methuselah's Gift" a lot for its drama, and not the glowey Immortality ball (which they said straight out was NOT the secret of their Immortality - it was something else entirely). Didn't like the movies after the first, save for "Endgame", which I thought captured the series feel rather well. The movie never matched the early draft script I read, though the "workprint" that was released with the DVD comes closer.

Mark
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I thought Endgame went well with the series too, I just didn't think they pulled the movie off very well. The end, with the two McCleods dueling and the flashback scenes were just all too done to death.

Bringing back Conner's secretary was kind of cool though, for the 5 seconds she lasted.

I think it would've worked better to see the McCleods team up against the bad guy in direct violation of The Rules. That, to me, would have had more possibility than one of them killing the other to get their Quickening.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
If they were desperate enough to break the rules, they'd have just bought a pair of shotguns. No, their overly Boy Scoutish nature kept them to the rules. OTOH, Jacob Kell, at least in one iteration of the script, went and killed everyone in the Sanctuary, which was ON HOLY GROUND. "Fortunately", they explained it away that the Sanctuary was on a mockup of holy ground that the Watchers had put together in the hopes that it would fool any Immortals. Dunno why this centuries-old facility was in the Eastern US, though.

Mark
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Ummm... why would they go to the trouble of mocking up Holy ground. Why not just actually build it on Holy ground. You'd think that Immortals would be able to sense actual Holy ground if they're expected not to fight on it.

But what difference does it make? Kell didn't care about the Rules anyway.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
That was the point - the producers worked Kell's "I don't care" attitude into the Sanctuary, but then later backtracked when lots of people got really angry that Kell would break the rules like that.

Mark
 

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Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
 
Why are churches off-limits for immortals?
Ramirez was born a thousand years before Christ, does that mean he could just go nuts on the competition in his "youth"?
And what happens if they fight on holy ground? Do their swords melt? Does an angel rip off the roof and smite both the combatants?
It must be something special if it kept even the Kurgan in check.

Lol@Ramirez btw, he must've been forced to start off with bronze swords, the poor guy. Egyptian ones, at that, like those corny "Scorpion King" thingies that are shaped like hacksaws.

*SPLAAASH* "Damn ya cheap tricks, Moses! Ye 'aven't seen the last o' me! -Blech, now it'll take forever to cross this thing."
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Not just churches, holy ground in general. So even a grove of trees containing a shrine to the great penis-shaped-rock God, Ug, would qualify. And I don't think there was meant to be anything special about the rule, just that everyone at one time or another needs somewhere they know they'll be safe, even the Kurgan. The only way he'd consider facing Connor was on his own terms, either in a church where he knew he was safe, or on a killing-ground of his own choosing with a hostage just in case.
 

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Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
 
THAT'S how they got so powerful!
Some newbie immortal, being chased by the Kurgan or other foe, ran for cover into one of their churches and never got out, they saw the chance and strapped an e-meter on him, siphoning his pauer like so much Farpoint.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
E-meter?

Mark
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Presumably a Scientology reference, though one can never be too sure with that one.
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Wasn't there an Immortal in one of the episodes who ran around with a gun shooting other Immortals, then beheading them before they came to? I remember at the end of the ep, Duncan swatted the gun out of his hand and said something all cool like, "That isn't the way we do things." Sword fighting ensued. Was that considered to be against The Rules?

I also remember an ep with an Immortal who used dogs to subdue other Immortals and soften them up for a good beheading.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
The first episode was probably a hitman named Johnny Kaye (a play on how lots of bad guy Immortals have names that begin with the "K" sound, often nicknamed "K'Immies")whom Duncan first "found", but who never wanted to learn the rules. He just watched a couple pirate movies, and was an easy kill for Duncan. The other possibility is Xavier St. Cloud, who upon his second appearance joined forces with the renegade Watcher Horton and used a couple of mercenaries to kill his victims with machine guns before he beheaded them. Neither was strictly against the rules - though the latter can be interpreted as a violation of the "one on one" rule.

"Oh, look, an Immortal riddled with bullets. Hell, *I* didn't do it - dibs!"

There've been at least three additional instances where Immortals first threaten to shoot Duncan, then gladly drop their guns and pull out the pointy sticks. There have also been instances of Immortals ganging up on a victim - there was the Immortal Gavriel Larca, who went around masquerading as "God" and recruiting new Immortals by feigning responsibility for their "resurrection" as Angels of the Lord. They didn't know any better, and ended up going around killing Immortals and letting "God" take their heads. It seems that except for the holy ground rule, everything else is really just tradition.

According to the Watchers, the only recorded instance of Immortals fighting on holy ground ocurred in the city of Pompeii around 79 A.D. . I question how you can record the fight given what happened, and there's no solid proof that it was a result of Immortal combat, but hey... According to Joe, it's only a legend.

Mark

PS - The dog trainer guy was Peter Kanis, who had an instinctive affinity with dogs in a basically telepathic way. There have been rare instances of Immortals who have non-standard abilities, like a guy who could project his dreams into other Immortals, or a guy who could use his voice to disorient victims. It also works detrimentally though - there was Kit O'Brady, an Immortal who sensed other Immies not by the "buzz" sensory sound effect, but by his allergies. He sneezed whenever another one came by!
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
The guy with the dogs was pretty lame: as was McCloud's method of dealing with them.
He bought a bitch in heat and those "highly trained" rottwilders suddenly forget their commands to get laid.

Er.....no.

The thing that's silly about all the immortals with the "special powers" is that they rely on them to the point where they are easily killed once their schtick is dealt with.

The guy with the Voice was sorta intresting- except after a few hundred years, you'd think he might have fought a deaf guy somewhere.....

Too bad there was never a real threat to Mac: someone that was just waaaay better with a blade that Mac had to run for his life.
They could've done a whole bunch of episodes with mac traveling and trying to become a better fighter....


It's pretty silly to think that Mac kills an immortal every few weeks (at least 9-10 a year!)and not only gets away with it (forensics in Paris must be waaaay behind the US!) but is not so powerful that he's not walking on water.

On a side note, it would have been funny if adrian Paul had a seizure during one of the "quickening scenes": who would know?
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I remember scene involving Quickening seizures that was kind of cool. Richie was getting his butt stomped and Mac couldn't interfere because of The Rules. Richie, down on his knees says, "Go ahead and kill me. Mac is going to be right over there waiting to take care of you when my Quickening knocks you on your ass." Or something like that. I always thought that was funny.

Speaking of Quickening, do they ever explain for sure how the Quickening knows which Immortal to go to? Or is it just assumed that it's the closest one? There's an ep where a bunch of Watchers capture a husband and wife Immortal couple. They tie one of them to a tree and behead them. The other one gets the first one's Quickening even though he didn't actually kill her. What if noone kills the Immortal... if, like, a tree falls on them and it plucks their head head clean off? Does it just go to the nearest Immortal?
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
I counted once. In the six-year run of the series, Duncan beheaded around 80 Immortals, which according to his tally in "Endgame" was around half his known total.

I too got annoyed that Duncan always defeated the bad guys. I mean, as the hero in a life-and-death fight, you kinda HAVE to win, but by the third or fourth season it was looking a little too easy. There was only one time that he was REALLY worried about losing, in the first-season fight with Grayson. But yeah, I was hoping that just ONCE he'd fight and lose, and have to run away.

The ACTUAL consequences of absorbing all those quickenings aren't always evident. But after 170+ heads, I'd say Duncan is powerful enough to make it look easy. Dramatically though, it gets pretty repetitive.

Never heard of a deaf Immortal (no pun intended), or a blind one for that matter. Immortals seem to be born, or found, without any major defects. It's perfectly reasonable to figure that at SOME point in history someone permenantly blew out his ears or was stabbed in the eyes by toothpicks before they "truly" became Immortal, but we've yet to run into one. One would figure though that they'd still be at a disadvantage, unless they had some of those rare extra powers to make up for it.

As for forensics, the writers themselves were told not to worry about it, and to count it as part of the suspension of disbelief required for a show like this. Like the prevalence of English throughout the Stargate universe, it'd take up too much of a 45-minute show if they spent time every epsiode wondering what's going on with all the headless bodies turning up. They only once referred to a dead guy found in a previous episode (Slan Quince from the pilot), but since then it's basically ignored. Most assume that the victor in most cases would clean up the body out of respect, or at least desire to avoid getting caught. Duncan has been seen carrying off headless corpses on more than one occasion.

Mark
 

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
 
>>Immortals seem to be born, or found, without any >>major defects.

Well, that isn't true. Remember the episode "The Innocent", where Richie found a mentally retarded Immortal named Mickey?

>>Duncan has been seen carrying off headless >>corpses on more than one occasion.

Um. I don't think he has, at least, not as I can remember.
 

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
 

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I mean, as the hero in a life-and-death fight, you kinda HAVE to win, but by the third or fourth season it was looking a little too easy. There was only one time that he was REALLY worried about losing, in the first-season fight with Grayson. But yeah, I was hoping that just ONCE he'd fight and lose, and have to run away.

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Well, I would say that MacLeod was worried about going against Kalas, eager to, yes, but worried - remember, if he hadn't dropped from the catwalk, Kalas would've had him in "Song of the Executioner", and Kalas would probably have had him in the flashback from "Methos" if MacLeod hadn't slashed his throat. Also, let's not forget that Methos didn't think MacLeod could defeat Kalas, so he called the police to intervene in their sword-fight, also in "Methos", although true enough - after killing Fitzcairn, Kalas is the one who ran away in "Star-Crossed." I guess the only thing to explain Kalas' lack-luster skills in "Finale" were that he'd spent three months locked away in a prison cell, unable to practice with a blade.

MacLeod also threw himself off a bridge in Revalations 6:8 to avoid being killed by what's-his-name with an axe. Of course, it can be argued that Mac was about to be incapaciated by "scarface's" quickening. And then, of course, in the previous episode, Methos again intervened in Mac's fight with Kronos by starting a fire.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
1. Whoops, you're right. Mikey Bellows was a mentally handicapped person who was basically "mercy killed" by the end of the show, which was what that week's baddie was trying to do anyway.

[Which reminds me a bit of one of the few good Highlander fanfics I've read, involving Duncan mercy-killing a week-old Immortal]

2. In "the Innocent", he carried off a 10-ish year old decapitated Immortal who was killed by another Immortal OR a cannonball offscreen; in "The Valkyrie" he carried off the body of Ingrid Henning after he calls her bluff that he wouldn't kill an unarmed woman (who was about to blow up a white supremecist rally).

3. Kalas killed the hapless Auberon right after he broke out of prison, so he'd had a recent Quickening to drive him on. Also, IMO Kalas' fighting skills were some of the best seen on the show, so while the "Finale" fight was less than a minute long, it was one of the best, involving both sides getting injured and hurt.

There's one time that Macleod was genuine worried about losing - or at least that lots of people were worried about him losing - to Steven Keane, out on the warpath for revenge when Macleod killed Sean Burns. Keane really wasn't much of a fighter, which is why most audiences were confused as to why everyone was so worried.

This isn't to say that much of the time Duncan *isn't* always putting his best foot forward when he faces another Immortal, but sometimes you just have to wonder that the constant easy victories aren't making him a bit soft.

Mark
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 

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Originally posted by Aban Rune:
I remember scene involving Quickening seizures that was kind of cool. Richie was getting his butt stomped and Mac couldn't interfere because of The Rules. Richie, down on his knees says, "Go ahead and kill me. Mac is going to be right over there waiting to take care of you when my Quickening knocks you on your ass." Or something like that. I always thought that was funny.

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Speaking of Quickening, do they ever explain for sure how the Quickening knows which Immortal to go to? Or is it just assumed that it's the closest one? There's an ep where a bunch of Watchers capture a husband and wife Immortal couple. They tie one of them to a tree and behead them. The other one gets the first one's Quickening even though he didn't actually kill her. What if noone kills the Immortal... if, like, a tree falls on them and it plucks their head head clean off? Does it just go to the nearest Immortal? [/qb]

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It generally goes to the nearest Immortal - there may be the occasional slipup, but I believe that's the series rule.

When an Immortal dies and no other is around, it's usually said that their essence is lost forever. There is no definite range, but most believe that it's just gone. When Fitzcairn is caught and about to be guillotined, he rants on about how all he knows and is will be lost because no other Immortal is near.

And in an episode of The Raven, Morgan Kenworthy is quite implausibly behaeded by falling glass. Amanda is outside the building where this happens - while there is all the lightning and stuff, she doesn't get it. Later on in the show, Wolfe beheads a guy just as Amanda gets there, and she does get it.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
I'd sure give it to her...
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Maybe they have to be within "sensing distance" of the other Immortal. Being outside the building, Amanda was probably too far away for the guy who lost his head to sense her. But in the second case you mentioned, he probably could have.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Unfortunately, sensing range is just as variable as Quickening range. As another effect dictated by the needs of the story, Immortals have been shown sensing each other from a block or two away or more, or when they're about to walk into the room, or when they turn a corner and bump into each other. It varies even with the same Immortals, so it's not just a matter of different pairs of Immortals having different ranges.

When Duncan killed Caspian, he immediately jumped off the bridge they were on and fell quite some ways. The lightning and stuff followed and continued hitting him, even though Silas was then the closest Immortal (and directly in the path of the lightning, no less). So, at least we know that when a "connection" is made between an Immortal and the body of another during the Quickening, it sticks and doesn't transfer.

Mark
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I'd be willing to except that the Quickening "knows" who took the head and forms a connection with that person, if it was another Immortal who actually beheaded the donor. I guess the question mark is still who gets it if someone or something else does the chopping. But that question seems to be pretty well covered, if not directly than at least by implication.

Having it actually expained in dialogue would be pretty akward. I'm sure the Immortals know how it works... they don't really need to explain it to each other.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Actually, there seems to be an in-built aversion to figuring out HOW it works, or they intuitively know it worthless. Again in "Testimony", Anne starts going into trying how to figure it out with some blood tests or cultures or whatever, and Duncan tells her it won't matter.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
He just knows it "wont matter" because the each movie invalidates the last.

I'd have love to have seen a human get caught in the middle of one of those Quickening lightening-fests nad become...er...not "iommortal" exactly, but longer loved and with some experiences/skills of the slain immortal.

Some janitor at the amusment park (or wherever the" showdown of the week" is held) caught up in events ge's not ready to understand would have been intresting.
Everybody would have gone after him to see how/what happened- watchers, immortals, humans that know the secret and want to live forever...
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Well... everyone wants to be longer loved.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Freud would have a field-day examining my posts, is that what you're saying Aban?

I blame your link to Shannon mcCrandle's website as distracting me.
She's got a purdy mouth.
 

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