Classic: Highlander Part 2: The Sickening

This is part 2 of our revisitation of the Highlander franchise - since the official footage of the Highlander reboot recently debuted at CinemaCon.

Transcript

Cold Open And Host Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Highlighter two is like having a venerable disease. Welcome to your favorite Geek podcast, Dispatch Ajax. I'm Jake, and this is.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hi, I'm Skip. Hey, it's Skip. He's here. That's right, that's right. Teen Heartthrob, Jake, and star of Stage and Screen, me. Um I'm on Tiger Beat. Here are some really interesting things. A couple of things I forgot from episode one. About Highlander. About Highlander, yes, in the second part, because this is a bajillion part series, apparently, because it's so much stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

It's kind of an unending episode until someone cuts our head off.

Sean Connery Pay And Set Tales

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, until the time of the gathering, this episode's just gonna keep going. So one of the funnier things that we didn't get to Sean Connery's pay. This is a quote from the director. We needed somebody. We knew that he was up for a job, and we paid him$500,000 for three days. We managed to stretch those days throughout the film. He added there was a fault with the camera, and the negative was damaged. The deal was$500,000 for three days of Connery's time,$500,000 extra for every day after that. Oof, Christ. Because of technical problems, he got another million. Sean was a delight to work with. We'd shoot his close-up over Christopher, then two weeks later, we'd shoot Christopher's close-up over a double. If we went an hour over, it would be major money. I got him with the hat on to turn, to smile, to turn around with the sword out, laughing, looking shocked. We had three cameras on him. I looked at my watch, and with one minute left, I said, you've rapped. And Connery went, You bastard.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

It's like his uh his voiceover at the beginning of the film that was done in his bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Hmm. Of course it was. Well, he brought a lot of whiskey to that set. Apparently he bought them barrels of whiskey for everyone on set. That's disturbing. Well, when you have that kind of money.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Well, I guess you do because you you're gonna milk it out a few more days, and maybe that's a single day of whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, I mean, I can't tell if he's just being a dick or he's gaming the system or both. I'm not really sure. Because everybody's a little column A, little column B. Yeah, because everybody apparently loved working with him. Well, unless you're a woman. Well, except for a woman who worked in the production department. Her name was Lois Burwell. She worked in makeup. She'd been on the water in a boat doing makeup touch-ups with Connery and Lambert for their scene in the rowing boat. The other like production assistants had carried all the stuff out of the boat and literally picked up Lambert and Connery in their arms and waded to the shore carrying them so that their costumes wouldn't get ruined. But they left her. She said, quote, I'm five foot one and the water would have come up to my chest. I also had a cold and was particularly pale. I'm still in the boat going, can someone please come back for me? Then Sean, and I remember this because the costume designer Jim Acheson blew a gasket, waded into the water, and carried me to the shore and ruined his costume. Apparently it wasn't like this for everybody because Clancy Brown says that they did not care for each other. According to Clancy Brown, Sean only said three words to me the entire show. Do you golf? I said no. And that was kind of the last time he spoke to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I seem to remember there's a story of they're having that sword fight on the stairwell, and apparently the sword that Clancy like came too fast at Sean and like came too close to him, and he walked off the set, and he said he wasn't gonna he was done. He's not gonna shoot anymore with this guy. That's it. And the director had to smooth things over to get him back on set.

The Real Kurgan In History

SPEAKER_00 4:51

I can't say I'm surprised. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, think Connery was actually good at sword play. I don't know. Uh no. No. And then you have those giant Clancy Browns swinging this huge sword at your head. Yep. And then Connery swinging katana, and he's like, I know how to use this because I did Yellow Face in a Bond movie. That's quite the odd job for him. Well yikes. Yikes indeed. Speaking of uh the Kurgan, I was doing some research on something completely unrelated, actually. And I found out that the Kurgan were real people. Hmm. And not only that, they were a Proto-Indo-European peoples that came from the steppes of Russia. Uh, they're called the Kurgan because it's a tumulus that they would erect, which is a burial mound, that was characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses, much to the horses' dismay. Oh no. Philip II of Macedon, who's the father of Alexander the Great, was buried in a Kurgan in Greece. It still exists, and Midas, king of Phrygia, buried in a Kurgan near his ancient capital of Gordion. Huh. Interesting. Coincidence? I think not.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Speaking of coincidence, there was actually a Star Trek episode called the Kurgan hypothesis, where Chekhov got a huge boner.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I did a bunch of research on Alexander the Great. I should have put that together earlier, because I did a bunch of. But he was also an immortal? Yes, he was in a Star Trek episode.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

The circle has been completed.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

We shall raise a Kurgan to this episode.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

You have just discovered the source. Well, this this was better than the movies. God, the movie sucks so hard.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Awful. Truly atrocious. By far the worst Highlander. The worst Highlander of anything?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, that even includes the original quickening, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Although maybe not the MS DOS Highlander game. I haven't played it, but I've seen it, and it just looks awful.

Zeist Retcon And Plot Confusion

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Is it text-based or is it like visual? No, it's it's visual, but it doesn't make it any better. It'd be better for it was text. Last time we talked about the romantic tale of lost love, revenge, and heroism and victory. Told over 400 years from the 16th century shores of Loch Shield to the grey streets of 1980s New York. What could possibly be the most appropriate follow-up to such a sweeping fantasy epic? Well, here's where things go off the rails. Into a ravine and onto a school full of children. Mostly because of Highlander 2, the Quickening.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Oh, one thing, it's it's not quick enough. I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

It's actually kind of long, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

It's it especially for what it is. I mean, you already chopped it up enough. Maybe just completely excise it from existence.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Well, I mean, yeah, when you get to renegade and then the other second special.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Renegade or whatever. Are you saying that you were an immortal and good at your job, but you committed the ultimate sin?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Fuck you! I I literally had that written down. Hold on, just get hold on. Let's come back to that because you testify that the other immortals gone bad. Yes. So Highlander the Quickening, as it was originally known, was released on November 1st, 1991, a day that will live in infamy. The film uh mainly takes place in the year 2024, so we got a couple years. Cross your fingers. It's coming. It flashes back to the events on Earth in the 1990s and also to an alien world called Zeist. 500 years prior. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So now instead of isn't it also like kind of out of time?

SPEAKER_00 9:01

No, they go out of their way to go send them to the future.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Right. But if they can be in any time in the future and they're seeing what's happening in the future, but if they can see 5,000 years in the future, and they can also see tomorrow in the future, aren't they kind of always present?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, you see, um, I don't know if anyone's explained this to you. This is a bad movie. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Sorry. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

I've got to turn the brain off. Yeah. Make it a sense at all. I'm just telling you what their thing is. This is literally, I wrote down so many of these exact questions on a notepad last night. Most of it is partially legible. Uh so now instead of fey or fairy-like beings who were born among mortal men, Ramirez and McLeod were revealed to be alien revolutionaries who opposed the malevolent the malevolent General Katana, played by the great Michael Ironside. I have a lot of issues with this as to you. Um is really bad in every way, shape, and form.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Detail-wise, why are they called McLeod and Ramirez if there is no Scotland or Egypt slash Spain? If it's 500 years before on another planet, why are their names McLeod and Ramirez? Also, why are they people? Why are they white? Why is any of this happening? Why do they speak English natively?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Also, so so they were sent back to be born into a woman, grow up as a child, live a life until they die, and then become immortal.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Well, I mean maybe uh I mean it has to be.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I mean, everyone in McLeod's clan, they knew him from him. Yes. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

So what kind of logic does that make? And not only that, but if this happens 500 years in the past, but Ramirez is like a thousand years old or more. Which he would be. He was an Egyptian from what like what three, four thousand years before? 272 BC, right? Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Okay. Alright. Um, maybe that's when a sword is made. I don't know. I got these numbers in my head.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So when we open on the resistance of the free men of Zeist against Z uh General Katana. Katana. For some reason, uh Ramirez believes that McLeod randomly has this great destiny for some reason we don't understand. Okay. Alright, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I do want to touch on this because there are all of these resistance fighters in this army, and they look up to the guy who will be Ramirez because it doesn't even have a name on Zeist. Who knows? And they're all like, you're gonna be the guy to lead us, and he's like, No, it's that guy. And he just points at the guy who will be McLeod, and he's like, uh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I I what? Yeah, he just goes, You will be called Paul Muadib. And then the rest of the Fremen are like, cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

And it was funny because I hate that you're like blending something that I love so much with something I despise.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Well, we love Highlander. We love Highlander too as well. Not Highlander 2, Highlander as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yes, yes, we love Highlander the idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So then we get to the siege, this amazing military triumph by McLeod, where a mere minutes into the campaign, everyone is dead. Because McLeod apparently has the military acumen of a box of cheez-its. Uh, so they all get captured.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Well, they're all running uphill with little pop guns against these major cannons that are fortified.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Of course they're gonna lose. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. All of our forces charge straight at the guns.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Why don't they just get into a land ward in Asia while they're at it?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, let's just let's invade Russia, the winner. Good good plan, dumbasses. And then except this lasted like and then the best part is when they're captured, and after some weird, stupid garbage where Michael Ironside uh breaks the neck of an eel for no reason. Um was that like a magic eel? No, I think it's just alien. Okay. I I honestly I've seen this film multiple times, and every time I'm trying to read something into these moments. Oh man, no, you're I know I know the the the want is there to give weight and and meaning to this stuff, but the lipstick on a pig. No, I'm with you. I I I thought the same thing. I was like, maybe we can find something in here, but there is nothing there. So here's the funny part. So there's this weird tribunal of telepathic, I don't know, judges that judge their punishment. Yeah, they're like the um beneath the planet of the apes guys. Absolutely. I was literally gonna say that. Yeah, it's exactly like that. I think they just ripped that off from beneath the planet of the apes, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

We are the council of the bald men.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Patrick Stewart and Billy Corgan and Michael Harris. Oh, okay. Well, you're going another musician, that's okay. Uh just started getting divorced. Well, Jeff Bezos. Oh, no, Michael Perryman. I'm sorry. Two actors, one cup. Sorry. It never ends. It's a dark quickening, Jake. This is a dark quickening. This is what it feels like. This is it. This is it right here. Poison us forevermore. Oh, God. Okay, so we haven't even gotten to the first through the first scene yet. Here's the garbage part. Okay, so there's these three judges and General Katata, who's been apparently witnessing these trials for a long time, for some reason is outraged by all of it and confused by all of it. They sentence Ramirez and McLeod to go be exiled into the future on a different planet, which sounds pretty sweet, honestly. Um it sounds like something you've-prison goes. That's that's pretty rad. All right. And and on top of that, they're immortal.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, they live forever. And they are then destined to fight with swords against are all the other immortals that they fight, are they all prisoners like them?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

That's what they imply. Here's the point with that either. Yeah, I know. I was very confused. Here's the thing that really, really bothered me in that scene was they were like, when they sentenced them, they're like, all of you cursed with this immortality, you'll be sentenced to spend it in the future, whatever. And it's like, wait, wait, hold on. So not all of you guys are immortal, and also they're already immortal before they go to Earth? Why did this not come up before? Can you clarify something? Just what just a mo. What's the deal again? I wish the listeners could see me just shaking my head. Were they already immortal? And if so, what's the point of if you're immortal but everyone isn't, you'd probably win most of those wars, right? I mean, you'd probably outlast the mortals or whatever. In prison terms, is there punishment having to live forever and keep fighting? See, that's what I thought, but then watching it last night, they specifically say when they passed down their sentence and cast them into the future, they say, just like all of those others like you cursed with this immortality. Well, I'm paraphrasing, but implying that they're the weirdos because they're already immortal. Why didn't you just round up all the immortals and send them there in the first place? If this is like an ethic cleansing type thing anyway. I don't understand the rules here or the point. I don't think there are either. If, like they say, you get a choice, their sentence is they battle, you know, they do the gathering, they battle to the last, only one can come back home. And that person's choice is to either die immortal where they are, or come back to the past and live out their life as a religious devotee to their cult. So if that's the scenario, then what was the point of you would think that immortality would have to be the punishment given to them for this scenario to play out. Otherwise, they would just go to the future and die, and who cares? If that's the case, then why don't they just scoop up all the immortals and send them there in the first place? I don't understand what's happening. And then they try to be like, well, you can't fight on holy ground because they're like a fascist religious cult. Yeah, but shouldn't we have some type of ideology that we're putting forward? Yeah, they don't. No. If they're a religious a fascist religious cult, why would they think all holy grounds everywhere are sacred holy grounds? Why wouldn't they just be like, only our weird alien religion is holy? You can go f off and do whatever the f you want on this other planet we don't give a shit about. It's like like Australia for European colonists where they just dump everybody they don't like. It's like the galactic ghetto. The more that I think about it. Well, okay, that's fair. That's not untrue. It's the new jersey of the Western spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Okay, we're never gonna answer these questions, so I think we should we should jump ahead into the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Okay, fine. The weird thing is that Ramirez states in this that um even though he dies in the first one, they they go back in their retcon and say that uh all you have to do is call my name Bastion, and Ramirez will appear and look into a mirror, say Ramirez three times. No, yes. And then Tony Todd goes, dude, I was asleep. In the quickening version, they call it the quickening when they do that weird romance bond with the energy that bonds them for life. It James bonds them? It sure does. You know, never say never again. So you only die twice? So for some reason, they call that the quickening, this magical bond they have, which has nothing to do with the quickening established at any point in any of the other movies, series, or otherwise, or elsewhere in that film. Mm-hmm. Yep. There's even a scene where Virginia Madsen, where Connor tries to explain how it works, and then she's like, Oh, so you're now mortal. You were immortal, but now you're mortal. But now that the other immortals are here, they have the quickening, which makes you immortal again. And he's like, Oh, something like that. And I'm like, something like that? What any give me anything like that? Just give me anything. You didn't you even skipped over the part where he actually explains it to her.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

No, it's it's unoptanium. You know, we'll just it's a placeholder. Yeah. Who cares? Watch your sword fight, kids. Stop asking questions.

Ozone Shield Dystopia And Corporations

SPEAKER_00 20:55

All right, let's just get to the basic premise of the movie because we gotta blow through this garbage. Uh in the film's main story, the ozone layer on Earth was destroyed, and a lot of people were killed in like uh 1995 when it finally all falls apart, including Brenda, the love interest from the first movie that we didn't even bother getting to because she doesn't matter at all. And then in 1999, Conor Cloud supervised a team that created an energy shield across the planet with this other guy who's like a physicist. I'm guessing they're implying he was able to have that knowledge and ability because he had the prize, but they don't really explicitly say that, and it doesn't really make any sense. He's not a scientist, he's a Scottish dude who collects antiques.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Uh, I'm guessing he could just read people's minds or like tap into the collective unconscious of humanity.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Wouldn't you be able to prevent all that if that were the case? You know, we're trying to explain the logic of this film. I know, but that's the point. The reasons that we keep doing that will become clear later. So they create this energy shield that protects Earth from You know, solar radiation. They can't see the sky or natural light. It's kind of like a Twilight Zone episode where they're all safe, but then they don't have night or anymore. It's like it was all, you know, they had plenty of time now, and then their glasses broke. So by 2024, humanity is largely in despair as society is overwhelmed with violence and crime. It was a bunch of like garbage crime, 80s, 90s crime panic nonsense. But now the SHIELD is under the control of the Shield Corporation, which charges countries all around the world for its protection. It's a the ultimate racket. Since Connor is now mortal, he's turned into an old man who still goes to a bar and does a stupid voice and bad makeup, but worried that because he still hasn't chosen his fate or his destroyer, Katana decides to send two He-Man characters back forward in time to try and kill him.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Man, I wish they had He-Man characters here.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

They would be better. Like even in that terrible Masters of the Universe movie with Dolph Slungren. I just made my wife watch that for the first time the other day. Oh uh scale of uh one to ten. Which between eight and nine did she give it?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Uh it's a solid eight and a half.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Of course it was. Yeah. Yeah, so he's an old man and yada yada yada. And then he sends those two birdmen. He sends Harvey Birdman and the Blue Falcon or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Michael Ironside sends bird people to go kill Connor.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Because it's taking too long?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Because he doesn't want to do it himself.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Why does he care? And he does he have to wait all those years in the past for that to happen? Or is he just like turning the channel? Like it's been five minutes for him, and he's like, oh, he hasn't he still hasn't done it.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Bird people, go do it. Well, specifically, he wasn't gonna do anything. But the weird telepathic beneath the planet of the apes idiots were like the living tribunal or whatever, were like, oh, he never made his choice, so there's a chance he could always just come back and kill you. I know, but it's all happening at the same time. Yeah. And they can see into the future. I I know. Uh they can see into the future. It's not like where they were sending it back to the past where you could write some sort of like, I don't know, McGuffin-filled story where you can change the past. This has literally not happened yet. So you can do anything. If you send Connor McLeod into the future and you're worried about it, why don't you just send somebody to the future and kill Sarah McLeod so that she never has Connor?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

I mean, does his immortal soul have to go somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

I hate to tell you this, Jake, but that's what the source is. Uh stop it. Stop it. It is. I look into it more. So remember we talked about how, like, if there's a quickening and no one absorbs it, it just disappears into ether. Apparently, it's just reabsorbed by the source, which goes to creating new immortals. I know. I know it sucks so hard and we love it so much. Maybe we have the problem here. Maybe it's us. People at home can't see it right now, but we're literally flagellating ourselves with whips and cat a nine tails that say Highlander on the handle.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Mine have uh little Duncan and Connors on the ends of them. Hit me.

When Sequels Damage Beloved Franchises

SPEAKER_00 25:25

They're just little katanas and broadswords. Every time I I whip it through the air, it goes, heh heh heh. Uh so basically the whole premise is that uh giant corporations are evil, uh, which is good, um, especially ones like that. And um science is good instead. So the the doctor from Scrubs is an evil CEO running the Shield Corporation. He had to be pretty young. I guess that was 91 though, so no, yeah, it was 91. So that's about the same time as like Point Break, right? Yeah. Well, until Point Break was like 89. Yeah, we should probably research this before we brought it up, but yeah. Um it's high in there, too. Who cares? So his character, by the way, that that Doctor from Scrubs character, Doctor from Scrubs character. Is his name is uh Reginald Doctor from Scrubs. Good thing he's got that job. That's totally a Robocop character. Oh yeah. No, this is Omni Shield Corp. Um they're they're trying to pull a Verhoven like real hard here. I think that actor honestly nails it um when it comes to that. Like he's he's channeling straight up maybe Robocop 2 vibes, but I mean he's still he's he's still in the in the Verhoven sort of universe, and considering what he has to work with, I I think he's really good if you if you look at it from a like a satirical you know point of view. But it doesn't work with this movie. That's not what the rest of this movie is. No, it doesn't fit whatsoever. But if you think of it as like a Robocop movie, you're like, yeah, this is exactly what this character would be. How much better would this be if it was just done by Paul Verhoven?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Well, the I mean, stylistic choices would be better, but you're still left with a pile of dung.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Oh my god, it's gonna be a parade of dismemberment beheadings. That'd be glorious. I'd love to see Paul Verhoven tackle just a franchise, you know, or like a remake of this movie where it makes sense. His style has kind of changed though from the 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Quick, quick, I love it. What other property is like this? Because yet the the one that pops to my head is Hellraiser. Like the idea of Hellraiser is a good idea. It's interesting, it's fasting. There's a lot of things you could do with it. One really good movie. Maybe has like one really good movie.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

The rest have been pretty much garbage. That is an interesting uh comparison considering that most of Hellraiser also is garbage, you're right. And the sequels kind of retroactively ruin the first one, like right off the bat. Like Highlander 2, I don't know how uh Hellraiser 2 kind of immediately ruins the first one. Yeah. And by the time you by the time you get to three, they're just like, nope, we don't give a shit. At the same time, at the same time, in Highlander, every time they came out with a new one, they were trying to retcon the bad stuff from the last one. Like even Highlander 3, which came out during the series, they were like, Okay, Highlander 2 didn't happen, don't talk about it. And then by the time you get to the series and then endgame, they were like, Well, Highlander 3 didn't happen, don't talk about it. But with Hellraiser, they just keep building off of them over and over and over again. And they're like, Well, none of these were good, so what am I supposed to do with that? You think what else is like that? Well, there's so much around it. You can't really compare big movie franchises like Bond or Godzilla or whatever big anthology movie franchises because those are different.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah, and I feel like slasher movies kind of tend to be their own kind of thing. I mean, Hellraiser doesn't really feel like a slasher per se.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So oh no, it's horror, it's fantasy horror, which is awesome. It's a different ball game, just like you know, Alien is uh sci-fi horror, and Blade Runner is Noir Sci-Fi. And I mean, really, it's not a very big genre, but it's a cool one. One inhabited almost exclusively by Hellraiser. Almost, almost exclusively. There are other ones here and there. There's like that what that Spanish flick baskin, which is basically just a Hellraiser ripoff. And it's kind of unique in that way that we all want it to be good. And that we know that the premise is great. We still hold out that love for it because I don't know, it's not like you know, certain franchises that have universes that are created that fans love, um, but are kind of just always consistent like buffy. There are people that love buffy, but it it is just always buffy. There's no yeah, I don't know that there is a lot of other well, I mean, there are not uh it's kind of a unique franchise in that where it's like its fan base is just as loyal as Star Trek or Star Wars, which are the most loyal fan bases. You know, they're as loyal as Harry Potter fans. There's only like a nugget of good in there.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

It's a difficult thing to imagine basing your impassioned fandom behind.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

We're introducing certain things to our wives, right? Just this is you and I, not just as a general, like women don't get geeky things. I'm not saying that. Because it's very obviously not true. But like, okay, let's say you and I are introducing our wives to something we're passionate about that they've never seen, like, I don't know, Star Wars, Star Trek, or whatever. You know, if they're like, oh, I've seen a couple of movies or I've seen a couple of episodes and they were pretty cheesy or whatever, or I didn't get it, or it was it was a lot, I didn't, it seemed like a lot to jump into the middle of, or whatever. I can go, well, here's some examples of the good stuff. Here you go. This is where it's good, this is why it works, and this is why it fails, and this is why we love it. With Highlander, what do you do there? I don't know what you do. I mean show them the first movie, and then go, hey, forget the last 30 minutes of that movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

You like swords, right? Huh?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Swords? Swords are good. Yeah, but I mean, how do you how do you give how do you explain the gestalt of the franchise that we genuinely all love? This is not a direct one-to-one comparison by any means. High leader is as difficult to explain as say they might be giants. How do you explain that to somebody? If you get it, you get it. And if you don't, you just don't. I suppose so. They're not the same kind of fandom, and they're not the same kind of genre type thing, obviously, because right. But it's just as difficult to explain why fans of it like the thing that they like. Granted, the way of jights has always just been good, people just don't get it. Highlanders, we admit, has been mostly terrible. But we love it because we get it.

Argentina Chaos And The Insurance Cut

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Unless we're talking about Highlander 2, then of cour obviously we don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Um we can get into some of the reasons why Highlander 2 was a disaster. Some of it is weird political intrigue. You mean like the the Ruskies were involved, that kind of political intrigue? Actually, kind of. They chose to film the movie in Argentina, but then the Argentinian economy completely collapsed during production, and hyperinflation went nuts, so they weren't gonna make any money off the movie, and so all the people that were all the people that were investing in it were like, oh no, we're not gonna make any money. Um, nobody's gonna get this. We need to make this popular locally and in the markets we can afford to put them in. And so they essentially held the production crew hostage. They were like, You're all under contract, you're staying, we're not letting you leave the country or do anything or abandon the project, we're gonna take over. The insurance company seized control of the film and got lawyers to threaten everyone with legal action if they ever tried to interfere with the editorial changes they were making or badmouth the film publicly. When it was finally released in 1991, to everyone's dismay and vomit, Russell McCahie, the director of the first one and second one, or partially, immediately demanded his name be taken off the film and walked out of the premiere after 15 minutes. Sort of David Lynch style. Yeah. Supposedly uh Christopher Lambert did the same thing. And he's made some some real stinkers. If Lambert's out, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Didn't they say they all hated the movie? And like when it was filming, they all hated the script and that they're just doing it for the money.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

The entire premise had been redone by the insurance company that was backing the money put up by Argentinian investors.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

And of course, later on, McMulke he sort of revisited the project after all the rights came back to the distributors and everything, and he made a director's cut where he deleted all the footage and vocal reference to Zeist, and all the Zeist footage was repurposed as a flashback to some weird, vague, ancient, technologically advanced civilization, sort of like Stargate, but that existed on Earth before all of recorded history, of which there is apparently no archaeological record, which is weird, because they show like giant Sphinx-like statues that you'd think we would have found by now. And also the flying ships. Well, we did. This is the Smithsonian's covering it up. It's all at the Getty Museum. Yeah, it's underneath the Getty. If you guys want to go watch Highlighter 2, this is the this is the part where you think that most of the humor would come from, but it's actually most of the frustration. Just if you want to dare to watch it, you should. Just to see what we're talking about. Watch all versions of it. You know what? No. Honestly. Don't listen to him. Don't watch it. But now they're definitely gonna watch it. Then you're never gonna smoke again. You could make an argument early on that Highlander 3 fits into canon with the series, kind of, if the series happens beforehand. If you take them individually and separate, it makes no sense whatsoever. Even more so than it doesn't already. It's a garbage-nothing movie. Whose only redeeming value is that it's not Highlander 2.

Highlander 3 Plus Conan Universe Theory

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, uh Highlander 3, The Sorcerer, or the Final Dimension.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

The third one um is a direct sequel to the first one. Connor thinks he's the only immortal left. It turns out there's this there's another immortal who's still alive because he was trapped in a cave in Japan through magic, which kept him away from the game and the gathering in general. And so he missed all of it and was bound by magic so he couldn't do anything. I don't know if it was I don't remember if it was holy ground or not, but either way, when he finally like is recovered, then he realizes there's another immortal in the world. But and this is where it gets weird about the quickening, too, because Mario Van Peebles, who plays the villain, kills one of the retcond other mentors of Connor McLeod, not Ramirez, who's played by Mako, which is awesome. Yeah. Best part of the film. He's always absolutely is, but he's like an illusionist wizard. He plays the same role that he was in the Conan films. Might be canon. Oh, what if they're the same character? Exactly. Wait, does he die in Conan though? No, because he's the one who tells the story of Conan. Oh, then he's the narrator, yeah. Right. Yeah, no, he's in Destroyer, he's alive at the end. Mm-hmm. Okay, so we're gonna say that they're in the same universe. That's cool. It's the one positive we can take from this film. Hey, maybe that's the only reason he was able to kill Thalsadoom. He takes his head. Because Thalsadoom was an immortal. We're on to something here, dude. I like that. How is Thulsa Doom able to do what he did? Like become this like marauding warlord and and dominate so many like badass warrior cultures, unless he was a Kurgan like Sumerian warlord. There's the obvious he's also a snake god, so okay. So there's a thing. So does he also have magic powers that fit into the Highlander universe? Yeah. So Thulcadoom is an immortal, and so the reason they were able to get into Thulcidoom's thing was not because of you know his like complex, was not because of the Looney Tunes-esque guise when when Conan tells that rapist priest, that pedophile priest or whatever that he wants to go and pray. So Mako's the main character. Mako's manipulating Conan the entire time to use him to kill Thilsadim.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Well, no, because wait, hold on, hold on. I gotta think of the timeline of Conan because they go.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

No. This is off the dome, too. This is not, we're not looking this up. This is straight off the dome.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

They don't they don't find Mako until after, because he gets in pretending to be a prostrate priest, uh, is found in prostate, yes. Prostrate, uh, is then put on the the tree of woe. That's when Valeria gets him down, gets the wizard to then help revive him and keep the evil spirits away, and then she dies, and then Meka was part of the siege when pre-going to Thalsadoom's Temple. Because Conan is the only one who goes to Thalsadoom's temple at the end.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Oh, that's right. Cut his head off. When they go to the siege and they they go to his like his like hedonist palace or whatever and he kills the snake. No, that's that's before that.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

When Thalsadoom's minions conduct a siege on Conan. Oh, okay, the Battle of the Mounds, as it were. Yeah. And then then you see him again and destroyer when he's being saved from the Oh, okay. He's being saved from a group of cannibals who want to cut him up and eat his flesh for his magic.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

So is Conan, do you think, in this scenario, did Mako agree to help Conan because he was a pre-immortal? Hmm. Interesting. Because he he basically saves him from a quickening type death, but he doesn't really die, but he's kind of dead. And is he like trying to keep him from being an immortal? And then like keeps him alive so that he's not in the game. Ooh, maybe, because who who could defeat Conan? Exactly. That's what I'm thinking. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I like this. See, this is the shit why there are why there are so many fanfics.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yes, this is fascinating. I don't know. That's a great idea. Maybe they're in the shared universe. And then Mako lives that whole time. What Conan's time was the Sumerian era right before written language. Yeah. In post-Atlantist pre-Gilgamesh era. Pre-Gilgamesh. Yeah. Like right at the dawn of civilization. Pre-Gamesh. Pre-Gilgerard.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

In a time before Sigoni Weaver.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Oh, that's really fascinating. I don't know. Maybe Mako is. And maybe his character in Kill Bill is no, no, we're not gonna get. Maybe Sonny Chiba is in a more I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

So his name is Akiro in Dist in Conan and the Destroyer, but Nakano, but maybe his full name was Akiro Nakano?

SPEAKER_00 40:46

I think he had changed his name and moved on. Kind of a Russell Nash kind of vibe? Exactly like Russell Nash. But Conan knew who he was and he just kind of sniffed it out.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I like how uh Juan Villalobos Sanchez or Wait, are these just all of you think maybe he's just taking one name from each of his different lives he's led?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

It could be. And he just keeps adding on? Except you'd think there'd be an Egyptian name in there somewhere. Well, you you'd think there'd be a lot of things Egyptian going on there, but I told you they had the eyeliner. Oh, yep. You you done got me there. Well, he was he was the chief metallurgist to uh King Philip II, so Charles V.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Oh, these inane details that we are like Charles V of Spain nailed it.

Final Jokes And Closing Lines

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Am I right? Am I right? Am I right? Ned? Ned Ryerson? Neil knows Ned? Ned the head. Hey! Do you need some beheading insurance? Yeah, so we're not gonna get through all this at all. We got some stuff in there. Uh time is a flat circle.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Uh no, Highlander's a flat circle.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Remember. No matter where you go. There you are.