Episode 154 - Highlander II: The Quickening LIVE!

[jarrycanada 2483]

I got to see this at a Movie theater. the original highlander movie was a big box office failure and made it's money back on home video years later, Pay tv, something that happen with "The terminator". It didn't do well in theaters. it was rated R and no one knew who Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the time. both movies cleaned up on home video and pay tv rights. now dvd and Blu-ray box sets.

 

it's too sad that Jason hadn't seen the original film because it is so fucking good. and you can imagine how I was when I heard a second highlander movie was being made and we had got so excited to see this at a shopping mall theater in the 90s and it was Horrible! people in the theater where laughing at it. yet it's not really all that bad but should never of been made. you know they are still talking about making another one!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPk50ssaQw

[jarrycanada 2483]

highlander the only movie you can go and see in a theater wearing a raincoat and not be asked to please leave by the police, isnt that right Paul Reubens!

[jarrycanada 2483]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7Vu2g9fFA&ab_channel=TomMarshall

 

This was Roger Ebert's pic for worst movie of 1991. I think he nails it this movie.

 

Don't know where I've seen that before but I like it....

 

Ohh maybe here, the night before.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

I got to see this at a Movie theater. the original highlander movie was a big box office failure and made it's money back on home video years later, Pay tv, something that happen with "The terminator". It didn't do well in theaters. it was rated R and no one knew who Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the time. both movies cleaned up on home video and pay tv rights. now dvd and Blu-ray box sets.

The Terminator opened at #1 in the box office. It made back 2/3 of its budget in the opening weekend and ended up with a box office gross of almost $80M (off of a budget of $6.4M). It was unequivocally a box office success and was the reason that Cameron got to make Aliens two years later.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

Just wanna say I absolutely loved this episode and I hope Sam Richardson guests again.

[justinforabit 15]

I wish they would go back to doing in-studio shows. Makes me sad.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

My friends and I were big fans of Highlander back in the day. And all I can remember about seeing Highlander II 25 years ago is hating it because of how it completely destroyed the cool premise of the first movie. It wasn't until this re-watch that I found out how bad this movie actually is.

 

I know Highlander has a tiny fraction of the pop culture following of Star Wars but what Highlander 2 did to the Immortals was way worse than what Lucas and midicholrians did to the Jedi.

 

Nerdy angst out of the way here are my Fun Notes for the movie.

 

In the battle scene at the start of the movie (in the past and/or Zeist) it makes no sense that so many of the guys are using swords. Bullets work just fine there. Obviously they were because this is a "sword movie" but still I give low marks to generals Connery and Lambert.

 

Going by the Renegade Version it seems like all those guys in the past can just choose to leave it at any time. And the past seems extremely wack. They appear to live or at least mostly hang out in caves. Why don't they just all hop to sometime better?

 

The fact the the Porcupine Bros and Michael Ironsides call Lambert Highlander doesn't add up. Shouldn't they have called him his name from their time? I guess they can see that he gets called Highlander while watching their Future TV but if someone I used to know said "They call me Highlander now" I don't think I'd go along with it. Especially someone I already didn't like.

 

When Connery sees Virginia Madsen in Lambert's apartment he makes a comment like "Some things have definitely improved." That was kind of a shitty thing to say Connery knew Lambert's first wife in the original movie.

 

Connery tells Lambert (vaguely) how to destroy the shield. Connery just got there and knows nothing about it. Lambert built it.

[jarrycanada 2483]

The Terminator opened at #1 in the box office. It made back 2/3 of its budget in the opening weekend and ended up with a box office gross of almost $80M (off of a budget of $6.4M). It was unequivocally a box office success and was the reason that Cameron got to make Aliens two years later.

 

my only reply to that is.

 

 

I remember that being so. then again I remember going to a Billy idol concert and the biggest problem with the local police was the size of spikes that people had wearing on them. Forget drugs or knives. you've got 6' spikes your going away! blows my mind to think about that now.

[dask360 126]

OMG I didn't think June was going to be in this ep because it was recorded the same night as Escape From LA.

 

Why you always gotta be lying to me, bro? Dashed my hopes that you might have the theatrical cut and then breaking my heart by saying June wasn't on the show. Glad that wasn't the case! Can't wait to listen tonight.

 

So I guess the moral is: lying is okay if it yields a nice surprise.

[NundercoverBrother 174]

Where is the Highlander 2 documentary?

[jarrycanada 2483]

Meanwhile on another channel!

 

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

There has never been a moment in HDTGM history that I laughed at as hard as that interaction with the condescending fan. My stomach hurts.

[Cam Bert 8145]

When I first saw the strange woman at the bar that confronts Christopher Lambert I too thought she was wearing some kind of prosthetic. Later as she goes to confront him I realized this was not the case but that first scene when she's yelling at him from the table it looked that way to me. Maybe it was the red tinted lighting and the shadows or something, but my first thought was "Oh, this is Virginia Madsen in makeup trying to see if this really is Connor MacLeod." You're not alone Paul.

[ZARATHUSTRA 245]

I wanted to expand on Zarathustra's earlier post about this whole electromagnetic shields and UV rays. I can buy that this cockamamie shield blocks electromagnetic waves, including UV rays, but I don't think it would block out all light from the sun. Light has both wave-like and particle-like properties. A shield that blocks electromagnetic waves wouldn't be able to block out light. You'd need a physical block like Mr. Burns' contraption.

 

 

Or Wernstrom's mirror satelitte from Futurama.

 

 

I agree it wouldn't block out all light, I just don't see why it would be night if you just wanna block out UV radiation. Plus you can also produce ozone, plus the earth produces ozone (by lightning, UV etc) and I don't know what the fuck the shield even is. Electromagnetic shield isn't a thing, and I don't think can be a thing. If you had a giant emitter of electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere, I don't think it would help at all cause its not gonna absorb any UV. Whenever you hear "electromagnetic" used in movies its almost always a bullshit screenwriter term for 'we don't care the sciency-magic will take care of the logic'. Electromagnetic just means it has something to do with the electromagnetic spectrum, which could be literally anything.

I think this was the early 90s and people were scared of the ozone hole but didn't understand it so it was perfect for use in terrible screenplays.

 

TL,DR: "micro chip" from Face Off was more thought out than the premise of this film.

[ZARATHUSTRA 245]

I wish they would go back to doing in-studio shows. Makes me sad.

 

I like the live shows more to be honest. The energy is higher cause Paul, June and Jason are all trained live improv performers that can work off the audience. I think the ratio of live to studio episodes is perfect right now. Plus they earn the moneys (WAM) and Jason gets to berate the audience.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

 

I like the live shows more to be honest. The energy is higher cause Paul, June and Jason are all trained live improv performers that can work off the audience. I think the ratio of live to studio episodes is perfect right now. Plus they earn the moneys (WAM) and Jason gets to berate the audience.

 

 

I think both have their pros and cons. With studio episodes you get wonderful moments like june quietly muttering "He's so small...." over and over again. I think its much harder to have a moment like that during a live show. That being said you also dont get moments like Jason taking the piss out of the guy who had the balls to call himself "The Jason" of his group.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

 

 

I think both have their pros and cons. With studio episodes you get wonderful moments like june quietly muttering "He's so small...." over and over again. I think its much harder to have a moment like that during a live show. That being said you also dont get moments like Jason taking the piss out of the guy who had the balls to call himself "The Jason" of his group.

 

Or the hosts losing their shit on someone talking down to them...

 

But I agree. The Howdies reminded me how much I love studio eps. The show started as friends sitting around goofing on bad movies, and that feel is lost in live eps. But as long as they keep making eps at all, I'll be thrilled.

[NundercoverBrother 174]

https://twitter.com/...572615109844993

 

@RachelHeine 6h6 hours ago

 

 

More

 

On the most recent @HDTGM, @heyalexei explains what a #Highlander is & gets yelled at by all the hosts. It's great: http://bit.ly/2kbBVcd

 

 

[tomspanks 9039]

I agree it wouldn't block out all light, I just don't see why it would be night if you just wanna block out UV radiation. Plus you can also produce ozone, plus the earth produces ozone (by lightning, UV etc) and I don't know what the fuck the shield even is. Electromagnetic shield isn't a thing, and I don't think can be a thing. If you had a giant emitter of electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere, I don't think it would help at all cause its not gonna absorb any UV. Whenever you hear "electromagnetic" used in movies its almost always a bullshit screenwriter term for 'we don't care the sciency-magic will take care of the logic'. Electromagnetic just means it has something to do with the electromagnetic spectrum, which could be literally anything.

I think this was the early 90s and people were scared of the ozone hole but didn't understand it so it was perfect for use in terrible screenplays.

 

See, at first I thought they were saying the shield itself was made of electromagnetic waves, because they showed these rippling waves covering the earth's atmosphere, but I think they meant a shield that blocks electromagnetic waves. There are electromagnetic shields, but they certainly do not look like waves. Guh, I hate this movie so much.

[Cam Bert 8145]

Hello folks and welcome back to...

 

How Did This Get Named?

 

After awhile of not so interesting name changed films comes another not so interesting one. Yes the Highlander series is simply Highlander in Japanese. However what is interesting is the second half of the titles. You see much like "The Quickening" they decided to slap a descriptor onto each title.

 

Highlander became Highlander: Demon Warrior ハイランダー悪魔の戦士(hairandaa akuma no senshi)

Highlander 2:The Quickening became Highlander 2: Resurrected Warriorハイランダー２　甦る戦士(hairandaa 2 yomigaeru senshi)

Highlander 3: The Final Dimenson became Highlander 3: The Ultimate Warrior Showdown ハイランダー３　超戦士大決戦 (hairandaa 3 chosenshi daikessen)

Highlander: End Game became Highland: The Final Warrior ハイランダー最終戦士(hairandaa saishuu senshi)

[Bumpy 1674]

Hello folks and welcome back to...

 

How Did This Get Named?

 

After awhile of not so interesting name changed films comes another not so interesting one. Yes the Highlander series is simply Highlander in Japanese. However what is interesting is the second half of the titles. You see much like "The Quickening" they decided to slap a descriptor onto each title.

 

Highlander became Highlander: Demon Warrior ハイランダー悪魔の戦士(hairandaa akuma no senshi)

Highlander 2:The Quickening became Highlander 2: Resurrected Warriorハイランダー２　甦る戦士(hairandaa 2 yomigaeru senshi)

Highlander 3: The Final Dimenson became Highlander 3: The Ultimate Warrior Showdown ハイランダー３　超戦士大決戦 (hairandaa 3 chosenshi daikessen)

Highlander: End Game became Highland: The Final Warrior ハイランダー最終戦士(hairandaa saishuu senshi)

 

Thanks, Maximiliano! It was instantly useful!

[AstronautDown 282]

Not a correction, neither an omission, more like an addition.

 

Ok... I don't know what got into me but for some reason I saw three cuts of this movie!

 

First, the 2004 Special edition. This is a retouched Renegade cut with different color grading, some updated VFX. I assume this is the one the gang saw. Now, I had seen the movie as a kid and the only thing I remember was the ominous red shield. On the 2004 SE the shield is blue! This seems like a weird choice to me because it takes away the visual contrast between the shield and the blue sky... Anyway, this feeling of "something is wrong" prompted me to pursue the other versions and do a comparison.

 

So—literally side by side—I saw the theatrical cut and an the original Renegade. And that's when things started getting really crazy... First of all: enter Zeist! Holy shit, what were they thinking? Paul has already mentioned it in the episode so I won;t elaborate. The whole thing with Zeist is crazy and makes zero sense. What is crazier though is the acrobatics the director had to do to cut around it. It's a real eye opener, especially if you're an editor, director, or anything film-making adjacent, or a film lover in general. Great insight of how movies are made right there!

 

I also want to verify Jason's comment about about this movie being cut out of order and Katana (Michael Ironside) being literally omnipresent. He was spot on. The amount of switching scenes around varies from slight plot rearranging to creating an entirely different narrative. And btw, the airplane scene in the theatrical cut is continuous, with just a TV-style fade between the two shots, making the time Sean Connery is on air just a normal Transatlantic trip instead of the Week-long saga that is in the Renegade cut. Speaking of fades, there are literally Star Wars-style wipes in the theatrical cut!

 

But the most important change in the two versions is the line that Sean Connery says to his female co-passenger. "In fact it's well known that the dark-haired ladies *whispers*...". In the theatrical AND 2004 versions this is omitted, but in the original Renegade it's crystal clear that he continues "...like to sit on men's faces". SAY WHAT???? That's right motherfucker, my main man Ramirez is laying down the law: You will sit on my face and I will eat out whatever it is sitting on my face which I care not to identify!

 

Peace.

[Cameron H. 23786]

But the most important change in the two versions is the line that Sean Connery says to his female co-passenger. "In fact it's well known that the dark-haired ladies *whispers*...". In the theatrical AND 2004 versions this is omitted, but in the original Renegade it's crystal clear that he continues "...like to sit on men's faces". SAY WHAT???? That's right motherfucker, my main man Ramirez is laying down the law: You will sit on my face and I will eat out whatever it is sitting on my face which I care not to identify!

 

 

Wait a minute! That was in the version I watched (I remember because ever since I heard him deliver that line I can't seem to get clean). Does this mean I still somehow managed to watch the wrong version even after asking around?

 

God, I hate this movie! Even finding the right version of it is a fucking three-toed tango of insanity.

[babyoilbandit 81]

The thing I don't get about THE PRIZE being mortality is that surely if anyone wants to die then just don't put up a fight and let your head be cut off.

 

No no no I don't want a quick painless death, I want to die old and infirm, I want to be mortal and work a 50-hour week for fifty years, at the end of which they tell me to piss off. Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die rather than suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. That's what I want.

[NathanGordon 1096]

What bothered me most about this movie was that Sean Connery was from the past and therefore doing these tired ass fish-out-of-water jokes, like "what is a shithead my good man". But Michael Ironside, also from the past, was somehow able to crack oneliners like "Last stop!" when he shouldn't even know what a train schedule is.

 

Also I rewound this scene like twenty times, this dude's delivery is *perfect*.