How can the director blame others for this trash? - Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) Discussion

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] DingusStudley 13 years ago

I've heard the renegade cut removes any and all the zyst/alien stuff. I can't imagine how they even have enough leftove for a full movie after removing all that. Plus, even with it all emoved, the plot still makes zero sense. How do they then explain Mcleod no longer being the only one or receiving the prize at all? Where did Katana come from?

Then you still have all the idiotic, plot hole crap unrelated to zyst/aliens, such as Ramirez somehow returning.

Add to that the overrall dullness of the plot, villain, action sequences, special effects, and I don't see how this can EVER be something worhty of anything but strong dislike.

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[–] ferdinandhudson 13 years ago

Removing the Zeist bits in the Renegade Version doesn't involve taking footage out but simply not referring to those scenes as taking place on an alien planet but setting it up as humans from a distant past albeit high tech civilisation. On top of including footage that the bond company discarded for the US theatrical cut they also shot additional material with Lambert, Madsen and Ironside for inclusion in the Renegade Version not to mention re-editing the film so it restored the flashback storytelling that they had set up with the first film.
The 2004 Special Edition augmented the Renegade Version with some additional CGI and mattes further removing visual references of Zeist.

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500 years ago on the planet Zeist

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[–] ferdinandhudson 13 years ago

So he should have foreseen the Argentinian economy collapsing causing the production to go severely over budget thus forcing the bond company to take over by cancelling filming, leaving the film incomplete and editing the film without Mulcahy's input?

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500 years ago on the planet Zeist

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[–] DingusStudley 13 years ago

It still sounds like a pisspoor plot and doesn't begin to answer all the many, many, many holes unrelated to zeist.

Even the basic premise/plot of the movie is terrible and full of holes. The villain is generic and not the least bit interesting, which is a damn near fatal flaw in itself after the MINDBLOWING Kurgan. The dialog is bad. The fight scenes are crap. And what about the 2 idiotic, unbearably annoying henchman Katana sends down to kill Mcleod as an old man? Holy hell that's some HORRENDOUS film-making right there, what were they thinkin with these 2 characters? These aren't things that should have been effected by budget cuts .

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] donutpower 13 years ago

its still a bad film in regards to the Highlander franchise. but at the time there was no franchise. all the director & producers wanted to do was make a good sci-fi flick that continued the story of the first film but expanding on it and taking it in a new direction.

when the bond company locked them out, they had a whole new crew mess with the film. so Mulcahy was pissed off because he didnt have final say in what goes. the producers had no say either.

the film was edited in a way that messed up the continuity of the film itself. the visual effects were also not how they originally wanted them to look. the flashback transitions were nowhere to be found. it was just a mess of an already messy movie.

in the Renegade version they put scenes in the proper sequence, and reshot stuff that they couldnt before. to fit in slightly better with where the franchise was at by that point, they removed the references to Zeist, but didnt remove its footage, instead they re-labeled things to have it be a distant past.

the script itself was weak but when you have no participation from the original creator of Highlander...well they just end up making things up to fix how they cornered themselves with the ending of the first film.

in all honesty, i too would be ticked off if i was already dealing with a movie that was a complex mess...to have that taken away from you and put in the hands of strangers....well its like having your work stolen. even if its bad work haha, its still your creation that gets muddled with.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] donutpower 13 years ago

i dont hate the film. i do enjoy it as a separate entity and its fine as a scifi b movie. i mean visually its impressive, you can tell they really used up the budget in trying to create this futuristic city.

but in the context of a Highlander sequel, theres no way to compliment the film.
had they done things the way the originally intended with having The Kurgan back and all the other nifty ideas they had in mind..THEN id probably have a much higher enjoyment factor.
sadly the script they used just wasnt up to snuff.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] donutpower 13 years ago

yea thats whats bothersome is that it goes out of its way to try and fit in with the first film's events, but it ruins it at the same time.

then to try and make the transition of distant planet to distant past...it just doesnt settle over well either way.

the film is still missing all the elements that made the first film such a well received film.
with the rest of the franchise this film gets ignored and shunned because its such a drastic derparture.

as a stand alone movie i guess its a guilty pleasure to watch. but honestly if it werent for Lambert and Connery...i dont think id even own the various editions of this.
i do enjoy the film's score and music. i like the swordplay even though it is lacking, and i like seeing Lambert as an action star. but each time i see this movie it never ceases to amaze me how they come up with something this muddled.

the way to have made continuity fit would be to reshoot bits of the first films finale, so that Connor didnt win The Prize, only defeated his old enemy. with that they could have expanded and bring in new characters and show us more of Connor over the centuries through flashback. its what they did for the tv series. so its something that works.

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[–] tito-the-titan 13 years ago

The original script explained very clearly why Connor and Ramirez were immortal on Earth when they were sentenced.

JUDGE : "I sentence you to exile from Zeist. You will be transported to the planet Earth. Each of you to a different time and place. There to be reborn. Once you have grown to the age you are now, time itself will take on a new meaning for you. One year on Earth is like one day on our planet. So on Earth you will be immortal. Furthermore, your memory of this planet and your lives here will be gone. Until the time of the Gathering.

For years, we have sent men to Earth, scattered throughout their history.
Men like you who have no place here in Zeist. They will find you. And
Try to kill you. You will fight each other down through the centuries. In
Our traditional way with this (he holds up a sword).

The only realize from your Earthly immortality will come if your head
is cut off from your body. And when one of you is finally the last of us
on Earth, he will claim the Prize. He will have the choice to growing old
and dying on Earth, or returning to Zeist."

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jpowell180 9 years ago

He only DIRECTED the film; he didn't WRITE it; he had no choice but to film the crap script.

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[–] Times_Up 9 years ago

He rejected many scripts and he and Lambert waited until they had the right script before beginning production. Reading an interview with him, he said something like "I don't remember much about the original "Highlander" except that it had a lot of sword fights. I don't think that would work if we would do that again. We need to come up with something original that will surprise everyone."

Well, he did that alright, just not in a good way. Sounds to me like he waited for what he wanted and was responsible for the bizarre turn of this sequel.

All good things must come to an end - Chaucer

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[–] atari_saturna 9 years ago

Yeah watched the renegade cut yesterday and it was beyond bad, not even a so-good-its bad flick. Haven't watched the theatrical cut(which is supposed to make even less sense). There are so many plot holes!

-Who is Katana and why does he want to kill Mccloud?
-Why does he send his henchmen to kill him 20 years later when he would have died on his own?
-How did Mccloud become a scientist who built a dome shield?
-How can the Shield corporation geerate income, they can't shut the shield down for some countries so it should be retty easy to skip payment
-Why des the girl meet up Mccloud and especially WHY DO THEY HAVE SEX ON THE STREET 1 MINUTE LATER!?
-Why and how is Ramirez back?
-Why did Ramirez kill himself when he clearly had time to escape?

Etc etc etc

Good bits
-Cool set design
-Mckinnley was overacting hilariously in some scenes.

Worst thing is that if the action would have been at least descent it might have been somewhat watchable but it's dull all the way through. Who the hell did come up with this plot anyway? It makes zero sense no matter how you look at it!?

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[–] donutpower 9 years ago

The only thing I can say that I like about the Renegade Version, is that all the scenes are in the proper sequence.

-Katana was originally intended to be the leader of The Kurgan. He was to have sent the Kurgan from Zeist to go kill MacLeod. That in itself to me just seemed really cool in terms of backstory. in that if we must have this backstory of how/why, then this would have been alright because it ties into what takes place in the first film. of course Clancy Brown didnt reprise his role. He had later said that the producers effed up the second movie.

-this always cracked me up because of the irony of it. in one of the scripts supposedly time flows differently on Zeist (distant past) than on Earth. another thing was that Connor still had a choice of whether to die on earth or to go back to Zeist. Katana didnt want to take the chance, whereas Connor had no intent on going back, though no one on Zeist knew that lol.

-Connor became a scientist using the knowledge he gained from the Prize. i think the idea was that he was sorta like the smartest guy on the planet, because he could read minds and was one with nature and all that.

- I too always wondered how they were able to keep getting all the different governments around the world to continue to pay up. my guess is that nobody other than Blake, Neyman , and MacLeod knew that the shield couldnt be powered down.

-Louise Marcus knew that MacLeod built the shield and knew he was a good person.
as to the "bang against the wall" as they call it, well that was just out of emotional circumstances. I believe that Louise had a crush on MacLeod because of how he saved the planet and just in general. When she saw him being as how he was already remembered in history, well she was all enamored by him.

-The Quickening. thats the answer for how weird stuff just happens. a Quickening was supposed to have a lot more to it and be 'magical'. though with the tv series and later, it wound up being something a little more simplistic.
in reality , the investors wanted Connery back in the role. they didnt care how.

-this always bothered me. i just chalk it up to being the end of Connery's limited screen time.

the swordplay is seriously lacking but at the time this was the cool new thing since Star Wars. Bob Anderson was the sword master for the franchise in the beginning, he also did the sword fights in Star Wars.

i think there were two screenwriters for this film. it was just a bad script.

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