Highlander 2: Special Edition DVD - some thoughts

Thanks for posting that. I've always loved this movie, and despite having the Renegade Version on DVD, i've already ordered this new version.
I'm glad to hear that this time the picture is anamorphic and hope the new DD-EX 5.1 and the DTS-ES audio tracks are good.

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I watched my copy of it last Sunday. I thought much of the disc looked wonderful but many of the scenes were plagued by horrible edge enhancement. Because of the inconsistency of the encoding and the look of the disc, I rate it as the worst dvd I own. Was wondering what you thought of it as an overall presentation.

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Not to knock you, or the film, any more than necessary -- heck, I just bought the Highlander 2 Special Edition because I have an odd love for the film -- but a new coat of paint really can't solve what's wrong with this movie.

First off, it's a bad sequel, and worse than all of the others you mention. It doesn't have to do with the quality per se, it has to do with the fact that it is so inconsistent with the first film, that's what makes it a bad sequel as opposed to a bad film.

Whether you call it Planet Zeist, or just "a time before recorded history," either way this film begins from a premise that "Immortals come from somewhere else." Right there it's contradicting the first film. Having Ramirez & MacLeod know each other before they met for the first time in the first movie doesn't really make sense. If they were going to use this for a premise they should have thrown in a line about how they'd get amnesia went they were sent into Earth's history. Why does this movie go to the trouble of making so many good references to the first and then dropping the ball on stuff like this? Even though "Planet Zeist" has been dropped, oddly the SE keeps Louise Marcus' speech where she says "so you come from another planet" and Connor says "something like that."

Then there's the strange case of Ramirez. This movie goes out of its way to portray him as "a visitor from Scotland" when the first movie clearly stated he was an Egyptian by birth who was working for the Spanish government. He had absolutely no connection to Scotland. So why in this movie, do bagpipes play every time he walks down the street? Why is his death song "Amazing Grace" played on bagpipes? The answer, obviously, is that filmmakers probably didn't want to confuse new viewers by telling them an obviously Scottish actor was supposed to by Egyptian, especially since the "new origin" said he was really from "somewhere else/Zeist" instead of Egypt. Then after misleading us to think he's Scottish for most of the movie, they throw in a line about how he still considers himself in the employ of the Spanish monarchy. That really doesn't make sense after they've spent so much time selling him as an immortal from another planet with a connection to Scotland. The only thing I can really accept is that he resurrected in Scotland because that's where he was killed in the first movie, although this movie never makes reference to his death at the hands of the Kurgan. It acts more like he and MacLeod haven't seen each other since they were exiled from the Immortal homeland.

Now you want to talk about why it's a bad movie as opposed to a bad sequel? Internal inconsistencies. Like the fact that in the SE cut, they refer to the fact that the reason Ramirez & MacLeod are rebels in the first place is because they possess the "unnatural immortality" as if it's something that only happens to a minority of people in that "other place/Zeist." Yet obviously, Katana and his henchmen also possess it even though they are not outcasts in their own society. Then if Louise Marcus' speech has any credibility, everyone from the "other place" is mortal there, and only immortal on Earth.

Let's talk about the "choice." When Ramirez & MacLeod are exiled, they're told that they will face other immortals on Earth until only one remains and collects The Prize. The Prize gives them a choice. Either they can return home, or they can stay on Earth and become mortal. It's pretty obvious that Connor DID make the choice after killing Kurgan, because he became mortal and aged. Yet, after 40 years and he's nearing death, the council tells Katana that "MacLeod has not made his choice yet, he can still return home." Of course that plot point has to exist, otherwise Katana has no reason to travel to Earth and attack Connor. It's just that the filmmakers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted Connor to choose a mortal life so he could grow old and we could see the Highlander universe of the future, and yet they wanted to say he didn't make the choice so he'd still have a conflict with Katana. They can't have it both ways. In fact, Katana's henchmen and Connor both remind Katana of this, saying that Connor had chosen to grow old and die on Earth and in fact would have died of old age very soon, had Katana not sent more immortals after him that returned Connor his immortality. It seems very short-sighted that the writers wouldn't realize how false this motivation was. I mean, they could at least have built up the backstory between Connor & Katana so that Katana would have a personal grudge against Connor, and had THAT be the reason he followed Connor to Earth. It still might have been a weak motive, but it wouldn't have been as logically flawed.

I like Michael Ironside, you know, but he doesn't really capture the same quality as Clancy Brown did. Clancy seemed like a man who had just gone nuts. Ironside seems like he's trying really hard to play a nutzo character in a movie. He seems very phoney, but that's probably due in large part to the silly things the script has him doing or saying. The whole subway scene is just "crazy for crazy's sake" which I guess was meant to remind us of Clancy's car ride late in the first film but just misses the mark.

I also have to ask what was the point of doing a reshoot in '94 or '95 to give us the scene of Connor and Louise driving up to the mountain top and Katana attacking them along the way? It's like one minute, Katana and John McGinley are in the boardroom of Shield, and a minute later Katana is attacking Connor on the mountain, and a second later he's back in Shield with McGinley fretting about not being able to find Connor. In fact Katana tracks down Connor for like 4 seperate fights in the SE, and each time the fight just kind of trails off and Katana walks away and then gripes about not being able to find/kill Connor. It's like they were just making excuses to visit more locations and continue the fight later. It's like how Connor has to break into Shield to talk to his friend, the other scientist, to get the location of the "weak point" in the Shield, but he doesn't get it all, so he goes back and talks to Ramirez, and they have to break into the prison to talk to the Connor's friend again, then they have to drive up to the weak point to confirm what they already learned, then break back into Shield again to shut it down. There's like 4 or 5 road trips/break-ins too many in this sucker.

Anyway in conclusion, most of these problems exist in every version from The Quickening to the Renegade Edition to the Special Edition, none of the so-called "fixes" actually fixed any of these problems, mostly because filmmakers did not consider any of these to be problems. They were more concerned that the Shield was blue instead of orange or that "Planet Zeist" was actually "another planet far away in time and space but not called Zeist." I mean they also changed the crashed spaceship on Planet Zeist to some kind of ancient city but it doesn't change any of the things that happened there. I will admit that the new Shield effects look prettier (although the pretty blue Shield is nowhere near as ominous as the ugly orange one was), but effects are only as I said, a coat of paint on a still very flawed script.