“There can be only one.”
This month, we feel an irresistible pull towards a far away land to test our blades against those of Atomic Junk Shop‘s Greg Hatcher and David “Ace” Gutiérrez of Emmys.com. The field of battle, the Highlander franchise. It started as a 1986 cult fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, about a small group of sword-wielding Immortals, living in secret and battling each other across the centuries until only one remains to claim a vaguely-defined “Prize.”
It blossomed — or some say, decayed — into four critically-panned movie sequels, a long-running television show, an animated series, and even an anime film. We dig into topics of whether every film truly should be made into a franchise? Should there have, indeed, been only one?
We face these questions with…heart, faith and steel.
Music:
“A Kind of Magic” from Highlander (1986) by Queen
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Great Scot! (…pun intended…) What a great episode! And a bit coincidental, given something I just posted over at the Atomic Junk Shop. My thoughts on the first movie as expressed there pretty much sum up my view of the first movie – and in that regard, I found nothing incoherent about David’s description of why that movie was so improbably awesome.
This is, in fact, one of those rare instances in which I disagree with Greg – even though I totally agree with his pick for high point, and will acknowledge that he makes an excellent point about a movie (or a story in any medium) that really explores the (sub-)culture of the immortals and their inability to love and have relationships the way the rest of us do.
For me, the high point is simply the first movie, the whole package: the seemingly patched-together story, the performances, the often over-the-top music video vibe and, of course, Queen. The low point is absolutely everything that followed (as noted the post linked above).
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