Immortally Wounded

Some film franchises die hard, no matter how hard they try.

I'm not dissing the long-running, mostly long-in-the-tooth ones, like James Bond or Godzilla. It's the ones that probably shouldn't exist in the first place, yet still find ways to shuffle on, zombie-like with mindless will yet unfortunate coordination. I mean, did we really need The Crow: Wicked Prayer?

But the granddaddy of them all just received a mercy gut shot. The new Highlander movie...

Yeah, there's another Highlander movie coming. Really. Didn't know that? Not surprised....

Anyway, after a year in post-production, the next Highlander film finally will make its world premiere...on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Is that a funeral march I hear?

You know, it's pretty sad when a straight-to-DVD release would be preferable to becoming an "original" for a cable station, who's reputation for new programing is somewhere slightly above Lifetime movies. As somebody who loved the original film and everything it represents, this turn of events hurts. And it's the sequel's fault.

If there was a film that shouldn't have had a sequel, the original Highlander was it. No more immortals left, and the anti-hero had his love and his own mortality. Yet, the movie became a cult classic, and at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, the enterprising producers decided it was high time for a sequel, even managing to rope Sean Connery back into their merry mess. The fact his character had died probably didn't matter much--this is fantasy! About immortals! We can make it work!

The wretched thing is that it probably could have worked. Highlander II: The Quickening came out when I was in college, and I swear that just about every male on the campus but me went to see it. The following Monday, I asked a buddy of mine how it was, and you would have thought I kicked his kitten before tying its tail in a square knot on top of the Old Main fountain.

"Don't. See. It."

"That bad? How can it be that...?"

"Two words: they're aliens."

He then listed off several other problems, but honestly, I had stopped listening due to my brain suddenly imploding. The original Highlander was about people--humans, not little green men--dealing with the curse of immortality, how it tore everything they are and loved away from them. For a story that sounded like the worst Hollywood pitch ever, Highlander took it seriously, creating something more than just silly swordfights in the always-wet car park. It was about Connor MacLeod, being forced into a way of life he doesn't want but can't avoid. After Connor's first wife Heather dies of old age, while he never ages a day, Conner uses his clan sword as her headstone and takes up his mentor's Japanese katana, which had been made by his third and last bride's father. The death of that love devastated that old immortal, and in a single image, the film managed to tell of Connor's pain--he was taking up his mentor's loss, while burying everything from his old life. He was no longer a MacLeod, no longer a Scot, but a nameless nomad, passing through his existance under pseudonyms, fighting battles he doesn't want to fight.

It wasn't a perfect film, but it was good enough. A sequel would have been hard, but to fail as mightly as The Quickening, which contradicted just about everything from the original, took a great deal of thoughtless strain. Instead of a romantic, dark urban fantasy, the sequel presented a cut-rate William Gibson futuristic brew with pseudo-science and narrative nonsense. The original film deserved better. Much better. And in the theater at least, it never got it.

Two more sequels followed. The Final Dimension returned to the original "it's a kind of magic" story, but did so in a souless, well-abused carbon copy manner, yet it still managed to contradict its mother movie. Endgame hoped to bridge the movie and television series stories, but it sunk under too many characters, too much plot, and not enough logic. Plus, it commited the sin of killing off the original hero...even though he was the last immortal.

And yes, there was a television series, which followed the adventures of Duncan MacLeod: "Same clan, different vintage." Despite the crater of The Quickening, the producers managed pull together enough interest in a syndicated show. Surprisingly, it worked this time; after a shaky first season, the series found a direction and began adding to the mythology of the immortals, creating stories with the same adventurous attention as the original Highlander. Unfortunately, the show's success only raised hopes. The Final Dimension followed. Then an animated series. Then a sequel series that succumbed to convention. Somewhere in there were books, comics, and long-forgotten video games. Then Endgame.

Failures all.

And that should have been that. But when series star Adrian Paul announced that he was helping produce the fifth Highlander movie, dubbed The Source, I got my hopes up again. When the series story supervisor David Abramowitz signed on to rewrite the script, my hopes climbed a bit. Maybe this time, they'll get it right. Maybe this time, we'll get a good sequel. Maybe this time, I can see a real Highlander film in the theater.

Whoops. I should have seen this coming, though. The Source features no names; the biggest movie star is Peter Wingfield, who had a small soldier bit in X-Men 2 and a turn as the villan's henchman in Superbabies 2. Star Adrian Paul has been in little except straight-t0-video flicks for years. Although Lionsgate Films had signed on to distribute the movie, the chance of The Source seeing a projector was between slim and nil; the idea of anything but a horror movie being distributed without any real stars--especially one in a near-dead franchise whose last attempt was seven years ago--is fantasy by itself. Then, a few months ago, a hurried rough cut got released on DVD in Russia, and the diehard fans have done nothing but skewer it, calling it worse than...wait for it...The Quickening. Sigh.

We get what we deserve, I guess. The original Highlander is a cult classic, a rare cinematic moment when something that shouldn't have worked does. Anything that followed would have been diminished, a Quixotian venture to replay that moment. If a sequel never had been attempted, nobody would have been noticed, but because the first try was so wrongheaded, the wish to set things right became overpowering, while the right thing was to leave the original film and Connor MacLeod alone.

Yet, I'll probably see this, when the official "unrated cut"--at least the R-rated version--finally finds its way to DVD. Then I can judge it for itself. Maybe my thirst will be quenched, but I doubt it. It'll be a nice surprise though. And hey, I could always watch the anime movie.

Yes, the anime movie.

Man, I'm pathetic. That's what hope does, I guess.