Fantasy Highlander Remake

[chamber-music]

The sword fighting choreography could definitely be improved in the remake.

 

[elgaz]

I hope to see more locations in this movie. These guys have probably lived all over the world for many many years. Let’s see them in Japan, India, Middle East, not just the Scottish highlands and New York.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

The TV show was very creative in how they were able to pull off flashbacks to those types of countries while shooting in Vancouver, Canada for half the season and in Paris for the second half.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Sithborg]

Ahh, "franchise"

Movie 3 sees Cavill's Connor replaced with Duncan MacLeod, played by Liam Hemsworth.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Just concentrate on making the first movie good then think about franchise's.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Take the TV series approach and treat "the game" as an ongoing thing, with the "the gathering" and "the prize" as some hypothetical endgame that drives immortals to fight each other and take heads (as opposed to the first movie that started with the gathering and the winning of the prize, leaving nowhere to go for the sequels).

I would also add to the mythos an Illuminati like secret organization of ancient immortals who enforce the rules of the game (no killing on holy ground, no drawing too much attention to yourself, etc). Even the bad guys McCloud fights would have to be mindful of not crossing them.

The Watchers is an organization of humans who chronicle immortals, just like the TV show, so I would certainly keep that.

 

[TheVileOne]

Making Highlander into a franchise is kind of where the problems started in the first place.

Also when they started explaining the Immortals more, it became more convoluted and ridiculous. Highlander was better as a single one-off.

 

[DKDetective]

Making Highlander into a franchise is kind of where the problems started in the first place.

Also when they started explaining the Immortals more, it became more convoluted and ridiculous. Highlander was better as a single one-off.

Not necessarily. The movies were a mess but that isn't proof that Highlander works best as a one and done.

The TV series made clear there was plenty of potential that could be mined from the original concept if you keep it simple and keep a lot of the mystery of the why behind it all.

The movies' problem was that they started at the end with the Gathering and the Prize, so there was nowhere to go from there. The series fixed that pretty easily by retconning the Gathering until later. The post-series movies were creatively exhausted and made the mistake of trying to answer mysteries that should have been left mysterious. It was Midichlorian syndrome.

 

[TheVileOne]

Not necessarily. The movies were a mess but that isn't proof that Highlander works best as a one and done.

The TV series made clear there was plenty of potential that could be mined from the original concept if you keep it simple and keep a lot of the mystery of the why behind it all.

The movies' problem was that they started at the end with the Gathering and the Prize, so there was nowhere to go from there. The series fixed that pretty easily by retconning the Gathering until later. The post-series movies were creatively exhausted and made the mistake of trying to answer mysteries that should have been left mysterious. It was Midichlorian syndrome.

I don't really think that's a problem with the movies because they weren't planning to franchise and sequel-ize this. They were just trying to make a cool movie. Franchise-baiting is usually when the problems start.

 

[DKDetective]

I don't really think that's a problem with the movies because they weren't planning to franchise and sequel-ize this. They were just trying to make a cool movie. Franchise-baiting is usually when the problems start.

Yeah, but that is not what you said. You complained that the Highlander IP and concept could not sustain a franchise and that the concept works better as a one and done. I was pointing to the fact that while the movies were mixed, the Highlander concept worked very well sustaining a long-running TV series demonstrating that the concept has a lot of potential stories to tell.

Rolling something out as a massive multimedia franchise even before you have a single hit movie is of course extremely foolhardy, as Universal learned with its Dark Universe and we saw in slow motion as the DCEU crashed and burned. But that wasn't your original complaint to which I was responding.

 

[Dave McFly]

Making Highlander into a franchise is kind of where the problems started in the first place.

Also when they started explaining the Immortals more, it became more convoluted and ridiculous. Highlander was better as a single one-off.

yeah the only one of them I EVER liked/loved was the first film, never got into the sequels or the tv show other than an episode here or there.

 

[Deck Rickard]

We’ll see how it turns out, I guess. I think this could be a misstep for Cavill; I worry that he’ll just come off like Geralt in the present day. But maybe that’s okay? I don’t know. I’m really over the John Wick movies but the fight scenes are really well choreographed and Stahelski kind of elevated Keanu to icon status. Cavill kind of reminds of Keanu; a polarizing actor that fans praise, while others say he’s terrible. I’m somewhere in the middle; I like him in roles where he’s kind of a gruff badass so Highlander could work.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah, but that is not what you said. You complained that the Highlander IP and concept could not sustain a franchise and that the concept works better as a one and done. I was pointing to the fact that while the movies were mixed, the Highlander concept worked very well sustaining a long-running TV series demonstrating that the concept has a lot of potential stories to tell.

Rolling something out as a massive multimedia franchise even before you have a single hit movie is of course extremely foolhardy, as Universal learned with its Dark Universe and we saw in slow motion as the DCEU crashed and burned. But that wasn't your original complaint to which I was responding.

And they couldn't. Look at Highlander Endgame and everything they came after. Look at Highlander 2. The TV series was never exactly what I would call prestige television. It was a B-grade syndicated series. Everything that came after the original was mediocre at best.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, I have to agree. I liked the original movie but that’s pretty much it. I never saw any of the sequels because the clips of them that I saw looked god-awful. I did watch some of the TV series but it wasn’t so much because I liked it. It was more because the TV was always on at my house when I was growing up and that show was on all the time.

 

[JoshB1980]

The original film is a classic, and the sequels were mostly garbage, but the TV show was fairly okay. I didn't like all of it, but Adrian Paul and Peter Wingfield were both excellent as Duncan and Methos.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I am at the point with all these sequels, reboots, remakes, or whatever where I just don't care anymore. So I can't muster up enthusiasm for this.

 

[elgaz]

I am at the point with all these sequels, reboots, remakes, or whatever where I just don't care anymore. So I can't muster up enthusiasm for this.

I feel like that a lot, and I would really hate to see remakes of true classics like Back To The Future or the Rocky films.

But sometimes I see something like Highlander - which was ok-ish as a film first time round but has developed iconic status over the years - which had huge potential but was let down by really terrible sequels, and I think a modern reinterpretation of it could actually do the story justice. There could be so much history, lore and different time settings available with a film whose characters can live thousands of years, through all the societal changes and wars and so on that humanity has been through. We saw a little bit of that with the WW2 and early Scotland scenes in the original, but I always thought they could have done much more.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I guess they can have fancier sword fights and a bunch of cgi expensive crap and all, but plot wise I don't think it's gonna end up being much better. I am just getting numb to all of these lol

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I feel like that a lot, and I would really hate to see remakes of true classics like Back To The Future or the Rocky films.

But sometimes I see something like Highlander - which was ok-ish as a film first time round but has developed iconic status over the years - which had huge potential but was let down by really terrible sequels, and I think a modern reinterpretation of it could actually do the story justice. There could be so much history, lore and different time settings available with a film whose characters can live thousands of years, through all the societal changes and wars and so on that humanity has been through. We saw a little bit of that with the WW2 and early Scotland scenes in the original, but I always thought they could have done much more.

That’s where I’m at, for me there are some movies that are just untouchable in terms of remakes. Terminator 1 and 2, Alien 1 and 2, BTTF, Indiana Jones and a good few more.

But for something like Highlander I just feel it’s ripe for remaking with today’s action co-ordinators and even with the lore and the way it’s presented.

 

[chamber-music]

They should avoid everything about Highlander 2. The second movie was straight garbage. 3 was ok from what I can remember, I've not seen it in years.

 

[elgaz]

The second one was a hot mess for sure. I have no idea how someone ever signed off on that plot.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Because Highlander wasn't a major IP for the studio at the time, so they didn't monitor the sequel very much more than likely. The studio execs then were likely like "Hey, this surprisingly made some money. Hey, go make us another one" and then probably didn't see it until it was done

 

[elgaz]

Wikipedia offers some insight

 

[Spider-Fan]

There ya go lol