Highlander II unused ideas

[Mark_Nguyen]

See that is my problem with whole Highlander premise. "The Game" Any reboot should reject it completely. Just have it be about a war among immortals. Some exist in allied factions. Some try to sit it out and not get involved but are drawn in against their wishes. Others are lone wolves out for themselves. Cut out the mystical mumbo jumbo and it would be simpler and appeal to more people.

That's the exact premise of the TV series. There WAS supposed to be a Gathering happening, and in the first season they went so far as to state explicitly that it was going on at the time. Thing is, they didn't really show any evidence that anything was happening, save for the occasional implication that the Gathering was compelling immortals to meet and fight (but not "gather" anywhere). As the series continued, the producers realized that making the Gathering a running plot point was limiting, so they quietly removed it from the show and never really referred to it as part of the Game.

My feeling is that immortality in Highlander is simply there, and there is no "Game". It may have been invented or evolved, along with various other rules, thousands of years ago as a way for the early Immortal culture to come to grips with living forever and assorted decapitations. The series shows NO evidence that doing anything on holy ground would be catastrophic (they only suggest it MIGHT); that there is any actual Prize or what would happen; and until Endgame there was no real implication that killing lots of Immortals would eventually make you more powerful (fans tend to think that it's the other way around - you're powerful / skilled in the first place, and as a result you kill more Immortals, re: Connor, Duncan, Brian Cullen et. al.).

I like Highlander as a universe when there isn't an end to it - the entertainment comes from examining immortality and what it means / does to the people who have or can live for centuries. Also, swordfights.

Mark

 

[Lonemagpie]

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what was the TV series's excuse for there being what looked like hundreds of the buggers that somehow missed the gathering?

It was set before the original movie's climax.

 

[Triskelion]

In my mind, if you take a head on holy ground, perhaps there's no Quickening. If these make you stronger then it's sort of an honor among thieves - the Quickening validates your own immortality and experience; it defines your life as an Immortal. Their need for increasing their personal power to gain every advantage means that virtually no immortal would kill without obtaining the Quickening. It'd be like being stranded on an island and destroying your enemy's radio instead of taking it. Nobody does that.

I haven't watched The Source. On the fence about seeing it.

By the way, Adrian Paul's skills at various martial arts contributed much to the franchise!

Also - if you haven't seen Christopher Lambert in his samurai vs ninja movie The Hunted, check it out! It's awesome.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I enjoyed The Hunted much more for the various Japanese actors doing genuinely cool stuff, instead of Lambert's character almost winning by fluke. :P

Adrian Paul was a dancer first, I believe. He learned various marital arts for and during the show; his martial arts coach was a thug in the second season and the Immortal Manny in Endgame.

If you haven't watched The Source, don't bother. It will NOT increase your appreciation of the franchise. You have much better things to do with your 90 minutes, because watching it won't feel that short.

And the Kurgan is dead in TV series. In the second season opener they have a nifty conversation where they decisively establish him as dead in 1985, where the series starts in 1992. The TV universe basically acknowledges the first movie save the last three minutes; all that stuff DID happen, but at the end, Connor picked up his sword and went to live in Scotland with Brenda until Jacob Kell engineered her death. The Kurgan is still regarded as the baddest of the bad, and depending on which source (sic) you read, he and the Macleods have have more than one run in over the years:

http://highlander.wikia.com/wiki/The_Kurgan

Mark

 

[Skywalker]

I can't remember if it was ever actually stated on-screen in the series, but supposedly the last time an Immortal took another's head on holy ground, Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii. That does fit in with the idea that the Immortals have a strong connection to the natural world, which was shown in the scene with the deer in the first movie.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Yep, that was mentioned but only as an unconfirmed legend among the Watchers. But as Joe Dawson notes, with Immortals, what else is there?

Mark

 

[Triskelion]

Well at any rate, even evil immortals don't muck around with a Quickening at stake. They all want it the effective way and don't want to waste it. Otherwise you'd see more assassinations by proxy.

 

[Skywalker]

Well at any rate, even evil immortals don't muck around with a Quickening at stake. They all want it the effective way and don't want to waste it. Otherwise you'd see more assassinations by proxy.

True. We do know that if an Immortal is beheaded and there isn't another Immortal nearby, their Quickening is lost.

 

[Noddy]

Big Finish Productions (who are responsible for a lot of Doctor Who audio stories) also did a range of Highlander audios a couple of years back, set in the continuity of the TV show and taking place after Endgame. In one of them, Kurgan Rising, an Immortal being beheaded on holy ground somehow results in a number of previously dead Immortals being resurrected, including Connor MacLeod and the Kurgan.

 

[Noddy]

One question about H-2: If (as the Renegade Version implies) the priests of General Katana's era are banishing all other Immortals into future eras in order to prevent the Prize being won in their lifetimes, the ultimate result would be that Katana would be the only Immortal on Earth at that time. And if Katana was the last Immortal at that point, wouldn't he win the Prize by default anyway?

 

[sojourner]

He wouldn't be the last in that situation, he'd be the first.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

One question about H-2: If (as the Renegade Version implies) the priests of General Katana's era are banishing all other Immortals into future eras in order to prevent the Prize being won in their lifetimes, the ultimate result would be that Katana would be the only Immortal on Earth at that time. And if Katana was the last Immortal at that point, wouldn't he win the Prize by default anyway?

I'm pretty sure the Prize is basically the sum total of all the Quickinings.

So I doubt he would get it from just exiling them.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Who's to say that there weren't other Immortals in the ancient past / Zeist after they exiled Macleod and Ramirez, and sent the two thugs? The dialogue further specifies that in the future or on Earth, they would BECOME Immortal, so the implication that they were trying to avoid anyone winning the Game in their time doesn't make sense.

Much like the any incarnation of that movie. :P

Mark

 

[Noddy]

It would have been a bit better if those priests sent Connor and Ramirez into the future because they realized they didn't belong in that time period, and killing them before they were born might have repercussions. And they don't offer Connor a chance to return to the distant past if he wins the Prize; Katana fears that Connor will find some way to travel back into the past by himself (which might well be how he got there in the first place), thereby becoming immortal again, and killing Katana. His paranoia is what makes him first send the two assassins after Connor, and then go through time himself to slay Connor personally. That's how I'd fix it anyway.

Incidentally, are all the Immortals in the Highlander universe supposed to be foundlings? I know that Duncan MacLeod and Richie are both stated to be so in the TV show, but what about others?

 

[Skywalker]

Incidentally, are all the Immortals in the Highlander universe supposed to be foundlings? I know that Duncan MacLeod and Richie are both stated to be so in the TV show, but what about others?

They are in the TV series continuity, at least. Like you said, both Duncan and Richie were, and in one of the novels based on the show Duncan explicitly said that all Immortals were foundlings.

 

[Hound of UIster]

I understand that part was in the series bible.

 

[Unicron]

Well at any rate, even evil immortals don't muck around with a Quickening at stake. They all want it the effective way and don't want to waste it. Otherwise you'd see more assassinations by proxy.

One thing I always wondered about the series is how Quickenings are so destructive, and yet seemingly aren't noticed by mortals most of the time.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Low population density areas and no CCTVs.

 

[Noddy]

Incidentally, are all the Immortals in the Highlander universe supposed to be foundlings? I know that Duncan MacLeod and Richie are both stated to be so in the TV show, but what about others?

They are in the TV series continuity, at least. Like you said, both Duncan and Richie were, and in one of the novels based on the show Duncan explicitly said that all Immortals were foundlings.

I haven't actually seen it, but in Endgame, isn't Connor MacLeod's mother strongly implied to be his natural/birth-mother, rather than an adoptive mother?

 

[Morpheus 02]

Incidentally, are all the Immortals in the Highlander universe supposed to be foundlings? I know that Duncan MacLeod and Richie are both stated to be so in the TV show, but what about others?

They are in the TV series continuity, at least. Like you said, both Duncan and Richie were, and in one of the novels based on the show Duncan explicitly said that all Immortals were foundlings.

I haven't actually seen it, but in Endgame, isn't Connor MacLeod's mother strongly implied to be his natural/birth-mother, rather than an adoptive mother?

It's been a while since I saw that scene, but I believe she was being burned because she was thought to be a witch, due to her son rising from the dead, and her not denouncing him. While the killers are implying she might be the real mother (or in some way in league with the Devil), I think she simply loves him as her very own.