The Highlander franchise is a series of stories based around one compelling, original idea:
a fight between the world's Immortals, who have secretly walked among us since the dawn
of time.
The original movie revolves around Immortal Connor MacLeod, from his youth in the fields
of medieval Scotland to 1980s New York City, where the last Immortals are being drawn by
destiny to fight each other to the death.
As we work our way up to the remake set to be helmed by John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski,
we're catching up with the untold truth of Highlander.
It came from the bathroom
"From the dawn of time we came, moving silently down through the centuries…"
Spoken sonorously by Sean Connery, who played the Immortal Ramirez, the film's brief introductory
monologue tells you everything you need to know.
As it turns out, Connery recorded the iconic intro to the series in his bathroom, which
is why it echoes so much.
So the next time you hear that powerful intro, just know that it's Sean Connery standing
half-naked in his vacation home, holding the script in one hand, the phone in the other,
trying not to bump his knee on the toilet.
That's great acting, people.
"How revolting!
Achoo!"
There are still unreleased Queen songs
"Here we are!
Born to be kings!"
The value of Queen in the original Highlander can simply not be overstated.
It's impossible to imagine the movie without the band's music.
But despite how heavily Queen's music features in the franchise, there was never an official
soundtrack.
Instead, many songs from the movie ended up on unofficial releases and Queen's 12th studio
album, 1986's A Kind of Magic.
While the big numbers are all there, there are Queen songs in the movie that have yet
to make it onto any album.
The most notable omission being the band's cover of "Theme from New York, New York" as
it plays in the lead-up to the climactic final battle.
"If I can make it there…
I'll make it anywhere!"
To date, only about 40 seconds of the song has been released.
Allegedly, Freddie Mercury hated singing it, which is why it's never been released.
And also, it sounds more than a little ridiculous.
Christopher Lambert's peculiar accent
One of the most enigmatic and charming things about the original Highlander is Christopher
Lambert's legendarily weird accent, which, just like the actor, is impossible to pin
down.
"Christopher motherf---ing Lambert.
The lord of the apes!
Lord Raiden!
And once lord of Diane Lane.
The guy had sex with Diane Lane!
Multiple times!"
The movie even references his unusual accent, intentionally or not, when a police officer
notices MacLeod's inflection and pointedly asks him where he comes from, netting the
cheeky reply,
"You talk funny, Nash.
Where you from?"
"Lots of different places."
This was less of an intentional acting choice than simply a happy accident.
Reportedly, the accent came as a result of Lambert's limited grasp of English at the
time of filming.
Though born in New York, he was raised and started his acting career in France.
At the time of Highlander's filming, his only prior English-speaking role had been an inarticulate
Tarzan who's only just learning English.
Not really an excuse for a guy who's been around for hundreds of years, because it doesn't
get much weirder than this.
"You have better things to do than lie there on your ass."
The blind Highlander
Christopher Lambert must have been completely lost during the filming of these movies.
In addition to being very iffy with English, Lambert couldn't actually see much of what
he was doing either.
Lambert suffers from myopia, a disorder that blurs his vision, and filmed all of his work
without his much-needed glasses.
It's one thing to just talk with your eyes closed; it's a very different, way-more-dangerous
thing to conduct hand-to-hand combat.
In addition to nearly taking a tooth out of co-star Michael Ironside's head during filming
of the sequel, Lambert got his own finger split open because he couldn't see a swing
coming.
It's kind of remarkable that it took a whole movie and a half before Lambert was injured.
Couldn't they just let the Immortal wear glasses?
There's a recut sequel
What is there to say about Highlander II: The Quickening that hasn't already been spat
by Roger Ebert?
"By the way, all of this insanity could have added up to something that would have made
a great, bad movie!
But Highlander 2 is so crazily put together, you get the impression that a lot of the key
scenes were just never filmed."
A movie so bad it has to be seen to be believed, the puzzling follow-up received generally
terrible reviews.
No longer coming "from the dawn of time" as ageless enigmas, Highlander II "reveals" the
earthbound Immortals to actually be...aliens!
From the planet...Zeist!
And sets the action on an Earth artificially darkened by a man-made solar shield.
Which is a plot goofy and cartoonishly evil enough to be used by The Simpsons a few years
later.
Because it was so bizarre, Highlander II was essentially ignored in continuity.
But there was another, later cut that aimed to improve the sequel's quality.
Marketed as the "Renegade Version," the newer cut makes the movie better simply by cutting
out a lot of the weirder elements that made the theatrical release so awful.
It's still not a great movie, but it's not one of the worst ones of all time, either.
Weird cameos
It's possible that you might know Highlander better from the long-running TV show, rather
than the movie that spawned it.
"In the end, there can be only one.
May it be Duncan McLeod."
Starring Adrian Paul, the series ran for six seasons throughout the mid-90s, a precursor
to other relatively cheesy fantasy series of the time like Xena: Warrior Princess or
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
The series exists mostly as a cultural artifact, featuting wild celebrity cameos from the likes
of rock star Joan Jett, porn star Traci Lords, and Rowdy Roddy Piper, among others.
It's one of the main reasons to watch the series today.
Because it's one thing to see a guest star recite lines on Law & Order — but it's a
completely different thing to see, say, Scottish singer-songwriter Sheena Easton swinging a
sword around.
"Damn you, Duncan McLeod."
There was another TV show
Barely remembered now, 1998 saw the release of a short-lived spinoff to the series called
The Raven.
Starring former Miss America Elizabeth Gracen, the series followed the Immortal thief Amanda
and her ex-cop buddy as they solved crimes, and sought redemption for past sins.
General franchise fatigue caused The Raven to never really catch on.
Rumors of production difficulties, and a reported tryst with Gracen and former president Bill
Clinton years earlier, killed the series.
The Raven ran for just one season...
"There can be only one!
Ungh!"
...ending the Highlander franchise's live-action presence on TV after a seven-year run.
There was an anime
There's a far fringe to the Highlander franchise where the continuity starts to get even weirder:
like the Highlander anime movie, which actually scored positive reviews.
Called The Search for Vengeance, the film was written by Highlander series alum David
Abramowitz, which gives it a level of fan credibility that many of the live action sequels
can't even claim.
It's also probably the only fringe media in the Highlander universe that might be worth
your time.
Meanwhile, Highlander: The Animated Series is best left forgotten, as is the clunky game
based on the cartoon.
The 1986 game wasn't much better, either.
And in 2001, an online MMO was in development, but eventually cancelled.
Yet another game, developed nearly a decade later for next-gen systems, was canceled in
development, leaving behind only a remarkably unpromising trailer.
The moral of the story: let's not dismiss the remake, okay?
Could it be any weirder, worse, or off-base than what's come before?
Probably not.
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