Highlander remake coming?

[Brian G Turner]

Just noticed this:
BBC News - New director for planned remake of cult film Highlander

Hard to imagine a good remake, when the original had the presence of Sean Connery.

And especially after the botched sequels. As someone once told me, "There should have been only one!".

But ... will judge on its own merits, presuming it gets made.

 

[Perpetual Man]

The trouble with Highlander was the sequels. The movie ended perfectly, tying up the story and leaving it closed. Of course when sequels were made they just stank because they were trying to add to a story that was for all intents and purposes was over.

Of course the franchise has been rebooted before (twice).

The was the television series that starred Adrian Paul as Duncan McLeod and that worked well, stumbling to start with but growing into something rather good by the end. However once they tried to stretch the premise onto the big screen it lost itself completely.

There was also a cartoon series that feature Quentin McLeod and although I never saw it, the reviews at the time were very positive.

The trouble seems to come when they try to stretch the whole concept, trying to extend 'The Game' and go beyond the whole 'there can be only one' idea.

So I'm quite sure rebooting can work. If they plan it well enough, with an end to aim for and stick to they might get something special, but the second they try to go beyond that it will struggle.

(It also might be said that it will have to be a different beast to the original. That was one of those things that should not have worked, it just did as all the elements came together. Christopher Lambert, a Frenchman playing a Scott, Connery playing a Spaniard, who was in fact Egyptian with a Scottish accent, the soundtrack by Queen...)

 

[Overread]

Honestly I'd be shocked if its a good remake - most of the remakes seem to just be a cheap attempt to use the title to get bums on seats whilst mixing a new-ish story line with the themes of the old one which tends to produce a hybrid that can't be anything because the two different elements don't merge well.

Highlander also appears to be the kind of story that doesn't work well with sequels. Part of its charm was not knowing the full story and when they tried to tell it huge gaps were left in the puzzle that just further confused the matter.


We've already seen bad remakes of a lot of the old classics - Clash of the Titans, Robocop - etc... they all launch big and then crash bad right after.

 

[paranoid marvin]

One of the major contributing factors to making Highlander a great movie was the music soundtrack; just like with Flash Gordon , Queen's music made a good film great.

As for remakes; well you can't lose really. If it turns out a turkey, stick with the original; if if turns out a good film then great. Some movies thought would be awful (the 2 new Trek films for example) turned out brilliantly, some I was hopeful for (eg Total Recall) were garabage and others (eg Rollerball) were not as good as the original, but a nice alternative.


As for Highalnder, it's likely to awful; but no harm done, eh?

 

[BenSt]

I'm always skepticle of remakes, although there have been many who have proven very good based upon the new creator's own merits. Personally I'd rather see a new original concept rather than a rehash, but it might be interesting. I was a little too young to get into Highlander myself, despite the many reruns of it. I found it was just a bit too drama for my liking, the story was very formulaic after a while. It was a product of it's age though,many series from that timeframe had low budget per episode to stretch out the greater budget to create as many episodes as possible.