This is one remake I can get behind. It's such a cool concept, but the original film really doesn't hold up well in some regards. The Kurgan is pretty terrible, and the swordfights are laughable. I'd love to see a reinvention of it, if it's done well.

Likewise. I love the original but the concept is far better than the film itself. I think it can be improved and I'd love to see it done better.

Same here.

Damn. I'm not familiar with his work, but sounds like some of you were excited. According to SlashFilm:

I didn't know Justin Lin was in on this. I would've been pretty happy seeing this under his direction.

Yeah, he was the known director for quite awhile. I wonder who they'll get now. Hopefully not some hack from the Twilight flicks.

The latest news, with Summit planning to reboot it, says to me they're really desperate to have a franchise in place after the last Twilight is released.

I disagree. I think the film as it stands is smart and sharply done. I don't need it to be flashier. And the Kurgan is terrible? He's an iconic 80's villain!

I don't want flashier, Supermallet. I just want a better fleshed out concept. And, despite how fun the Kurgan was, even Clancy Brown hated what he did in that movie (there was an interview with him, published around the time of the film's release, where he elaborated on that). Hell, it wasn't even how the character was originally conceived but rather what the studio mandated.

This. I like the movie but...idea is much more cooler than the execution. And yes..the fight scenes are corny.

Fixed. I just don't buy his performance, and all the fight scenes are downright terrible. It's like they didn't even try. "Here, just bang these swords at each other for a few minutes".

I definitely enjoy the Highlander mythos and would absolutely check out a remake.

with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directing... and I think I said this for another movie he's directing... at least it'll be visually interesting.

Of course this is the guy that is supposed to direct The Crow reboot and was courted to do BioShock.

I'm not going to lie down on this one. The concept is perfectly fleshed out. The sword fights are fine. Y'all are wrong.

I said it in the other thread, but I thought End Game ended the franchise perfectly with closure for Duncan McLeod. The Source was an absolute abomination and I can't believe Davis and Panzer liked the script.

Shia LaBeouf is in talks for a role.

I can see it now

Daniel Radcliffe as Connor McLeod

Kenneth Branagh as Ramirez

Supermallet isn't the only one who think the Kurgan is an outstanding villain and the film as a whole is well crafted, especially the clever and ingenious transitions. Any reboot will be the antithesis of what the original presented. It will (probably) have forgettable characters, a bland soundtrack and/or score, predictable pacing, and will otherwise be unremarkable in a sea of other unremarkable films in whatever year it gets released.

IMO, the first film had style coming out its ears. Substance might've been a bit of a stretch, but we're not talking Pride and Prejudice. Mulcahy's direction combined with a great quotable script, fine cinematography, and outstanding scenery-chewing actors made for a very unique and memorable film. I just can't see any of that happening with a reboot/remake given the current "flash in a pan" method of filmmaking. Hell, even Highlander II, as bad as it is, still has some great sequences here and there.

Fleggett, I like the cut of your jib.

Well throw another on the Kurgan bandwagon! Sure the film has a huge 80s feel, but the Kurgan is great. His douche scale does nothing but improve over 400 years. I think it's highlighted by how much of a counter it is to Connor's tone and demeanor. I'd be very curious to read about how the character was originally intended to be played/written.

fleggett, not sure I agree with your assessment on how it will turn out. Sure it could easily go that route and to a degree I hope they do offer something different than the original. If they try to copy it too much they could easily fall short and it would be declared unsuccessful for not living up to the original despite validly trying. Besides, I think there are some good stretches in the TV series, and Endgame, that show you can still do a successful Highlander in 'modern' times. My only large complaint with Endgame was that the villain was too similar to the bad guy from the third one with the magical powers. However, not playing by the rules and amassing power that way was a very smart twist.

The Kurgan (originally only refered to as The Knight) was a more cerebral character. He was screwing with Connor for centuries and was doing so to push him to the breaking point. A late act twist revealed that Connor was always the strongest of all the immortals and thus the Knight never took him head on. This was also in the finished film but scenes referencing that (like how the Kurgan exited the church through the back while MacLeod was waiting out front to fight him) were excised from the final cut.

Clancy Brown did a great job with the rewritten character and even improvised a lot of what's onscreen but he did lament that it was not the character he had originally been interested in playing. I wonder if his opinion has changed over the years.

Anyhoo, if anyone's interested, I have Widen's first draft for Highlander. I also have an early draft of this remake.

The remake doesn't seem to change who the Kurgan is. He doesn't rant like the 80's Kurgan did but he royally screws pretty much every immortal in the script

One reviewer whined that the Kurgan has daddy issues in the remake script but that isn't even remotely the case.

The Woman In Black Daniel Radcliffe or Harry Potter and the Current McGuffin Daniel Radcliffe?

I always wonder about this desire to take a successful, established single film or franchise and make it "different". Different how? As I indicated previously, Highlander (the first film, anyway) had quality, style, and direction in spades. People in here have been complaining about the Kurgan as if he was some sort of critical flaw or gross misstep. Why? I don't understand the complaints leveled against the character's portrayal. He was big, strong, proficient with that monstrous sword, motivated, passionate, willing to do that which Connor was not to win the prize, charismatic, focused, and maybe even a bit fatalistic. And those are the qualities which just popped into my head over the last twenty seconds. He was certainly no brainiac, but he didn't have to be given his other traits.

I'll probably piss Superman07 off by writing this, but compare the Kurgan with Bruce Payne's character, Jacob Kell. Kell was certainly more cerebral, but fairly forgettable in the grand Highlander scheme. Does anyone even remember that one of his "minions" was Donnie Yen, a veritable god of Chinese cinema? The movie was THAT bad and THAT dismissible. In fact, I'd go so far to say that Endgame is exactly the sort of schlock one could wind-up with when trying to remake the first film.

For Highlander, you need standout characters, veering into the outlandish (along with a great soundtrack and smart visuals). The Kurgan fit that bill perfectly. Hell, to this day I even remember the name of the hooker he sleeps with (Candy). When that sort of minutiae burns itself into your brain, the film has either done something incredibly right or disastrously wrong. I think we can all agree Highlander falls into the former category.

Have any of you seen Noah Antwiler's frequent love call-outs to Highlander ( www.spoonyexperiment.com )? He's much more verbose and exacting as to why Highlander is such a fantastic film amongst a mountain of utter slop from that similar time period (and makes no bones about the sequels being garbage).

Actually, I do remember that Donnie Yen (playing the historical assassin Jin Ke, no less) was Kell's henchman in Endgame since he was one of the few with worthwhile lines and would have made a better villain than Kell. But then I remember that Donnie Yen was misused far worse in Blade II.

The Kurgan is fun but totally a product of the 80's (which I view as a positive since that's when most "fun" villains come from). He was an amusing asshole but hardly charismatic. That said, I'm not looking for a dour depiction of the Kurgan. In fact, I'm not sure when/how the Kurgan bashing in this thread began.

Highlander is fun but it's not art and it's subject matter is far more engrossing than the film itself. Which is why the series was so beloved, despite an uneven first season and a horrible final season. But most cult favorites are so. We tend to agrandise their best parts and downplay their flaws. Highlander was a good film with a great concept. I believe it can be done better and a great film can emerge from its great concept.

Highlander is remembered fondly only because of the (A) music (although Queen gets far too much credit and Michael Kamen far too little), (B) the scenery chewing (from both Connery and Brown), the cool transitions into the flashbacks, (C) swordfights in a modern setting (despite the fact that the actors limitations are fully evident), and (D) the concept.

That said, the pacing is cluinky in spots (particularly the inferior UK/director's cut), the sword fights are mostly week (they certainly don't come across as guys who've been honing their combat skills for centuries), and the world seems rather small given how vast their knowledge and adventures should be.

Oh, I agree. And you see what sort of crap is slung in Blade II's direction. Donnie's agent during that time must've wanted to shoot himself several times over, not to mention Donnie himself. Neither Endgame nor Blade II endeared him to American audiences. Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat were far more successful.

You didn't think the Kurgan was charismatic? Really? I wouldn't say he's in the same league as, say, Khan Singh, but I thought he was eminently watchable and had oodles of personality. And a pretty damn imposing bad guy. Clancy Brown looks gigantic in the film, unlike his subsequent roles. I don't know if that's because he actually was that big or if Mulcahy used some very clever camera techniques (a la Peter Jackson). Either way, though, it worked.

Perhaps. In this day and age, though, I think the best you can hope for is "different", in all probability leaning toward "dreck". You're messing around with a cult classic, which is fairly dangerous territory. How would you feel if someone wanted to remake The Goonies or Buckaroo Banzai? Or anything that's near and dear to your heart?

That's a lot of only's. And, just for the record, I listen to Kamen's score fairly often.

I'll admit the swordfighting, as compared to today's standards, is a little wanting. It just depends on what you can let slide versus what damages the medium for you. Do the laughably cheap sets and mini-skirts of TOS make it any less untouchable? Does the lack of firefighter headgear mitigate The Towering Inferno or Backdraft? Does Arnold's thick Austrian accent in Conan (the first film, not that abortion of a second) make your bones hurt?

I can't agree with the pacing critique, though. I think the movie flies by pretty quickly and never outstays its welcome. That said, the WWII segment should've remained a deleted scene, as Lambert's acting is jarringly atrocious in that sequence.

Things become beloved classics most often due to the sum of its parts, with those elements that are lacking easily forgiven. To me, films that fall into that category should be left well enough alone.

See I don't mind remakes because it'll either be done better, differently, or terribly. The first two allow me to enjoy a new take on the material. Neither replaces the original for me. So, if it's terrible, I can forget it ever existed. As I'm sure I will someday regarding the new Friday The 13th.

Also, I prefer remakes to tinkering with movies years after the fact. If it's to tastefully clean up effects work, fine. But to change a work altogether, no. Remakes afford the opportunity for a "what if" scenario.

I'm not saying Clancy Brown as the Kurgan isn't memorable. When I mean that he's not charismatic is that I wouldn't wanna spend an extended amount of time with him. He's a god among douchebags but still a douchebag. But that's why he makes for a great nemesis.

You know what else should have remained deleted? Those damned backflips Fasil did during the carpark fight. Not only do they not make sense, where the hell did his sword go?

Why would that piss me off? Sure Kell was more of a smooth talker, and is probably more forgettable. The only reason I highlighted Endgame as good is because 2 was one of the worst films I've ever seen, and 3 just wasn't all that great either. I'd throw in The Source too, but I've never seen it since I've heard it's worse than 2.