Highlander: The Source
I know I've said it like eight times already that this movie sucks. BUT IT REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS. The thing is, it's a horrible movie unto itself, but what takes it over the edge is that it systematically destroys everything that is essential to Highlander. I fast forwarded a lot of this movie for the sake of my sanity, and I'm pretty sure nothing will make any more sense if I'd seen it completely.
I'm not putting anything under a cut tag btw, because I consider this a public service announcement.
In some ways, I'm amazed by how well they dismantled everything that makes Highlander what it is. I'm baffled because it's done by the same people who did the series. But I think they all secretly hate the franchise and Duncan MacLeod. That's actually the only explanation I have for how season five ended. How we ever went from the awesome complexity of "Comes a Horseman"/"Revelation 6:8" leading into the shades of grey of "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" and then we get MOTHERFUCKING ARCHANGEL as the season finale, I'll never ever understand.
ANYWAY, point is... the movie is set in some fucking post-apocalyptic future. Already, they've completely departed from where we left off. HL has a lot of flashbacks (to put it mildly), but it's always set in the present day. Why are we in the future? I DON'T KNOW. And then everyone is all WE HAVE TO FIND THE SOURCE IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, except for the part where NOBODY EVER in the history of ever has mentioned this Source before and nobody in the movie ever EXPLAINS what the Source is. It's set up to be the salvation of mankind or something, but considering the ending, uh, big fat no.
Then you've got the ridiculous villain. We've always had ridiculous over the top villains, but it's like this one ate all of them for breakfast. MacLeod's trademark katana gets broken into two super early on in the movie. Joe dies. And yeah, I'm sorry to not cut tag that, but PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW. There are a giant bunch of characters that have never shown up before, so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to give a shit about any of them. We get yet another Love of Duncan's Life, except, of course, we also have never seen or heard her mentioned before. And as for Methos... everybody is calling him Methos even though he's always been real shy about owing up to his real identity. I guess nobody cares in the post-apocalyptic future. I don't need the movie to infodump me since it's supposed to be directed toward people who are already fans of the show, but I really could not tell that Methos is any different from any other guy. Instead, the movie infodumps me on all the wrong things that I don't care about.
Oh, just to really rub it in: they use the WORST cover of "Princes of the Universe" ever. It's HORRIBLE. Mere words cannot describe just how bad this cover is. My soul aches.
I feel sorry for Peter Wingfield the most, because I think he still cares about playing Methos. He tried to imbue a sense of continuity where his characterization and his relationship with Duncan were concerned, but there's really only so much he can do when the writing completely does not support him in any way. Adrian Paul is... Loan Shark Syndrome, I guess. Bills to pay. I think he stopped giving a crap about playing Duncan a long time ago.
One nice bit I will commend them for: Methos has the same Ivanhoe sword in The Source as he did in the series. I'm really surprised by that piece of prop continuity when EVERYTHING ELSE was ruiniated, so. That's something, I suppose. It's a beautiful sword. I was very obsessed with swords for a long time due to HL, and Methos' sword has always been one of my favorites. One day, when I have $300 to blow frivolously, I'll be buying a replica of the Ivanhoe to hang on my wall.
I was only in it for Methos content, and it's ironic that he has way more screen time in this than Endgame because since he's tagging along most of the time, I ended up watching more of the movie that I really wanted to since he's always kinda there in the background, and I'm pretty motivated to see every moment of him that I possibly can. My love for him damned me to WAY more lousiness than Endgame, because I could at least FF through 95% of Endgame.
I can probably go on and on and ON more about how awful this movie is, but I'll just leave it at that for now.
I'm not putting anything under a cut tag btw, because I consider this a public service announcement.
In some ways, I'm amazed by how well they dismantled everything that makes Highlander what it is. I'm baffled because it's done by the same people who did the series. But I think they all secretly hate the franchise and Duncan MacLeod. That's actually the only explanation I have for how season five ended. How we ever went from the awesome complexity of "Comes a Horseman"/"Revelation 6:8" leading into the shades of grey of "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" and then we get MOTHERFUCKING ARCHANGEL as the season finale, I'll never ever understand.
ANYWAY, point is... the movie is set in some fucking post-apocalyptic future. Already, they've completely departed from where we left off. HL has a lot of flashbacks (to put it mildly), but it's always set in the present day. Why are we in the future? I DON'T KNOW. And then everyone is all WE HAVE TO FIND THE SOURCE IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, except for the part where NOBODY EVER in the history of ever has mentioned this Source before and nobody in the movie ever EXPLAINS what the Source is. It's set up to be the salvation of mankind or something, but considering the ending, uh, big fat no.
Then you've got the ridiculous villain. We've always had ridiculous over the top villains, but it's like this one ate all of them for breakfast. MacLeod's trademark katana gets broken into two super early on in the movie. Joe dies. And yeah, I'm sorry to not cut tag that, but PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW. There are a giant bunch of characters that have never shown up before, so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to give a shit about any of them. We get yet another Love of Duncan's Life, except, of course, we also have never seen or heard her mentioned before. And as for Methos... everybody is calling him Methos even though he's always been real shy about owing up to his real identity. I guess nobody cares in the post-apocalyptic future. I don't need the movie to infodump me since it's supposed to be directed toward people who are already fans of the show, but I really could not tell that Methos is any different from any other guy. Instead, the movie infodumps me on all the wrong things that I don't care about.
Oh, just to really rub it in: they use the WORST cover of "Princes of the Universe" ever. It's HORRIBLE. Mere words cannot describe just how bad this cover is. My soul aches.
I feel sorry for Peter Wingfield the most, because I think he still cares about playing Methos. He tried to imbue a sense of continuity where his characterization and his relationship with Duncan were concerned, but there's really only so much he can do when the writing completely does not support him in any way. Adrian Paul is... Loan Shark Syndrome, I guess. Bills to pay. I think he stopped giving a crap about playing Duncan a long time ago.
One nice bit I will commend them for: Methos has the same Ivanhoe sword in The Source as he did in the series. I'm really surprised by that piece of prop continuity when EVERYTHING ELSE was ruiniated, so. That's something, I suppose. It's a beautiful sword. I was very obsessed with swords for a long time due to HL, and Methos' sword has always been one of my favorites. One day, when I have $300 to blow frivolously, I'll be buying a replica of the Ivanhoe to hang on my wall.
I was only in it for Methos content, and it's ironic that he has way more screen time in this than Endgame because since he's tagging along most of the time, I ended up watching more of the movie that I really wanted to since he's always kinda there in the background, and I'm pretty motivated to see every moment of him that I possibly can. My love for him damned me to WAY more lousiness than Endgame, because I could at least FF through 95% of Endgame.
I can probably go on and on and ON more about how awful this movie is, but I'll just leave it at that for now.