What Movie Remakes do YOU Want to See?

[Mx.Silver]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this one.

On one hand, Ryan Renolds should be able to pull off a good Conner McCloud. The director is trying to use an all Queen soundtrack again. And it can't be the worst movie made in the franchise, because that would probably break a fundamental rule of physics.

Renolds is a decent actor (and hopefully can actually handle a sword reasonably well) but I'd still rather it actually had, you know, a scottish actor as Conner. Admttedly there aren't really any well-known ones who'd work, which is a problem for Hollywood's casting policies. True, I doubt he could be less convincing as a scotsman than Christopher Lambert but given that casting problems were fairly noticeable in the original (Sean Connery as an Egyptian who was posing as a Spaniard. Who the hell though that was a good idea?) it's not an enouraging sign.

On the other hand, the franchise has not done well outside of the original movie. Even the tolerable third movie and TV series are good only when compared to the other things that have been produced with the "Highlander" name attached.

Yeah, which is a shame because there is actually quite a lot of potential within the Highlander world (as it was in the first, anyway). For a start, you have about 500 years of human history to play around with (not focussing on Conner defeats the point of calling it Highlander, after all). Quite a lot happened in that time, and the immortals tended to do a lot of travelling there's a wide range of setting choices available.

Moreover, it comes with an in-built reason for conflict since the immortals are by their nature destined to fight each other, and be rewarded for being the last one standing. There's a lot of possible antagonist motivation there, besides the Kurgan's style of villainy (which works, but shouldn't be the default). Some immortals could be seeking the prize to use it to actively shape the world, whether for their own glory or because they think they could 'improve' it. Or how about an immortal who thinks that no one should get The Prize and is actively trying to prevent the Quickening by imprisoning and/or crippling other immortals (just what happens if an immortal loses a limb anyway? The original film never brings it up). There's even the possibility of a more tragic confrontation, where the antagonist isn't a particularly bad person but if forced into conflict because that's how immortals are.

That last point also touches on the fact there's also a fair amount of potential for depth present as well. Mortality is a pretty major element of the Human Condition, yet here we have an entire group of people who do not age, who are not bound by the handful of decades the rest of us have to live our lives by. How they deal with that and how that effects them is a fairly important question. Besides the difficulties it brings with human relationships, there are other matters posed by being static in a changing world. How does it feel to leave your homeland knowing that when you come back they may not even be speaking the same language? Can an immortal be said to have a home at all? Should they try and stay connected to the world or drift away from it? Should an immortal really think of themselves as being human?
Moreover these immortals, for all their power, also have notable limits. They may be immune to the random tragedy that can damage our lives (accidental death and illness) but they are fundamentally trapped bound by a particular destiny and forced to abide by certain rules that they cannot break. Exactly how much free will do they have? Is immortality itself a blessing, a curse, or simply what you make of it?
It's also worth noting that the immortals also open a way of exploring how much things change. A 'hero' of the classical Greek model would have very different qualities to what we would consider necessary to be one. A lot of moral standard that we take for granted today (our views on slavery, animal cruelty, egalitarianism, killing in general, etc) were not always held by our ancestors. It's likely at least some immortals would reflect this.

Now, it's not as if a film needs to be focused entirely on these sorts of questions (Highlander is an action film first and foremost) but being aware of them and acknowledging them to some degree is certainly an option. It's not as you can't make a decent action film that also touches on some deeper issues too and Highlander actually has plenty of possibilities in that regard. There's also quite a strong potential emotional element too, given that immortals will inevitably have felt a fair amount of loss at some point as their mortal friends and loved ones, should they have any, will likely only be temporary connections. Any relationships between immortals will also be over-shadowed by the fact that, eventually, there can be only one.



Of course, the franchise itself has seldom, if ever, even tried use any of this. In fact pretty much all the sequels and spin-offs seem to keep making a lot of really obvious mistakes.
1: being set chronologically after the first film. This is really rather stupid, given that at the end of Highlander there is only immortal left. There's really nowhere to go after that.
2: Violating the 'Rules'. It's not that hard to understand: don't fight on holy ground, there can be only one. Why would you bother changing this?
3: Forgetting Conner is the last immortal to be born. This is mostly a consequence of 1, but it really gets silly quite fast. I mean, what's the point of the Quickening if new immortals can just keep popping-up all over the place? The series is a particularly big offender in this regard. In fact, any reboot would probably be better off treating the series as being in it's own separate world.
4: Trying to explain too much. The origin of the immortals kind of works best when it's left vague. It's left unexplained because it doesn't need to be explained and unless someone has a really good explanation ('Aliens!' doesn't count) it should probably be left that way.
5. Being generally crap. Although they often manage to be far, far, worse than that.

Star Wars ep 1 -3 (without lucas directing, writing or in fact having anything to do with it).

Honestly, I don't think we ever really needed any Star Wars prequels to begin with. Pretty much everything that needs to be in Star Wars is in the original trilogy.