Soundtracks

[Nicholas Ward]

There are different soundtracks released for the films and series. Which ones do you think are the best?

[Tootsie Bee]

I love Stewart Copeland's Wagner-inspired score for Highlander II. George Kallis wrote some beautiful music for The Source, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the final cut. Michael Kamen's work on the original is decent enough, but in retrospect, it feels more like a warmup for his far superior Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves score. For the third film, J. Peter Robinson gave us porno music and a ripoff of Motley Crue's "Dr. Feelgood," but there are some nice tracks in there, too. Endgame has the worst score: utterly bland and forgettable work from Nick Glennie-Smith and Stephen Graziano.

Now, if we're including the songs on the soundtrack, then Queen takes the original film to the top. Both of the Dimension-released sequels use "Bonny Portmore," but the Loreena McKennitt version from H3 is much better than the Jennifer McNeil version in H4 (or the Laura Creamer version in the TV series, for that matter), and The Final Dimension (but not The Sorcerer) also features a pretty decent Suze DeMarchi song over the end credits. Highlander II's song selection is a letdown after the first film's unforgettable offerings, but Lou Gramm provides a strong closing tune in "One Dream." Endgame has nothing to offer but the aforementioned so-so "Bonny Portmore" cover, but the trailer for the film made good use of Rob Zombie's "Dragula," for what that's worth. The Source comes dead last in this category and practically commits a hate crime against the album A Kind of Magic.

[dubiousbystander]

Roger Bellon created Highlander: A Celtic Opera... another alternate universe. In this one, there's no such person as Tessa. Duncan seems to have met no other Immortals in his life save Fritagern the Visigoth, who tried to kill him. Though Connor is referenced by the witch who causes Duncan to become an Immortal, as someone she'd done this to before. He married a girl named Aurora. She died of old age. In the modern day he has living quarters up the Eiffel Tower, and some friend of his creates a clone of Aurora. Duncan is told about her, meets her, they fall in love. She realizes he's insane and takes off. Duncan gets mopey and suicidal, stumbles upon Fritagern who finds him too pathetic to kill (and at some point says he's got a hobby of killing all other Immortals and hey Duncan, did you know your mother's soul is burning in Hell or something because of the deal she made to make you Immortal?). Duncan gets back together with Aurora. They get married. She gets murdered by Fritagern because he knows Duncan will put up a good fight in rage over it. *sigh* Duncan takes Fritagern's head, and continues existing, miserable.

The music was lovely and the singers were a delight. I am learning to play a short piece from it on my guitar. Very slowly.