Why Highlander Endgame is Great

[Kladdagh]

... Call Ya ...

[Andrew NDB]

I'm sorry but I don't like Jacob Kell ... He is ridiculous in my point of view ... =O

[Kladdagh]

I'm sorry but I don't like Jacob Kell ... He is ridiculous in my point of view ... =O

[Nicholas Ward]

He was at the time the Quickening(s) manifested, not at the time of the beheadings.

And the immortals were in a circle, not a line by my recollection. But I might be wrong on that.

[Andrew NDB]

He wasn't the closest immortal at the time of the killing, Kell was.

But Kell was going down a line, cutting all the heads off, then stopping. There's no way Connor wasn't the closest one to at least the guy to his left or right.

[Nicholas Ward]

He wasn't the closest immortal at the time of the killing, Kell was.
But maybe he did pick up on the misery of the others who chose to be locked away, resulting in him seeking out Duncan for the final confrontation.

[Andrew NDB]

Kind of surprising Connor wouldn't have gotten a slight pick-me-up from all the Quickenings going on right next to him in the Sanctuary. I suppose it doesn't work like that, though.

[RainbowRaven]

I was eager to watch Highlander: Endgame while I was watching the sixth season of Highlander because that season was not satisfying. I looked into why the season was short, didn't have enough Macleod or other regulars, and didn't seem to follow up on the devastation of Richie's death etc. I found that many of the actors had had other commitments including Adrian Paul who was working on Highlander: Endgame. I thought "well good, something to look forward to because season 6 is sorely wanting."

I enjoyed Endgame. It was as though someone said "hey, let's make a Highlander episode into a feature length film with a dash of this and that from the first movie" The quality was beautiful to look at and the story was a good one.

In the flashbacks, Duncan still looks like Duncan. Those extensions were just right lol. His haircut (in series and movie) looked nice but threw me off. My eyes kept wondering why his face looked different. But his face was unchanged, it was the hair lol. Connor was a little less Connor and I think I understand they were trying to make him look weary and fed up with living but they missed the mark and made an immortal look as though he had aged.

The first question that popped into my mind when Kate/Faith came into the story was "didn't that fortune teller say Duncan would never marry?" Then I saw that the marriage took place before that fortune was read by his gypsy lover. Eh... It was a beautiful story but I found it hard to take seriously given the series context on marriage and Tessa's death. The story would have been better for me if the fortune teller had noted Duncan had married once but would never marry again. It offers a good explanation for why Duncan leans towards relationships with mortal women and not immortal women long term. Trauma. I wouldn't have minded a flashback or two to the gypsies.

One thing I find interesting is the parallel between Connor and Duncan and Duncan and Richie in mentor/protege roles. Both Connor and Duncan had an inordinate amount of influence over their students. I couldn't believe Duncan would kill Kate to turn her immortal without first talking to her about it. (To what degree would knowing one is a pre-immortal affect becoming immortal? Isn't the requirement just that one dies violently? Is surprise an important element?) It reminded me of two things, Duncan's friend Walter intent on killing Claudia Jardin to preserve her current youth and talent as an immortal, and Richie deciding not to be with Donna and raise the her baby as the father. Given that Richie didn't live for much longer he should have gone with his heart and ignored Macleod. Both Connor and Duncan used the pain of past personal experience to deter their students from "making the same mistake" which only made them commit greater mistakes rather than following their own good sense.

I think I will re-watch Endgame tonight. How long was Sanctuary supposed to have existed? Something about that didn't gel for me either. The refrain is that the Watchers don't interfere... except when they're keeping caches of volunteer immortals in holy ground basements? Again, eh...

[David McMurdo]

Could be onto something. Perhaps the writer read that ages ago and snuck the name in.

I wonder, was the name Jacob Kell a carryover from the "World Without End" stuff, or brand new in the shooting script?

I do remember that his name was originally Jacob Kase but that they changed it because it was too phonetically similar to "Kane" from Highlander 3. There was some issue over the fact that "Kell" isn't a Scottish name (while Kase is), but they went with it anyway.

[Jim Kirk]

Is it a good book? Now I want to read it!

So do I!!!

[Andrew NDB]

Could be onto something. Perhaps the writer read that ages ago and snuck the name in.

I wonder, was the name Jacob Kell a carryover from the "World Without End" stuff, or brand new in the shooting script?

[Colleengael]

I guess the grey hair comes if you go so long without a quickening. Your true age starts to creep in.😀

[dubiousbystander]

Is it a good book? Now I want to read it!

[dubiousbystander]

Yeah, I get that. Also the bit about having to be killed violently to trigger the Immortality. I have this dim memory that May Ling and Rebecca, I think, both died via poisoning in their Chronicles. I might be wrong, though.

[golddragon71]

I enjoyed it at the time...I don't think the final fight was as badly edited in the theatrical version as it was in the home video version.
(I really do miss the Connor/Duncan headmorphing in the quickening however)
the funniest thing happened years later however)
among my many other interests (Highlander included) I am an avid Trekkie
while I was getting ready to see the 2011 NuTrek, I went on a tear of watching Classic Trek episodes as well as collecting the old Bantam Star Trek novels released in the 70's and 80's
One such book caught my eye in a particular way
Star Trek Devil World

The detective in me refuses to believe in coincidence, so there must be someone on the movie's writing team who saw this book and figured it was an obscure enough name that they could use it for

[Hatter76]

[Hatter76]

it's a mixed bag, some scenes he looks ok, other scenes terrible, in some scenes he goes from looking younger to older and back over and over, especially in his fight scene with Duncan, he actually looks younger in the re-shot portions. in the Scotland scenes he doesn't look as good as he should have, the didn't give him the hairlace wig like in the first and third movies, instead they used hair extensions, and they are at times noticeable as being blended into his natural hair, especially at the beginning of the Scotland flashback. Connor traditionally has thick Scottish hair in those kind of scenes, but in Endgame, his naturally hair is very noticeably thinner, it would have been nice if they had done the hair-lace wig

[David McMurdo]

Yeah, they really messed up with Lambert's hair and makeup on that film. Apparently someone wanted his hair to resemble the sleeked back look that he had in his fight with the Kurgan in the first film. Terrible idea. That's the only scene in the first film where he has that look, so it's not like you look at it and go "that's the Connor Macleod look". The makers of Highlander 3 realised this. It's almost baffling how badly they failed to make him look good in Endgame. Lambert was in roles a decade later where he looked much better. I know that some fans like to say that they made him look worn to show the effects of the Sanctuary, but if that was true then he wouldn't look as terrible in the scenes that take place in the beginning of the film, but he does. They just did a poor job.

[Hatter76]

Those grays

[Andrew NDB]

It was strange. When I saw Endgame before ever seeing the series, I loved it, yet I still felt like, "God, there must be SOOO much I'm missing here because I never saw the show." I mean, I still got the basic things, like Methos is really old and Duncan's friend, and Joe is a "good Watcher" who is also Duncan's friend.

Little did I know that I really wasn't missing anything at all and, in fact, knowledge of what I was "missing" from the series probably -- if not undoubtedly -- would have tainted my viewing experience. I'm sure I'd be mad about Kate, like, "Where did she come from? Why was she never mentioned or hinted at on the show??" and so on.

[David McMurdo]

Yeah I hadn't seen a single episode of the series when I watched Endgame. In this country they only showed it at 3am along with the likes of Renegade and so on. I grew up on the films alone. I still remember renting Highlander 3 on VHS as a kid. It took me a while to enjoy the series when I was finally able to watch it—its tone is a world away from the films. It felt far less serious and epic. Instead of each immortal being some kind of legendary character in their own right, you had really silly ones. Of course I love it these days.

[Hatter76]

it did work best for me before I saw the full series, when it first came out, I was not well versed in the Series, I hadn't seen more than 20 Episodes all the way through, I liked the show very much, I would catch on TV when I saw that it was on, but back in those days I didn't really make it a point to be in front of the TV at the time it was coming on, but I definitely enjoyed the show, I think it was not long after part 3 came out on video that the first Episode(merged with another Episode) was in the video store, so finally got to see Connor and Duncan together.

I knew who Joe, Methos and Amanda were, but I didn't really know there histories, I knew them enough though that I knew who they were when I saw Endgame, I knew what the Watchers were, and I obviously knew who Duncan was, but again not in the way that I would had if I had actually seen the whole series at that point. so many many years later when I finally got the Series, it was nice to get properly acquainted with it.


After seeing all that it, endgame definitely felt that it was a missed opportunity, though it still remains my favorite after the first film

[Andrew NDB]

I really liked the film back when I first saw it. I also was incredibly disappointed with it.
There is a lot of good things about it. The bad stuff with it has more to do with the poor editing.
With a bigger budget and more time, it could have been a great film.

Overall my dissatisfaction with it is that I went in expecting an adventure movie with the two leads having equal screentime.
I was wanting to see a bigger more expanded version of the series first episode, instead, I wound up with something very different

It's an odd thing, when you think about it. It was billed as a team-up adventure... but it was an actual passing-of-the-torch affair. Which didn't really amount to anything beyond Duncan going on to lead "The Source."

Still, I really dig "Endgame" and its general vibe. It digests best if you haven't seen the series beforehand.

[Donut]

I really liked the film back when I first saw it. I also was incredibly disappointed with it.
There is a lot of good things about it. The bad stuff with it has more to do with the poor editing.
With a bigger budget and more time, it could have been a great film.

Overall my dissatisfaction with it is that I went in expecting an adventure movie with the two leads having equal screentime.
I was wanting to see a bigger more expanded version of the series first episode, instead, I wound up with something very different

[Colleengael]

At one point in time I had a poster from Endgame combined with an Edge poster that asked Is Edge Immortal? The balloons for Connor and Duncan said could be...could be. We took the poster with us to a WWE event. It was signed by Edge and donated to the local children's hospital for an auction. His appearance in Endgame inspired the fan fiction chain story on the old board called Hot August Nights. I also found it funny that while Edge was on the series Haven, his character couldn't die. I wish he could have had a larger part in Endgame but the scene with him and F.Braun as the highway bandits was a needed bit of levity for the film.