trahern

Danielle, if you haven't seen it already, go back one.

Ahem.

Once upon a time, in a town not far enough away, I saw the cover of a video in a rental store. Some guy holding up a sword, mouth open, eyes closed, as if he was experiencing... something. The word 'Highlander' was plastered in sharp letters across the top. I wanted to see it.

Unfortunately, because I was so young at the time, as soon as Fasil's head came off my parents stopped the tape and wouldn't let me watch the rest. I can't remember if I snuck down to see the rest or not in the middle of the night. I think I might have.

It made an impression. It didn't occur to me that the sounds of blades crossing was dubbed by someone banging two pipes together, which is quite frankly, extremely stupid. I didn't know that the glowing energy that shone from the decapitated bodies and messed with things in the immediate vicinity was supposed to be lightning, so I wasn't disappointed by it. The first scene in the movie remains one of the best I have ever seen.

Moving forward in time, I'm excited by the sequel and the fact that the effects were done right this time, until I watch it piss over everything in the first one.

Moving forward again, the third was a better sequel, but it still sucked.

Forward once more. I'm in hell. Actually, it's an apartment in Lisbon, but it's also hell. I'm 17, my hormones... well, you know. Am I losing my virginity? No. I'm stuck here with absolutely nothing to do but jerk off and watch four channels of television that are all like Bravo when it started. Jerking off is difficult to do when every breath brings the stench of your own mother's chemically poisoned flesh, which the doctors said would die in six weeks but hasn't in six months. These hands massage her fucking feet until the thumbs fall off, yet somehow I still manage to touch myself with them. To this day, whenever I see that photo of Madonna sucking someone's toe, I throw up.

The Highlander series starring Adrian Paul shows up. Brazilian television dubs foreign shows, but Portuguese television uses subtitles. It was more watchable than Playboy Late Night, which is saying something for a 17yo boy with a roman catholic mother that knew almost nothing about sex. The series progresses, touching on many things I myself had wondered about ever since I saw the original movie. Possibilities, relationships, the nature of the quickening, the purpose behind it all. It was good for a good long while.

That whole Duncan versus the ultimate evil story killed it. They knew it, and ended the series well enough. They tried a spinoff with everyone's favourite female immortal, Amanda; but I knew it was doomed when they made her grow up a bit in the pilot. Why do people that make such stupid choices get jobs that ruin things for everyone else? I really don't know how.

Highlander Endgame came after the first movie and the series. It passed the gauntlet from Connor to Duncan. Connor didn't look like a boy in 1985, so by this point... the makeup people probably did the best they could. The series had the time to explore and bring an amazing amount of depth to the whole thing. The movie that followed all that... probably couldn't have been any better.



There are new movies in the works. A trilogy which answers questions and brings the whole thing, finally, to an end.

I'm nervous. Duncan jumps off a roof. If he pulls a Selene instead of going crunch on the pavement and needing a minute to get back up, I'm going to be very disappointed.