Weekly Geekly Rundown for January 4, 2024
Visions of 2024 — Highlander II: The Quickening
The year is 2024, the Earth is “protected” from harmful solar radiation by an artificial ozone layer called “The Shield.” This technical innovation became necessary after a massive wave of deaths related to solar radiation. This wave included Brenda Wyatt MacLeod, whose death prompted billionaire (and former immortal and now old man) Connor MacCleod to leverage his entire fortune and knowledge to create a solution to this dire emergency. The Shield was that solution and it worked until an evil corporation took control of it, making them the only thing protecting the planet from mass extinction…or are they? Some believe that the ozone layer has healed itself in the decades since The Shield was launched and have created a resistance to the corporation.
Meanwhile on THE PLANET ZEIST, where random launch platforms send people into aerial flips for no reasons, the evil General Katana prepares to send a pair of Green Goblin/The Vulture inspired assassins to the Earth to kill the now feeble MacCleod. It just so happens that centuries ago Connor MacCleod lead rebellious forces against the evil General Katana before he was exiled to the planet Earth…
Wait?! What?!
Planet Zeist? General Katana? Exiled to Earth?
I thought the immortals in the Highlander films came from “the dawn of time” and lived among us “down through the centuries.” Nope. Gone is all the mysticism and fantasy of the first film, replaced with pseudo-scientific insanity.
There is a reason that Highlander fans say “There can be only one” when they are asked about how many Highlander films exist. It’s because the second film in the franchise abandoned almost everything that made the first film work. Evocative cinematography capturing the beauty of the Scottish Highland, contrasting with modern day New York? Gone. Innovative transitions as a part of the editing sequence? Gone. All that remains are Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and lightning effects when people get their heads cut off. Most of Highlander II looks like it was filmed in the Madison Square Garden parking lot featured early in the first Highlander film. [On a “Luke Note,” the opening sequence of Highlander takes place during a pro-wrestling tag team match featuring the Fabulous Freebirds giving it a tie in of sorts to Luke’s recent Iron Claw review.]
To say the film was a disappointment to many fans is an understatement, but this introduction isn’t a review of the film. Rather, this is a look at what the film predicted the year 2024 would look like. As with many predictions of the future it is often wildly inaccurate, but it does have one potentially interesting insight. Like many films of the 70s to today, the film predicts a future that has been confronted with an ecological crisis. Unlike many other films, it warns of the dangers of leaving the solutions to these ecological problems in the hands of the few.
Ecological solutions take collective effort and Highlander II’s argument sets aside that reality in order to create its dark cyberpunk-esque future. In the 2024 of Highlander II, people relied on monolithic changes from elites rather than on democratic and collective action. The reliance on elites allowed a major corporation to take control of the world’s salvation and led to authoritarianism and despair. Whether people could get together and solve problems without elite intervention is something the film has nothing to say. There’s no room for Mr. Beast or Mark Rober in The Quickening. Whether you agree with the film’s assessment of environmental action and how sweeping solutions can lead to an authoritarian cyberpunk future or not, it’s as close as the film gets to saying anything remotely meaningful about the future.
The original Highlander had a great deal to say about the nature of love and the psychological affects of immortality, perfectly encapsulated in the Queen classic “Who Wants to Live Forever.” Highlander II has goggle wearing Green Goblin clones flying around sets and thinks that in the 2020s people will still be wearing ridiculous 80s shoulder pads.
There is a lot wrong with the film but, to borrow a cliché that is overused in the series and used awkwardly in the preview below, there is also a kind of magic. As much as I could go on an on discussing what is wrong with the movie, I’ve watched it over 10 times (and that’s not counting the Renegade edition or director’s cuts). It’s among my guilty pleasures.
What do you think about its predictions/commentary?
Around the Substack Community
The rundown of the Substack community this week is pretty interesting.
has one of the best Indie/OSR Newsletter’s out there and his most recent entry features information on a host of different games and sites. Check it out. had a couple of interesting posts lately. One where he asked what Fantasy as a genre means to us and another on some classic Mayfair Games role playing games products. Mayfair games Role Aids line was a wonderful and creative catalog of D&D supplements that filed off the serial numbers to meet with copyright law. Their book Wizards is still a favorite of mine and I was sad when a TSR lawsuit, and other economic woes in the rpg market, resulted in the Role Aids line shifting to TSR’s umbrella. As much as I like the Chronomancer sourcebook, originally slated for the Role Aids line, I think I would have preferred to see it as a Mayfair publication. Maybe that’s just because I’ve a “DC Heroes” sized love for the company, but I’m a fan of a larger rpg market.
As you might guess, I’m a huge fan of Sword & Sorcery fiction. Unlike many fantasy fans, who were introduced to the genre via Tolkien, my introduction to the fantasy genre came via Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was only after reading these masters of concise storytelling that I wandered into the fields of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, David Eddings, Robert Jordan, and Glen Cook. I had read some Greek and Norse mythology prior to Howard and Burroughs, but no literary fantasy. As a fan of the genre, I have a few “go to” places for news. Two of them are the DMR Books blog (they publish great books and their updates are fantastic) and
by . The Just the Axe newsletter a great place to find more information on the genre.
Weekly Film Article Cavalcade
The view from Luke-land.
Luke Y. Thompson has a number of interesting reviews this week. He starts things off with a review of the British murder mystery series Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale which shares many thematic qualities with Twin Peaks. I’m a fan of British mysteries and this is on my must see list.
Just as I released my Favorites from 2023 list, Luke worked on two recent lists. The first was his top 11 films from 2023 for Cinegods. Typical of Luke’s tastes, it runs the gamut of genres. As much as some people try to tie him down to just “geek” fare, Luke’s a true cineaste and for me that means both “art” films and “genre.” That’s Luke to a T and I was happy to see him praise the Dungeons & Dragons movie that came out last year, though I disagree on why it didn’t succeed. It was the over-40 crowd who didn’t show up. They were mad at Hasbro and younger players are the largest segment of the hobby.
I disagree with a lot of critics who say the new D&D film is “different” from the 2000 film starring Jeremy Irons. The films are very similar in tone and narrative goals, it’s just that last year’s film was better at delivering the same kind of narrative. It’s like the difference between Ator and John Milius’ Conan, both are trying to tell Sword and Sorcery tales, but only one is actually good. As much as I enjoy Ator, it’s not Ator. The same is true for the D&D movies. The new one is fantastic and delivers what it intends. The original is a cult film, and deservedly so no matter how much I love watching Jeremy Irons chew the scenery.
Luke also contibuted to AV Club’s annual “Most Anticipated” films list. It’s a great list and I am genuinely looking forward to many of the movies listed. I’ll be covering some of them in the upcoming weeks.
A glimpse of Courtney Howard-ville
Courtney Howard’s entry this week covers the new film Society of the Snow which is a new film based on the 1972 “Miracle in the Andes.” There have been many attempts to capture it on film, but like many events it appears that the further we get from the real event the better the analysis and depiction of the event become. It’s a film I’m looking forward to after reading Courtney’s review.
Scott’s Scoop
Scott Mendelson is one of the best writers on the financial side of the industry and one of his last articles of 2023 examines how the final weekend of the year turned out.
Music Recommendation
David Soul was a huge television star in the 1970s and was the real star of Starsky & Hutch. He was also great in Salem’s Lot, to tie into Luke’s TV review above. He was also, like David Hasselhoff, a singer. Since he passed away this past week, I thought I’d share one of his songs and the music recommendation of the week.
Classic Film Recommendation (Actually, it’s a TV Recommendation this Week)
The death David Soul got me thinking about how my wife and I watched the entirety of the Starsky & Hutch television show during Covid lockdown. It was a show we’d heard a lot about and we’d both seen the comedy film inspired by the series, but nothing prepared us for the sheer awesomeness of the show. It alternated between the neo-noir seriousness of Michael Mann to straight up modern day vampire hunting. Like a box of chocolates, you never knew what you were going to get. It’s a show that “jumped the shark” on day one.
When it was great, it was often a Michael Mann episode. Michael Mann is one of Hollywood’s great film directors, but he worked as a writer on Starsky & Hutch early in his career. Many critics write about the series as one that redefined the police procedural by being more raw and realistic than past entries. The show is no Dragnet.
As I mentioned in my rundown from July of 2023, Michael Mann’s episodes were not only great television, they were good enough that he borrowed elements from them in his later filmography. As great as these serious neo-noir moments are, and they are great, there are some episodes that are really out there. Because of this, I like to say these critics are wearing Michael Mann colored glasses. I can find no other explanation for their ability to overlook a lot of bizarre stuff.
Let me give you an example of how strange the show can be. By episode 5 (The Fix), Hutch is turned into a heroin addict by evil drug dealers and has to be detoxed by Starsky and once clean Hutch never even thinks about heroin again even when an episode centers on heroin dealers.
By season 2 they are hunting a vampire, which puts it on the same level as The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries who took on Dracula in season 2. Mann’s episodes were something different though. In every episode, David Soul put in strong performances. He never seemed to phone it in. When the show was gritty, he shined. When the show went off the deep end, he kept it afloat.
The show lasted four seasons and each season had a different opening title song, but the song from the first season is my favorite. The song is as out of control as the car and the actors in the opening scene and the driving baseline is infectious.
I've always enjoyed reading about what people imagined the future to be like, whether it would be the outlandish retro futurism of Tomorrowland, the creepy and cyberpunk corporate Futureworld, or the now but later of Futurama. It's always interesting to see what writers will come up with but it is the inspiration for those that will further technology. Though I would say that Futurama is what I envision the future to be since the one thing that Futurama got correct was that no matter how advanced we get as a people, we will still be handicapped by our emotions as humans, but that's also what makes the triumphs and melancholy of life worth living. Also, I can't wait for soylent green to be a thing 🤤
Fascinating wrestling moment in time in Highlander. The Freebirds were only very briefly in the WWF, and I don't think even made it to TV. WWF had an exclusive deal with Madison Square Garden, so that had to be their show.
Of course, Michael Hayes since then has been working there forever as a producer/booker/commentator/manager, starting as "Dok Hendrix" in the '90s.