who wants to live forever?
Sure, it’s cheesy in many respects, but its central mythology still resonates even decades later.
The 1980s brought us so many terrific films, including director Russell Mulcahy’s sword-and-sorcery fantasy action film Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert as an immortal Scotsman who must battle others like him to the death until just one remains. The film spawned two direct sequels and two TV series (one live action, one animated), and a planned reboot has been kicking around Hollywood since 2008. But the original still stands tall as the best of the bunch, 40 years later.
(Spoilers below because it’s been 40 years.)
Screenwriter Gregory Widen was a college student at UCLA when he wrote the first draft of what would become Highlander for a screenwriting class. It was originally entitled Shadow Clan and partially inspired by Ridley Scott’s 1977 film about two swordsmen engaged in a longstanding feud (The Duelists). Combine that with Widen’s visits to Scotland and the Tower of London, with its impressive display of historical armor, and Widen had all he needed for his tale of dueling Immortals secretly living among us. He sold that first draft for $200,000—a princely sum for a college student—and a few revisions later, Highlander was ready for filming.
The film opens mid-wrestling match at Madison Square Garden, as Connor MacLeod (Lambert) senses the presence of a dangerous adversary. The two men face off with swords in the parking garage and when MacLeod chops off his opponent’s head, the tremendous release of magical energy does some serious damage to the structure and the surrounding vehicles. Naturally the police take notice, although they can’t yet prove MacLeod has anything to do with the decapitated body. We are then treated to MacLeod’s early backstory through a series of flashbacks, interspersed between scenes in the present as detectives try to crack the case with the help of forensic metallurgy expert Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart).
We go back to the Scottish Highlands in 1536, when MacLeod rides into battle with his clan and is fatally stabbed by a mysterious black-clad knight (Clancy Brown)—except MacLeod doesn’t die. He makes a full recovery and is driven out of his village because everyone thinks it’s witchcraft. But he rebounds, living a quietly isolated pastoral life with wife Heather (Beatie Edney), when a a wandering swordsman (Sean Connery) named Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez shows up one day.
Blasts from the past
Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) suffers what should have been a fatal blow. 20th Century Fox
It’s Ramirez who clues MacLeod in on what he really is: one of a number of Immortals who can only be killed via beheading and must battle one another until just one remains. They can’t father children, but they do possess a sixth sense known as the “Quickening,” and when one Immortal kills another, the victor absorbs the fallen Immortal’s power. The survivors will eventually congregate in “a distant land” for a final confrontation, and the one who emerges victorious will have the power to save humanity, or destroy it. That time is the present and the place is New York City.
The evil knight who wounded MacLeod in battle is a powerful Immortal called the Kurgan. Ramirez has sought out MacLeod to train him, since it is vitally important to humankind that such a vicious brute as the Kurgan not end up as the sole survivor. Alas, Ramirez is beheaded by the Kurgan while MacLeod is away from home one day. The fate of humanity now lies with MacLeod—and soon he is facing off against the Kurgan in a battle to the death. Spoiler alert: MacLeod is victorious, because this is a 1980s fantasy action film where the good guy always wins. He becomes mortal, just with the ability to read the thoughts and feelings of everyone on Earth. And he can finally settle down and start a family with Brenda.
I’m not going to argue that Highlander is a cinematic masterpiece. The critical response was mixed to harsh, and the film wasn’t a box office success either, grossing just $13 million against its $19 million production budget. In many respects, Highlander is a pretty standard ’80s bombastic action movie, where the men engage in macho dominance displays and the women are screeching and helpless—yes, even the otherwise tough-minded Brenda when the Kurgan kidnaps her to flush out MacLeod. (Get it together, Brenda! Don’t give the Kurgan the satisfaction!)
The final gathering
In 1980s New York, MacLeod takes on another Immortal. 20th Century Fox
Relatively unknown as an actor at the time, Lambert was cast in the lead role after Mulcahy noticed a still from Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984) and decided Lambert (who played Tarzan) had the look he wanted for MacLeod. The French actor didn’t even speak English but learned it quickly; it does account for Lambert’s odd accent in the film—Brenda actually comments on it—and his rather stilted performance, although how much can an actor do with that clunky dialogue? Yet Lambert was able to bring a wry humor to the character and a lingering optimism despite everything he’s suffered, which was a marked departure from the original draft script.
The Kurgan also changed significantly as a character, essentially becoming a one-dimensional “cackling psychopath,” as Widen once described him. Both Brown and Widen wanted a more complex villain. “I envisaged him as a guy who loses everything over time,” Widen told The Daily Telegraph in 2016. “The only thing he could hold onto, to give him a reason to get up in the morning, was to finish this thing with our guy [MacLeod]. Otherwise, what is the point? Everything is impermanent, everything is lost. That made him much more serious—in a weird way, a sympathetic bad guy.”
Than said, as is often the case when a box office disappointment becomes a cult classic, the pros ultimately outweigh the cons. The sword fighting choreography is well done, there are some visually arresting shots, and Mulcahy deftly adapted the fast-cut style of music videos for his story. Plus there is that incredible soundtrack featuring songs by Queen, most notably “Princes of the Universe” and the haunting “Who Wants To Live Forever” (which plays when MacLeod sits by the deathbed of the now aged Heather). Heck, even the scenery-chewing Connery’s ridiculous getup and Scottish accent—he’s supposed to be a Spaniard, although Ramirez hints at being significantly older than that—is more entertaining than annoying.
Above all, Highlander has a compelling mythology that captures the imagination and offsets the cheesier aspects. “I think its appeal is the uniqueness of how the story was told and the fact it had a heart and a point of view about immortality,” Widen said in a 2006 interview. That’s a theme that is timeless and can’t help but resonate with audiences through the decades.
Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.
