I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod

Since I'm months behind in reviewing Batman: the Animated Series, I thought I'd go ahead and start a new series of articles on Highlander. Hopefully this will somehow help me get back into Batman, and also let me explore another series I enjoy quite a lot.

Connor and Duncan MacLeod

Highlander began for me, as so many things did, while I was working at BYU while getting my Computer Engineering degree. For most of my time there I had an excellent job that afforded me the opportunity to get lots of studying and homework done, which I instead spent playing video games and watching TV. One of the many tv series introduced to me at that time was Highlander (other shows I became quite interested in or got to see a lot of include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, M.A.S.H., The Practice, Alley McBeal, and probably a few others I'm not remembering at the moment.

I was first introduced to the Series, featuring Duncan MacLeod, but was eventually able to see the original Highlander film (1986), featuring Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, Sean Connery as Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (a Scotsman pretending to be an Egyptian pretending to be a Spaniard), and Clancy Brown as The Kurgan.

As I remember it, I was rather disappointed with the film, finding it didn't really have the feel of the series with which I was so familiar. It was slow placed, and very moody, and just such a departure from the Series (which came many years later.

Also, the ending was not great, in my opinion, and through the lack of foresight by the writers, neatly and completely tied off every loose end, by having Connor be the final Immortal (after all, In the End, there can be only One), and win The Prize, which was lame: mortality, the ability to sire children (not so lame, as many immortals wished for such a gift), and a telepathic/empathic link with all living things. Also, it was poorly portrayed.

Apparently, the film did well enough, or was interesting enough to spawn a sequel, Highlander II: the Quickening wherein the series went to hell. The Immortals are aliens from a planet called Zeist, having been banished to Earth. Sean Connery's character Ramirez is somehow brought back to life, Connor is somehow a mortal again, some strange cyberpunk doom and gloom of the future (the far future, 1999, being only 8 years after the film was released). Something about an evil Immortal still on Zeist played by Michael Ironside (which could be cool, since he's the voice of Darkseid in Superman: The Animated Series.

Anyway, the film is universally hated, some go so far as to say it is the worst sequel ever, and can never be supplanted, and I think by the time it was released on video there was already an alternate version (or more) that tried to make the thing more palatable to fans of the first film. There was a third film which I won't bother going into.

Back to the original film, I do like Christopher Lambert as Connor, though he seemed to be such a depressed person (which feeling was only reinforced by his appearance in Highlander: Endgame, the fourth of the film series). Of course, he does have a few reasons to be sad with his lot in life, as he lives forever, and everyone else he knows almost invariably dies. Connery was awesome (of course) as Ramirez, and he was a more fun character than Connor for sure, and being close to 2000 years older than Connor he had lots more stories and was more interesting in general. Clancy Brown is scary as hell as The Kurgan, who is so obviously evil and just an all around bad dude, that he's pretty fun to watch. Also, he voiced Lex Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League, so that automatically makes him cool. Lambert has been in a bunch of stuff, but I've not seen any of it except the first and fourth Highlander films, and Mortal Kombat, where he's fairly amusing as Lord Rayden.

Somehow or other, a television series came into being. It stars Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod, a clansman of Connor MacLeod, from a hundred years or so later. It stars with him having distanced himself from The Game to pursue a normal life, living with a normal woman, wanting to grow old with her. However, The Game intrudes upon his chosen life, and he must take up his sword again, helping to weed out the evil Immortals who would use the power of The Gift to dominate and subjugate humanity.

Each episode crosses Duncan with another Immortal (awfully numerous they are, compared to the original film) who for one reason or another, Duncan must kill. Most often they are evil in some way, but there was quite a few variations on the theme, and the occasional non-Immortal episode at all. Towards the end Duncan even got to face off with something that can only be described as The First (Evil) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer who can take on the form of those that are dead, and is trying to convince Duncan to join its side. Throughout the course of the episode we saw flashbacks to earlier parts of Duncan's life (or the other Immortals occasionally) which have bearing on the current predicament, be it previous encounters with the Immortal of the week, or some experience that taught Duncan a lesson of some kind.

There are several recurring characters, both Immortal and not, some of note are Joe Dawson, Duncan's Watcher (Watcher? Maybe we ARE watching Buffy.), and Methos, one of the oldest Immortals (so old, he's not even sure how old he is, he says around 5000 years, as that's about as far back as he remembers, and of course, Richie.

The series spawned two movie sequels, Highlander: Endgame which brought back Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, who eventually gave his head to Duncan, a move which sorta made sense in the movie, but still kinda galls me, and Highlander: The Source in which they were going to find the Source of the Immortals, but which advance reviews of were so terrible that I haven't bothered seeing it.

It also spun off a television series, Highlander: The Raven, starring Elizabeth Gracen as Amanda (a friend/lover/associate of Duncan). I really enjoyed The Raven, and was disappointed to learn it only made it one season.

There was an animated Internet series based on Methos that ran eight episodes, which I should see someday, and there was talk of a live action series, but nothing ever came of it.

Back to Highlander, the series ran for six seasons, Oct 3, 1992 to May 16, 1998, for 119 episodes. According to Wikipedia it starred Adrian Paul (Duncan), Alexandra Vandernoot (Tessa Noël), Stan Kirsch (Richie Ryan), Amanda Wyss (Randi McFarlane), Jim Byrnes (Joe Dawson), Philip Akin (Charlie DeSalvo), Michel Modo (Maurice), Lisa Howard (Anne Lindsey), Elizabeth Gracen (Amanda), Peter Wingfield (Methos). It takes place primarily in Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, British Colombia and Paris, France. The first half of each season generally occurred in Seacouver (so called because it was filmed in both Seattle and Vancouver), then switched to Paris for the remainder, with flashbacks taking place all over the world.

The theme song is Princes of the Universe by Queen, and several other Queen songs appear throughout the show. Now, in general, I dislike Queen, but I really love the theme song, as well as Who Wants to Live Forever? and the mood they convey about the life of an Immortal. Princes is an upbeat anthem, and really fits the fight scenes it's paired with in the opening sequence, while Who Wants to Live Forever? really emphasizes the loneliness of someone who lives to see all their loved ones age and die, over and over again.

One last thing to mention. Bob Anderson. The man behind countless sword fights throughout movie history. Among the many influential movies he's been involved in are: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as an Imperial Officer and Vader's Stunt Double, Star Wars (A New Hope), Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, The Guns of Navarone, From Russia With Love, Casino Royal (1967), Superman II, Highlander (1986), The Princess Bride, The Three Musketeers (1993), The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and more, in the capacity of Stunts, Stunt Double, Fight Arranger and Sword Master. The guy is awesome, and the fact that he was turned 80 while working on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy while training a main cast of 9 actors, plus hundreds of stunt fighters is amazing.

One more last thing. Pictured above are the three Official Highlander Katana Replicas. The sword are made by Marto of Spain, and used a previously existing design. The one in the middle is Connor MacLeod's katana, the one he inherited from Ramirez. If I recall correctly (and come on, you know I'm a big enough nerd to remember reading this a couple of years ago), the TV series was originally going to be about Connor, but for whatever reason it was changed to be a clansman of his (so he could still be a Highlander from the Highlands of Scotland).

Anyway, they contrived some reason that Duncan should have a katana of similar make to Connor's, and even based it on the same sword. Both swords have the same hilt (arranged so the when the dragon heads are oriented the same (as in my pictures) they are showing opposite sides of the hilt, with a dragon head attached to the end, with Connor's also getting a serpentine body wrapping around part of the hilt. The tsuba (handguard) of Duncan's sword has two roosters encircling it, and is bronze, while Connor's is gold and just has a nifty design.

As you may notice, there are actually three swords in the above picture, with the two outside swords "belonging" to Duncan. I don't remember if it was right from the outset, or if sometime during the life of the show someone designed the nifty dragon hilt of the top sword, to be Duncan's Official Sword (I believe the replica is marketed as the Official Dragon Sword), but he didn't like the feel of the hilt, the unevenness of it compared to the hilt used on Connor's sword, for swordplay, and so elected to use (or keep using, whatever) the sword based on Connor's. But since it was already designed, somebody decided a replica should be released and see how many suckers would pay the retail of $330-ish for it. Not me, I got a good deal on it on eBay and paid around $100. I quite like the design, and the feel of it in my hands, but I'm no swordsman, so I don't know which I would prefer to use if I were.

I love all three swords, and while I much prefer the shiny gold and neat design of Connor's sword's tsuba, I prefer the dragon head on Duncan's katana, and the heavier (darker) emphasis on the detailing of the hilt, and it's the one he actually used in the series, but the Official Dragon Sword is my favorite of the hilt designs, and if for some horrible reason I was constrained to get rid of two of them, I'd probably still keep the one Duncan used in the show.

Duncan's Katana on the left, Connor's on the right.

Remember Kids: There can be only One! Unless you want to have sequels and maybe a TV series or two.

Pic of the Day 17

Connor MacLeod, Sideshow 12" figure.

Remember Kids: There can be only One! Not counting the ones in space. And the one that was trapped in a cave for a few hundred years. Or your cousin. And the hundreds of Immortals that paraded through his TV series and movies. But aside from them, there can be only one.

Episode II - Attack of the Collection

Hellboy

NECA's Nazi Kroenen figure

Sideshow's 12" Kroenen figure - I prefer his Nazi outfit, but the Sideshow version was available exclusively at SDCC (2003?) and I can't afford the eBay prices.

Highlander

I had the swords, so I thought I'd better get a couple of figures. These, again, are Sideshow's 12" figures - Connor MacLeod and Duncan MacLeod.

Lord of the Rings

The Gentle Giant Ringwraith mini bust.

Gentle Giant's Animated Saruman Maquette


The Sideshow/Weta Mouth of Sauron bust, Sideshow/Weta Scaled Morgul Lord's War Mask, Gentle Giant's Gandalf mini bust, and the miniature Ringwraith sword.-


And since it's been over two months since I took the pictures for this post, I've received a few more LOTR items, so I set them all up and snapped a few pictures.

The new additions are a couple more Gentle Giant mini busts: Saruman (with light-up Palantír), and the Balrog (with light-up mouth and fiery mane), as well as the Sideshow Weta Balrog Flame of Udun statue (which I got from a great friend of mine that lives in New Zealand and works for Weta Workshop).


And in an effort to show off the light-up features of Gandalf, Saruman, and the Balrog I took a picture in the dark. Unfortunately, the camera decided it was too dark to focus properly, so the nifty feature that compensates for my complete inability to press the shutter button without jerking the camera didn't work very well.

The Matrix

The first movie was really good; the second had lots of talking, but some cool action sequences (and the Twins were freaky-awesome); the third had even more talking (and it was even more boring talking than the second film, most the time), but again the action sequences were pretty cool. So I have a few Matrix collectibles.

Let's start with the bad ones first: the action figures by N2Toys (which I think is no longer in business). Honestly these figures aren't great, little articulation the sculpts are also not very close at all. Thankfully I got them for really cheap. I'll do a more in-depth review of these someday.

Next we have the good stuff: the Gentle Giant mini busts. The company's recent business decisions have been horrendous (from a consumer's point of view) but their product is still top-notch - at least, in the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings lines, I've heard the Harry Potter line is slipping, they'd better do a good job with the Halo mini busts. Anyway. I set these up so that generally you only see three of them, either Neo, Smith and Twin 1 (though I seem to not have taken a picture of that) or thw Twins and Smith. But if you move around a little, it's not too hard to see all four, but they start looking crowded that way.

Star Trek

Since I've always been interested in Star Trek I started actually watching it a few months ago and decided I should have some toys from it - particularly the various incarnations of the Enterprise.

I found a Japanese company called Furuta that makes small plastic 'model kits' of Trek vehicles and proceeded to buy all the Enterprise variations they offered, which at the time was everything except any shown in the series Enterprise - Classic Enterprise, Movie Refit, Enterprise A, B, C, D, E and a future variant of the D. They're about 3 to 4 inches long, and are the ships in the middle of the following picture.



I also purchased a few of the Halmark ornaments, I have the Enterprise D, E, Romulan Warbird (not pictured) and the Classic Enterprise on the base, also in the middle of the above pic next to the Furuta ships.

Additionally, this year Corgi began making Die-cast Enterprise vehicle. At this time only three have been released (to my knowledge) - the Klingon Warbird (as seen in Star Trek IV) the Classic Enterprise, and the Enterprise D, of which I have the two Enterprises. The Classic Enterprise is actually the best, because it is all metal and has a good heft to it. They're quite well detailed, and a nice 6 inch size, not scaled to each other, unfortunately. The disc section of the Enterprise D is plastic however, but it still looks pretty cool. They can be seen in the picture above on the left, the D partly hidden behind the Gentle Giant Animated Shadow Stormtrooper maquette.

Planned for next year are a Romulan Warbird (which I'll definitely get - it's one of my favorite vehicles designs ever), the Reliant (from Star Trek II) and I think the Defiant. I hope they eventually release all the Enterprise variants as I'd love to have them all in a bigger size - particularly the E and A.

Venom

And finally, I was initially very impressed with Spiderman 3, having always been a fan of Venom (without actually reading any comics, or knowing much about him) and really liking how he was done in the movie I picked up a couple Venom items - the Walmart exclusive Venom figure that was actually black instead of purple, the Gentle Giant Venom mini bust (the one on the right) and the even more cooler-er Sideshow Venom mini bust.


Well, that's all for this Episode.

I'd like to try to post at least twice a month, which could get Episode 3 up before the end of this month, and Episodes 4 and 5 before Christmas. However, I'm going to start a little series posting pictures of the figures/items I display at work, since I tend to rotate the figures ever 2 or 3 weeks, and I try to have some vague theme to the display, so I may start interspersing those posts with these, which will delay the end of this 6 part journey - not that it matters, since few people (if anyone) reads this. But it's mostly for my benefit, so I have pictures of my collection, so in an effort to please myself and have pictures to show to people when they ask about my collection, I'm going to try to be more regular about posting here. I may even have to take drastic measures and not buy new things unless I've posted twice in the previous month.

To be continued...

Episode I - The Phantom Collection

So, I've had in my mind the idea to post pictures of my entire collection as it is displayed, a sort of quick virtual-tour so I could show people everything at a glance, as though they were visiting my lair - not having to view each item individually on the reviews, and I've wanted to sort of do a parody on the Star Wars Saga titles. So I've finally gotten around to doing so, so without further ado I present:

Episode I: The Phantom Collection

Turmoil has engulfed my Collecting Republic. The taxation and shipping charges of getting toys to outlaying collecting towns has limited the funds available for spending.

Hoping to resolve the matter by paying off my credit card I've stopped buying toys and other collectibles and the Post Office has stopped shipping toys to my home in the small town in Utah.

While my wife and I endlessly debate this alarming spending habit of mine I've decided to take pictures of my collection and post them on this blog in order to curb my desire for more toys and awaite the settling of the conflict....

(click images for a much larger version)

Batman

In a half-hearted attempt to somehow correlate the title of the post with the photos I'll start with Batman, because he's kinda like a phantom, or at least a scary shadow, right?

A couple of these figures are actually some of the first action figures I ever bought myself, and some are much more recent. On the top, left to right, some holographic card of Batman from the Batman Forever era, some Batman Beyond figure, some Batman Begins figure, Flightpak Batman, some Batman figure with techno-bat wings and claws and Azreal from a very recent toyline Select Scultps. The vehicles on the top row are the Hotwheels (I think) die cast Batmobile (from the first Michael Keaton film), a plastic Batmobile (from the Batman and Robin Adventures animated series) - it hides a toothbrush inside, the Batman Forever Batwing from some Micro Machines mini playset, then some misc Star Wars micro machines.
Batman items on the bottom shelf are some version of Azreal as Batman, and a newer, unopened version of Azreal as Batman, or AzBats. Obviously, I need to do some research so I actually know what figures they are.

Swords

As a transition from Batman items to my swords, I've got a Batman styled knife. It uses the Batman & Robin style logos.

The only swords I have that are worth taking pictures of are the Official Highlander Swords.

These swords are decorative only, they have stainless steel blades, with a negligible edge to the blade. They are rather pricey from the official store, so I acquired two via eBay, and two on the Replica Prop Forum (which is a forum filled with intelligent, creative, talented and skilled people with too much time on their hands - because they do things like build, from scratch, prop replicas and costumes from various movies/tv shows (mostly sci-fi type), often spending weeks and months researching everything, trying to find the exact part used for the original props, or sculpting/molding props themselves. Well, that was fairly tangential to the actual subject at hand, wasn't it?)

So, the first sword pictured is Duncan MacLeod's Duende Rapier, 20th Anniversary edition - which means that it is a limited edition (only 3500 were made), and it has engraved upon the blade a quote from the episode wherein the blade was featured. This type of sword is commonly called a swept hilt rapier.

Strangely, the official prop replica doesn't actually match the prop used in the series (or so I'm told). The one used in filming is an actual sword, carbon steel blade and everything. In fact, I'm also told that this is the one used for the show. As in, they used an off-the-shelf product in filming. The prop replica has a gold hilt, and yellow cream grip, as opposed to the silver and off-white cream of the actual sword. Considering the Official Prop Replica retails for $300 and the actual prop used is only $200 (and was actually on sale for $150 when I originally ran across it) I should have purchased the real sword. Seeing the price now, I do, in fact, rather regret that, but I did get the Official Replica for only $140-ish.

The other three swords pictured are, from top to bottom, The "Original" Duncan's Katana, The Sword of Connor MacLeod, and The Sword of Duncan MacLeod.

You may notice that two of the swords are listed as belonging to Duncan. The story goes (again, this is all hearsay) that when the series began they were using the "Original" Duncan sword which was nothing more than an off-the-shelf katana with a faux-ivory handle (made by the Spanish company Marto) with a dragon head attached to it. This is the same method (and the same sword) used in Highlander the Movie. Sometime during production of the series someone was asked to produce a sword for Duncan, and the design of the third sword came about. However, Adrian Paul (Duncan MacLeod) didn't like how the sword felt in his hands, so he never used it in the series. I like the feel of it the best of the three, but I'm no swordsman either, so I'm not going to argue with Adrian.

Unopened

Attempting to return to the theme of Phantom collection (it wasn't really a great idea to follow the title themes, was it? I'll skip that on subsiquent episodes) this is stuff that feels like it's not actually part of my collection, because it's all stuffed into a box waiting for me to have time to open it, and find a place to put it - strangely, it felt like more stuff before I got it all out. On a previous entry here, Gillian asked how the cabinet from Ikea is working out - well, it's really great at sitting unopened in a corner because there's too much junk on the floor that I need to go through before I'll have room to set it up. But once I get it set up I'll have room to shuffle stuff around and put this stuff on display. I'd tell you what all that is, but I bet most of you don't really care and are only reading this because you are family and you have to be nice to me.

To Be Continued...