Highlander

Highlander (1986)

38 mistakes - chronological order

(5 votes)

Continuity mistake: In the first scene in the parking garage, after striking the car with his sword, McLeod's sword is noticeably bent. You can see it shorty after he strikes the car in the close up.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Connor lops off the head of his first opponent in the Garden car park, the man's head flies off some distance to the right of the viewer - Connor's left. However, in the next couple of shots, the head can be seen lying on the floor to the left of the body (or alternatively, on Connor's right). It's also a bit closer to the body, but the main issue here is that it switches sides instantaneously.

Continuity mistake: The camera follows Connor from behind as he is driving his car in an attempt to leave the parking lot before the police get there, you can see his hair is quite fluffy and dry. When he gets stopped by the police, his hair is now wet and slicked back.

GalahadFairlight

Factual error: In almost all the swordplay, most of the parries are shown as edge-on-edge. This simply was not the norm. Edge-on-edge destroys swords. It ruins the edge and will cause them to break. Parries were done with the flats and deflection.

Factual error: The marine unloads his Uzi at Kurgen, about 10 seconds of full-auto fire. The Uzi fires at 600 rounds a minute, so can only fire for about 3 seconds (with a magazine the size he's using) before running out of ammo.

Jon Sandys

Character mistake: When Brenda first witnesses Connor and the Kurgan fight, Kurgan says "I am the only one." Afterwards, Brenda asks "What does he mean by there can be only one?" She somehow misheard Kurgan and thought he said the movie's iconic catch phrase.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is incorrect. He does say "There can be only one." He's saying it while beating Conner, so the first part is a little muddled and he emphasizes "one", but he does say the line.

Continuity mistake: When the marine starts shooting about 5 shots rip through the Kurgen's stomach, but in the long shot when his arms are outstretched there are no holes or blood, then they reappear for the following shots.

Revealing mistake: When McLeod has his sword kicked away in the carpark, he grabs a metal pole from the fire point, only it bends when he grabs it and bends several times when he uses it, showing that it's made from foam rubber.

Continuity mistake: When the marine gets out of his trans am he leaves the car lights on, but when he gets picked up by the sword the crowd moves closer and the car lights are off.

Visible crew/equipment: When the drain lids explode in the alleyway, there's a close up of one of them landing and you can see the air ram in the drain next to it.

Audio problem: On the roof of Silvercup Studios at the end, Brenda is screaming, but her lips don't match the screams.

Revealing mistake: At the end during the sword fight, sparks fly off whenever the Kurgan hits something metal. However, at one point, the sparks fly out a full second after the Kurgan strikes it. You don't even need slo-mo.

Continuity mistake: At the end, the Kurgan knocks down Connor's sword, and we can see it about a metre behind Connor. In the next shot, the sword is gone. He did not pick it up, and had no time to get away from where he dropped it.

Factual error: When Connor and Kurgan fall through the roof at the end, they fall way too slowly than they would in real life. It takes them about 10 seconds to hit the floor in a building that looks about 30 metres tall.

Revealing mistake: This is just after the Kurgan kills the black Immortal. The Marines sees him in the alleyway after the Kurgan kills the Immortal, then it cuts to a shot of the marine. Look at the Kurgan's shadow-it just jumps randomly around the place thanks to dodgy editing.

Revealing mistake: When the Kurgen and Ramirez are fighting in Connor's home, watch the large pieces of stone that break away from the wall. They are obviously lightweight foam replicas of stone, evidenced by one or two shots where the Kurgen lightly pushes one slightly out of his way.

Audio problem: The bad guy (Kurgan) stabs a thug and raises him in the air. During this scene the guy stabbed is making noises, including the word "what", however his mouth doesn't match up with what he is mumbling.

manthabeat

Brenda: So, Nash was illegitimate?
Doctor: Yeah, for about a minute and a half. He died right after she did.

More quotes from Highlander

Trivia: I was an extra on the Highlander Scottish battle scenes and since Scottish weather isn't the most hospitable, all the extras got very drunk on whisky to keep warm. When you see the Scottish charge insanely, it's because we were all drunk, which led to us picking out the wrong weapons and kilts for the next days filming because no one could remember who had what.

More trivia for Highlander

Question: In the director's cut (which seems to be the most widely available version these days), what's the deal with all the backflips in the opening fight? The editing is very awkward. Fasil goes from running, to doing backflips, then back to running, then back to doing backflips several times, seemingly between shots, during a short section of the fight. Is it just bad editing? Or is the movie trying to suggest that it's a different person doing the flips? Or... what? It's so confusingly edited.

TedStixon

Answer: The Director, Russell Mulcahy, started his career making music videos. He was known for using fast cuts and tracking shots.

Answer: I always felt the idea was given he was trying to move very rapidly whilst also being silent. In a garage with those shoes on your footsteps are very loud. Perhaps he was trying to confuse MacLeod as to where he was.

lionhead

I'm not asking why he's doing backflips. I'm asking why the editing is so confusing, since he goes from doing backflips, to running somewhere completely else, then back to backflips at the first location between edits. (Look up the clip "The Highlander (1986) 1080p : Underground parking Fight Scene. Epic!" on YouTube and pay attention around 4:20.) He also loses his sword whenever we see him doing backflips, even though he's carrying it when he's running. The editing makes absolutely no sense.

TedStixon

I know the scene. As I said, it's supposed to look like Fasil is confusing MacLeod by moving around a lot. Him losing his sword as he does it is already a corrected entry.

lionhead

Ah, got ya. Sorry, misunderstood what you mean. It just seemed very awkwardly edited to me.

TedStixon

More questions & answers from Highlander

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