Matinee Science Playlist, Part 3: ‘Highlander 2’

the subtitles for this film. There's like because it's like, there's Highlander to colon the Quickening, colon the Renegade edition. I mean, there's been so many cuts of this over over time, but for the most part, in this episode, we're getting back to the theatrical cut of Highlander two. We're talking about Highlander two as presumably somebody we saw in the theater when it came out, and then a lot of us saw on VHS when it hit our local video rental stores. Now, we've been threatening to do

this episode on Highlander too, Nate, not just threatening. We've been promising to do it for probably over a year now, and people. Some people say, what are you talking about? Why would you do that? And other people say, when is the Highlander too episode coming? So that latter group, you're about to be very happy that former group. Here

we are and you're gonna listen and you're gonna like it. Well, we're gonna catch up to speed on what the Highlander one was all about, what Highlander two was seemingly about, and there is going to be discussion of science in this episode. There is a lot of science to discussed, and in a way this allows us to tackle at least a couple of subjects that we've just never covered on the show before but are certainly of scientific interest.

But before we get into all of that, let's just go ahead and have a taste from the original theatrical trailer for high Islander. To taste the quickening. That has some fun. There's centuries among the first nothing could have prepared them for quickening. Christopher Lambridge, Sean Connery Highlander too quickening alright, well sounds intriguing. Perhaps everyone out there can understand a little bit, uh why there was some excitement about this film for for fans of the original Highlander.

Now I will say as concerns of fandom of the Original Highlander. The Original Highlander is a very fun movie, but it is also also a very bad movie. Well it is, it is. I definitely would argue that the film is far sillier than a lot of people. Remember, Yes, I mean I loved it when I saw it in goodness early junior high or whenever I saw The Highlander

for the first time. I'm just like, this is a amazing It's you know, it's it's fantasy, it's it's kind of historical, it has all these art wrestling it's good. Well did every I don't think I was really a fan of wrestling at the time, so I was just kind of I kind of glossed over that aspect of it. I didn't know who any of those guys were, but but I knew who the other guys were, you know,

Sean Connery. And then then it's this weird uh Christopher Lambert or Lambert character, and then the Kurgan played by Clancy Brown. I just had a just so much scene chewing energy in this film. And then a magnificent score by Queen The Queen really ties it all together. But it's also just that blood bath of ridiculous acting that sells the movie. You've got Christopher Lambert or Chris Stophe Lambert, who is doing in Highlander one and two, both of which he kind of does like a Peter Laurie sort

of thing. He's a little bit like, yes, I'm a Highlander and he's basically Peter Lori's handsome younger brother. Yes, that's that's the kind of vibe I always get off of it. But so let's let's rehash who the characters are versus the accents. So you've got, uh, Christoph Lambert plays a Scotsman and he's got a French accent. That's Connor McLoud, right. Sean Connery plays a Spanish Egyptian person, but he's got a Scottish accent. That's Ramira. It seems

a little backwards. But then you've got Clancy Brown who plays like a like a Central Asian Russian kind of guy, but he has an American accent. Yes, this is definitely one of those areas of of of Highlander mythology that it it doesn't it doesn't pay off to think too hard about it. It gets confusing rather quickly. But let me just go ahead and rehash what the basic plot is for Highlander one in case you haven't seen it

before or you've never seen it at all. Okay, so, first of all, film came out in nine six, big year for genre films. Uh. You know, if you were to make a like top ten genre films of eighty six, I don't even know that The Highlander would make the cut. There were just so many great flicks that came out that year. Is that the year of Aliens? Yeah, that was the year of you two. I think you you entered the world that year. Maybe that's if I recall correctly.

So in this movie, certain humans are randomly or seemingly randomly born imbued with this immortal energy that's kind of immortal fire, and that fire can only be snuffed out if they're just outright decapitated. And then that fire, that that immortal energy can be absorbed by another immortal Okay, So they're invincible except for decapitation, right, And they run around decapitating each other, right, hunting each other out, kind

of sensing each other's presence. They're like playing their own game, and so they have these magical beings they battle across the ages, and the ideas that they're gonna keep doing this. They're gonna keep hunting each other down and engaging in sword fights, and and one of them wins and absorbs

all the energy. They're gonna keep doing this until there's very few left on the planet, and then those few remaining individuals are going to go to some location on the Earth ends up being New York City, and this is going to be the gathering where the final immortals duke get out. There can be only one left at the end, and that final immortal is going to have all this collected energy of all those deceased immortals, and in doing so, he's gonna win the prize. The complete

allotment of the immortal fire. You will presumably allow them to, you know, the wield godlike power, achieve great and terrible things depending on their individual temperament. This is like a really awesome idea for a fantasy movie that would be

dreamt up by a high school sophomore. I mean, it's there is something wonderful about it, I have to say, like the idea of of and I do think that there is perhaps a deeper subtext to that that the screenwriter, especially director Russell McKay um, was perhaps getting into like this is feeling of like outsider individuals, um, you know, trying to you know, to find each other and and and and and battling for how they're perceived by the world.

I would love to see somebody do like deeper, read some sort of film theory um uh l g B t Q reading of Highlander. Um. I myself, I'm not a film theorist, but but I would love to read the work of somebody who is on this matter. Yeah, I could see that there's some subtexts like that there, especially in the first movie. But so you've got literally the character Christoph Lambert, with his French accent, plays the

Scottish Highlander Connor McCloud. Right, he's Connor, He's he is our our hero and he we we we we get flashbacks from the president. We would find out this is how he learned that he was immortal. And then he encounters, uh, first the Kurgan, who is out to just decimate him and absorb his energy, but that Clancy Brown, right, and then he runs into Sean Connery's Ramire's character who schools him in the ways of the immortal. He's like, this is how we operate this is what we do. This

is what you need to be careful about. The is who you need to beware of, and you know it prepares him. But then Kuragan comes along and kills Ramiras and uh well, anyway, we get to the end of the film. The inevitable final showdown is between Connor McCloud and the Kurrigan. They have a ridiculous sword fight that goes on forever. Lots of sparks. I mean, Russell McKay was was and is one of the great music video directors of the nineteen eighties, right Wild Boys, Wild Boys

from Duran Duran I think he did. He did multiple Duran Duran videos. He did Total Eclipse of the Heart. Yeah, so he has this, he always had. This is fantastic visual flare and it is in full effect in Highlander. I would say that his music video of the Wild Boys, for me somehow slightly pre figures the aesthetics of the mad Max Fury Road war Boys. Yeah, to a certain ex Yeah, I could see that being the case. They're they're kind of like violence swinging about in a in

a grimy industrial future. Absolutely so. Anyway, spoilers for Highlander one. He wins Connor wins, spares the world that a terrible fate at the hands of the Kurgan, and we're told that he gains the ability to read people's thoughts around the world. It's kind of tacked on, you know, that's certainly the exact nature of the prize is kind of an afterthought because the movie is ultimately not about that. It's it's about it's about style. It's style over substance.

It's a fabulous style. But yeah, when at the end you have to realize, oh, yeah, he's supposed to win something, what is it? Well, now he's psychic and you can connect people. I completely forgot that element. All I remember about the end is like explosions and queen yes and ultimately like that's that's all you needed has to play is your fabulous, fabulous soundtrack. Wonderful explosions. Uh, some goofy funds, some very some some nice dramatic moments, and some very

charismatic performances. You know, we'll spend a little bit of time, uh having fun with Sean Connery. But but Sean Connery was great in Highlander one, like he is he was at like peak silver Fox charisma level. Uh and uh. And he's just a joy to watch in that film. Oh, he's the perfect charismatic yet silly character actor. Yeah. And it was well balanced and you know, the Kurgan was appropriate, appropriately fearsome. Uh. And everything I feel like Highlander one

is is ultimately a well balanced cocktail. It is. It is a silly but entertaining, stupid movie. Yes, absolutely, and it ties everything up at the end. At the end of Highlander one, there's no reason to do a sequel. There's no reason to do um. Uh. You know a two animated films and animated TV shoots show, a hundred nineteen episodes of Highlander, the series, twenty two episodes of Highlander The Raven, which I've never even heard of. That

and four additional live action sequels as well. So obviously the we we know, nobody can get enough Highlander after it's done, quoth the Karragan nevermore. I'm to understand The Raven is like an immortals cop show basically. Um that I've never seen it, so I can't really vouch for. But the TV show I watched a little off and that was that was that was pretty good at times. That's a great genre direction to take any previously existing

genre franchise, like you go from Scanners to Scanner cop. Yeah, well it it's a more sensible move. Well that the TV series was a more sensible move because they said, let's not try and pick up afterwards, Let's just do a new character with lots of flashbacks. Each episode is a mix of coming to terms with old trauma and old enemies or old friends and then um and then and then hammering it out in the present or you know, sword fighting it out in the present. But that's not

what they did for Highlander two. The sequel which comes out came out, continues where the first film left off. Uh. And that's an ambitious task to begin with, especially if you insist on fee during Sean Connery in it, which, if what I was reading was correct, that was Lambert's insistence. You can't see it at home. But I'm rubbing my fingers together in the Money signal, the international gesture for money. Of course, Sean Connery is gonna want millions to come

and reprise his role as Ramirez in this film. Uh. And it especially doesn't make sense because he was just conclusively murdered in the first time he's been dead for centuries first, but they said, all right, we gotta bring him back. Okay, if you read a lot about the production of this movie, it seems like the creative decisions about it were largely very investor driven. So there were some sort of like money dudes who were making a lot of the calls about what the movie would contain

and be about. Right, and and then I think it seems like a lot of creative decisions ended up being made for the wrong reasons. Like I did read that Lambert was like, yeah, you gotta bring Connrey on and he was great, We had a great time. He should be in the sequel. But even though he died, you know, and then I'm sure the industry folks were like, yeah, Connery is a bankable star, let's get him in there.

So in order to continue the story of Highlander, it is necessary then to expand the mythology, because again it was all tied up in a neat little bow. Uh, there's no there's nothing left to continue. So they decided to come up with a twist, a new way that we can expand Highlander into a sequel, and that twist was that the immortals are aliens. It's so good. They should have just gone with Highlander cop but they didn't. Instead they went with aliens. Yeah, and you know I

and I ultimately think it's not a bad idea. It gets a bum rap because most people hated Highlander too, But if you've got to come up with something, why not aliens? Why not them being beings from another world? And it's right there in the Queen theme song. Here we are Princess of the Universe, Princes of the Earth, Princess of the Universe. Okay, I can see you there.

I mean, it all depends on how it's handled, right, But I think part of the reason people react with such uh incredulity to the sudden revelation that they're all aliens is literally just the way it's introduced in the film. So we're talking about the original Highlander to the quickening, the theatrical cut, this has been butchered and edited out of these re releases that you can get in digital form and on DVD and stuff today, which are now they remove references to the alien planet. But so the

way it's introduced is you've got Christopher Lambert. Uh Lambert is an old man makeup sitting at an opera and suddenly the camera just like zooms in on him while fans are blowing his hair, and he looks confused, and you get voiceover from Sean Connery saying, remember Highland of your home the planet Zeist, and then it cuts to this flashback and he's going, yes, I remember Zeist, and

it's it's impossible not to laugh while watching this. So the basic idea that is then uh presented or on in Highland or two uh in the theatrical cut anyway, is that the immortals of Earth, we're all exiled immortals from another world, planet Zeist, following a failed rebellion, and the rebels here that basically the ideas instead of being put to death, they're sent to Earth and they have to battle each other across time to only one remains,

and then the winner will have the choice between staying on Earth and growing old or returning to Zeist and becoming immortal again. Uh. So, I know that's confusing. The first one was contrived, so you know there's a lot that that doesn't work with that that concept, but but I don't know, I still kind of like it. Exiled immortals from another world? Fine, uh In the more recent cuts of it that you'll find, including one that was

at least recently on Amazon Prime. They changed it from Exiles from Another World to Exiles from the Distant Past. So and so, if someone rebels against them, instead of sending them to another planet, they send them far into the future. We're gonna punish you by sending you to a time with indoor plumbing. Oh no, no, don't send me to a time after penicillin. But that's that's apparently what they did. Um. So, for my money, there there are some positives about the film, just to run through

really quickly. Um And besides the obvious being that I enjoy watching bad films, first of all, I would say that it was at least ambitious enough to expand and take a sci fi twist on the original film rather than just redoing it, which is, you know, often the way you do a sequel, you're just like, all right, do it again, except bigger, and they didn't do that. I will say that Russell McKay created an interesting sci fi and war look for much of the film. Yeah,

a couple of the sets are really good. Yeah, there's especially you know, the very Blade Runner esque Uh, you know, kind of blade runner with more Casablanca heaped on top, and then hoverboards and swords. I think these were the sets that were built earlier in the production. I mean, one of the stories about the production is that the movie was made in Argentina. They were like lured there because it was like, hey, it's much cheaper to make a movie here. You can build elaborate sets and all

that for half the cost. So they went there, and then suddenly there was there was an economic crisis in Argentina while they were filming the movie. There was like hyper inflation, and then they didn't have any money to finish the movie with. Yeah, so so yeah, I guess some of the these scenes and some of the sets better than others. But but certainly the sequence where the assassins from the future show up to fight Old Connor, uh,

that sequences a lot of fun. I enjoyed that one. Um. There's also some goofy scenes with Ramira's buying a suit and watching a flight safety video efter he comes back from the dead. Highlight of the film is just Sean

Connery's high jinks in Future Scotland. Yeah, and then there's yeah that there's that in addition to that flight safety video, there's also and that you only find this in later cuts of the film, but there is a fake commercial kind of like from you know, something from RoboCop or Total Recall for something called Psychic Chef just pops up in the middle of the film and it's completely bonkers.

Like if for anyone out there is a fan of the film, Mandy, it's um it's cheddar Goblin esque in criticulousness. So it's one of the definite pros to checking out a more recent kind of Highlander. Two. I would say another huge highlight of the film is the villain Michael Ironside. He's this guy from planet Zeist who is their enemy who eventually gets tired of waiting on Christoph Lambert to just die on Earth and uh and he like goes

there to fight him. Uh and he you know, there's the expression chewing the scenery, but Michael Ironside and this is not really he's like a shark, you know, the way shark teeth are just always coming out in the things they buy it, So he's leaving his teeth all over the scenery. Yeah, it's very like skull far Forward Scanners esque acting for Michael Ron's side, I saw an inner view with him where he basically said, yeah, I wasn't a fan of the script. The production was kind

of a wreck. But I decided like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the most memorable thing in the film. I'm just gonna go you know, completely, you know, crank it up to eleven on the scene shooting. So, yeah, he's a he's a tremendous amount of fun. Anytime he's on the screen, you can't help but but invest yourself and know what he's doing. Oh wait, we haven't even mentioned yet the sci fi premise of the movie, have we No, we haven't, And this will be something that

we'll discuss uh later on a little more depth. Because one of the ideas here is that what what does Connor do with the prize? Right, so he's got this great power and wisdom after cutting off all the other Zeistian heads we find out that they're from Zeis the heads. What does he do with it? Well, apparently he becomes

like an atmospheric or geoscientist of some kind. Yeah, or at least he uses his psyche powers to connect important people who are and yeah, he ends up bringing them together to solve the problem of Earth's depleted ozone layer, and ends up called found founding the Shield Corporation, which creates these enormous machines that beam some sort of energy up into the stratosphere and create an artificial ozone layer of sorts, like an energy layer that protects the Earth

from UV rays but also makes everything. It makes the whole world like permanent Casablanca climate, So everything is dark and everything is sweaty everywhere all over the Earth. It's a perfect way to justify your like dark and war sets. Yeah, and it does create this. You can see where they were going with this idea of like Connors, this was the savior, but now he's he's vilified, you know, which is an interesting trope. You know they sometimes rolled out.

You see shades of that, certainly in uh in the Dune saga. But yeah, so now he's this guy that people curse because yeah, he's the planet from UH from It's it's o's own problem. But then you replaced it with this weird thing that nobody likes. I hate sweating. I'd rather be burned alive by UV rays. And so that's the sci fi in war World that the bulk

of Highlander two deals with. Okay, well, now that we have described perhaps the most awesome bad movie of all time, Like, would you say for me, it's like a top five all time bad film. Yeah, it's pretty great, and we don't even have time to get into all the ways that it is is bad and all the ways that it's it's it's ultimately fun to watch. But but yeah, at the end of the day, it's not a good

film by anybody's standard. But hey, if you can get you one of those pristine VHS tapes that's got the original cut, I highly recommended if you're a fan and you want to treat yourself to a brain self funeral. Um, now we should take a quick break and then when we come back, let's start to discuss the science of Highlander two. All right, we're back. Yes, we're gonna do it. We're going to We're gonna reach into the corpse of

this movie. We're gonna pull back the ribs and wrench out some juicy, um, you know, moist portions of actual science to discuss. Wow, where did that description come from? That was? I'm riveted. Now I gotta see what we're gonna do. Okay, So the first thing that I think we should mention is the weirdness of using the the idea. I guess this this maybe does go into the first movie. I don't recall the use of the phrase the quickening, which is the subtitle of the film is Highlander to

colon the quickening and the quickening? What is it? What happens when the quickening is on screen? Are you referring to the you know what happens after that one of them cuts the other's heads off? Yeah, that seems to be what it's referring to, right the I think there's something in the first film where Ramirez is encouraging him to, like Feele, the quickening of watching an Elk run or

something like that. But yeah, for the most part, the quickening is this is explosive transfer of magical electronic energy and or and made it demons from the body of the deceased immortal into the body of the living immortal. Yeah, it seems to be what happens when one Zeisteon cuts another Zysteon's head off, and then suddenly there are just lots of sparks and explosions and electrical arcs and the decapitate or receives all of the power and wisdom of

the decapitate. T Yes, it is, I would say, unapologetically orgasmic, right is it is? It is a you know, pyrotechnic orgasm on the screen every time this occurs. But we we should mention. I guess the idea that the quickening is actually a term that already had historically relevant meaning like too. I want to quote a section from article in Slate by the journalist Ruth Graham about the idea

of the quickening. Quote. Maift thirty seven was a momentous day for Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry the eighth. She had been pregnant for some but now it was official. Seymour had felt the quickening, the child's first kick in her womb. The milestone was announced too much rejoicing in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, with bonfires throughout the city and

celebratory wine distributed to the poor. At Oxford, a preacher delivered a sermon to mark the occasion quote upon Trinity Sunday, like one given of God, the child quickened in the mother's womb. The assembled worshippers praised God and prayed that the new baby would be a prince of the universe. I don't know. Maybe, I mean, if you're going to be a Prince of England at the time, you might as well consider yourself a prince of the universe. Right, No,

no need to undersell. But why all of this hubbub about the fact that Jane Seymour had felt a kick? Uh? So the quickening literally means when a pregnant woman first feels a kick or a movement from the developing fetus. And the root of this word in English is the word quick meaning alive. Like you know, the phrase of the quicken the dead, that's not just a movie title,

it's a phrase from from the New Testament. As Second Timothy, I charged the therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quicken the dead at his appearing in his kingdom? So it means judging the living and the dead. So, while today the moment of the quickening is not really invested with any particular biological significance, it

used to be considered very important legally, morally, religiously. Like Aristotle wrote that the moment of the quickening was the moment that the fetus became animated or became alive, And many would go on to interpret this, like, especially in a lot of Christian traditions, as the moment that the fetus received a soul or became alive. All right, Well, in that I can see where we could get to the to the idea of what's happening with the immortals. Yeah,

they are absorbing a soul exactly. And and so for this reason, like the quickening had very weird legal status, especially for us to read back on now, like Graham Rights for example, about a precedent in English law where if a pregnant woman was condemned to death, like she had to be executed, she could be executed if she had not yet felt the quickening, but she would be given a delay of sentence if she had felt the quickening.

I can't have an imagine like ramires As as a lawyer then defending your honor, my client only absorbed the quickening after he knocked the futuristic a shassion off the train, and then the train ran over his neck. So I would argue that this was a case of accidental quickening. Yeah, anyway, this makes a kind of odd choice of terms though for for a movie about like alien swordsman cutting off each other's heads, Like, I guess the idea of receiving a soul or receiving a life essence at a certain

moment like that could be in there. Also. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, maybe like he just independently Whoever the writer was arrived at the h the idea of the quickening after thinking about the word quick meaning living, living essence or something. I mean, you gotta call it something, right. Maybe for a while they just referred to it as the sparky explode e uh, post decapitation brain orgasm. I don't know. Um quickening rolls off

the tongue a little easier, the decapagasming, Yes, the decephalizagasming. Now, I want to talk a little bit about just the idea of immortality and mortality, Okay, And we've we've covered aspects of this on the show before. We did a two parter um in the last year, I believe about the desire for immortality. Yeah, and where we talked about like what is the biological reality about why animals age? Why do animals grow old and die? Like why don't you know, why don't our our bodies just have us

live forever? And the answer to that is generally that there's what's sort of known as antagonistic pleotropies. There are forces within the genome that are driving fitness in multiple different directions, and it just turns out that nature doesn't see a whole lot of advance age and extending human

lifespans over a long period of time. And so when there's a gene that, say, like, maybe prevents cancer when you're young, but also happens to lead to deterioration of the body and death of old age later on, natural selection doesn't care a whole lot about the old age. It cares more about preventing cancer when you're young, so it just selects for that and rarely sees what happens in old age because there's a lot of natural mortality

throughout the span of a life anyway. Right, So it's on one level, it's difficult to come up with an argument for for how biologically immortal creature would work within a given um environment. However, we do have a few possible examples, the main one being that of the hydra, the real world hydra, not the mythical hydra um, because you know, these are hardy, regenerative creatures that evolved to thrive in a in harsh war like environments, perhaps not

unlike our our planet Zeist. It seems like we all are are all male species of of immortal swordsmen, are in a constant state of war. Uh So maybe we can compare them to the hydra a little bit. Yeah, Hydrozoa's ice danum. And it's worth noting that, uh that even with biologically immortal or or you know, possibly biological immortal organisms, they still live in a dangerous world that will inevitably kill them. Like nobody's saying, oh, hydras live forever. No,

hydras still don't live tremendously long. They'll die for any number of reasons. But there have been there have been experimental observations that have have shown that in in in certain lab situations, they live far longer than we thought, and they don't appear to age. Uh So, you know, we could maybe look to some parallels there for our

our fictional magical swordsman from another planet. Um. You know that that's this is the basic pitch behind the biologically immortal Adrien's an alien fictional alien species in the culture novels by Nim Banks that I've mentioned probably several times in the show at this point. The idea is that they emerged in a very competitive, very harsh environment that they ultimately ended up mastering, but they retained this biological

immortality as being just a part of their their physiology. Now, it's hard to say for sure, but it makes me I mean, I tend to think that wherever you are, you'd probably have, even on an alien planet, some similar natural selection forces at play. As long as you have the same basic principles of evolution working, you probably wouldn't have many large organisms having any kind of mechanism that favored immortality, just because, much like on Earth, there wouldn't

be much reason for natural selection to still elect it. Now, the other big possibility, and this is probably the more likely possibility if we're trying to come up with a reason that the immortals of Zeist are indeed immortal, is that perhaps they engineered it. Because certainly they just seem to be running around the desert fighting the swords and using some sort of guns. I can't remember if they're

laser laser guns. Yeah, so they have some advanced technology, and they have the technology to either exile individuals to another planet or to the to the distant future, so it doesn't seem impossible that they would have also figured out a way to make themselves biologically immortal um or technologically and technologically immortal artificially. So at any rate, it's also worth noting that again that there are no female

immortals that we see in Highlander two. I tend to think this has more to do with just sort of like sexist envisioning of story tropes than to do with the their biological ideas about Zeist or they reproduce via a sexual budding like the Hydra. Okay, you know, we never we don't see we never see a scene where Sean Connery buds additional Sean conneries. But who knows. Well, I mean, I would point out that you could very well say the Highlander films are buddy films christof Lambert

and Sean Connery. I mean, if that's that, they should have had their own buddy cop series. Chiefs says, I'm taking it too personal, No Islander, We've got to stop him. Hey, I'm so that would have That would have been great, though, can you be a buddy cop without budding. I don't know several others Riggs and MYRTA manage it all right, Well, let's let's move on to decapitation. What do you have

for us in the way of decapitation science. Well, I was wondering, you know, is there an animal that does the Zeist thing, that does the immortal thing, that wanders the earth in search of combat with enemies who can supply it with the quickening if and only if it kills them by decapitation? And I, you know, at first, I was like coming up with a blank. I was like, no, I don't think there's really anything like that out there. Actually,

decapitation just does not seem very common in the animal kingdom. Yeah, it's a it's it's one of those things that happens all the time in movies. And I believe is it appears easier to do in films, um, but you're really having to You're having to cut through a lot of material there. And to what end if you're an animal? Right, what's the point. Normally, if you're an animal, you're not like trying to make your enemy or your prey like get a quick death as if it's like a you know,

a judicial execution or something. It's not the guillotine here. You're trying to eat them or you're trying to fight them off or something. But as always, as always, nature is weirder than fiction. So I present for your consideration an insect, a highlander insect. It is a genus of forward fly, known scientifically as suit acton. Now, I was wondering what this means for like, false pseudo means false, so false Acteon acton is a figure from Greek Man who was a herdsman who got torn apart by his

own hounds. Oh, yes, there's some paintings that depict this. Yeah, I'm not sure what significance that has there. Maybe acting on is another type of fly or animal that it's like, maybe a false mimic of an outward appearance. I couldn't figure that out. But despite the scientific name, I will propose hereafter we call it either I don't know, we can pick from a few of the highlander fly, the zeist fly, or maybe the quickening fly, or if you

can think of a better one, I'm still open. The Connor McFly A little back to the future bridge there. So here's how it goes. You've got these flies from the family for a day, and they're they're pretty familiar to us. We can see them buzzing around food sources as pests. We often mistakenly call them fruit flies. They're not fruit flies, but the genus sued Acteon is different.

These flies are parasitoids, their reproductive parasites that attack ants, especially ants in the genus sullen Opsis, which includes the invasive red fire ant Solenopsis invicta, which we've talked about plenty on the show before, and the black imported fire ant Solenopsis ricktieri. So species of this fly can be found throughout the world. In the United States, you'll mainly find them, I think in the Southeast, like the Texas, through the Deep South in Florida in those areas, and

the process of their parasitism is amazing. Robert, I've included some images for you to look at as we go along here, so feel free to comment sharing with the listeners in any color that strikes you here, but absolutely uh So. First of all, you've got a female suit act on or highlander fly. She mates and so now she's got fertilized eggs, and what she does is she will find a fire ant of the particular species that

she can parasitize. So certain species of this genus of fly attack generally a certain species of ant, And so she'll find the right kind of aunt, and she'll fly around above groups of worker ants during their foraging behavior, and then suddenly, when the time is right, she swoops down on and stabs one of the ants with her external ovipositor. And I've got some close up micrographs of these ovipositors for you to look at, Robert. I love

these things because they look so metal. They're straight out of like a Mortal Kombat game. Oh yeah. One of them in particular does remind me a bit of the Kurgan's sword from the first Highlighter film. Oh yeah, I forget what that looks like. Oh it's kind of got claws on it, doesn't it. So I guess she's this is kind of the sword fight portion. She is like the Kurgans. She flies in with the sword and stabs

instead of immediately decapitating. But we're getting there. So then with the ovipositor, she injects an egg into the ants thorax, and the egg develops within the ant, and then the larva hatches, and from here the larva travels into the ant's head and waits there consuming material inside the ant's head. It consumes hema lymph, and hema lymph is the invertebrate equivalent of blood. So imagine this thing basically going inside your head and then sit there and drinking your blood.

But it also, over time eats the ant's brain, and this causes the ant, i've read in reports to kind of wander around zombie like. This is, of course, not the only parasite that can affect an ant's nervous system and cause it to wander around and strange zombie like behavior, but it did make me wonder. So when does the ant first feel the quickening inside its own head? Oh? I don't know. That's a tough one. We'll come back

to it then. So anyway, when it's time for the larva to pupate, it secretes an enzyme that dissolves the connective membrane of the ants exoskeleton, particularly at the site where the ant's head connects to its thorax. Basically, it is externally digesting the ant's neck, and while that enzyme is doing its work, the larvae continues to eat the stuff inside the ant's head, and then the ants head falls off, so that here is the decapitation ant's head

off the larva is inside it. So the larva inside the severed head shoves the ant's mouthparts out of the severed head, and the fly pupa extends to fill different cavities in the ant head, especially like it extends to fill in the oral cavity with part of its plate, and then it's it sends out a couple of spikes that stabs these spikes out through the sides of the ant head, and these are respiratory horns like breathing tubes.

And then after maybe like two to four or two to six weeks, an adult fly will just burst out of the ant head like you know, hello, there can be only one. And I've got I've got a picture of it bursting out here down below. And I must say, this little larva popping out of the ant head like a smashed pumpkin is so cute. It's got huge eyes, it's got little little wiggly things. I don't know what those are. Yeah, it's just kind of like busting out of the face. I like just a like a baby

crawled out of your face? Right? Did they ever go there in the sequels to the Alien franchise later in Alien movies where their face bursters. No, But I believe one of those Peter Jackson early Gorefest films of his there's a scene where like a baby like evil zombie baby rips its way out of an old lady's face. I think, sick. Yeah, yeah, by all accounts, sick indeed.

You know, maybe it takes a kind of dark sense of humor to appreciate this, but I see when there's one photo where the the ant's head has fallen off of its body, and it appears that the ant is sort of like feeling around for its head with its four limbs, like where did my head go? This? It reminds me once again of the Certainly, there are lots of cartoons where people's heads come off and they you know,

they reach around for them. But the fieries in Labyrinth, the Nightmarck orange creatures who take their own heads and limbs off and throw them around and and nix and match them and want to do the same thing to uh, to us, to to our our protagonist. Uh yeah, those are those are some nightmare creatures for sure. You know, I to go back and watch The Labyrinth again. It's been so I barely remember it. Oh yeah, it's it's it's quite good. It's a classic. I mean it's no

Highlander too does have a queen soundtrack. Uh no, but it has a tape with Bowie soundtrack. I think that I think that that suffices. But anyway, so back to the Highlander flies, the suit Acteon. So these flies have actually been deployed intentionally in some areas for invasive fire

ant control. So it's kind of like if you had a problem with invasive Michael ironside populations and they're ravaging your local ecosystem, what do you do while you release a population of christof lamberts to keep it in check, going out and decapitating all of your invasive Michael ironsides. And this works out because the specifics of at least some species of the suit Acteon make them unlikely to be a human pest. Like, they do not seem to be attracted to the kinds of things that normally make

a fly past. They're not really attracted to carry in feces, fruits, or human foods. M So more challenging to trigger the gathering here, that's what you're saying, I guess. So, yeah, how do you get them all in the same place? I guess you just gather a lot of fire ants. Another thing that that's funny I found, Uh, I guess because of this potential to act as like pest control. When you google this genus, you will find hits for posts like where can I buy ant decapitating flies? They're

like international suppliers who will ship to you? Or what? Another random but maybe interesting fact, apparently, the sex of the emerging highlander fly will be determined by the size of the ant head that gets cut off. So you cut off a bigger aunt head, you get a female fly. You cut off a smaller ant head, you get a mail fly. Oh wow. So it's like the older, the immortal, you know, the more quickenings within them, the more room for growth. I'm reaching, but I'm trying to continue the

connection here now. I admire your your dedication. By the way, if you want to read more, the University of Florida Entomology department website as a great page with references on the sud Acton genus. Uh. It's it's a wild ride. All Right, we're gonna take one more break and when we come back, we're going to talk about the ozone layer.

Thank alright, we're back. So, as we discussed earlier, one of the major plot elements in Highlander two is the idea that the Earth's ozone layer was was terribly depleted and Connor McCloud uh founded the Shield Corporation, which which created these enormous like uh you know sci fi energy um, the pyramid pyramids ye, that are shooting some sort of beam up into the sky and creating an artificial ozone layer and artificial shield that is protecting the Earth against

harmful UV rays. But it makes everything like dark and human except I must say this does not actually apply in every scene, Like when you showed the scenes with Sean Connery in Scotland. Scotland's fine, everything looks normal, but which is which is generally so not what you'd expect from Scotland, right, But yeah, so the world is all dark and humid, and it's a classic case of like the heroic character who does something to save the world

and is totally unappreciated. Everybody hates him for it. There's a scene where where Christopher Lambert in Old Man Makeup is like at a bar getting a drink in this angry lady in a polka dot dress runs up to him and tries to hit him, and it's like, yo felt the sky with that puke. Alright, well, let's talk about the puke in the sky. Um, let's talk about the ozone layer. So, first of all, ozone or try oxygen, is an inorganic molecule, and on the surface of the planet,

it's a pale blue gas and it's a pollutant. But most of the Earth's ozone isn't down here. Nine of it is up in the stratosphere, ten to thirty miles sixty kilometers above the surface. It's just a small part of the atmosphere up there, and it's mostly oxygen and nitrogen. But but in the stratosphere it blocks the worst and most energetic ultraviolet light wave lengths, namely UVC and UVB. These uh these particles absorbed the UV waves and heat up,

as does the oxygen. And for this reason, the stratosphere heats up the higher that you go, so temperatures that increase from an average of negative sixty degrees fahrenheit or negative fifty one degree celsius at the tropopas to a maximum of about five degrees fahrenheit or negative fifteen degrees celsius at the top of the stratosphere. And that's because of the ozone being bombarded by the UV radiation from space right, and so it plays an important role. It

is a shield. The ozone layer is a shield, um and it's especially important to us mortals down here or you know, life itself. Now, when I was a little kid, I remember the depletion of the ozone layer being essentially like the biggest environmental issue. I remember that from like the late eighties and early nineties absolutely, and that's I mean, that is what this film is coming out of, uh

and that is reflected in this film's themes. So, in the late nineteen seventies, scientists realized that ozone levels over Antarctica were dropping. Record low levels were occurring every spring.

In they figured out why it was due to the release of chlorofluoro carbons or c f c's in the atmosphere and these chemical compounds or things that we were using them in in air conditioning, aerosol spray cans, cleaning products, and the manufacture of things like styrofoam, right, And I believe specifically it was the chlorine component of the chloroflora carbons that was especially damaging to ozone levels because it would the CFCs would go up in the atmosphere and

then then the chlorine ions would come off of them and bond with other molecules and it would eventually lead to ozone depletion. That's right. Yeah, the CFCs were drifting up into the stratosphere and then the CFCs would be

broken apart by UV radiation releasing the chlorine. Now, it was only popping up in the spring because there are seasonal factors that influence ozone levels over the Antarctic at Arctic, so it's really only popping up during that one period of time, and the Arctic wasn't affected due to a fewer icy clouds and other climate factors. Now there's a dystopian version of this story. Uh, there's a dystopian timeline extending from the nineteen eighties. Uh. Ultimately a fiction, and

it doesn't involve immortal swordsmen at all. It was partially foreseen in the nineteen eighties and then in two thousand nine, UH. Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Paul Newman uh ransom computer simulations to see what would have happened? What? What kind of what? What might we have seen if we had done absolutely nothing, If there had been uh no concerted efforts to to do something about the depleted ozone layer, if there's been no connor McCloud, what would the future

have been like? And according to Newman's model, if humans had done nothing about it, if we'd stubbornly continued pumping these CFCs into the atmosphere. Uh. He said that we'd find ourselves ultimately in the year by the way Highlander two takes place in what's going to happen when we

get there? Well? Anyway, with two thirds of the Earth's ozone layer gone, we'd have a permanent ozone hole over the Antarctic and the Arctic, and UV radiation in mid latitude cities like Washington, d C would be enough to give you a sunburn in a mere five minutes of exposure. DNA mutating UV radiation levels would be up sixty uh, greatly increasing cancer rates and impacting numerous organisms. Yeah, I imagine that would that would really hurt the environment and

ecosystems too. And and indeed, this is this is the sort of dystopian world week we kind of see reflected in Highlander two, you know, when the fear of this world right, and yet somehow humanity avoided this right as if a psychic French Scotsman unified our minds uh and and and caused seventy countries to come together and enact the Montreal Protocol, which is what happened in nine six, mind you, the year that Highlander one came out. Absolutely

no connection between the two, but it did occur. In so there actually was a massive effort kind of like Connor McCloud shield, except instead of putting a barrier in place, what they were trying to do was stop harming the ozone layer to begin with. Right, The scientists presented the case and they said, look, here's the evidence, and it is it's CFCs that are doing it. If we stopped producing CFCs, or we at least, you know, tightened down

our regulations of CFC's, we can stop this process. And so they set some goals reduced CFC production by t by by and the targets were subsequently strengthened, banning the worst CFC offenders by and stiffly regulating them. And as it stands today, the ozone layer is recovering and should fully recover by Yeah, and I should point out we're actually now seeing direct evidence of the of the recovery

of the ozone layer hole over the Antarctic. Like I was looking at a NASA press release about this direct evidence, and there was a measuring instrument called the Microwave Limbs Sounder MLS aboard the AURA satellite. It was used to measure ozone depletion levels and or measure chlorine I think, and it showed from two thousand five to eighteen there was a net of about twenty percent reduction of ozone depletion.

So it is actually recovering. Things are getting better, and we know this directly now, Yeah, I mean, it's ultimately an inspiring success story. It's uh, you know, it's not one to one with the problem of human caused climate change, but it demonstrates our potential to enact change based on our on sound scientific consensus, to to change the way we're approaching the world, to cut back on what we're doing to it, and and see some recovery take place.

Like it, it can be done. People. We've done it before. It just makes me worry what would have happened if there had been as much money behind attacking that scientific consensus as there is on the consensus about climate change, right, yeah, or if it had been politicized to the accident that the climate change has has unfortunately been politicized, we could

be living in a world a heard right now? Yeah, alright, so so speaking of a world of heard, Okay, so all this squares rather nicely with what we see in Highland or two. You know, clearly again it was this. This story emerged from this time of great concern over the ozone layer. You can see where the idea for the movie came from exactly so, because you know, faced with environmental challenges, Connor decided to do something about it,

partially preventing the dystopian vision we related earlier. And at the same time, the movie deals with the self healing nature of the ozone like here, because there's this whole uh we didn't even really get into this, but there's a there are some freedom fighters who believe that the Shield Corporation doesn't need to exist anymore, that the ozone layer is fixed itself, and then the shields are just keeping us in this permanent noir world for no reason.

And and it turns out that that's the case, right, that the Shield Corporation is evil now and must be stopped. Like Virginia Madson plays a scientist and eco terrorist who believes that the ozone levels are normal and that we need we no longer need the Shield. Yeah, so it would seem that Connor also managed to ban CFCs as well as creating this artificial shield. Um but but but it did make me wonder what could we do with

an artificial ozone layer? Like what sort is there any research out there about about how we might you know, fix it? If is there anything like the shield that we see in Highlander two in scientific literature? Well, I mean you see this kind of reaction to certain thing, like you often hear people say about climate change, like, well, it would just be too hard to get people to stop burning fossil fuels and releasing all this carbon into

the atmosphere. What we need to do instead is focus all of our scientific efforts on coming up with ways to like counteract climate change. There is geo hacking scheme. I would say, based on what I've read, do not put all your hope in this like, if you want a good way to deal with the climate change, is you you should be thinking about reducing emissions, not depending on some savior technology to come along and geoengineer the

world back to good health. And yet, knowing, you know, knowing scientists, I figured, well, somebody has surely Cureainly somebody presented some sort of geo hacking measure for ozone layer depletion. Why I stopped cutting ourselves when we can invent a really good band aid? Well, you know, but I mean, certainly there's a value in sort of something in the scientific exploration of a measures as well. Yeah, having having

a plan B is worthwhile. So I hunted around and I found the work of a Russian physicist by the name of Alexander gurvek Born, presumably still alive, based on what I could gather, and he proposed this idea in nineteen eighty um the the idea of of generating an artificial ozone layer or a o L refers to it, but then in later papers he refers to it as an artificially ionized region or an ai R. He's an interesting guy. He argued that among the various high energy

proposals to deal with ozone layer loss. Quote. The most promising approach is connected with the creation of an artificial ionized region in the atmosphere by microwave discharges. Okay, well that's funny because in the movie you see like a big pyramid that's like shooting some beam of energy into the sky. It doesn't say what that is. Presumably it could be microwaves, So I guess it's visible in the movie,

and micro raves wouldn't be visible. Yeah, what I'm about to explain here does not match up with what we see in the film. But you can see where, for instance, the screen radier writer might have read about it, like might have read something and say popular science, like a blurb about this paper and then use that in the screenplay. So he wrote about this numerous times during his career and uh and even carry out a few experiments to

sort of present how it would work. And he argues that it's possible in principle, but would be difficult and we require a lot more development, certainly to reach, you know, the level that we could actually counter ozone depletion. But the basic idea here behind his his his notion is that ozone normally forms in the stratosphere via the combine nation of atomic oxygen with molecular oxygen by solar radiation, which of course also destroys but basically the solar radiation

causes a triple collision UH. And so Gouvek proposed beefing up ozone creation by the use of microwave radiation, and he points out that there are three key reasons to depend on microwaves in this kind of scenario. First of all, the energy can be transferred for considerable distances in the air almost without losses because you're gonna want to beam it up to the stratosphere to the energy can be focused in the given region of the atmosphere to achieve

the necessary effect. And then three different regimes of the microwave source can be used, which gives the opportunity to achieve the necessary optimum conditions. So the idea here is to create an artificially ionized region or air rather than a shield. And while you could localize the effect you know, point out to a pointing out a particular area in the stratosphere, the ozone you create with then spread around due to winds and turbulent diffusion up in the stratosphere.

So he continued to work on this idea well up into the two thousands. Uh Uh, it's it's a again as far as I understand it, and certainly a lot of the paper I was looking at what consisted of equations and stuff, and you know, breakdowns of what's happening would be happening happening at a molecular level. But are you saying that you're not an atmospheric physicist. Yeah, I'm sorry. Uh, in this discussion of Highlander two, I have to reveal that.

But but yeah, basically, the idea is that this would be a way to produce more ozone to make up for ozone depletion, and he makes what seems to be a strong case that that we could conceivably do it. You can certainly see the kind of thinking that would lead to this contingency. I'm glad we didn't have to depend on this exactly. Yeah, we're very fortunate that we put in place protocols to just allow the atmosphere or

the ozone layer to fix itself naturally. I mean, one reason is maybe it's just a Highlander two working on my brain, But I always do worry about all these proposed massive geoengineering projects that say, you know, we're going to do X, y or Z with Earth's atmosphere, like the idea of counteracting climate change by injecting sulfate particles into the atmosphere or something like that to reflect you know this, So, I don't know what the scientific consensus

is on how effective that would actually be or or whether it's a good idea. I tend to suspect that it doesn't have a lot of support. But just the idea of trying things like that on the one Earth we have seems very scary. Absolutely now. At the same time, if we if we could do something like the shield that we see in Highlander two, that would of course be tremendously helpful, especially as we consider the possibility of one day um sending people to other worlds and setting

up you know, colonies there. Like if you if you had the technology to create a radiation blocking shield, you know, install that thing on Mars, install that thing on the Moon, install it anywhere you need to try and house people off the planet. Yeah, have like a portable shield kit that goes with you wherever you go. Yeah. So you know, in that regard, this sci fi Technologyan sci fi technology always has a lot of of advantages, right because you

don't actually have to develop it. It's just it's there, it's ready to go. But but certainly if we could, if we could pull something off like we see in the film, it would it would be tremendously useful, to say nothing of hoverboards which are also in highland or two.

You know, I always wonder about like what is the what is the cost benefit thing of of talking a lot about like, you know, geoengineering contingencies for what if we we've got some massive environmental problem that that could really harm human human civilization, Uh, if we don't stop doing X. And meanwhile, we've got some people working on why saying maybe possibly why could protect us if we don't stop doing X. Does talking about the potential geoengineering

solution or whatever like reduce people's incentive to say, stop producing chlorofluora carbons or stop producing carbon emissions, Like I

don't know the answer, Well, I don't know. I'm always I'm continually perplexed by this because it's it's one of these things where you see humanities potential, you know, confounding potential to both refuse to change and be and and still be open to dramatic change, like the kind of the kind of human will that that very reasonably would think, well, I don't want to get rid of my hair spray, but I I guess I might be open to the entire world being clothed in sweaty darkness all the time. Yeah,

I could, I could change. I could get used to that, but like, but I'm totally not gonna budge on this other issue. It's the it's the change of right now versus the change of years from now. Yeah, and we see this on a personal level all the time. To like you can imagine someone thinking, well, I really, I know my doctor told me I need to change my diet, but sorry, I'm not I'm not going to do that.

But maybe I'll start running every day and then that will counterbalance the crap that I eat, you know, or mayage in these exercises on an individual level all the time, very similar to that, like somebody thinks, well, my doctor told me I need to change my day, but maybe in ten years doctors will come up with a pill that I can just take to make me healthy and that will be that'll That's kind of like the shield option. Right, you've got a sort of like counteracting contingency that you're

just really crossing your fingers for. And but you know you shouldn't do that. That's not a good idea. Yeah, I mean medical technology, technology in general continues to uh to advance often in in in very uh you know, at a very alarming rate. But you absolutely can't book on it. You know, you can't say, well, I'm sure somebody will figure it out. I'm just gonna keep along

this path and we'll see what happens. Maybe maybe someone will come up with a magical shield to protect the planet and in protecting it, I mean protect it from us, maybe, but don't count on it. Just regulate the dang hairspray. I mean, come on, yeah, now that I think about Highlands, who really does have a mangled environmental message? Like what that's not really I guess it's not really trying to say anything. I should not even try to decipher what

it might be saying ing about environmentalism. But it's otherwise so lucid, Yes, or Robert, I'm glad we finally did it. This is an episode on one of the best bad movies of all time, And if you have never seen the original Highlander two, you can find yourself. I don't know how is the best way to find yourself a copy of the original cut, because I don't think you can get it in the United States at least well, we had to depend on your VHS copy for for

us to watch it. And then, like I said, the version I watched on Amazon Prime last month, uh is a different cut of the film. I mean, it's still enjoyable in some respects. You still get to see that, you know, the visual flare of the director is still very much on the screen, but no Zeist. It's less manically incoherent. Yeah, they remix things in an attempt to give it more um coherence, but I'm not sure it

really succeeds. But hey, if nothing else, you still get that cool sword fight in the in the you know, the city with the train and the the flying punks on their their their their hoverboards. So that's always a win. I don't know if we should pat ourselves on the back too much, but I think we did a better job of finding good scientific angles on Highland or two than I expected we could. I know, imagine what we

could do with a real science fiction film. You know, but which brings us that we did one of these on two thousand one of Space Odyssey several months back, and now that we've we we've gotten Highlander two out of the way. I would love to do more of these on a regular basis. Uh. For instance, I've wanted to do an episode on the science of the Dark Crystal for a long time, and uh, I think given developments with Netflix, I think this is the year to do it. Maybe we'll have to think about that one.

A lot of people have said, oh, do you know, do something related to alien and the xenomorph. You know, obviously there's a lot we could talk about there. So we would love to hear from all of you out there. If you enjoyed this treatment of of a film with science, then then a let know what you would like us to explore in potential future episodes. If like us, you're a fan of trash cinema and be movie behemoths, get

in touch. Let us know what's your favorite awesomely bad movie. Likewise, we know that we have some Highlander fans out there, So if you have definite thoughts about Highlander one and two, if you have thoughts about all the various other films and TV shows, most of which I have not seen. We would love for you to to to bring us up to speed on the Highlander universe, quoth the Lambert never more. Alright, So in the meantime, check out Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother Ship.

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