HIGHLANDER SCREENPLAY COMPARISON - PART 2 ========================================= 1st Draft screenplay written by Peter L. Bellwood and Larry Ferguson on October 26, 1983 after the rights to Widen's original screenplay were bought by Davis/Panzer Productions in 1982. The 1st Draft was an extensive re-write of Widen's script to give it more flair. Many names were changed and much of the dialogue was re-written, but most of the scenes and sequential order of events in the story stayed the same. Major differences between the 1st Draft and the final film: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARACTERS NAMES: [FILM] [SCREENPLAY] Kurgan Count Von Krohn Garfield Leon Brewster Sunda Kastagir Sarto Kastagir Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez Juan Sanchez Ramirez Masamune Kamakura The following are aliases used by MacLeod over the years: Adrian Montague Adrian Montagu Jacques Lefeburt Hamilton Kopp Alfred Nicholson Alfred Burgess Rupert Wellingford Wellingford Benoit Names that stay the same: All the rest of the main character names ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIFFERENCES IN THE SCREENPLAY: - Just like in the film, the story begins in Madison Square Garden, only the sports event is a hockey game between the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, rather than a wrestling match. The day is December 8, 1983. - The rioting hockey players swinging their hockey sticks remind MacLeod of the 16th century battle between the Frazers and MacLeods as he has brief flashbacks of the battle. - The drunk spectator sitting behind MacLeod in the Garden shoves a bag of nuts at MacLeod, offering them to him. MacLeod ignores him and leaves as he senses Fasil. - In the flashback of the Clan MacLeod riding off to battle, Conner, Dugal, Angus, and Kate jokingly ridicule Father Rainey the priest as Conner sweeps Kate off her feet and gives her a goodbye kiss. - The character of Kurgan is a Prussian count named Von Krohn. - At the time of the battle between the Frazers and MacLeods, Von Krohn already has the huge scar across his neck which affects his voice-box and gives his voice a metallic gargle. - In the present during the battle between Fasil and Conner, some teenagers (2 girls and 2 boys) are wandering around the parking garage and hear the sword fight in the distance. - After MacLeod beheads Fasil a "crystal *green* cloud floats from the corpse, enveloping him as he starts to glow" rather than the bluish color of smoke and lightning from the movie Quickenings. - When Von Krohn dismounts his horse and approaches Conner during the 16th century battle, Dugal is standing right next to Conner. Von Krohn knocks Dugal senseless and smashes Conner's shield, then thrusts his sword into Conner's stomach. MacLeod continues to come at him even after he's stabbed. He tries to attack a few times before he becomes sick and dizzy. One last swing of his sword rips through Von Krohn's armor and wounds the Prussian. Conner falls to the ground as Angus and others fight off Von Krohn until he flees. - In present day, Russel Edwin Nash (MacLeod) drives a rented Chevy instead of a Porsche. His current address is 477 Canal Street, New York, NY, 10013. - As MacLeod lay dying in the Scottish castle in 1536, Angus and *Dugal* stand over him as Kate cries. Dugal says to Angus that Conner saved his life, "standing over him like a stone wall". - Detective Frank Moran's partner is named Leon Brewster. This is the same arrogant smartass character of Garfield in the movie, but the character of Garfield in the script is just some other minor cop mentioned briefly during the crime scene examination. - During the examination of the crime scene in the Madison Square Garden parking garage, Brenda finds a shard of metal in a gouge in a Corvette. - The Toledo-Salamanca sword that Brenda finds is said to be worth about $2.5 million, not $1 million as in the movie. - While sitting in the police interrogation room by himself, MacLeod has a flashback to 1942 in which he used the alias of Wallingford Benoit while he was in Nazi-occupied Budapest. He helps a partisan couple who are hiding their 11 children in a secret room under the floor of their apartment. A Gestapo agent named Vogel breaks into their apartement with four troopers and discovers the trap door in the floor. Suddenly MacLeod enters the room and shoots the troopers. He aims his gun at Vogel as the couple gets their children. When MacLeod tells Vogel to get into the secret room and close the trap door, the agent tells him: VOGEL: "You'll have to shoot me first". MACLEOD: "Whatever you say, Jack. You're the master race." Then he shoots Vogel. As he starts to leave with the couple and their children, MacLeod looks down at the oldest child, a 9-year old girl who looks up at him curiously. - As MacLeod is interrogated my Moran, he has a quick flashback of Ramirez standing by a waterfall and talking to him about how Immortals are feared and driven away by people. - Iman Fasil was a Syrian travelling with a German passport. - Von Krohn drives into New York wearing a nice suit, not the leather gear in the movie. The name of the Immortal he killed in Jersey is Osta Vazilek, a Bulgarian. - In the flashback of MacLeod in the tavern with his fellow clansmen, he tells Dugal they've been kinsmen 15 years (not 20). Dugal swings at MacLeod but MacLeod blocks him and starts beating the hell out of Dugal until other villagers join in and knock out Conner. - After MacLeod walks out of town with the ox yoke tied to his back, he stands in the forest trying to smash the yoke between two trees. - Back in the present, MacLeod is walking down a street in the city. As he passes a construction site on the street, he has another flashback of the time in 1942. He travels to the Swiss border with the couple and their children. They hide in the forest clearing trying to figure out how to get past the German patrols by the fence ahead of them. As the group starts to sneak past the patrols with MacLeod and the 9-year old girl behind them, 2 troopers on motorcycles see MacLeod and the girl and shoot MacLeod in the back. He drops to the ground covering the girl. When they approach MacLeod jumps up and kicks them then shoots them dead. The girl asks him why he didn't die and he tells her it's "a kind of magic". The entire group successfully makes their way to Switzerland and freedom. - Back in the present, MacLeod realizes he's being followed by Bedsoe. He walks several blocks, past Central Park South, Rockefeller Center, Broadway and Times Square until he loses the cop. - Brenda drives a red Ferrari. (wow) - After MacLeod meets Brenda in a coctail lounge, she goes home. She doesn't follow him after he leaves and they're not confronted by Von Krohn, as in the movie. - Although Kurgan is called Von Krohn in the script, his present-day alias of Victor Kruger is still the same. - After registering at the seedy hotel, Von Krohn sits in his room eating tacos and enjoying the violent Yosemite Sam cartoon on TV. When he begins to assemble his broadsword, he pulls out an envelope containing 4 photographs with name tags on them: No. 1 YUNG DOL SING, an Oriental on a freighter in New York Harbor. No. 2 SARTO KASTAGIR, a suave African, leaving the Russian Tea Room. No. 3 RUSSELL NASH, hailing a cab on Park Avenue. No. 4 IVAN TIMOSHENKO, a security guard, sitting at TV monitors under a sign, Malabar, Inc. He decides that his next victim will be Timoshenko. - When Candy the hooker walks into Von Krohn's room, he pulls her inside, slams the door shut, flings her on the bed, and begins to unbuckle his belt as she fearfully watches.... - In the flashback to 1541 when Connor and Heather are lying in the meadow field, Ramirez walks up the hill rather than approaching on a horse. When he reaches the top, he is exhausted from the climb. - Ramirez is the chief metallurgist to King Phillip II of Spain (not King Charles V) - On the hill, Ramirez opens his tunic revealing a scar from neck to hip. Ramirez tells MacLeod that when he was young he was run over by a cart and should have died, but didn't. - In the present, Det. Moran sits in Brenda's office thumbing through her book "A Metallurgical History of Ancient Sword-Making". Brenda walks in and asks Moran and Garfield about their suspect. Garfield slips and gives her Nash's name and address. Moran tells her to stay away from Nash. - MacLeod walks through the Metropolitan Art Museum looking at paintings of an exhibit "Art in American History". Bedsoe is following him. MacLeod looks at a painting of Thomas Jefferson by artist Matthew Lennox and has a flashback... to 1776, where Thomas Jefferson sits on a wooden horse in his study while Lennox paints his portrait. MacLeod, now called Adrian Montagu, stands by a window drinking brandy. MacLeod mentions that he served in the British Navy, captain of the H.M.S. Thunderer. They discuss the need for an American Navy, and when Jefferson asks Mac what he thinks their chances of winning the war are, he tells Jefferson that he's certain "the United States of America cannot prevail against the might of England". - In the present, MacLeod fights the Immortal Yung Dol Sing in an abandoned warehouse while at the same time Von Krohn fights Timoshenko on the 40th floor of the Malabar building. Yung Dol Sing was once a friend of Mac's, but now when there's only 5 Immortals left, he wants the Prize. MacLeod overpowers Sing but when he's about to take Sing's head, he decides not to kill his friend and gives him his life back. Meanwhile, Von Krohn beheads Timoshenko and a "crystal *blue* cloud" emerges from the body (this suggests unique Quickenings since earlier it specifies a crystal *green* cloud). At the warehouse, MacLeod turns to walk away but Sing grabs his sword and attacks. MacLeod turns and cuts off his head. A "crystal *orange* cloud" emerges from Sing's body and MacLeod starts to glow. - In the flashback to 1541, Ramirez tells MacLeod that he is Egyptian. It was in Egypt where he was run over by the cart. He states that Ramirez is not his real name, he just uses it to conceal his identity. He tells MacLeod: "I am Tak Ne. Born 2,437 years ago in Egypt. Since them I have had many names and 3 wives. My last was Shakiko, a Japanese princess. Her father, Kamakura, a genius with metal, ahead of his time, made this for me in 593." MacLeod examines the sword. He asks Ramirez if he can borrow it sometime to show off in the village. MacLeod suddenly realizes what Ramirez has been saying about being 2,000 years old and then laughs at the rediculous notion. Ramirez stabs MacLeod with a dagger. MacLeod pulls the dagger out and in seconds the wound heals into a scar. - In the present when Brenda goes to Nash's antique shop, she is shocked to find out that Nash is the same guy she met in the coctail lounge several nights earlier. She says her name is Helen Gaskell. She also tells him she's working on a doctorate at Columbia and her thesis is on metals used in ancient Japanese swords. MacLeod asks her for a dinner date and tells her that he will ask around about the sword dated 600 B.C. that she says she's looking for. Bedsoe walks into the shop and is suprised to see Brenda there with Nash. He turns away and tries to inconspicuous. - When Bedsoe tells Moran and Brewster what happened, Moran gets upset and tells him to keep an eye on Brenda. Then Captain Wilkins of Homicide calls them into his office and chews them out about the 2 new headless bodies they found. - As MacLeod walks down a street, he sees 2 children sparring with wooden sticks. He has a flashback of 1541 where he and Ramirez spar by a waterfall. Ramirez tells him the rules of the Game (same as in movie), but he also says that at the end of each battle, the winner claims his opponent's sword. Ramirez tells him of Von Krohn and that he almost took Von Krohn's head. He gave him the scar across the neck. Ramirez tells him to leave Heather or watch he grow old and die. - In a montage of scenes, Heather grows older and MacLeod stays. They move from the Jedburgh forge, travelling east to a farm outside Montrose. Eventually Heather dies and MacLeod buries her on a hill by the farm. It is not revealed what happened to Ramirez, and there is no battle between him and Von Krohn in which Ramirez is killed. - When MacLeod meets Kastagir in Central Park, there's snow everywhere. Kids are having snowball fights nearby. Kastagir scolds MacLeod for breaking tradition and leaving Fasil's sword behind in the parking garage. He's read of the police investigation and the "Head-Hunter" in the New York Times. They laugh together when MacLeod tells Kastagir that he's a suspect for murder and if he's convicted, he'll get the death penalty. They sense the ducks swimming in the Central Park pond by them. MacLeod flashes back to when Ramirez is telling him about the Quickening: RAMIREZ: "You have it. The Quickening. We all do. We can feel the life-force of living things. Some of us more than others. You don't know it yet, but you may be the strongest of all..." "When we first met, you felt ill. Remember? It was the same when you encountered Von Krohn." MACLEOD: "Yes. A pressure. Everything drained from me. I can feel it now." RAMIREZ: "As an Immortal, I interfere with your Quickening. If you were to take my head, my interference would stop. My power would transfer to you. You would be stronger..." "The last Immortal will have everyone's power, without interference. To live forever without want or fear of death. It is the Prize for which we all struggle. Von Krohn must never possess it... So I break tradition and help you." MACLEOD: "If it came down to just us two, would you fight me?" RAMIREZ: "No." Ramirez goes on to tell MacLeod more about Von Krohn's evil nature, and says that Von Krohn has more Quickening than any Immortal Ramirez has ever met, except maybe for MacLeod. - Back in present, MacLeod talks to Kastagir about Von Krohn. He suggests both of them break tradition and join together to eliminate Von Krohn. Kastagir refuses, telling him that even if they killed Von Krohn, they would eventually fight each other. He doesn't want that. - In the antique shop, MacLeod stares at Ramirez' hat and Heather's doll in a glass case. He talks to Rachel then leaves to go to dinner at Brenda's. - When MacLeod arrives at Brenda's apartment, she takes his overcoat and goes back into her bedroom while Nash sits in the living room. In the bedroom, Brenda searches his coat and finds a strange leather sheath running from shoulder to hem inside the coat along with thousands of dollars in the pockets. - After MacLeod pours a drink for both of them, he toasts: "To the child going to bed, And the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love In their high room. And let us hope tonight He shall find no dying, But his love alive and warm." He tells Brenda it's a poem by Dylan Thomas. - When MacLeod starts to leave, annoyed at Brenda's insistence to see the Samurai sword he claims doesn't exist, she tries to stop him in the bedroom as he gets his overcoat. They struggle and she slashes his cheek with her fingernails. She stands back and sees the blood reverse itself as the scratch disappears. He tells her not to meddle in matters she can't comprehend and to forget the sword. Then he leaves. - After Moran and Bedsoe finish eating at the hotdog stand, they go to Nash's shop. Moran goes inside while Bedsoe waits in the car. Moran asks Rachel about the whereabouts of Nash. The conversation becomes more friendly when Moran starts asking Rachel about herself. He asks if she'd like to have a drink with him sometime, then he leaves. - The archivist at a New York Public Library, who helps Brenda track down the names of all the owners of Nash's building, is gay. He goes a through a more in-depth process of showing Brenda what he found on his computer. The signed receipts for the deed to Nash's building, signed by Adrian Montagu, Hamilton Kopp, Alfred Burgess, and Wallingford Benoit who leaves the house to Russell Nash. All have death certificates dated several years before they signed for the deed. He doesn't use any program to match the signatures on screen. He just says that he checked with a handwriting expert who says they're all by the same guy. - In Little Italy, a cop on patrol named Roselli drives around and stops by an alley when he sees Kastagir and Von Krohn fighting. In the film, it was the paranoid ex-marine survivalist. - A "crystal *orange* cloud" rises from Kastagir's body and surrounds Von Krohn. Roselli, on the ground after being stabbed by Von Krohn, passes out when he see this. - Brenda shouts at Rachel in the antique shop, demanding to know where Nash is. She smashes mirrors and tips over book shelves. She tells Rachel to tell Nash that she knows about Montagu, Benoit, and the others, and that she wants to see the sword. Then she leaves. Outside, she sees Bedsoe and chews him out for following her. Rachel runs out of the shop and stops Brenda. They go up to Nash's apartment and Rachel begins to tell her everything about how she met Nash/Benoit/MacLeod in Budapest in 1942. - When MacLeod sits in the church, Von Krohn walks up, now dressed as a punk rocker in leather and his hair dyed orange. After Von Krohn tells him of how he killed Ramirez and raped his woman, MacLeod has a flashback to 1541 in which Ramirez fights Von Krohn inside the forge, just like in the movie, but here Ramirez doesn't have his sword with him and the battle is short. A "crystal *silver* cloud" surrounds Von Krohn after he beheads Ramirez. Later, MacLeod approaches the forge on a horse with the Samurai sword strapped to his side. He rushes in and finds Ramirez' headless body on the floor and Heather cowering in the corner. - After MacLeod leaves the church, Von Krohn kisses the priests bald head (instead of licking his hand in the movie). He praises himself as he realizes that he finally has an edge over MacLeod when he discovers that MacLeod cares about mortals. He goes to find Brenda. - Rachel and Brenda are in Nash's apartment. Rachel shows a photo to Brenda of when she was 18 in 1951. She says their relationship was always platonic, the only way MacLeod would ever have it. At first, she was the child he could never have. Then she grew up and wanted to be his lover. Now she's old enough to be his mother. She then shows Brenda a room full of deposit boxes full of stacks of money, stocks, and bonds, explaining that he has so much money in banks all over the world that he's lost track of how much there is now. - When MacLeod arrives at the apartment, they talk. Then all 3 (Mac, Brenda, and Rachel) have dinner. Rachel urges MacLeod to tell Brenda about the duel in 1797 with Bassett. He begins as it flashes back to 1797 at the duel, as seen in the movie but at a different point (after Kastagir and MacLeod meet). After the flashback, MacLeod shows the Samurai to Brenda. - The next day, Brenda talks to Moran in the forensics lab. He tells her that the Mayor has created a special Head-Hunter Task Force, headed by Captain Wilkins. Moran has been taken off the case and he removed references to Brenda from his files before handing them over to Wilkins. - Brenda and MacLeod have lunch atop the World Trade Center. MacLeod breaks off their relationship, stating that it could never work. When Brenda leaves and gets in a cab, Von Krohn watches from a distance. - Von Krohn confronts Brenda outside her forensics lab that night. They get into her Ferrari and zoom down the freeway (the chicken race in the movie). Some cops on motorcycles start chasing them and soon a couple of police cars join in the chase. The Ferrari heads for Brooklyn Bridge and drives onto a ramp, flying through the air, and landing on top of a 16-wheeler. The cops stop chasing it. Moments later, the Ferrari drives of the roof of the truck and lands on the street in front, speeding away. - After recieving Von Krohn's message on the answering machine, MacLeod heads to the Coney Island Amusement Park. Von Krohn holds Brenda, ordering MacLeod to throw his sword away and kneel, exposing his neck (similar to Luther and Rebecca in the Tv series ep. "Legacy"). MacLeod does this but rolls out of the way when Von Krohn swings. Brenda throws him the Samurai. MacLeod senses fear in Von Krohn. He realizes Von Krohn is a coward. He beheads Von Krohn and a "crystal *purple* cloud" surrounds MacLeod. Nash glows in all colors of the rainbow. He recieves the Prize: "Mother of God! The Prize. It's the Prize! Everything is alive. The Quickening is too powerful. I've forgotten my name. All interference is gone. I am generations being born and dying. I am the global brain. The night air is my breath. The life-force smothers me. I can feel everything. I can feel your love. The blood in your veins. Your fear of me." - Next morning, firetrucks try to put out Nash's burning building. Rachel sneaks away and goes to see Moran at his apartment. She sits and watches his TV as he goes to get them a beer. The news report tells of the victim found at Coney Island. Moran comes in and says he's given up on that case. Rachel tells him that when they get to know each other better, she'll tell him the truth about the head-hunter. - MacLeod and Brenda stand on an ocean liner. He tells her of the Prize: "When the Quickening hit me on the beach, it was going full blast. But now I can control it. Turn it up and down. Tune to different stations..." "You want to hear a couple? Okay.. A man named Armando Rafael Garcia, right now, is dreaming of a military coup in Honduras. In Paris, Jacques Pouget and Rinee Bineau live in adjoining houses. They're deeply in love but never speak to each other." When Brenda asks what MacLeod is going to do with all this power, he replies: "Maybe we'll stop off in Paris. Get Jacques and Renee introduced." - Brenda pours 1976 Brandy for both of them and performs a similar toast as MacLeod's: "1976 was a good year. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won 5 Academy Awards. A new atomic particle was discovered by U.S. scientists, and Pittsburgh beat Dallas in the Super Bowl." Then she quotes another of Dylan Thomas' poems. They embrace and the liner sails away. END ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Please send comments or questions to HADEN@OKSTATE.EDU