Gregory Widen was a college student at UCLA when he wrote the first draft of what would become one of the defining fantasy action films of the 1980s — for a screenwriting class. He sold it for $200,000.
That draft, originally titled Shadow Clan, drew from two unlikely sources: Ridley Scott‘s 1977 film The Duelists, about two swordsmen locked in a lifelong feud, and Widen’s own visits to Scotland and the Tower of London, where the display of historical armor left a mark on him. A few revisions later, Highlander was ready to shoot. The film turns 40 this year.
Directed by Russell Mulcahy, the film stars Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, an immortal Scotsman from the Highlands who cannot be killed by conventional means — only beheading ends an Immortal’s life. The story opens at Madison Square Garden, mid-wrestling match, where MacLeod senses a dangerous rival nearby. The two fight in a parking garage. MacLeod wins. A decapitated body attracts police attention, and a forensic metallurgy expert named Brenda Wyatt, played by Roxanne Hart, gets pulled into the investigation.
The film moves between 1986 New York and a series of flashbacks, the earliest set in the Scottish Highlands in 1536, when MacLeod is run through in battle by a black-clad knight played by Clancy Brown and simply does not die. His clan, convinced it is witchcraft, drives him out. He retreats to a quiet pastoral life with his wife Heather, played by Beatie Edney, until a wandering swordsman arrives unannounced.
That swordsman is Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez, played by Sean Connery.
Ramirez explains the rules. Immortals cannot be killed except by beheading. They cannot father children. They share a sixth sense called the Quickening, and when one kills another, the victor absorbs the fallen one’s power. Eventually, the survivors will converge in a distant land for a final battle, and whoever wins gains the power to save or destroy humanity. According to the film, that final convergence happens in present-day New York City.
The black-clad knight from 1536 is the Kurgan, and he is among the last Immortals standing. Ramirez sought out MacLeod specifically because the prospect of the Kurgan winning is, by the film’s logic, catastrophic for the human race. Ramirez trains MacLeod, then pays for it: the Kurgan beheads him while MacLeod is away from home. The responsibility of stopping the Kurgan falls entirely on MacLeod, who eventually does, winning the final confrontation and, with it, his mortality.
What Followed
The original film produced two direct sequels, two television series — one live-action, one animated — and a reboot that, according to the announcement, has circulated through Hollywood since 2008 without reaching screens. None of the sequels or spinoffs has matched the standing of the first film, which remains the most complete version of the story Widen sketched out in that UCLA screenwriting class decades ago.
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