Why a new Highlander is a Good Idea

A bit of an old story, Summit Entertainment recently announced its intentions to do a Highlander remake. I'm actually pretty excited about this one. Of all the remakes concepts out there, this is one of the better for a number of reasons.

First, the Highlander is already heavily franchised. Aside from the four movies, the Highlander television series ran for six seasons starting in 1992, not to mention the futuristic Highlander animated series, recent Highlander anime series, and the countless Highlander spoofs and spin-offs. So it's not as if a new movie has the possibility of soiling an already perfect trilogy (i.e. Indiana Jones). In fact, I expect nothing good from a remake except some head-lopping action. Actually, it's about time for a new Highlander installment if you ask me.

Second, there isn't anything about the Highlander that will really benefit from sweet CGI. Basically, the Highlander is about two things; 1) swordplay, and 2) the Quickening. The first of these can only be made more badass with good choreography and editing. And the second requires only lightning special effects, which have been pretty good for quite some time now. While I'm of the opinion that the old 80's lightning effects (think Return of the Jedi) were awesome, I also think that some of the new Fantastic Four style stuff isn't bad either. So what could go wrong?

Now, I know that no cast will ever match the original (Chris Lambert teamed up with Sean Connery is a formidable duo), but no one should expect that. One of the biggest problems with these remakes is that we have huge expectations based on the originals. But with Highlander, what we are dealing with is an epic original and a long subpar legacy. A subpar remake just makes sense at this point, and anything better is a bonus. 

Maybe this remake will pave the way for other remakes of older, crappier movies that if done well the first time, would have been awesome (how about Tron?).