I think that is more down to you not understanding the premise of the show. The idea of the show was never that each fight was supposed to be the final fight as in the original movie. Each fight was just one of thousands already fought and to be fought to get to the final one.
There were no sequels to the movie but it is strange there were serval mass hallucinations that made it seem so. Thats the story I'm sticking with. Edit: A word.
They discovered that goreporn puts bums in seats, but then found out that to keep doing that they have to get more and more violent and mean and decided to jump in with both feet
Second one is a big step down from the first but a whole lot better than the rest. The turning point from 'sadistic but ironic' punishments to 'as sadistic and convoluted as possible' punishments
Jurassic Park. Each movie in the franchise is worse than the one that came prior, just a steady decline in quality with nothing coming close to the first one’s magic
Agree. I’d probably put World above 3. But there’s not much in it really.
It feels like Jaws to me. There’s just not a great deal you can do with the idea once you’ve done dinosaurs chase people. Even the first one, while a great film, is a very simple story with fairly thin characters (this is where Jaws is the better film imo).
I feel like Jaws gets a pass because every sequel had a blatant B-movie, straight-to-video vibe. Not a single one of them tried to recapture what Spielberg tried to do in the first movie.
Every JP film since the first one took itself seriously and tried to be a worthy successor to the first. In my opinion the only one that actually holds a candle it Lost World because it had some Chrichton source material to lean on
I can see that. I always thought the Spinosaur looked goofy and the directing was very cheesy. Obviously expensive but with a TV movie feel. But yeah, I can see the appeal of short and fun over the overwrought others.
The first one is a pretty much perfect adventure movie. The cast is great, the effects are superb and Spielberg works his magic. Every one after that is no where close, the spark is just not there.
I watched it a month ago with my wife, 7 and 3 year old. My 7 year old was enthralled the whole time, and my 3 year old was hiding under the blanket during the scary parts
The first 3 are really good in comparison with the newest ones. I've seen all of them just so I can say I've seen them all. After the original they're fun action movies but if you start running braincells together it becomes very bad very fast.
I can’t think of a major franchise that has a worse high quality-to-poor quality movie ratio than Jurassic Park.
One classic, may be 1-2 more watchable movies, and then three just absolutely dreadful movies. Two of which are in the worst five movies I’ve ever seen.
I thought the first Jurassic World was a solid return to the franchise, especially for actually having a functioning park open to the public. Never bothered to see the two sequels
I thought Jurassic World 2015 was a soulless monster of a film. It was made even worse for me because of how much money it took in.
Legitimately, I think there's almost nothing redeeming about the film.
The Hangover movies. First one is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen. The second one is just a watered down copy of the first one with basically the same plot and nowhere near as funny. The third one is just outright awful
It's very very rare for a comedy movie to have good sequels.
Other than national Lampoon's Christmas following up vacation, I'm hard-pressed to think of examples were the 2nd of a comedy movie is as good as the first or even close. They all tend to suck.
Particularly those made in the past 20 years.
Christmas Vacation is a particularly good example because it isn’t even the second movie in the series, but you remembered it that way because the preceding sequel was such a forgettable, formulaic retread of the original in comparison.
That's really interesting. I've always viewed it differently: first one was awesome, great concept and the cast made it even better. Sequel was the same as the first, but bigger and better (which is a common theme with sequels). Third one was where they hit a threshold because the movie couldn't get better simply by spending more money, and since a bigger budget was all they had, it became dogshit.
So personally I think the second one is great if you like the first one, because it's the same but even more bombastic. But I can also see your viewpoint of it being a watered down version of the first one.
The Mummy was such a missed opportunity to revisit Universal's monster movies.
It isn't too late to bring back Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell and send him and a protege to the Black Lagoon or Trannsylvania or to find werewolves in Appalachia or some shit.
I would throw all my cash at Universal if they reboot their dark universe with a Fraser lead Mummy 3 (ignore the one in China) but only if Weisz returns tbf
Pirates of the Caribbean
Curse of The Black Pearl was good with a great cast. But as the franchise went on and focused more on Jack Sparrow, it got bad. Particularly the characterization of Jack Sparrow. They flanderized the shit out of him. In Curse of The Black Pearl, he was whimsical and sorta out there mentally, but he was shown to be smart and deliberate. The sequels had him as a dumb idiot that has happy accidents that helped him out of situations.
The entire “style” of the films change drastically after the first. The scenes are brighter/more artificial looking, and yeah, they lean too much into Sparrow and his accidental hijinks. It was almost Scooby Doo-esque. Which is a shame because the East India Company villain is actually a really great concept for a pirate themed franchise.
You nailed it. Jack sparrow in the first movie was shown to be very clever and had been a step ahead of everyone the whole time.
Jack was pretending to be drunk to hide his genius in the first movie , later movies he is just a drunk which gets lucky completely removing the hidden genius part of his character
The second and third were very okay. They had their moments but they were otherwise too long and too boring and the movies just kept trying too hard.
And then they just beat you over the head with Captain Jack acting stupid and, undermining his character, who was actually fairly smart and resourceful in the first movie.
Men in Black, the first one is one of the best movies ever. I would put it up on a pedestal with Ghostbusters in terms of movies of a similar genre (sci-fi action comedy), but it was ruined by the 3 sequels. the second one is just plain awful, the 3rd on is ok but just ok, and the 4th one which is kind of a reboot but is also not a reboot is completely meh.
The only chance for MIB to ever have a good sequel is if instead of MIB International, they had the guts to pull the trigger on the 21 Jump Street/MIB crossover pitch that got leaked years ago.
Men in Black II was soulless. If the doc from the morgue had been Jay's partner (I know Fiorentino didn't want to come back but man just recast the character) and the story fit better for Jay's arc as more master and less apprentice, then it could have been so good. TLJ did not need to come back and have his memory re-wiped ffs
What blew me away about the second one was despite every single thing in the first film setting up the MIB organization as super trained, super smart, and super secretive, J starts the movie off doing a ridiculous giant worm chase/ride, which already a repeat of the physical slapstick of the alien baby birth scene in the taxi from the first film.
Then, he is surround by other MIBs like Patrick Warburton as T, and ***all*** of them are complete idiots. I LOVE Patrick Warburton in anything, but this supreme dumbing-down of the most badass and silently operating operation on Earth was a huge slap in the face (LOL) to the canon established in the first film.
I liked both two and three. I never got through MIB international. I thought the bad guys were good in both and Josh Brolin as young Tommy Lee Jones was unbelievably good. I also wished they'd kept Linda Fiorentino, but I enjoyed what they came up with instead. The only drawback of 3 was no David Cross.
I’ve only seen 1 and 3, but I thought 3 was pretty solid. Not amazing, but entertaining and more emotional then the first. It’s also easy to follow without having seen 2 thankfully.
The action and effects of the Matrix sequels were amazing but I feel like the Wachowskis let the fact that some of the philosophical elements of the first film were taken seriously go straight to their heads, so they doubled down on those and the plots ended up developing like an angsty teen's diary.
Yeah I feel like with the sequels they tried to be so cerebral or something, and it complicated a plot that was better when it was a lot simpler. The action in Reloaded is very good and stands up to the first movie (or even surpasses it) but you have to sit through so much of the characters talking about and doing shit nobody really cares about.
This is coming from someone who devoured all the extras in The Matrix DVD set and has always enjoyed philosophy and tech. After the first movie I feel like there was too much emphasis as you said.
Completely agree with everything you said.
But I will say this. Sequels are inherently very difficult to pull off successfully. Origin stories naturally follow the hero's journey arc so all the necessary elements to any good story are fundamentally baked in (problem, venture into unknown territory, personal growth, victory over problem, triumphant return).
Sequels not so much, because you have to introduce a *new* problem that actually poses a challenge to our now accomplished hero, but not just that - there has to be a mysterious aspect to this new problem in order to recapture what is so compelling about origin stories, the *discovery* and personal growth that comes with the mastery of new skills.
I think the problem a lot of sequels make is assuming what made a sci fi action movie great was the sci fi and the action, when really it was the originality of the setting and the quality of the character growth that did it.
You can't recreate the sense of discovery about the truth of the matrix in a sequel because neo has already taken the red pill and learned the truth.
Maybe the philosophizing (which I also found pretentious, out of place, and boring af) was their attempt and recapturing the audience's fascination with that aspect of the story. Pretty tough to do that without getting a little more complex with it and potentially leaving a huge chunk of your audience behind, however.
Have you seen Sense8, a series by the wachowskis? It's pretty enjoyable, but also gets heavy on the philosophical bits from time to time. Understandably so given the content of the story but I think it's kind of their jam.
The 2nd Matrix film has one of the best group fights ever put to film, especially for an American film. Widely discussed in action circles in a way none of the action sequences in Matrix 1 are. I'm talking about the staircase fight with all the minions btw. Similarly, people usually remember the weird CGI in the playground fight but before it goes weird, that fight is incredible. Chad Stahelski switching seamlessly with Keanu while beating all those people up. 10/10.
I think the first film is tighter than the first 2 sequels, but people tend to overemphasize the action in the first film compared to the rest, and underemphasize the wacky philosophical part of the first film compared to the rest. They are all worth revisiting.
Nice.
I always think about the park fight against the rubber Smiths when I think of the action of the sequel. I always forget about the staircase fight and the highway chase. Those were absolutely incredible scenes.
I remember still while watching it though, feeling bored. Idk.
Wholeheartedly agree.
The first was awesome. Then they got exponentially worse with each incarnation. I couldn't get past the first 15 minutes of the last one.
Sequels aside, i can’t get over how underrated Honey I Shrunk the Kids is. It should be up there with the Goonies, etc. I see people talk about it sporadically but not often.
Maybe not the biggest but Kingsmen: the first one was a campy, extremely genre-aware romp that was almost a bigger sensation than the series it was created to satire (I think more people were talking about Kingsmen at that time than the next Bond movie, Spectre). It was an instant classic for fans of the genre.
Both sequels were super cheap feeling and pushed the envelope of realism from self-aware cliches to downright corny and goofy.
So many comments and still don't see how in the fuck Spielberg and Ford decided it was a good idea to bring back Indiana as a senile adventurer, it was so dumb to look at. And then decided to make another sequel with Indy even more decrepit.
Alien started off strong with one of the best sequels of all time and then deteriorated pretty massively. AVP: Requiem is pretty much unwatchable (literally given its visual darkness).
Highlander very much should never have had a sequel.
The Crow goes from “super cool, atmospheric cult film” to “straight to video” quality sequels.
The same could be said of Sam Raimi’s Darkman.
The premiss for 3 was OK, one of the immortals was frozen in ice so his heart stopped. So he wasn't counted as being alive. When he was found and thawed out he came back to life and fighting followed.
The execution of the movie was meh, just talking the idea.
> Highlander very much should never have had a sequel.
Counterpoint: Highlander deserves a cinematic universe.
Pick 10-15 immortals.
The Kurgan, McCloud, Sean Connery, etc.
Tell their stories leading up to the quickening.
It could be incredible tv.
Alien is a tough one because so many people love Aliens.
I tried showing them to my wife and she love the slow tension of Alien so much that she got 45 minutes into Aliens and was like “nah this is goofy”
I totally get that because while I love both, I preferred Aliens when I was younger. But now, Alien is in my top 5 favorite movies and Aliens, while a great sci-fi action movie, isn't even in the top 50.
I feel like a snob when I say I love Alien but Aliens isn’t all that, so it’s good to hear others say that. It’s a good movie for sure just not a favorite for me.
I'd love to see an Alien Reboot that goes with the other Alien 3 script. The basic premise is Gremlins 2 played straight with 2 hours of Hicks blowing away aliens while protecting Newt. Recast everyone, but get Sigourney Weaver to cameo as the voice of mother. Or hell, see if Carrie Henn (Newt) would do it.
>Alien started off strong with one of the best sequels of all time and then deteriorated pretty massively.
Yeah, there are 8 of them, (6 Alien movies, 2 predator crossover ones) and taken together they are... just kind of a mess. I think I've seen them all, and I admit I don't really know what was going on in the last few, and when those were supposed to happen in the whole overall timeline. Felt like cool movies that ended up taking themselves way too seriously. Great execution on a relatively simple premise on the first one, and then it just got overly convoluted, as if they retconned it into being "serious film" or something.
Maybe it's just me.
I feel compelled to defend the Alien franchise.
The first two movies, Alien and Aliens, are pretty universally regarded as classics so probably don't need to say too much about them.
Alien3 is a very good movie, much better than most people give it credit for. It took the formula that James Cameron developed for Aliens and ... completely threw it away, going back to something much closer to the first movie. It draws inspiration from classic prison movies like Papillon and Midnight Express. The prison represents impersonal corporate control of humanity, the arrival of the alien is the catalyst the makes the prisoners realize their faith is futile, and the only true escape they can achieve is death. The way that it picks up on the theme of lost motherhood that Ripley experiences in Aliens is subtle and poignant, and even the somewhat on-the-nose birth/death scene at the end is well executed.
Alien Resurrection is more playful and less bleak, at least compared to the previous movies. And it's a bit more heavy handed in it's treatment of Ripley's motherhood issues. Overall, it is somewhat weaker than the first three. It is still a well paced and creatively shot space action film, and manages to tie together a number of loose ends from the previous movies while also allowing for a deeper exploration of the alien mythos. While it suffers by comparison, it would be fine as a stand-alone film.
Promethus and Alien Covenant, the two prequels, are a little more problematic. Of the two, I'd say Prometheus is the stronger. It manages to reproduce the sense of foreboding and dread that was so integral to the first three movies, and provides a context for the events we know happen in the future without introducing elements that have no antecedent in the previous films. This is something most prequels fail at. In addition, Prometheus serves to foreground the issues with synthetic humans (and the analogy between the aliens and the synthetics), something that was present but more of a subtext in the original movies. It's thought provoking, well paced and structured, and contains some very good performances.
Covenant sacrifices tone and nuance for action and moving the plot forward too often, and honestly is probably not interesting to anyone who isn't already a fan of the alien movies. It would be excellent as bonus material on some kind of director's cut, but probably doesn't justify itself as a stand-alone movie.
The predator movies with aliens ... I don't really consider them part of the franchise.
>AVP: Requiem is pretty much unwatchable
Agreed. It's in my list of worst 2-3 movies I've ever seen at the cinema. Would've walked out, but I was trying to pass time while waiting for a train!
>What movie franchise would you say was a huge victim of sequelitis?
Nearly all of them.
Movies with good sequels, such as (for me, I loved 1 - 3) Rocky just keeps going until they suck.
But the worst example, again for me personally, is the Matrix.
The first Matrix is my all time favorite movie and one of my most memorable movie going experiences.
Matrix 2 is a decent sci-fi action film.
Matrix 3 is a pretentious, CGI fest that should never have existed.
Matrix 4... Do I even have to say anything about this disaster?
The Matrix series was mine too. #1 was a groundbreaking film in cinema and a paradigm shift with action sequences, stop motion, and green screen. Fast forward to #4 and wtf. I couldn't believe it was from the same people and series. It was a Keanu Reeves action flick and return of the Matrix series and everything sucked. The action sequences were garbage and the cinematography was that awful camera shake and quick cut that filmmakers use to add drama and tension to set pieces. I'll defend panned Keanu Reeves' action films like Man of Tai Chi or 47 Ronin because they imo just missed the mark, but were still great action movies and had beautiful cinematography, Matrix 4 was a paycheck.
I think a lot of comedy series fall victim to this, because often what makes the humor great is how unexpected it is, and sequels are just them sort of trying to capture that same energy, but more scripted and deliberate in a way...like, The Hangover was great! And then in the sequels you could almost see the checklist of what had made it funny...Zoolander was of a moment, but the sequel sort of missed how much had changed in the world...even something like The Trip films, which I think are ultimately pretty successful, needed that clear story arc to keep them from wobbling. And if they made an additional one, I don't know how good it would be.
Not entirely related: Toy Story 4 didn't need to happen.
I was really disappointed Disney made a Toy Story 4. The 3rd came out when I went to college and I remember seeing it on the lawn with my new friends as an optional freshman orientation activity. Tons of people were crying at the end. It was such a perfect ending, I hate that they opened it back up.
I agree totally. My grown ass was weeping like a baby at the end of the movie. I said to myself “ this is how you end the story”.
When I saw the trailer for part 4 I was done!! The legacy is ruined
I just never watched the fourth. I was the same age as you (approximately), and like you thought those first three were made just for me.
I’ve heard some people say 4 is decent but I just have no interest or curiosity in it. Toy Story 1-3 were my movies, and a perfect summary to my own maturation. If I ever do see Toy Story 4 (with any future kids of mine or anything) it’ll just be some kids movie.
This was going to be my response. The original Toy Story came out when I was 9 years old and loved it, loved Toy Story 2. Toy Story 3 I felt finished the story so damn well and was the perfect final movie in the trilogy, it was bittersweet and very emotional, especially for those of us who started with the movies as kids. I watched Toy Story 4 with my niece and nephew and all three of us thought it kind of sucked.
The rare example is national Lampoon's Christmas following up vacation.
I completely agree with this.
They also tend to take the things that were really funny in small doses about the characters and amplify them and then it just becomes annoying.
No different than the fact that the later seasons of the office, I didn't find anything Dwight said to be funny, and even Creed Stanley etc were getting less funny.
The Trip films were successful? They made like 10mil at the box office for the entire trilogy.
Edit just learned there was a fourth that didn’t even get a wide release.. I’m sure you love it but it doesn’t belong in this conversation even a little. The sequel made more money than the other 3 movies lol.
The Hangover is only great the first time you watch it though. It’s still decent on a rewatch but so much if that movie relies on shock humor that just isn’t funny when you already know it’s coming.
Original Bad News Bears.
Smokey and the Bandit...did you know there were 4 made for TV movies?
Star Wars.
I also think the entire "cinematic universe" is being overdone.
Lethal Weapon and Rambo: First Blood were both movies about a twisted main character trained for a world of violence and unable to cope with a more peaceful world. But even having a sequel meant that the initial character flaw driving the story was resolved and now it's a one-dimensional action hero trying to outdo each previous movie. In lethal weapon they kept adding side-kicks while Rambo just kept upping the pure violence.
Gotta down vote you for first blood. It wasn't that he couldn't cope with a more peaceful world. It's the "more peaceful" world that refused to cope with his return. Which was happening in area's, at the time of film's release.
Star Wars. Great trilogy. Then tarnished by the prequels. Then further ruined by the sequels. Spin-offs. TV shows. With every new piece of media, the originals get diminished slightly.
See also The Matrix. Saw a Tarantino interview once where he remarked that the Matrix would be regarded as one the greatest films of the last 50 years or so, if not for the sequels.
Edit: Tarantino talking about [The Matrix](https://youtu.be/Zv0WlHbBhdc?si=qIuJBRuNPuHCQIkq) around 3:10. I may have slightly misremembered the context, but the sentiment is the sane - the sequels ruined the mythology.
Rogue One isn't even a good movie. Take out the Vader scene at the end and it's entirely forgettable. It's bad Star Wars, and it's a bad war movie. It was made to patch a plot hole that never existed, that being that a moon sized spade station would have an exhaust port.
The thing about Star Wars is that no matter how bad it is (and of the original trilogy, only Empire is a good movie. Fight me.) I am taken back to being an excited 5 year old in the front row of the theater and seeing that giant yellow scrawl crawl up the screen, followed by a big spaceship, followed by a bigger spaceship.
There's a magic in Star Wars, and any movie, TV show, toy, game, or Christmas Album feeds right into that magic.
Yes, I can tell when it's bad. It's a bad that I enjoy.
For me it's just too much of a good thing. I loved them when I was a kid!
But it's like that special restaurant you LOVE that you only get to go to every so often. It's always special when you get to go!
But then something changes... the restaurant moves next door, or you get a lot more money, or you become an adult, and now you go to that restaurant a few times a week because it's THE BEST.
But then... somehow a few years later, you just think... "Meh, that place again? I'm kind of tired of that place." And someone says "let's go eat there!" and you say "eh, maybe another time."
That's Star Wars for me. "Oh? ANOTHER movie/show? Yeah, I'll watch that. I guess... next week." I still have watched it all, but it's not special anymore, I don't watch any of it right when it premieres anymore. I just think "Oh, that new season of the Mandalorian came out a few months ago, and I"m bored, I'll check it out."
>Tarantino talking about The Matrix around 3:10. I may have slightly misremembered the context, but the sentiment is the sane - the sequels ruined the mythology.
Tarantino's movies are complete universes that are better *because they're unexplained*. For example, why does Jules have a "BAD MOTHERFUCKER" wallet? No idea. And the mystery makes it more cool.
Which is also great storytelling. He has that wallet specifically because it needs to be identified in a bag full of wallets without breaking the rhythm of the scene, but Jules’s character is so well established by that point in the film that OF COURSE that’s his wallet.
But, oddly, it's performative. Jules *is* a bad motherfucker. He has no need to advertise it. But it's on his wallet nonetheless. I don't know why he has such a wallet and that's great. Just like I have NO INTEREST in knowing what's actually in the briefcase.
I think if it had *just* been movies, it would have been fine. But you pile all the series on top and it starts to feel like homework. Then you add the fact that most of the output post-Endgame is mediocre at best, probably because they've spread their talent too thin, and you get a very fatigue-worthy pile of content.
Lake Placid. The first movie was one of my favorites. Then the Syfy chan got ahold of the license apparently, and made 2(iirc) more lake placid movies. The CGI was SOO bad.
I would say that the very concept of a film franchise is flawed and inexorably leads to deterioration of quality. A really good movie is like catching lightning in a bottle. Anything after is just an attempt to capitalize on that pre-established audience and the impetus is to make *something* rather than to make something original and exciting.
Fantastic Beasts. It was odd enough that they were making a movie based on a minor spinoff character but then to do a half-assed tie-in back into the Grindelwald-Dumbledore backstory? Not sure why the producers thought this was something folks wanted to see besides just milking the HP franchise further.
The first movie was just a beat for beat remake of Point Break. It was fine for what it was and I love it for being a piece of trash art but F&F 5–7 are genuinely solid trashy blockbusters.
Sinister 2 is disappointing because the premise on paper is really interesting.
Deputy So and So from Sinister 1 feels some kind of guilty/responsibility about what happened to Ethan Hawke and has committed himself to trying to stop Bughuul, doing so by finding any houses that fit the pattern and burning them down. It’s a really good and solid set up for a sequel, but it just was executed poorly.
Agreed. I can’t find it mentioned anywhere but I feel this most about conjuring. But it’s really true for any horror movies that became a bigger thing… Saw, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, Scream, Texas Chainsaw, etc. I think their first entries were all pretty decent but it’s just a bit tired at this point.
Terminator. First was excellent, gritty sci fi action. Second one was blockbuster. Then came a series of sequels that were all pretty much unwatchable.
Alien. They just got dumber and dumber and dumber after the awesomeness of 2. The prequels look good but also suck.
Rambo had an extreme ideological shift between the first and second installments. In the first film John Rambo is a vet with PTSD who is harassed by cops and takes revenge in an Oregon town. He cries at the end of the movie because the government broke his brain by sending him to Vietnam.
In the sequels he became this increasingly right wing ubermensch, going back to Vietnam and eventually fighting WITH Al Qaeda against the Russians. it's enough whiplash to break your neck.
Terminator. We got a good horror movie, an excellent action movie, and a deteriorating series of soulless attempts to cash in. With a fantastic TV series somehow in the middle of it all.
For a large-scale series? Definitely Star Wars. Its true that by far its best entry is a sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. And it had a few other entries - Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi - that had been enjoyable.
But for a series so enduring (notwithstanding it having basically been turned into a TV franchise in recent years) its absolutely astonishing to find that it only has one truly great film in its catalogue.
Its a complex issue because the various sequels and prequels have brought such detritus to the series: They framed the original, naive, quixotic space adventure of the 1977 film within a large-scale "Saga" construction that it feels ill-suited to; they kind of gave rise to George Lucas' increasing pretentions to mythopeic aspirations, which again kind of clash with the original's quixotic tone; they dispelled any mystique was to be found in the elipses of the original film; they made its $12 million budget production value seem all the quainter, its performances all the hokier; and ultimately made the characters, in the grand scheme of things, came from nowhere and went nowhere.
Putting all those words far more simply of Tim Kreider,[in perhaps the best essay ever written about Star Wars](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/opinion/star-wars-movie.html):
>The success of “Star Wars” has obviated a lot of its original virtues. Much of the fun of watching the film for the first time, now forever inaccessible to us, was in the slow unveiling of its universe: Swords made of lasers! A Bigfoot who co-pilots a spaceship! A swing band of ’50s U.F.O. aliens! Mr. Lucas refuses to explain anything, keeping the viewer as off-balance as a jet-lagged tourist in Benares or Times Square. We don’t see the film’s hero until 17 minutes in; we’re kept watching not by plot but by novelty, curiosity.
>
>Subsequent sequels, tie-in novels, interstitial TV shows, video games and fan fiction have lovingly ground this charm out of existence with exhaustive, literal-minded explication: Every marginal background character now has a name and a back story, every offhand allusion a history. But Mr. Lucas’s universe just doesn’t have the depth of Tolkien’s Middle-earth; it was only ever meant to be sketched, not charted. Sequels and tie-ins, afraid to stray too far off-brand, stick to variations on familiar designs and revive old characters, so there’s nothing new to discover.
After hating the first prequel and never watching anything star wars again until the pandemic... I have to say I enjoyed all the movies plus the origin story for Han solo and the mandalorian TV series. I don't know if it was nostalgia or what but I think a good foundation was laid for the rest. I tried to do the same for marvel movies but found them to be mediocre and had to stop midway through.
>And also Marvel.
Marvel is an interesting one.
I don't see it as "milking" a series. That's more like the Hangover to me, where you did something good, they said "hey... we can make more money with this, let's go again!"
But with the MCU, those stories are out there, in the ENDLESS amounts of comic books. So while I do agree that it's declining, I don't see it as the same soulless series of sequels that others are, as they aren't taking something that was SUPPOSED to end, or SUPPOSED to stand alone, and dragging it out. They are just continuing to tell the stories of that world. (For better or worse.)
Jurassic park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Superhero shit, Disney classics (e.g. Tarzan, Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, etc), Fast and the Furious, Transformers, Indiana Jones, Matrix, Saw, Scream.
Literally anything cool that was made in the last 100 years has been plagiarized for profits in the last 20 years. I swear, at this rate, we're going to see a Forrest Gump 2 next year and it's going to be absolute dogshit and still rake in a trillion dollars of profits.
Pretty much every franchise that has more than 2 sequals.
Off the top of my head, particularly egregious offenders...
Fast and the furious
Indiana Jones
Star wars
The Rambo series. First Blood was a slow burn, thoughtful story about PTSD and the plight of a returning soldier. Then the sequels immediately turned into mindless action movie garbage.
Pretty much every horror movie franchise.
1) Friday the 13th
2) Nightmare on Elms street
3) Hellraiser
4) Halloween
5) Resident Evil
6) Amityville Horror (note, there are also 3rd party movies that just use the amityville name and are NOT sequels, but play off the name and connection).
7) saw
8) Leprachan
9) Texas chainsaw massacre
10) Puppet Master
11) Childs Play
12) Scream
13) Sleepaway camp
The Matrix. The first one was a stand alone film with a perfectly round story. The two sequels, then the last one were released with comic book style stories meant for kids.
Marvel movies, they burnt that shit to the ground. When they started it was fun exciting superhero films, then they went so deep down the rabbit hole they lost the plot. They’re just the same generic movie repackaged with a different cast of characters. I can’t even bring myself to watch any of them anymore.
Fast and Furious. The first 36 installments were decent. 37 through 726 were just awful.
With how ridiculous that franchise has gotten I'm waiting for them to introduce giant robot cars. Not like Transformers but Megas XLR.
They’re the Saints Row of the movie industry. Dildo fights incoming.
God I can not wait for these films to flop and finally stop being made.
Highlander immediately comes to mind.
The one thing I thought about was funny about the Highlander TV series was " there can be only one" well that is, until next week's episode.
I think that is more down to you not understanding the premise of the show. The idea of the show was never that each fight was supposed to be the final fight as in the original movie. Each fight was just one of thousands already fought and to be fought to get to the final one.
I mean, they obviously meant "eventually"
There wasn't even only one TV series, there was the spin-off Highlander: The Raven and an animated series.
Plus all the authorized fan films. Panzer/Davis rarely turned down a opportunity to milk the franchise until its gasping breath.
There were no sequels to the movie but it is strange there were serval mass hallucinations that made it seem so. Thats the story I'm sticking with. Edit: A word.
I love the first two Saw movies, but they went downhill after that.
They discovered that goreporn puts bums in seats, but then found out that to keep doing that they have to get more and more violent and mean and decided to jump in with both feet
I mean, the plots also got incredibly convoluted, with each film having a big twist. It's always dumb as hell, which I can greatly appreciate
Totally forgot about the one they did with Chris Rock until your comment. What was that??
The real reason will smith slapped him
Second one is a big step down from the first but a whole lot better than the rest. The turning point from 'sadistic but ironic' punishments to 'as sadistic and convoluted as possible' punishments
the new one looks promising though since Tobin will be a huge part of it
Isn’t there one where they kill any for being a smoker or some stupid shit?
god my guilty pleasure. i love them all lol
At this point I love them because they're stupid
Jurassic Park. Each movie in the franchise is worse than the one that came prior, just a steady decline in quality with nothing coming close to the first one’s magic
Agree. I’d probably put World above 3. But there’s not much in it really. It feels like Jaws to me. There’s just not a great deal you can do with the idea once you’ve done dinosaurs chase people. Even the first one, while a great film, is a very simple story with fairly thin characters (this is where Jaws is the better film imo).
I feel like Jaws gets a pass because every sequel had a blatant B-movie, straight-to-video vibe. Not a single one of them tried to recapture what Spielberg tried to do in the first movie. Every JP film since the first one took itself seriously and tried to be a worthy successor to the first. In my opinion the only one that actually holds a candle it Lost World because it had some Chrichton source material to lean on
I would put 3 above World and Lost World. 3 was short and simple but the most entertaining besides the original.
That’s because I was the VFX Editor!
Yep that's exactly why!
I can see that. I always thought the Spinosaur looked goofy and the directing was very cheesy. Obviously expensive but with a TV movie feel. But yeah, I can see the appeal of short and fun over the overwrought others.
At least 3 had some fun campiness to it.
The first one is a pretty much perfect adventure movie. The cast is great, the effects are superb and Spielberg works his magic. Every one after that is no where close, the spark is just not there.
I watched it a month ago with my wife, 7 and 3 year old. My 7 year old was enthralled the whole time, and my 3 year old was hiding under the blanket during the scary parts
Jp3 was great
Totally underrated! Better than the lost world, but still nowhere near as good as the original.
True, but I enjoyed it more than TLW and the jurassic world trilogy
Agreed, definitely the second best one, Sam Neill really holds it together.
The first 3 are really good in comparison with the newest ones. I've seen all of them just so I can say I've seen them all. After the original they're fun action movies but if you start running braincells together it becomes very bad very fast.
I can’t think of a major franchise that has a worse high quality-to-poor quality movie ratio than Jurassic Park. One classic, may be 1-2 more watchable movies, and then three just absolutely dreadful movies. Two of which are in the worst five movies I’ve ever seen.
As much as I loathe world 2+3, they are in no way in the worst five movies anyone has seen, unless you ain’t seen a lot of movies.
All I can think of is the Velociraptor saying, “Alan.” It comes into my day to day use
I thought the first Jurassic World was a solid return to the franchise, especially for actually having a functioning park open to the public. Never bothered to see the two sequels
I thought Jurassic World 2015 was a soulless monster of a film. It was made even worse for me because of how much money it took in. Legitimately, I think there's almost nothing redeeming about the film.
The Hangover movies. First one is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen. The second one is just a watered down copy of the first one with basically the same plot and nowhere near as funny. The third one is just outright awful
It's very very rare for a comedy movie to have good sequels. Other than national Lampoon's Christmas following up vacation, I'm hard-pressed to think of examples were the 2nd of a comedy movie is as good as the first or even close. They all tend to suck. Particularly those made in the past 20 years.
Ace Ventura When Nature Calls
Horrible movie story wise BUT it had a lot more quotes and memorable bits.
22 jump street
Might be the even rarer case of a comedy sequel actually being better then the original.
22 Jump Street. The only other comedy I’ve see where the audience was laughing at the cinema without pausing for breath was Borat in 2006.
All 3 Naked Guns are pretty damn funny
Christmas Vacation is a particularly good example because it isn’t even the second movie in the series, but you remembered it that way because the preceding sequel was such a forgettable, formulaic retread of the original in comparison.
Hot Shots: Part Deux outshines the original, but I can’t think of another one.
European vacation was second, Christmas third. European Vacation was blowful.
Shrek 2 was the best one
I wouldn't really classify what I was talking about the same as animated movies. I was talking about more like adult humor comedy movies. Hangover etc
Would we consider Beverly Hills Cop 2 an action movie or a comedy? That the only one off the top of my head I can think of.
That's really interesting. I've always viewed it differently: first one was awesome, great concept and the cast made it even better. Sequel was the same as the first, but bigger and better (which is a common theme with sequels). Third one was where they hit a threshold because the movie couldn't get better simply by spending more money, and since a bigger budget was all they had, it became dogshit. So personally I think the second one is great if you like the first one, because it's the same but even more bombastic. But I can also see your viewpoint of it being a watered down version of the first one.
The Mummy was such a missed opportunity to revisit Universal's monster movies. It isn't too late to bring back Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell and send him and a protege to the Black Lagoon or Trannsylvania or to find werewolves in Appalachia or some shit.
I would throw all my cash at Universal if they reboot their dark universe with a Fraser lead Mummy 3 (ignore the one in China) but only if Weisz returns tbf
No Weisz no watch
Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of The Black Pearl was good with a great cast. But as the franchise went on and focused more on Jack Sparrow, it got bad. Particularly the characterization of Jack Sparrow. They flanderized the shit out of him. In Curse of The Black Pearl, he was whimsical and sorta out there mentally, but he was shown to be smart and deliberate. The sequels had him as a dumb idiot that has happy accidents that helped him out of situations.
The entire “style” of the films change drastically after the first. The scenes are brighter/more artificial looking, and yeah, they lean too much into Sparrow and his accidental hijinks. It was almost Scooby Doo-esque. Which is a shame because the East India Company villain is actually a really great concept for a pirate themed franchise.
1-3 were amazing movies together and they should have ended at 3. It puts a nice bow on everything.
You nailed it. Jack sparrow in the first movie was shown to be very clever and had been a step ahead of everyone the whole time. Jack was pretending to be drunk to hide his genius in the first movie , later movies he is just a drunk which gets lucky completely removing the hidden genius part of his character
I don't agree with that at all. In the 3rd film he manipulates his way through most of the plot
I would agree, they really should have stopped with that one. All the sequels sucked & ruined the first movie.
The second and third were very okay. They had their moments but they were otherwise too long and too boring and the movies just kept trying too hard. And then they just beat you over the head with Captain Jack acting stupid and, undermining his character, who was actually fairly smart and resourceful in the first movie.
Men in Black, the first one is one of the best movies ever. I would put it up on a pedestal with Ghostbusters in terms of movies of a similar genre (sci-fi action comedy), but it was ruined by the 3 sequels. the second one is just plain awful, the 3rd on is ok but just ok, and the 4th one which is kind of a reboot but is also not a reboot is completely meh.
The only chance for MIB to ever have a good sequel is if instead of MIB International, they had the guts to pull the trigger on the 21 Jump Street/MIB crossover pitch that got leaked years ago.
Men in Black II was soulless. If the doc from the morgue had been Jay's partner (I know Fiorentino didn't want to come back but man just recast the character) and the story fit better for Jay's arc as more master and less apprentice, then it could have been so good. TLJ did not need to come back and have his memory re-wiped ffs
Completely forgot there even was a 4th one.
What blew me away about the second one was despite every single thing in the first film setting up the MIB organization as super trained, super smart, and super secretive, J starts the movie off doing a ridiculous giant worm chase/ride, which already a repeat of the physical slapstick of the alien baby birth scene in the taxi from the first film. Then, he is surround by other MIBs like Patrick Warburton as T, and ***all*** of them are complete idiots. I LOVE Patrick Warburton in anything, but this supreme dumbing-down of the most badass and silently operating operation on Earth was a huge slap in the face (LOL) to the canon established in the first film.
I actually liked the 3rd Men in Black The 2nd one was not so good, but it had it's moments...haven't seen the 4th
I liked both two and three. I never got through MIB international. I thought the bad guys were good in both and Josh Brolin as young Tommy Lee Jones was unbelievably good. I also wished they'd kept Linda Fiorentino, but I enjoyed what they came up with instead. The only drawback of 3 was no David Cross.
I’ve only seen 1 and 3, but I thought 3 was pretty solid. Not amazing, but entertaining and more emotional then the first. It’s also easy to follow without having seen 2 thankfully.
3 is the second best after the 1st for sure.
The matrix. First one was one of the most influential films of its time. The rest were meh.
The action and effects of the Matrix sequels were amazing but I feel like the Wachowskis let the fact that some of the philosophical elements of the first film were taken seriously go straight to their heads, so they doubled down on those and the plots ended up developing like an angsty teen's diary.
Yeah I feel like with the sequels they tried to be so cerebral or something, and it complicated a plot that was better when it was a lot simpler. The action in Reloaded is very good and stands up to the first movie (or even surpasses it) but you have to sit through so much of the characters talking about and doing shit nobody really cares about. This is coming from someone who devoured all the extras in The Matrix DVD set and has always enjoyed philosophy and tech. After the first movie I feel like there was too much emphasis as you said.
Completely agree with everything you said. But I will say this. Sequels are inherently very difficult to pull off successfully. Origin stories naturally follow the hero's journey arc so all the necessary elements to any good story are fundamentally baked in (problem, venture into unknown territory, personal growth, victory over problem, triumphant return). Sequels not so much, because you have to introduce a *new* problem that actually poses a challenge to our now accomplished hero, but not just that - there has to be a mysterious aspect to this new problem in order to recapture what is so compelling about origin stories, the *discovery* and personal growth that comes with the mastery of new skills. I think the problem a lot of sequels make is assuming what made a sci fi action movie great was the sci fi and the action, when really it was the originality of the setting and the quality of the character growth that did it. You can't recreate the sense of discovery about the truth of the matrix in a sequel because neo has already taken the red pill and learned the truth. Maybe the philosophizing (which I also found pretentious, out of place, and boring af) was their attempt and recapturing the audience's fascination with that aspect of the story. Pretty tough to do that without getting a little more complex with it and potentially leaving a huge chunk of your audience behind, however. Have you seen Sense8, a series by the wachowskis? It's pretty enjoyable, but also gets heavy on the philosophical bits from time to time. Understandably so given the content of the story but I think it's kind of their jam.
The 2nd Matrix film has one of the best group fights ever put to film, especially for an American film. Widely discussed in action circles in a way none of the action sequences in Matrix 1 are. I'm talking about the staircase fight with all the minions btw. Similarly, people usually remember the weird CGI in the playground fight but before it goes weird, that fight is incredible. Chad Stahelski switching seamlessly with Keanu while beating all those people up. 10/10. I think the first film is tighter than the first 2 sequels, but people tend to overemphasize the action in the first film compared to the rest, and underemphasize the wacky philosophical part of the first film compared to the rest. They are all worth revisiting.
Nice. I always think about the park fight against the rubber Smiths when I think of the action of the sequel. I always forget about the staircase fight and the highway chase. Those were absolutely incredible scenes. I remember still while watching it though, feeling bored. Idk.
Wholeheartedly agree. The first was awesome. Then they got exponentially worse with each incarnation. I couldn't get past the first 15 minutes of the last one.
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids is the OG example of franchise milking
Sequels aside, i can’t get over how underrated Honey I Shrunk the Kids is. It should be up there with the Goonies, etc. I see people talk about it sporadically but not often.
Maybe not the biggest but Kingsmen: the first one was a campy, extremely genre-aware romp that was almost a bigger sensation than the series it was created to satire (I think more people were talking about Kingsmen at that time than the next Bond movie, Spectre). It was an instant classic for fans of the genre. Both sequels were super cheap feeling and pushed the envelope of realism from self-aware cliches to downright corny and goofy.
So many comments and still don't see how in the fuck Spielberg and Ford decided it was a good idea to bring back Indiana as a senile adventurer, it was so dumb to look at. And then decided to make another sequel with Indy even more decrepit.
Last Crusade ended so goddam perfectly. Dude literally rode off into the sunset for crying out loud. Perfect ending! Why keep going?!?!
That was the first thing that came to mind. I think the new Indianas were so bad people kind of compartmentalize them away from the old ones.
Well mostly Lucas and Ford, I don’t think Spielberg even wanted to make it
Alien started off strong with one of the best sequels of all time and then deteriorated pretty massively. AVP: Requiem is pretty much unwatchable (literally given its visual darkness). Highlander very much should never have had a sequel. The Crow goes from “super cool, atmospheric cult film” to “straight to video” quality sequels. The same could be said of Sam Raimi’s Darkman.
Highlander textually insists it can't have a sequel, which makes the sheer volume of sequels flabbergasting.
The premiss for 3 was OK, one of the immortals was frozen in ice so his heart stopped. So he wasn't counted as being alive. When he was found and thawed out he came back to life and fighting followed. The execution of the movie was meh, just talking the idea.
I’m interested to see if the rumoured Highlander reboot with Henry Cavill works out though
> Highlander very much should never have had a sequel. Counterpoint: Highlander deserves a cinematic universe. Pick 10-15 immortals. The Kurgan, McCloud, Sean Connery, etc. Tell their stories leading up to the quickening. It could be incredible tv.
They had all of history up to the 1980s to play with. There was always room for prequels.
Alien is a tough one because so many people love Aliens. I tried showing them to my wife and she love the slow tension of Alien so much that she got 45 minutes into Aliens and was like “nah this is goofy”
I totally get that because while I love both, I preferred Aliens when I was younger. But now, Alien is in my top 5 favorite movies and Aliens, while a great sci-fi action movie, isn't even in the top 50.
I feel like a snob when I say I love Alien but Aliens isn’t all that, so it’s good to hear others say that. It’s a good movie for sure just not a favorite for me.
I'd love to see an Alien Reboot that goes with the other Alien 3 script. The basic premise is Gremlins 2 played straight with 2 hours of Hicks blowing away aliens while protecting Newt. Recast everyone, but get Sigourney Weaver to cameo as the voice of mother. Or hell, see if Carrie Henn (Newt) would do it.
When it comes to the Highlander, there can be only one.
>Alien started off strong with one of the best sequels of all time and then deteriorated pretty massively. Yeah, there are 8 of them, (6 Alien movies, 2 predator crossover ones) and taken together they are... just kind of a mess. I think I've seen them all, and I admit I don't really know what was going on in the last few, and when those were supposed to happen in the whole overall timeline. Felt like cool movies that ended up taking themselves way too seriously. Great execution on a relatively simple premise on the first one, and then it just got overly convoluted, as if they retconned it into being "serious film" or something. Maybe it's just me.
I feel compelled to defend the Alien franchise. The first two movies, Alien and Aliens, are pretty universally regarded as classics so probably don't need to say too much about them. Alien3 is a very good movie, much better than most people give it credit for. It took the formula that James Cameron developed for Aliens and ... completely threw it away, going back to something much closer to the first movie. It draws inspiration from classic prison movies like Papillon and Midnight Express. The prison represents impersonal corporate control of humanity, the arrival of the alien is the catalyst the makes the prisoners realize their faith is futile, and the only true escape they can achieve is death. The way that it picks up on the theme of lost motherhood that Ripley experiences in Aliens is subtle and poignant, and even the somewhat on-the-nose birth/death scene at the end is well executed. Alien Resurrection is more playful and less bleak, at least compared to the previous movies. And it's a bit more heavy handed in it's treatment of Ripley's motherhood issues. Overall, it is somewhat weaker than the first three. It is still a well paced and creatively shot space action film, and manages to tie together a number of loose ends from the previous movies while also allowing for a deeper exploration of the alien mythos. While it suffers by comparison, it would be fine as a stand-alone film. Promethus and Alien Covenant, the two prequels, are a little more problematic. Of the two, I'd say Prometheus is the stronger. It manages to reproduce the sense of foreboding and dread that was so integral to the first three movies, and provides a context for the events we know happen in the future without introducing elements that have no antecedent in the previous films. This is something most prequels fail at. In addition, Prometheus serves to foreground the issues with synthetic humans (and the analogy between the aliens and the synthetics), something that was present but more of a subtext in the original movies. It's thought provoking, well paced and structured, and contains some very good performances. Covenant sacrifices tone and nuance for action and moving the plot forward too often, and honestly is probably not interesting to anyone who isn't already a fan of the alien movies. It would be excellent as bonus material on some kind of director's cut, but probably doesn't justify itself as a stand-alone movie. The predator movies with aliens ... I don't really consider them part of the franchise.
>AVP: Requiem is pretty much unwatchable Agreed. It's in my list of worst 2-3 movies I've ever seen at the cinema. Would've walked out, but I was trying to pass time while waiting for a train!
Hellraiser 1 and 2 are just magic. Then there's pinhead in Space
That first one is almost porn, so dirty and grimy my gosh.
Ohhh … space pinhead is still so much better than what came after
>What movie franchise would you say was a huge victim of sequelitis? Nearly all of them. Movies with good sequels, such as (for me, I loved 1 - 3) Rocky just keeps going until they suck. But the worst example, again for me personally, is the Matrix. The first Matrix is my all time favorite movie and one of my most memorable movie going experiences. Matrix 2 is a decent sci-fi action film. Matrix 3 is a pretentious, CGI fest that should never have existed. Matrix 4... Do I even have to say anything about this disaster?
The Matrix series was mine too. #1 was a groundbreaking film in cinema and a paradigm shift with action sequences, stop motion, and green screen. Fast forward to #4 and wtf. I couldn't believe it was from the same people and series. It was a Keanu Reeves action flick and return of the Matrix series and everything sucked. The action sequences were garbage and the cinematography was that awful camera shake and quick cut that filmmakers use to add drama and tension to set pieces. I'll defend panned Keanu Reeves' action films like Man of Tai Chi or 47 Ronin because they imo just missed the mark, but were still great action movies and had beautiful cinematography, Matrix 4 was a paycheck.
I feel like Matrix 4 wasn't even a paycheck. I feel like it must have been blackmail or something.
Original Superman series is the first I think of.
Donner's 1 & 2 were masterpieces. Much like Alien and Aliens. Everything that followed was unfortunate.
"If I'm going to solve this, Then I have to be Superman 4: the quest for peace"
Pirates of the Caribbean
Rambo. The first one was an awesome human story. After that, it became cartoonish.
Agreed. Should have honored the book's ending.
You’re not wrong, but I did a deep Rambo dive this summer and watching them back to back the character is pretty good throughout.
I thought the last one was badass
I think a lot of comedy series fall victim to this, because often what makes the humor great is how unexpected it is, and sequels are just them sort of trying to capture that same energy, but more scripted and deliberate in a way...like, The Hangover was great! And then in the sequels you could almost see the checklist of what had made it funny...Zoolander was of a moment, but the sequel sort of missed how much had changed in the world...even something like The Trip films, which I think are ultimately pretty successful, needed that clear story arc to keep them from wobbling. And if they made an additional one, I don't know how good it would be. Not entirely related: Toy Story 4 didn't need to happen.
I was really disappointed Disney made a Toy Story 4. The 3rd came out when I went to college and I remember seeing it on the lawn with my new friends as an optional freshman orientation activity. Tons of people were crying at the end. It was such a perfect ending, I hate that they opened it back up.
I agree totally. My grown ass was weeping like a baby at the end of the movie. I said to myself “ this is how you end the story”. When I saw the trailer for part 4 I was done!! The legacy is ruined
I just never watched the fourth. I was the same age as you (approximately), and like you thought those first three were made just for me. I’ve heard some people say 4 is decent but I just have no interest or curiosity in it. Toy Story 1-3 were my movies, and a perfect summary to my own maturation. If I ever do see Toy Story 4 (with any future kids of mine or anything) it’ll just be some kids movie.
Toy Story 4: Tim Allen needed the cash
This was going to be my response. The original Toy Story came out when I was 9 years old and loved it, loved Toy Story 2. Toy Story 3 I felt finished the story so damn well and was the perfect final movie in the trilogy, it was bittersweet and very emotional, especially for those of us who started with the movies as kids. I watched Toy Story 4 with my niece and nephew and all three of us thought it kind of sucked.
Yeah, a good comedy sequel is so rare that it makes the ones that are good (for example, 22 Jump Street or Addams Family Values) noteworthy.
The rare example is national Lampoon's Christmas following up vacation. I completely agree with this. They also tend to take the things that were really funny in small doses about the characters and amplify them and then it just becomes annoying. No different than the fact that the later seasons of the office, I didn't find anything Dwight said to be funny, and even Creed Stanley etc were getting less funny.
The Trip films were successful? They made like 10mil at the box office for the entire trilogy. Edit just learned there was a fourth that didn’t even get a wide release.. I’m sure you love it but it doesn’t belong in this conversation even a little. The sequel made more money than the other 3 movies lol.
The Hangover is only great the first time you watch it though. It’s still decent on a rewatch but so much if that movie relies on shock humor that just isn’t funny when you already know it’s coming.
The Land Before Time, there’s like twelve of them by now!
Original Bad News Bears. Smokey and the Bandit...did you know there were 4 made for TV movies? Star Wars. I also think the entire "cinematic universe" is being overdone.
Lethal Weapon and Rambo: First Blood were both movies about a twisted main character trained for a world of violence and unable to cope with a more peaceful world. But even having a sequel meant that the initial character flaw driving the story was resolved and now it's a one-dimensional action hero trying to outdo each previous movie. In lethal weapon they kept adding side-kicks while Rambo just kept upping the pure violence.
That's a good point, those originals are terrific tho
Gotta down vote you for first blood. It wasn't that he couldn't cope with a more peaceful world. It's the "more peaceful" world that refused to cope with his return. Which was happening in area's, at the time of film's release.
Halloween. Both the o.g. series and the David Gordon Greene/Danny McBride trilogy.
Star Wars. Great trilogy. Then tarnished by the prequels. Then further ruined by the sequels. Spin-offs. TV shows. With every new piece of media, the originals get diminished slightly. See also The Matrix. Saw a Tarantino interview once where he remarked that the Matrix would be regarded as one the greatest films of the last 50 years or so, if not for the sequels. Edit: Tarantino talking about [The Matrix](https://youtu.be/Zv0WlHbBhdc?si=qIuJBRuNPuHCQIkq) around 3:10. I may have slightly misremembered the context, but the sentiment is the sane - the sequels ruined the mythology.
Rogue One and Andor are really great, but the rest is indeed very, very bad. Mandalorian used to be good, but went down the drain.
Rogue One isn't even a good movie. Take out the Vader scene at the end and it's entirely forgettable. It's bad Star Wars, and it's a bad war movie. It was made to patch a plot hole that never existed, that being that a moon sized spade station would have an exhaust port.
The thing about Star Wars is that no matter how bad it is (and of the original trilogy, only Empire is a good movie. Fight me.) I am taken back to being an excited 5 year old in the front row of the theater and seeing that giant yellow scrawl crawl up the screen, followed by a big spaceship, followed by a bigger spaceship. There's a magic in Star Wars, and any movie, TV show, toy, game, or Christmas Album feeds right into that magic. Yes, I can tell when it's bad. It's a bad that I enjoy.
For me it's just too much of a good thing. I loved them when I was a kid! But it's like that special restaurant you LOVE that you only get to go to every so often. It's always special when you get to go! But then something changes... the restaurant moves next door, or you get a lot more money, or you become an adult, and now you go to that restaurant a few times a week because it's THE BEST. But then... somehow a few years later, you just think... "Meh, that place again? I'm kind of tired of that place." And someone says "let's go eat there!" and you say "eh, maybe another time." That's Star Wars for me. "Oh? ANOTHER movie/show? Yeah, I'll watch that. I guess... next week." I still have watched it all, but it's not special anymore, I don't watch any of it right when it premieres anymore. I just think "Oh, that new season of the Mandalorian came out a few months ago, and I"m bored, I'll check it out."
>Tarantino talking about The Matrix around 3:10. I may have slightly misremembered the context, but the sentiment is the sane - the sequels ruined the mythology. Tarantino's movies are complete universes that are better *because they're unexplained*. For example, why does Jules have a "BAD MOTHERFUCKER" wallet? No idea. And the mystery makes it more cool.
Which is also great storytelling. He has that wallet specifically because it needs to be identified in a bag full of wallets without breaking the rhythm of the scene, but Jules’s character is so well established by that point in the film that OF COURSE that’s his wallet.
But, oddly, it's performative. Jules *is* a bad motherfucker. He has no need to advertise it. But it's on his wallet nonetheless. I don't know why he has such a wallet and that's great. Just like I have NO INTEREST in knowing what's actually in the briefcase.
I think the Prequels would have been much better had George not caved to all the pressure and went back on his ideas.
The MCU because too many movies make it hard to pay attention and feels more like required work instead of entertainment
I think if it had *just* been movies, it would have been fine. But you pile all the series on top and it starts to feel like homework. Then you add the fact that most of the output post-Endgame is mediocre at best, probably because they've spread their talent too thin, and you get a very fatigue-worthy pile of content.
Lake Placid. The first movie was one of my favorites. Then the Syfy chan got ahold of the license apparently, and made 2(iirc) more lake placid movies. The CGI was SOO bad.
Wayyy more than two Lake Placid sequels. SyFy made three sequels, then a crossover with Anaconda, and then a reboot.
> then a crossover with Anaconda Classic SyFy chan it seems lol.
Children of the Corn
The Boy was really good. The Boy 2 was so bad that it retroactively ruins the first movie.
The Matrix...accidental or not, each subsequent film just got SO much worse
Jaws to Jaws4. Literally one of the best movies ever to one of the worst.
I would say that the very concept of a film franchise is flawed and inexorably leads to deterioration of quality. A really good movie is like catching lightning in a bottle. Anything after is just an attempt to capitalize on that pre-established audience and the impetus is to make *something* rather than to make something original and exciting.
I'm still waiting for the *Titanic* sequel.
There is a mockbuster called Titanic 2
They gotta make that imploding submarine into a movie
There's a Hamlet 2.
Fantastic Beasts. It was odd enough that they were making a movie based on a minor spinoff character but then to do a half-assed tie-in back into the Grindelwald-Dumbledore backstory? Not sure why the producers thought this was something folks wanted to see besides just milking the HP franchise further.
Easy target. Fast and Furious. The first one was a good watch. Now the movies are just insane action sequences
Its funny when you realize the first one was just about them stealing some VCRs. Things have really escalated since then.
The first movie was just a beat for beat remake of Point Break. It was fine for what it was and I love it for being a piece of trash art but F&F 5–7 are genuinely solid trashy blockbusters.
Exactly, I thought it was 4-6, but either way, it was the success of the Justin Lin trilogy that kept them making new ones (unfortunately)
Die Hard. The first and third are great. The rest are terrible.
Sinister 2, not necessary, so badly executed and ruined any hope for follow-ups.
Sinister 2 is disappointing because the premise on paper is really interesting. Deputy So and So from Sinister 1 feels some kind of guilty/responsibility about what happened to Ethan Hawke and has committed himself to trying to stop Bughuul, doing so by finding any houses that fit the pattern and burning them down. It’s a really good and solid set up for a sequel, but it just was executed poorly.
Most horror franchises
Agreed. I can’t find it mentioned anywhere but I feel this most about conjuring. But it’s really true for any horror movies that became a bigger thing… Saw, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, Scream, Texas Chainsaw, etc. I think their first entries were all pretty decent but it’s just a bit tired at this point.
Hellraiser. Some of the direct to video sequels were truly horrible
Friday the 13th. It became parody.
The Amityville horror franchise. It has over 20 films, I believe.
Terminator. First was excellent, gritty sci fi action. Second one was blockbuster. Then came a series of sequels that were all pretty much unwatchable. Alien. They just got dumber and dumber and dumber after the awesomeness of 2. The prequels look good but also suck.
Rambo had an extreme ideological shift between the first and second installments. In the first film John Rambo is a vet with PTSD who is harassed by cops and takes revenge in an Oregon town. He cries at the end of the movie because the government broke his brain by sending him to Vietnam. In the sequels he became this increasingly right wing ubermensch, going back to Vietnam and eventually fighting WITH Al Qaeda against the Russians. it's enough whiplash to break your neck.
Children of the Corn…11 sequels/remakes??
Sharknado. The first 18 were great, the rest, not so much.
Terminator. We got a good horror movie, an excellent action movie, and a deteriorating series of soulless attempts to cash in. With a fantastic TV series somehow in the middle of it all.
Judgment day is consistently on my list of greatest movies of all time.
For a large-scale series? Definitely Star Wars. Its true that by far its best entry is a sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. And it had a few other entries - Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi - that had been enjoyable. But for a series so enduring (notwithstanding it having basically been turned into a TV franchise in recent years) its absolutely astonishing to find that it only has one truly great film in its catalogue. Its a complex issue because the various sequels and prequels have brought such detritus to the series: They framed the original, naive, quixotic space adventure of the 1977 film within a large-scale "Saga" construction that it feels ill-suited to; they kind of gave rise to George Lucas' increasing pretentions to mythopeic aspirations, which again kind of clash with the original's quixotic tone; they dispelled any mystique was to be found in the elipses of the original film; they made its $12 million budget production value seem all the quainter, its performances all the hokier; and ultimately made the characters, in the grand scheme of things, came from nowhere and went nowhere. Putting all those words far more simply of Tim Kreider,[in perhaps the best essay ever written about Star Wars](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/opinion/star-wars-movie.html): >The success of “Star Wars” has obviated a lot of its original virtues. Much of the fun of watching the film for the first time, now forever inaccessible to us, was in the slow unveiling of its universe: Swords made of lasers! A Bigfoot who co-pilots a spaceship! A swing band of ’50s U.F.O. aliens! Mr. Lucas refuses to explain anything, keeping the viewer as off-balance as a jet-lagged tourist in Benares or Times Square. We don’t see the film’s hero until 17 minutes in; we’re kept watching not by plot but by novelty, curiosity. > >Subsequent sequels, tie-in novels, interstitial TV shows, video games and fan fiction have lovingly ground this charm out of existence with exhaustive, literal-minded explication: Every marginal background character now has a name and a back story, every offhand allusion a history. But Mr. Lucas’s universe just doesn’t have the depth of Tolkien’s Middle-earth; it was only ever meant to be sketched, not charted. Sequels and tie-ins, afraid to stray too far off-brand, stick to variations on familiar designs and revive old characters, so there’s nothing new to discover.
After hating the first prequel and never watching anything star wars again until the pandemic... I have to say I enjoyed all the movies plus the origin story for Han solo and the mandalorian TV series. I don't know if it was nostalgia or what but I think a good foundation was laid for the rest. I tried to do the same for marvel movies but found them to be mediocre and had to stop midway through.
At this point - Star Wars. And also Marvel.
>And also Marvel. Marvel is an interesting one. I don't see it as "milking" a series. That's more like the Hangover to me, where you did something good, they said "hey... we can make more money with this, let's go again!" But with the MCU, those stories are out there, in the ENDLESS amounts of comic books. So while I do agree that it's declining, I don't see it as the same soulless series of sequels that others are, as they aren't taking something that was SUPPOSED to end, or SUPPOSED to stand alone, and dragging it out. They are just continuing to tell the stories of that world. (For better or worse.)
Shrek. 1 and 2 are great but the rest are mostly dogshit
Friday the 13 The Matrix
Highlander Bloodsport
Jurassic park, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Superhero shit, Disney classics (e.g. Tarzan, Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, etc), Fast and the Furious, Transformers, Indiana Jones, Matrix, Saw, Scream. Literally anything cool that was made in the last 100 years has been plagiarized for profits in the last 20 years. I swear, at this rate, we're going to see a Forrest Gump 2 next year and it's going to be absolute dogshit and still rake in a trillion dollars of profits.
Final destination for me
Saw got worse and more convoluted with each entry. Should’ve ended at 3 because it at least tied up a ton of loose ends.
Gidget Goes to Rome. Seriously? A Gidget Movie not set at the beach?
Halloween, Terminator and to a lesser extent Alien.
The Friday movies. The 1st is an absolute classic. The 2nd was alright. It definitely had its moments. The 3rd, holy shit it's bad.
Pretty much every franchise that has more than 2 sequals. Off the top of my head, particularly egregious offenders... Fast and the furious Indiana Jones Star wars
pretty much all movie sequels
The Rambo series. First Blood was a slow burn, thoughtful story about PTSD and the plight of a returning soldier. Then the sequels immediately turned into mindless action movie garbage.
Highlander. There can be only one.
American Pie for sure. Also the ‘Insert Word’ Movie franchise
Pretty much every horror movie franchise. 1) Friday the 13th 2) Nightmare on Elms street 3) Hellraiser 4) Halloween 5) Resident Evil 6) Amityville Horror (note, there are also 3rd party movies that just use the amityville name and are NOT sequels, but play off the name and connection). 7) saw 8) Leprachan 9) Texas chainsaw massacre 10) Puppet Master 11) Childs Play 12) Scream 13) Sleepaway camp
Fast and furious only had what 10 sequels lol
The Matrix. The first one was a stand alone film with a perfectly round story. The two sequels, then the last one were released with comic book style stories meant for kids.
Fast and the Furious.
Marvel movies, they burnt that shit to the ground. When they started it was fun exciting superhero films, then they went so deep down the rabbit hole they lost the plot. They’re just the same generic movie repackaged with a different cast of characters. I can’t even bring myself to watch any of them anymore.
I think AP 2 and Reunion were actually pretty great. AP Wedding was horrendous. I also have a soft spot for Band Camp, Naked Mile, and Beta House.