A couple years ago, I watched the Lord of the Rings. By a couple I mean like four or five. For some reason we only have the first and second movie. So that's all I knew of the Lord of the Rings for some time.
From my years of movie critiquing (not), I found the first movie boring. Nothing really happened that excited me.
Sorry, Gandalf yelling, "you shall not pass!" is not that terribly exciting.
There was nothing wrong with it because it felt just like... plot. Then I watch the next one, and it's okay. A good bit of excitement and build-up, and then it ends with an awesome battle sequence. So a sort of mix between plot and action.
I forget when I even watched the third Lord of the Rings. Way after all the buzz about it being the greatest movie of all time though. And when I finally did, it was pretty good too. Less plot, and more action. And it was about that time I had a revelation.
Why do most sequels suck?
Is it because the big corporations sees the success of their first movie and decide they don't give a crap anymore and just release movie after movie to milk the most out of the series?
Well sometimes.
But for people like Steven Spielberg, they have enough money that they don't really care about money that much. There really comes a point in your career where the money doesn't even matter anymore. You just want to make good movies.
So it's not that the corporation gets greedy.
Let's see. So then it must be that movies in the future are just shittier than movies in the past. That makes sense. Wait. No it doesn't. Surely if you learn more, as you're apt to do when you grow, you can produce better quality movies. But that doesn't seem the case anymore. Does it?
So here I am done the Lord of the Rings, and suddenly it strikes me. What on Earth happens if I watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy backwards?
Of course, the plot makes no sense. The ring comes back from the dead and Frodo's finger regenerates. But that's besides the point.
You'd be very disappointed in the second and third movie because they simply can't live up to the first one.
However, the main point I'd like to make is that the Lord of the Rings really looks like it was done intentionally. Maybe because it was a close-ish adaptation of a book. But the first movie is decent, but nothing spectacular. The second movie introduces some new things and has a more epic feeling, but still pretty non-spectacular. And then the third movie comes in and blows you away.
Why? Because you were so used to being disappointed. You went into the second movie expecting it to be better than the first, and because the first was so mediocre, the little step up in the second movie makes it that much better. And then you watch the third movie, and you are absolutely shocked and how great it was, because you had the previous two to look back on.
A little while ago, I said that this was done on purpose. Yes, from the book, but also consider that the movies were released simultaneously, spread one year apart. Surely, you judge the first movie and then decide the make sequels depending on how successful it is. But because the first movie was only a part of the book, and because Peter Jackson is rich anyways, they seemed prepared to make an okay first movie and save all the good stuff for later.
With all of that in mind, let's move on to Jurassic Park. Good, yes? And the second and third were complete bombs. Why? Because after the first movie, you think immediately that the next movie is going to be great as well. But you're already used to the idea of dinosaurs in a park and in the city. Now, you tell me, what else can they do?
Jurassic Park 2. Dinosaurs in a jungle, people get stuck and have to escape. Jurassic Park 3. Dinosaurs in a jungle, people get stuck and have to escape. It's exactly the same as Jurassic Park because there is nothing else you can possibly add to the movie. Sure, maybe the collective minds of several million fans have come up with an okay fan fiction, but there's really nothing you can add to make it even more amazing.
The trouble is simply, they put so much effort in the first movie to make it successful, that in the sequels to come, there are really no more ideas that you can come up with. Completely opposite to what happened with the Lord of the Rings.
In the Pirates of the Caribbean, I think the second movie is slightly better than the first simply because it introduces a lot more plot and action. The first was excellent still, but then the third suffered because the formula had already gone stale. No one cared about Davy Jones anymore, which made the third movie a real disappointment. And the action sequences felt exactly like the second movie.
I haven't really heard anyone talk about Saw degrading in quality, since there's really not much to degrade, but Final Destination is a good example as well. There is nothing you can change for the second movie unless this time, you kill off the main character instead of letting two of them survive. Yay. The same thing happens, just in different ways.
Toy Story didn't suffer from this. I don't really have an explanation beyond nostalgia.
The first movie is usually amazing because the concept is new, but watch the same formula again and it's boring. Thus the phenomenon that the sequels are worse.
, you're just so bored of the idea. Which makes me think that there may be a day where we've exhausted every single idea that ever exists. But that'd be a long way away.
As a project, I'd like you to look at any series that you think suffered from bad sequels, like the Terminator, and ask yourself, if they renamed the third movie as the first, and the first movie as the third, and then made the plots fit, would you still say the real first movie was better?
Arnold would argue that you can't really definitively say yes to that.
Because this is more of an opinion blog, it's my thought into why movie sequels usually suck. I'll be happy to debate, but don't try to kill me. Also, I don't have the experience as some of you older people, or the memory, so there are probably examples that I didn't mention that may or may not contradict my thoughts. I'd certainly like to hear them, and even any of your opinions on the matter. Thanks!.
WHY ARE MY PICTURES SO LARGE. T.T Wanted them smaller. Sorry this isn't smaller, but it was a good way to break brainrot.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat terminator 2: JUDGEMENT DAY is wayyyyyyyyyyyy better than terminator. The action scenes are all exceptional and original. The sound and special effects are still amazing to this day.
I don't think anyone intends to make a crap movie, in particular I doubt Jackson intended to make a crap Fellowship, and Two Towers. It is quite simply the final movie draws so many plot lines together, hence there is more happening. You can't just rearrange them as the whole movie makes no sense.
There are some movies that should have stayed as one offs, but there sequels which greatly improve on the original. I for one enjoyed Shrek 2 over the first. The old naked Gun movies got better and better and for something more recent the Hangover movies were both entertaining.
You are right in that sequels are normally worse but this is mainly due to lazy writing and reliance on the appeal of the first movie.
Terminator 1 and 2 are both great movies in their own right and stand equal in my eyes. I thought Aliens was better than the original Alien. What about The Empire Strikes Back?
Two honorable mentions are Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade as well as Predator 2.
I'll agree that most sequels are not as good as the originals. But it is not true for all movies. I have to agree with others. Terminator 2 is wayyyyyy better than the original. Also you know that all three lord of the rings movies were filmed as one extremely long movie split into 3 parts, right? They didn't just keep making them for business, they made them to finish the story.
@Probulous- 100% correct. The reason the movies get better is because all the plot lines develop and come to a close. The first movie was opening you into this whole world and learning all the different characters and the storyline. The second was basically adding a lot of action and some drama to the story. The third was when everything came together and just was fucking awesome. You cannot have the last movie without the first and second.
Terminator 2 is one of the best action flicks of all time, better than any of the other Terminators. A lot of sequels suck, but not all. Aliens, Godfather 2, Empire Strikes, Temple of Doom, and many others.
Some people say, "Well, those are trilogies so they do not count" but the fact is that a lot of them are only trilogies because the sequel was friggin amazing.
It's funny, I agree with you about the general problem with sequels, and your logic about why they suffer (essentially that the creators no longer care and know they can get more money out of them by putting out literally anything).
But your examples: Lord of the Rings: All 3 are good, I guess you're right about them getting better along the way but that is just bound to happen for the reasons Probulous mentioned. And they were filmed at about the same time. Jurassic Park: Fair enough. Pirates of the Caribbean: I actually consider the 2nd one to be pretty bad in comparison to the other two. A lot of filler action, the major sequences were just the kraken fucking everything up, and it was just too violent (but not epic/cool violent, just "oh so everything is dead" violent). The first one was very interesting and likely the best, but the third actually had much more depth and focused on the characters more than the second. Terminator: The second one was the best, I thought that was universally accepted lol. I'd say that the second was best, the first and fourth are tied (I think a lot of people hate the fourth for reasons they don't even know, like disliking Christian Bale, sequels, thought it should be a trilogy, dislike the hybrid concept, the time/setting, didn't give the movie much chance after the third, etc.), and the third just wasn't even close.
I'm surprised no one mentioned any horror movies. I have a limited knowledge of them but most people seem to hate sequels to horror movies.
As for sequels getting worse, I bet a lot of it has to do with the people involved actually being less inspired to make the movies, since it's less new to them, less of a challenge with much of the theory worked out already, and many of the people who hadn't any enthusiasm left were probably just pushovers goaded in my those who had. It's not all greed, though that's the most obvious answer. And personally I liked the first LotR far better, much as The Matrix. Even if it was true to the books, which I never read, the sequels just seemed to have a bunch of action crammed in artificially for obvious reasons, and didn't impress me. Maybe it was the way those scenes were done.
So would you agree with me if I said, they should have just stopped after the first POTC, because it was good enough to be its own 1part movie(no sequels needed)?
The Toy Story trilogy was absolutely perfect, and as far as I'm aware it wasn't made to be a trilogy at the start.
I think if you looked at the ratio of good to bad sequels vs the ratio of good to bad movies in general, it'd be fairly similar. Sequels just stand out as worse due to higher expectations.
Terminator is definitely not a series for bad sequels. T3 may have lacked, but T2 was far better than the original.
Reminded me of this cartoon, made before the Jurassic Park sequel was actually made lol
Terminator 1 is more like Horror/Thriller/Suspense. Terminator 2 is more classic Action. Both are awesome, both are outstanding.
T3 seemed much more light hearted than 2, i actually "liked" it, it's no genre classic or anything super special but not truly bad... It's just that T2 even nowadays is a bloody good movie, even the CGI does not look to bad... T4.. Ugh... Crap story makes a crap movie.
Lord of The Rings. I actually liked Part 1 the most... Part 2/3, aside from the battles, were/are imho worse.
Jurassic Park 1 is not a good movie, never was, it was just (the first?) CGI-Porn... Jurassic Park was the 90ies Avatar/Transformers. Bad movies with for the time nice looks.
In the Pirates of the Caribbean, I think the second movie is slightly better than the first simply because it introduces a lot more plot and action. The first was excellent still, but then the third suffered because the formula had already gone stale. No one cared about Davy Jones anymore, which made the third movie a real disappointment. And the action sequences felt exactly like the second movie.
The problem here was, the first one was original and in itself "finished"... 2 and 3 were added to make money and it shows... I actually like the new one better than 2 and 3 (they are all rather bad).
I don't think sequels are terrible. Sure most of the time they are but I can think of many movies where a sequel is better than the original. Godfather 2, The Dark Knight, Terminator 2 and The Empire strikes back just to name a few. Maybe the ones with better sequels have an idea that doesn't get boring or sometimes the original is so terrible the sequel looks good.
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