Great Movies That Were Followed Up By The Absolute Worst Sequels

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Here are my top 10. ( I'm limiting it to only sequels that immediately followed the first film that was made. Therefor, for my list, movies like Superman 3 or Batman & Robin are not included. However, don't my limitation let anyone hesitate with their replies. ).



10. Carrie / Carrie: The Rage - This is one of my favorite high school teenage horror movies ever. 23 years later, a sequel.
Twenty three years later.
And the film flops & is critically panned on a universal level. The moral of this story:
if you're gonna wait twenty years to make the 2nd chapter of a classic, you better hope for the best
but prepare for the worst.



9. Purple Rain / Graffitti Bridge - Okay, maybe the non-musical parts of the Kid's debut film leave something to be desired. But the concert performances are some of the most energetic & charismatically maneuvered dance moves caught on film & the songs culminate into one of the best movie soundtracks ever recorded. This 1984 rock 'n' roll anomaly featuring the Minneapolis funk acts Prince, the Revolution, the Time & Apollonia-6 was followed 6 years later by a 1990 sloppy piece of absolute sh#t, with an after-taste of eighties over-indulgence that would make anyone glad that the decade responsible for spawning the jerri-curl was finally over.



8. The Dirty Dozen / The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission - The DD was released in 1967. The sequel was released in
1985. The story of the original film took place 1944 . The
story of the sequel took place 6 months later. If the math
there doesn't seem to add up, rest assure, it still makes more sense than the whole idea of the 2nd. movie.
The first Dozen blended escapist action adventure with down to earth grittiness that made it an instant war-movie classic. It's follow-up blended an empty story with just plain ol' dirt to make it an instant forgettable mess which has already made me forget what I'm typing about right now.



What was I talking about again...?
Oh yeah.....

7. The Exorcist / Exorcist II: The Heretic - Satan takes over a little girl & makes her behave in a manner so vile, even the sickest adult mind would feel a shiver run down their spine. The Heretic, while initially an honest effort, was just too explanitory to provide the expected nightmares that is expected from standard horror-fare, let alone, from probably the scariest story ever produced on the silver screen.



6. The Mask / Son Of The Mask - As a big fan of the Mask comic-book series, & I knew that logistically it would be impossible to translate the surrealistic distortion of the Loki-mask with the hardcore violence of the printed series. However, the film adaptation, rather than even trying to do that, it took the basest part of the concept & was able to come up with a movie that made the character of the Mask all it's own.
The sequel on the other hand, took the idea of the first movie, & sunk it down to levels of a new low which no movie would want to call it's own.



5. Saturday Night Fever / Staying Alive - Okay, at least some effort was put into trying not only to repeat the success of the original, but also an updated version to fit into the new decade at the time the sequel was embarked. However, just as the 80's were quickly to become an exercise into excessive superficiality, so too did Staying Alive quickly abandon the gritty realism of Fever & go into a testosterone Stallonesque dream-seeking fairy tale of Flashdanciveness.
These days, I use my torn t-shirts to wash the car. And I don't even know what the hell ever became of my sweatband & leg-warmers.



4. The Whole Nine Yards / The Whole Ten Yards - In the first Nine Yards, it was Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis & Amanda Peet in all their comedic glory. Move ahead forward to a sequel, down the field an extra yard, & all three are now in a unlaughingly boring follow-up story that makes absolutely no sense.
Seriously....
did anyone involved in the second "effort" even try?
As the saying goes, oh what a difference one yard makes.



3. Ghostbusters / Ghostbusters 2 - A perfect example of a movie that was so self-contained in it's moment of glory, that you know that the only thing that inspired it's sequel was the ringing sound of the ol' ka-ching-arolla.
Damn.



2. Dumb & Dumber / Dumb & Dumberer - One of the funniest movies in the history of cinema followed up by one of the biggest voids of humor in the history of comedy. I'd rather sit thru an entire career's worth of Dane Cook's stand-up routine than ever again have to sit thru this torturous pile of doodoo balls.




1. The Sting / The Sting 2 - To this day, I still think that this is a hoax. A movie follow-up without the Redford/Newman team? Even with a great story ( which this movie substantially lacks) would've bombed without that duo. Hell, that's logic enough not to make this movie in the first place. But, not only was it made, look at who they did actually cast in the lead roles: Jackie Gleason & Mac Davis.
Yep.
You heard right.
Simply,
a "WTF?!" moment in it's most purest form.




Harry Potter 1.
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Oh, we just have to talk about...

Highlander II - The Quickening



This thing reached ridiculous lows in almost every category. In the first, they establish characters, some of which die, and set up a rich history for the Highlanders that ties into ancient legend. They also establish the clear concept that "There can be only one." By the end of the film, the story has been told, only one Highlander remains, story over...

Or so we thought...

No, dear readers, the Highlanders are actually ALIENS



Alas, they aren't cool aliens like the one's above. No, they are just swordsman from Scotland, I mean, space, and they ride on surfboards that fly and stuff. They wear sunglasses, too, even though there is no sun, because MacLeod made a shield that hides the sun (WHAT.THE.****).

That's OK, though, because luckily, the last highlander..errrr, one of the highlanders can shoot lightning out of his ass, and blow up any buildings that might come after us. The villains henchmen are busy surfing on surfboards tied to strings, and the lone highlander must stand alone against them, because Ramirez (you remember him, don't you pendceccos?) is dead, because MacLeod cut his head off. Oh wait, never mind. He's fine. You just have to yell for him.

We interrupt this film synopsis to talk about our Ozone layer. Immortals care about this. Even immortals that have gotten old, because there aren't any other immortals left, except the time traveling space immortals that haven't shown up yet. So, once all the immortals are dead, and you start getting older, you better take a long hard look at the ozone layer, and pronto.

I mean, after you have taken care of the half-dozen or so immortals on the planet, might as well plunge the entire planet into infinite darkness, because, life doesn't require sun or anything.

Anyway, this old man lurches and putters around until the surfers show up, and then he manages to cleave both of their heads off, because they are busy surfing. Luckily, this causes the old man to blow lightning out his ass and become young and immortal again. This is good, become a pretty smokin' piece of ass shows up, and he wouldn't have been able to handle her advances with the bunions and fallen arches and stuff.

But when they meet...just LOOK OUT

Louise: "Who are you?"

MacLeod: "I'm Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was banished from the Planet Zeist 500 years ago. I cannot die.

Louise:
"I'm Louise Marcus from Flagstaff, Arizona."

NOOOOOOOOO, not FLAGSTAFF!!!!!!


Hell, I can't go on..... I am somehow laughing and crying simultaneously.


Man, I have fun shredding these piles of ****.

I guess what irked me the most last time I caught a few minutes of this, was how blatantly and poorly they aped the production design from Blade Runner, a film I consider to be the best piece of sci-fi of all time.
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The Mask =/= Son of the Mask



So many good movies, so little time.
Jaws / Jaws 2
The Sting / The Sting 2
The Exorcist / The Exorcist 2 : The Heretic
The Blues Brothers / Blues Brothers 2000
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Was Jaws II really that abysmal? I know 3 was horrendous, but I remember 2 not being ridiculously terrible. Nowhere near as good as the first, of course...



Not that my vote matters, but I don't think Jaws 2 is all that bad either.
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I didn't think Jaws II was too bad either... but throughly agree with The Blues Brothers 2000... and Highlander II - The Quickening... And, while Speed was not a great movie, it was fun -- they should have left it at that... 'cause Speed 2: Cruise Control was absolutely ridiculous...
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Ok I know you'll all laugh but somebody had to say it, Mulan/Mulan 2. It was just so pathetic. Disney really just needs to leave whats good alone.
In general almost all sequals are just plain bad, with some exceptions of course



A system of cells interlinked
In general almost all sequals are just plain bad, with some exceptions of course
Care to back that up? Because I can list many sequels that some consider better/as good as than the first films. Sequels are not inherently worse.

Consider these films:

Aliens (I actually like the first the best, but for many, Aliens is the best)
The Empire Strikes Back
X-Men II
The Godfather II
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Toy Story II
The Evil Dead II
The Bourne Supremacy
The Road Warrior
A Shot in the Dark
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Spiderman II
Terminator II
(Again I like the first, but many like this best)


...and there are more, depending on who you talk to...



Sedai mentioned A Shot in the Dark as a sequel that was as good or better than the original. But in many ways, it wasn't quite a sequel to The Pink Panther--more like a spin-off, really. The film, adapted from a stage play, was not originally written as a vehicle for Peter Sellers to reprise his Clouseau character. But Blake Edwards and scriptwriter William Peter Blatty decided to change it to include Clouseau, who really had been something of a minor or at least supporting character in the original Pink Panther, which had focused more on the two thiefs, David Niven and Robert Wagner. In A Shot in the Dark, the Clouseau character was finally the main focus. And it was in that movie that Sellers first developed the comical French accent and it was that movie that introduced Lom as the police commissioner and also established Clouseau's man-servant, Kato. It also was the only one of the series of Clouseau films that did not have Pink Panther in its title. (I don't think the Pink Panther cartoon character was even in the opening animated credits, although I couldn't say for sure.)

However, Shot was released soon after The Pink Panther, so the connection was fresh in the minds of movie-goers, leading to a sequence of sequels under the Pink Panther banner.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I find the Bourne Identity better then Supremacy. It had more of a mystery feel to it and I wanted to find out more. Supremacy had more action for sure, but the overall effect wasn't the same.



"Jaws II" was pretty bad. Especially when it became apparent that the shark had an agenda and would go to extremely unsharklike behavior to accomplish it.

"The Matrix" should have been a stand-alone film. I'm probably alone in this regard, but "Rocky" didn't need one sequel, let alone a dozen or so.



For awful sequels, I'd have to say:

The Crow 2
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (not awful, but it was no Desperado)
Highlander 2
Escape from LA
Indiana Jones 4 (I loved the new Star Wars films, but not this one)
Matrix 2 and 3 (talk about forcing a trilogy)
Conan 2
Superman 3, 4 and Superman Returns
Godfather 3
Home Alone 2
Spider-Man 3
X-Men 3
Batman 2, 3 and 4 (Batman Begins is best of all, but 89' is good)
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 (another forced trilogy)
Alien 4 (I actually like 3)
AVP and AVP 2 (I'm one of those rare fans of Predator 2)
Die Hard 3 and 4
Poltergeist 2
Lethal Weapon 3 and 4
Terminator 3 (but it's still better than that new TV show)
Mannequin 2
Univeral Soldier 2
Rocky 5 (6 made up for it, I liked it quite a bit)

But for every awful sequel, there's a sequel that's great:

The Empire Strikes Back
Revenge of the Sith
The LOTR sequels (kind of cheating, I know)
Harry Potter sequels (yeah, cheating)
Superman 2
Spider-Man 2
Indiana Jones 2
X-Men 2
Godfather 2
Star Trek 2
Die Hard 2 (sue me, I love it)
Lethal Weapon 2
Terminator 2
Aliens
Halloween 2

And I really hope The Dark Knight doesn't disappoint!



Welcome to the human race...
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (not awful, but it was no Desperado)
For the record, I don't think Desperado was anything special either.
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great sequel? i would say mediocre at best.
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