A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
The first Jurassic Park movie is all time one of the greatest films ever made with the special effects still holding up to this day. The 2nd film was still very enjoyable in my opinion but it was just a cookie cutter sequel not bad, not good. The 3rd film wasnโt great at all. But compared to the rest of the series the 3rd film is basically the godfather.
As another personal pick the 1st blade movie is a hood classic good. The other 2 not so much.
Is there any what gets better? There are good sequels, but once it becomes movie franchise, it all turns to shit. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
Terminator 2 was better. Ouija 2 was better. Empire strikes back. Back to the future 2.
I can't think of any more.
Alien and Aliens. But only because Aliens was deliberately a different genre: so it's a bit of a stretch.
Terminator 2 was better.
I see this view everywhere all the time, but personally I strongly disagree. Terminator 2 is good no doubt, but the original had a sense of dread and urgency literally from start to finish that is unmatched in any of the sequels, in my opinion.
Iโm sure there are people who will argue that Back to the Future Part II was the worst of the trilogy. Part III might be the best.
I can agree that part 3 might be the best one as an adult, but as a child that flying DeLorean and hoverboard was the shit in part 2 even though it did have a darker tone.
I'm of the opinion that the Austin Powers series got better with each film.
The Sergio Leone trilogy with Clint Eastwood arguably gets better. The first one was almost a shot-for-shot remake of Yojimbo - good but derivative. The third movie stood up well against the early ones and the music was maybe the best.
Evil Dead, at least for me. I enjoyed the first movies but absolutely love Army of Darkness.
The James Bond franchise gets better over time arguably. It has ups and downs, but I definitely wouldn't say it's downward trend overall.
Mad Max.
The Matrix.
Not sure how that isn't mentioned yet!
First movie was a masterpiece that became a classic, the rest were completely unnecessary.
When my brother showed The Matrix to his kid, she asked "Is there another one?" and he said "No."
I can respect the fourth one. Sure, it was a terrible movie but it feels like a deliberate piss take on the idea of reviving the franchise. And I can respect that.
I saw the original Matrix like once and never watched the sequels, so I sat down and watched them all recently. The hate for the sequels is way overblown. Apart from the bad CGI in the second, I thought they were great sequels that took the story in interesting directions.
The Animatrix was a good take on other parts of the universe.
The actual question should be: which doesn't?
Yeah, that's all I can think of right now.
Lord of the Rings barely counts, because not only were all three books out and classics before the movies started (obviously), but the three movies were basically worked on at the same time. It's nuts, but somehow they managed to do it.
So it's not like they released the first, got crazy hype, and then phoned everyone up and said "electric Boogaloo, you in?". They'd already shot most of the second and third by the time the first came out, as I recall.
Also I really liked Glass Onion ๐
Terminator 2 is always the classic example, been downhill since then though
I felt bad for Lost World, because Crighton went out of his way to write a novel that was a sequel to the first movie, not the first book, and then Spielberg just basically ignored it like it never happened.
I wanted to not see the chameleon dinosaurs, damn it!
It would be far more interesting to ask, what movie franchise DOESN'T get worse with each new film.
Alien at least had the second film better than the first, which was a hell of an accomplishment since the first film was great. Fortunately they never even made any movies after the second one.
Aliens, Terminator 2, The Dark Knight are the first three that come to mind - but yes, in general sequels tend to be inferior.
Home Alone
Home Alone: In New York
Home Alone: No Macauly
Home Alone: There's a fourth one?
Home Alone 5.
Home Sweet Home Alone: Exclusive to Disney+
cant believe im scrolling 1/2 way down and couldnt find
~~The power of family~~
Fast and Furious Franchise
Tron. It ends with tossing out the one before and letting Jared Leto get his stink all over it.
Marvel Cinematic Universe should have stopped sometime before Phase 4 (Eternals, Black Widow, Wakanda Forever, Multiverse of Madness).
The Matrix should have ended at 1.
The Jason Bourne movies should have ended when Jason Bourne's story was concluded, without extending it to Aaron Cross's story, played by Jeremy Renner.
Saw. The first one is a brilliant psychological horror movie. The rest drift more towards body horror, but each one gets worse and dumber than the previous one (except maybe Saw X, the last one)
Star wars
Just let characters die.
Long ago, in a galaxy far away...
...in this specific area, only pertaining to these 2-3 groups of people and no one else, anywhere else, ever despite there being an entire galaxy to fuck about in and about 20k years worth of lore.
Which is why I liked Andor and especially Acolyte so much. Finally a new perspective.
Pirates of the carabian.
The first was a masterpiece in comedy.
The second and third were good but I would still rate them slightly worse each gen.
I am indifferent to 4 and hate 5
The first movie was a complete package that told a story well, and where it ended was the right place to end it all.
But of course, money.
Really tarnished my feelings about the first movie and I don't think I could even watch it the same way anymore.
Nah, Blade 2 still fucks.
Blade Trinity is just as rough now as it was when it first released.
Pretty much all of them. Successful first movie, sequels that repeat the formula while entirely missing the point.
John Wick.
Also Star Wars, but they had at least three good movies.
Marvel movies.
I thought John Wick maintained the same level through all the sequels.
Also, you're telling me that Thor (1) is better than Infinity War?
Which franchise doesn't get worse with each consecutive movie?
Ghostbusters. Some late 80's exec in tv and film was obsessed with putting babies in everything and the second movie got shanked in a dark alley by them.
JP went from a Dinosaur Movie to a very generic monster movie with the exact same plot every time.
Greedy evildoer wants SuperDino for nefarious purposes and must be defeated. Repeat.
Any of the classic Disney animated movies. First movie is a ripoff of classic fairy tales so most of the heavy lifting writing wise was done for them, the instant Disney has to write the whole thing is when it goes to shit. If it's "Disney presents [insert fairy tale here] 2" you know it'll suck.
honestly, star wars. I'm a HUGE star wars fan, but they're the same movie repeatedly. blow up death star, blow up bigger death star. blow up BIGGEST death star. BAM. 9 movies.
Anime has entered the chat.
Tokyo Ghoul. Amazing first season. Body horror, depression, and zombie stuff all rolled into one. Masterpiece. Season 2 came out ahead of the rest of the books and it sucked. Seasons 3 and 4 adapted the second book series, but they speed ran it and only hit highlights and it was confusing AF.
Promised Neverland. Also amazing first season. Thriller with children trying to escape an orphanage that has a dark secret (revealed in first episode). They had like 5-7 seasons' worth of content and started to do a second season, but the funding (and creativity!) ran out so they speed ran the rest of the manga, and it was so bad, the directors had their names taken off the billing.
"Second season when?" has become a trope due to so many with excellent first seasons followed by terrible ones. Attack on Titan almost counts. First season was awesome, we called it Japan's answer to The Walking Dead when TWD was decent. Second season took 4 years and sucked, but season 3 more than made up for it. Season 4, "the final season," "the final season part 2," "the final season for realz this time", "the final season trust us we can see the finish line" and "the final chapters" sucked, though.
I would argue that Blade II is the better movie. Guillermo del Toro is a much more interesting director, and the Reapers are basically a dry run for his take on Vampires in The Strain.
Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness.
Do these count as a counterexample?
