What movie franchise gets worse with each new film?
1mon 19d ago by lemmy.world/u/WanderWisley in asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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 wasn’t 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.
Terminator 2 is the perfect sequel - expands on the original and shakes things up while maintaining the general feel. I don't think it would be as highly praised if it wasn't a followup on the first movie. It would still be a great movie in a vacuum, though, don't get me wrong.
As such, it's pretty hard to compare the movies, it will always come down to personal taste.
OK it's worth a rewatch then
Terminator 1 is far superior to 2 in all things cool 80s action and dystopian future.
I’m 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.
Here I was thinking the OG is where it's at. TIL
Mad Max
Definitely terminator 2. As well as the original Star Wars trilogy and back to the future trilogy are the few that I consider good all the way through.
Sure, but there are like 6 more movies. And they do not get better
Indiana Jones got better and better for the first 3. Then dumb.
If the Cornetto trilogy counts I think hot fuzz was the peak.
Godfather part 2 edges out the original.
Part 3 was a turd.
I'm of the opinion that the Austin Powers series got better with each film.
Yeah, 2 was just 1 again, with all the same jokes but in reverse. But 3 was legitimately different and better, so it saved the whole thing!
Are you trolling? I cant tell, i guess.
Dark Knight
It being filmed together is it being a 6+ hour movie in 3 chapters. I think it's a single project not successive films. Just how I frame it, I concede to technicalities if you must
I watched them back to back once and can confirm. They work perfectly as a single long movie.
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.
I'd argue the original Evil Dead trilogy get progressively better with each movie.
Franchises where the second film is more broadly acclaimed than the first: Star Wars, The Godfather, The Dark Knight, arguably Alien, Terminator, Star Trek, Paddington, Rocky, James Bond, The Pink Panther, Mad Max. Ones where the third film is the most acclaimed: arguably Indiana Jones, maybe Toy Story, LOTR (kind of all a merged movie so doesn't count), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Star Wars prequels
Hahaha. Now do a set where the second movie was better than the first but the third movie was absolutely awful.
Theres an argument that The Godfather Pt 2 is the best of the 3
Not a fan of the Scream movies, but just saw a video of a guy talking about how each one gets better than the last one mainly because they are self aware of being sequels and use that to enrich the narrative
Guessing from the reviews on Scream 3 and Scream VII, I'd say there are exceptions.
Die Hard 3 is arguably the best of the 3.
Spiderman 2 was arguably better than Spiderman 1. 3 was worse tho.
And being extremely malicious, I like two towers and return of the king more than the fellowship of the ring :)
James Bond. Because each bond had it's fans.
Bronson Brosnan, Moore and Connery are my Bond trifecta.
I lost interest after Brosnan Brosnan and haven't seen another Bond film since Die Another Day in 2002. I'm cool with it.
You should watch Casino Royale, even if you don't watch the others.
Charles Bronson IS James Bond, to me. He embodied the role.
Is Bronson mistype or did I miss something?
Yeah it's a typo. I posted this late.
Ouija 2 Origin of Evil by Mike Flannigan is the rare exception where the sequel trounced the OG in every way.
The Librarian also all three movies are good, with the third being arguably the best.
Tron, if you care about the music. Going from peak (Wendy Carlos) to peak (Daft Punk) to peak (Nine Inch Nails) even if the movies are bad.
so most franchises usually have a product Decline?
Sister Act 2
Toy Story 3 and 4. Far superior to 1 and 2 if you put aside the groundbreaking CG of the first.
So long as you can put yourself in the headspace, the fast and furious movies do get better when you realize that every movie is the exact same film (besides Tokyo drift anyway), but with higher stakes than the last one, to kind of absurd levels - starts with street racing, ends up in space, through so many movies.
But that's kind of a meta analysis based on what they are, not the actual quality, none of them are amazing, but fine if you can turn your brain off for a bit
Not true at all.
Top gun I guess. Second one was better than first one.
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'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that. It was so bad, so so bad... But yeah I couldn't help but feel the wachowski sister that did it (if I'm not wrong the other one didn't participate) just dit it to spite the studio for trying to make a moneygrab movie.
Having said that, despite the 2nd and 3rd movies not being great by any means compared to the first one, I do still enjoy them, like a guilty pleasure kinda thing.
IIRC in the first half hour they explicitly shit talk the execs wanting a sequel so it's quite obvious it's a middle finger to Warner bros.
Personally I was surprised that they even allowed it since it was so explicit about it. Lol
The 2nd and 3rd ones are still fun, action-packed movies with ground-breaking effects. The Matrix set an impossibly high bar and it was not originally planned to be a sequel, let alone a trilogy. They also whipped them together much faster, so in that context, I think they did a great job.
Huh. Douglas Adams did something similar when his publisher kept pressuring him to make another Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book.
"STOP MAKING ME WRITE THESE"
There are four of them ?
Friend, let me save you a couple of hours and a lot of pain.
There are only 3.
Literally.
The first thing I thought after I finished watching the 4th one, was that it didn't happen.
unfortunately, yes.
Eh. A bad movie is a bad movie, regardless of what the footnotes say.
I said I can respect it, not that it's good. It feels like a deliberate attempt to torpedo the revival of a series that really didn't need to be revived. That's what I can respect, not the movie on its own merits.
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 problem I have with the Matrix sequels...1. they're too far up their own ass. The original was a little up its own ass but it was up the part of its own ass that mattered for the story it was telling. Reloaded and Revelations are up their whole ass. "Love is a word." 🙄 2. The original is a very straightforward hero's journey in which deciding to answer the call is the ultimate key to the hero's power. The sequels are about fate and inevitability and how basically no decision can ever matter. So we're sorry to have bothered you.
I think some of the fights just started feeling extra stupid. In particular I'm thinking of the multiple smiths in the park and the final one with him in the rain.
Yeah, the multiple smith fight is the most egregious. Trim that down and take out the most offensive CGI and I feel like Reloaded would have been vastly improved.
As much as I personally love all the over-the-top action, I agree on the first Smith fight in the park. It's about 3 minutes too long imo.
The Animatrix was a good take on other parts of the universe.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there's a fifth one in production right now lol.
don't even get me started on resurections. Holy shit. It is bullshit that that movie is now canon :/
I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure Lana undertook it to destroy the series and get the movie studio to stop asking for sequels. It's like the central theme of the movie.
that would not surprise me
It's obvious if you watch the movie
The latest Gundam series is like that. The GQUUUUX one. "LET THINGS DIE AND MAKE NEW THINGS INSTEAD" says the original Gundam from the original series in the same art style while looking directly into the camera.
Taken 3 makes Taken 2 look like Taken 1.
Straight Tooken starring Liam Neesons.
Aw, goo godda ge guckin' gidding ge!
People talk about Taken like it's a good movie. I saw it recently for the first time, and just the fact that they tried to make the protagonist scary and capable is just hilarious to me. Yeah okay let's pretend he can run and fight, as a goof.
I also dont care for any of the John Wick movies. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The fight scenes with Keanu kill it for me. Besides the complete absence of plot and characters.
I can't help but think of Steven Seagal fighting guys who are just flipping themselves.
I loved the first one - thank goodness he saved his daughter and got her back to the safety of the good ol USA!
It was like a 1.5 hour long ioke with that as the punchline
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!
The upside is that the movie is good and the book is great and one won't spoil the other.
I thought the book was fine - it felt a lot more annoying to read than the first book for some reason. I was so tired of the baby T-Rex by the end.
The actual question should be: which doesn't?
- The Lord of the Rings was very consistent. Many people think that Return of the King is the best one.
- Knives Out had a rather disappointing second part but the third one is amazing.
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 😛
Like bttf 1 and 2 where filmed back to back and then released a year apart from each other. That was ambitious. Nothing based on books or prior proof. They just knew they had such a banger they did 2 movies right out of the gate.
2 and 3, not 1 and 2
Well fuck
Knives Out 2 is by far my favorite and I love all three. I've only laughed that hard at a movie a handful of times.
My main criticism about Glass Onion is that the twist only works because Blanc knows something from the start that the audience can't really figure out on their own. I prefer detective stories where the main character has the same opportunities to gather information as I have and if I pay close enough attention, I can figure out most of what happened before the big reveal.
But I'm glad that you liked it. Shows that the series caters to different tastes.
Glass Onion was disappointing?
At least to me and my friends who watched it with me. See my other reply for an explanation why. But of course, tastes differ and there seem to be quite a few people on here who liked it.
Terminator 2 is always the classic example, been downhill since then though
The planet of the apes movies, it’s a trilogy and actually very good
I'd add Back to the Future, it's pretty consistent IMO.
I haven't seen fourth, but Kung fu Panda was one of the best trilogies ever.
I haven't seen Toy Story 4 yet but the original trilogy was awesome
I'm just thinking in big franchises, because I'm not a well-schooled film-nerd. But even I can think of a lot of examples of sequels better than the originals.
It's a matter of taste, but I think Rocky 2 is the strongest film in the franchise. I think it's more commonly believed that Aliens is a stronger film than Alien. Evil Dead 2 is better than Evil Dead, but that might not count since its a soft reboot. Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan is pretty much a classic example. Terminator 2 is a very different movie than Terminator 1, making comparison weird but it's usually regarded as better. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is arguably stronger than Spider-Man, though obviously 3 was a bit of a mess.
Going to put this in a separate section. Admittedly, whether this should count is arguable. Still, If you count Marvel movies as direct sequels to others, it gets ridiculously easy: Thor: Ragnarok is so much better than all the other Thor movies its kind of nuts. Winter Soldier is stronger than First Avenger and Civil War might be better than both. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is the strongest film in that franchise.
Star Wars original trilogy. All three are fantastic but Empire and ROTJ are better both because of budget and having superior directors behind the camera. George has a great imagination but should not be allowed to be the one who brings his stories to life. I’d also offer that out of the Prequels, ROTS is far superior to I & II and is in roughly the same league as the OT. And then there’s Rogue One; oh it’s beautiful.
ROTJ is the weakest part of the OT. Better production and direction, sure, but so much else is lacking.
Mad Max. Thunderdome's a bit of a sore spot I'll admit, but everything else has been at least as good as the original film.
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+
2 Home 2 Alone
The Home Alonity
Home Alone: The Movie
Home Single Rated-X
KISS saves Home Alone
Home Alone meets The Blue Falcon and Wondermutt
the list goes on, lotta spinoffs
You forgot Home Alone: Fallout (the Macaulay comeback)
Rome Alone
Oh my, I watched one of the newer ones once and it was awful.
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.
Come on, now. The third was OK, the fourth was enjoyable, and Romulus was phenomenal. It was basically "let's take the best bits from Alien and Aliens and stick them together" and they did it brilliantly.
C'mon, killing off Newt and Hicks at the start of the third was unconscionable. It's in the same category as "somehow, Palpatine returned".
"Somehow Palpatine returned" is lazy writing forced on them due to Snoke dying in the previous film.
Hicks and Newt dying is perfectly reasonable in the world the action takes place in.
It’s not even slightly like that.
cough alien requeim cough
That's Aliens vs Predator, not Aliens.
Aliens, Terminator 2, The Dark Knight are the first three that come to mind - but yes, in general sequels tend to be inferior.
Or which one gets BETTER with each new film.
star wars up until rise of skywalker
now, im going to put some popcorn in the microwave. be right back
If you go by release date then that can’t be true considering the prequels (even though I love them). TFA was also so bland compared to the rest. The Last Jedi was the only decent one since the original trilogy imo.
But oh my god rise of skywalker is so fucking bad.
rise of skywalker was so terrible they should have let rian johnson just do his thing again, even if people hated it like TLJ at least it would have had some thought put into it
TLJ at least is a real movie. Rise of Skywalker meanwhile is so soulless it’s shocking.
i liked TFA. It was a decent flick. But then they just got so. much. worse.
last jedi is my 2nd favorite
them's fightin' words.
my popcorn is ready
TLJ would've been a great third film in a trilogy. It absolutely sucks balls as the second film. It killed practically all the story lines from the first, leaving basically nothing for the third, including the main bad guy. Hux would've never been a good "ultimate enemy", and if Kylo Ren became one, it would completely overturn everything the previous eight films worked on.
TFA TLJ would've been a great third film in a trilogy. It absolutely sucks balls as the second film. It killed practically all the story lines from the first, leaving basically nothing for the third, including the main bad guy. Hux would've never been a good "ultimate enemy", and if Kylo Ren became one, it would completely overturn everything the previous eight films worked on.
TFA is the first...
Oh yeah, woops! My bad! I meant to reply here.
John Wick? They are not like the best movies in the world but they do get better.
There is only one Matrix film.
I feel like the matrix 2 is similar to jurassic park 2. Very clearly inferior, but enjoyable enough to not be a complete waste of time.
I'm saying that, I'll say that JP 2 is better than matrix 2. I'll happily watch JP 2 again, probably with my kids at some point, but if not then on my own... But I would be happy whether I see matrix 2 again or not.
Didn't they recently make or announce a new one?
There can only be one good Highlander movie
Nailed it. The first was awesome, the rest were just terrible.
I don't know what you are talking about... There was the Highlander movie, and then there was the Highlander tv show. That's all there ever was.
I came here for this.
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.
Endgame was iconic, genuinely fun and an incredible accomplishment. I would love to have ended there, even have the spiderman movie to show the repurcussions and coking to terms with what happened and showing that the universe continues. It would be a great cap to end with what ended up being a spiderman origin film.
I liked Loki and a few others, could have been considered spinoffs in the vein of dealing with the aftermath.
Then reboot
The Matrix should have ended at 1.
1000000000000%.
It was supposed to be.
They wanted to make 3 movies but they were told to do one so they squished it into a single movie. When it did really well they were told they could make the other two and they had to come up with new stories.
Yup it's one of those examples where the mystery is way better than the contrived answer.
Animatrix is cool as fuck tho
cant believe im scrolling 1/2 way down and couldnt find
The power of family
Fast and Furious Franchise
I’ve always thought that the series should’ve ended at the 5th movie.
It should have ended at the -1th movie
I joke. I ironically love those films because they are terrible.
Nobody likes the tuna here, asshole!
The first movie was serious, but as they progress they lean in on the silliness. Going to space was the cherry on the cake.
The goddamn spinoff dealing with a rogue supersoldier, and the two leads basically being superhuman already.
I only watched a couple minutes, but that was more than I could handle.
No crust? No crust 😎
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.
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)
Holy fuck, they made it to X!?
I think I stopped caring around 3.
My wife and I saw the first Saw in theaters. The ending had everyone gasping. It was a wonderful popcorn flick.
We later saw the 2nd movie in theaters. We HATED it. I thought it was one of the worst movies I would ever see.
I later watched Saw 3 on a streaming service. I thought it was one of the worst movies I would ever see.
I later watched Saw 4...
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.
Aliens.
Was one of the few exceptions to this for a long time.
The last good Alien movie, unfortunately.
I agree, there are a few sequels I liked on their own merits. But the majority of the ones are just as you said.
That said, I have a weakness for space ship drama. Can’t be too much of that. So some sequels really don’t need much of a plot, rhyme or reason. I’ll spend my money on them.
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.
I thought 3 was a deal better than 2. 2 was generic Hollywood schlock that dragged in the middle; 3 at least attempted some interesting things, and even bordered on artsy at times.
1 was, of course, the best. Haven't seen 4 and 5.
I see 2 and 3 as one continuous story. Lord Cutler Beckett is basically the personification of capitalism and industrialism. He spends his time killing or taking over these "free" people who all do whatever they want whenever they want with no masters and no one telling them what to do, and subjugating them under the yoke of the changing new world.
Idk I'm kinda high right now. I like Beckett as a villain, because he represents certain aspects of the human spirit and he is at the end just a dude. He's not an immortal squid-man and he's not an undead were-skeleton.
5 was one of the most insultingly bad movies I've ever seen.
I actually thought 4 was better than 2 and 3. Not that 4 was very good, but I thought 2 and 3 suffered from an attempt to, "trilogize," the series and make it a grand epic. It was clear by the end of the third movie that they didn't know where they were going with all of the plot threads they'd set up like Calypso, the Brethren Court, the Jack/Elizabeth/Will love triangle they were hinting at...just way to many ideas and very little payoff. At least 4 told a coherent story in one movie, even if it wasn't a very good story.
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?
Yeah I think anyone who thinks John Wick got worse over time was probably a teenager when the first one came out. They're all schlocky action films. The fourth one at least has some unique set pieces
John Wick
Blasphemy!
Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.
The first one was a masterpiece, two was good, but 3 & 4 just felt like they were pushing to hard to release quickly and had no real sole. The first John Wick I can rewatch over and over and enjoy every viewing. The rest.... once was enough.
Every John Wick is of roughly consistent quality.
There are 7 star wars movies and 1 series and they're all good (original trilogy, prequels, rogue one and andor)
I'll grant you Marvel, but the end of JW4 was epic.
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.
Meanwhile, in 2016...
2016 was great. Unpopular opinion, but true.
I am an unabashed fan of Ghostbusters 2016. The scene with Holtzmann and the pistols gives me tingles. Kevin is just a gem.
I don't know, I see it as a missed opportunity.
A cast I genuinely adore let down by some poor directing choices and a fairly limp script.
Everyone deserved a better film than that.
Best GB since the original. Blows #2 or any of the other modern ones out of the water by a long shot.
2016 was a Paul Feig-ass Paul Feig movie. If you like Paul Feig movies you will enjoy it, but the sense of humor was very different from the OG Ghostbusters.
Absolutely not. There were one or two moments that made me laugh (notably the very end when Chris Hemsworth gets the burrito smacked out of his hand and some rando off-screen tosses it back to him), and the only other thing I can think of is Leslie Jones feeling like she actually tried and gave a shit. I actually liked her character the best because she wasn't some dumb eccentric ghost-genius.
Which franchise doesn't get worse with each consecutive movie?
Mad Max. Evil Dead.
The Lord of the Rings
The lord of the rings trilogy could be a single long movie. I feel like it fits but really isn't in the spirt of the question.
I feel like it needs to be "First movie was so good, so they made a sequel"
Harvey Weinstein actually wanted LOTR to be a single movie.
I am of the opinion that Fellowship is the best one, but the sequels are by no means bad.
I think the mainstream opinion is that the two towers is the best. I’m curious, why do you favor the fellowship?
This is a bit rambly, but bear with me. I am very much enamored with the Hobbits and the Shire. Though I prefer the theatrical release (the pacing in that version is perfect), Concerning Hobbits is a fantastic inclusion in the extended version and I love getting that extra time in the Shire. There is a feeling of quaint magic in that movie that isn't present in the other ones. I like that the film is told from the perspective of Hobbits. It makes the world outside the Shire that much more mysterious and foreboding, some of which I feel is lost when the Fellowship splits up. I think Gandalf the Grey is a vastly more interesting character than Gandalf the White. I personally find underground spaces incredibly fascinating, so everything in Moria is just incredible. That moment where they're surrounded by goblins and you hear the rumble of the Balrog, and the goblins flee and Gandalf is just, "Run." Ugh, its got a great sense of terror and is just perfect.
I’m here for the rambles.
I think you have an interesting perspective. The shire kind of grounds the world as a reader / viewer. It’s the place you want to get back to.
Yeah, the last 3 movies and TV series were amazing right? Like I didn't fall asleep after 30min of each hobbit movie and the first 2 episodes of the series or anything. I have no recollection of anything that happened in any of those movies, other than that it was massive CGI circle jerk slop.
The Hobbit movies are the Hobbit, not Lord of the Rings
Yeah my bad, completely different universe written by a different author of course.
I like the old mad max movies more than the new ones. Haven't seen evil dead, added them to the download list.
Equalizer series stayed consistent. John wick is probably close enough. Being the same movie over and over isn't the same as declining.
Bourne series too.
Terminator. But not for long.
Remember when Sony fucked up the trailer for Genysis and revealed the twist with John Connor?
No. Any pointer ?
Everything is revealed here. It was so bad Sony pulled it but it was too late as all the information got everywhere
I pray the Spaceballs sequel will be good and i'm not even religious
They already fucked up the name so we'll see
I've set my expectations to -1. I can't be disappointed 😁
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.
Hmm... Kind of a weird take considering the Prequels had no blowing up of any super weapons, and the Sequels had only one, in the first film.
They blow up a huge space ball in Episode I
Well, yeah, but it's no super weapon, it's one of thousands of control ships.
If you take each trilogy as a set, sure.
But Empire and Return were both amazing films that one-upped the original.
And I think Clones was better than Phantom.
The final trilogy was a straight fucking cliff both by itself and in comparison to the other trilogies.
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.
Cinderella 3 is amazing though /s. It's great for a laugh on Halloween.
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.
Is AoT actually finished and released at this point? I stopped watching after the final season part 1 because I felt so betrayed and said to myself I'd only ever watch it again when I can actually finish the storyline
You should watch it, it's awesome and the ending is better than the manga. Not perfect but improved to be good enough
Yeah the last episode came out in November '23
Yes, it's been finished for a year or two. The last part drags on so much though. It did have a good ending despite how long it took to get there.
Psycho Pass
Season 1 is one of my favorites sci-fi crime cyberpunks shows ....and it just got worse after that....
I only own S1 Blu-ray and forget the other seasons existed.
Even Psycho-Pass S1 was weird. I mean, cool concept, but I couldn't really get into it. I definitely didn't watch latter seasons.
Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness.
Do these count as a counterexample?
2013 slaps you shut your whore mouth! /s
Also Evil Dead is something that has never had a bad iteration. Fight me.
The 2013 one is fine, but to say it's better than the originals is a bit of a reach.
To me they're not sequels maybe that's the difference. Raimi has been open about handing young directors the keys to see what their vision is. If anything I view ED as more of an anthology at this point all the same and yet all different
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.
I was gonna say, how is this entire thread skipping over the take that Blade 2 is a step down from the first? It's not the craziest movie take I've read on here, but it definitely flies in the face of what I understood to be popular opinion.
Yeah, I thought that was the general consensus too, but I couldn't be sure that wasn't just an echo chamber I'd created with my friend group.
In OP's defense, I checked out both movies' Letterboxd ratings, and Blade 1 is rated at 3.5 out of 5, and Blade 2 is sitting at 3.3, so maybe it is just an echo chamber thing. That being said, I really believe this was not the case 10, 15 years ago.
Having sat with it for awhile now, I'm kind of coming around on the notion. I'd have to do a back to back viewing to confirm, but my current hypothesis is that Blade 1 is an excellent urban action-horror picture. It does everything you'd expect it to do pretty well. Blade 2, being a product of Guillermo's interests, has this weird, quasi-Shakespearian family drama between Nomac, lady vampire, and the patriarch serving as the emotional spine of the picture. It's fine, but I remember a lot more about their dynamics than I remember about Blade's arc, which is maybe not what you want from a Blade movie. Plus, all the extra vampire lore and whatnot makes the picture feel less like urban action-horror and more like a fantasy film, which just so happens to have guns and the occasional unwitting human. Not bad, but it does feel like a dry run for ideas Guillermo would do better in other movies.
Honestly, I remember similar vamp lore dragging down the first one. There some interesting stuff with Frost being lower class because he was turned Vamp instead of born Vamp, but the third-act vampire-god thing was kinda meh, ending with some horribly dated CGI.
Also, while the world building was cool, it's not as though Blade is a super interesting character. He's a super cool bad-ass, but I find myself checking out when they get into his emotional backstory. Whistler id mich more of the emotional core of fhat movie, which is probably why they had to bring him back in the second (which ie something in fhe second movie that I thought was a cheap cop-out).
It's got motherfuckin I Against I by Mos Def in it.
Apparently he's got sketches of them in his notebooks going back decades.
That makes sense. I know he didn't write the movie, but I assumed that he had a lot of input on the monster design. He always has a lot of input on the monster design.
Pirates of the Caribbean, I turned the last one off after 15 minutes
I thought Dead Man's Chest was mostly as good as the first one, but after that — meh.
Yeah, #2 and #3 I actually liked (I think of them as one movie split in two episodes), #4 I managed to endure the Disney™ Silliness™ til the end, but #5 was way too much right from the start
For some reason as a kid one of the two original sequels was too fantastical for me. I rememer coming with a group a birthday party and saying how it seemed less realistic.
Like it never was realistic, skeletons captaining a boat and such but damn one of them took me out of the vibe I guess.
Mad Max?
1 - OK as a prelude 2 - Brilliant 3 - .... 4 - Not bad, not bad at all 5 - The Furiosa one was too much CGI. I was far too annoyed by how the vehicles had armour but exposed tyres
Idk, 1 and 3 are the worst ones and imo 4 is the best. Even in your list it's not exactly a decline.
I think the mad max movies are like the James Bond’s movies were every other movie is good.
Not a film really but Marvel films have been in rapid decline since Avengers 1
For me the peak was Endgame
Infinity war was really good. Endgame was a fucking disaster. It was a horribly written piece of shit that proved to marvel that they could make a ton of money off of complete garbage.
Im just sad that they didn't take the oppertunity tondo something real cool and give us a film or two within the gap that everything got blipped. It made everything feel hollow and consequenceless.
Highlander. The first is cheesy but fairly enjoyable, and all the sequels go downhill in fascinatingly bad ways. Unfortunately, I'd like to find the theatrical version of Highlander 2: The Quickening, because I like bad movies and the renegade cut cuts some of the bad
Yeah I know this doesn't apply. Highlander you're right was a pretty fun film. But it didn't decline afterwards. It fell off a fucking Mountain. That second one is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made. And frankly the third one is just marginally better.
Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hangover, Star Wars, The Fast and the Furious, there are so many. Once that cash cow starts squirting powdered milk out of its teats they just keep squeezing.
See, The Hangover is hard to categorize like that, because it's the same movie every time.
I really like guardians. At least when it came out. And i dislike everythimg CP is in generally. But it kinda works. I love the colourful space, the places they go, the aliens, the humor is barable, because it's not overplayed yet. The rest of the franchise feels like it was written by AI that scraped twitter to see what people who also like minions liked about it.
Guardians, absolutely. First was brilliant, second starts to fall to Marvel tropes, and by the third I just couldn't wait for it to be over.
Serenity.
I would have to say Resident Evil
I enjoyed the 4 hour Hobbit fanedit though I cannot remember which, or the name
I watched the M4 and the Tolkien cut and while the M4 version has done really nice changes, it cuts out so much that many scenes are confusing. The Tolkien cut has a few non-book scenes left in just for the rest to make note sense.
There are several I think, I really enjoyed the one by Maple Films.
Tbh, the first Transformers is one of my favorite watch-it-when-it-rains-blockbuster, the story is not that bad and the score is just perfect.
You can argue that the very first one was an honest attempt.
I would argue against that. Vehemently.
Land Before Time
The first one has an awesome score by James Horner and will make any adult cry. The rest (a whopping 13 sequels) are cheap movies to put kids to sleep.
maybe despicable me?
(this is from a Movie critic opinion btw.)
I'm tempted to say the Rocky series, given Rocky V. But the fact is, III and particularly IV rocked!
Did you all know that there are three Sandlot movies? Oh, and the third involves time travel.
Terminator. First was great. Two was a masterpiece. Third was mid. Rest is an utter garbage
Same with alien
Alien 1 vs Alien 2 is such an interesting split. The first is so full of dread and so claustrophobic. The second is like an action horror movie. The vision of Ridley Scott and James Cameron couldn’t be more different but both are great movies.
Imo that's exactly why the Allen franchise is/was so great. Each movie was something different, with a different director.
I really don't know what went wrong so hard with Alien 4. On technical side it was amazing. Acting was great with so many stars. The plot was so bad tho, I still can't believe they greenlighted such a horrible writing.
Romulus is phenomenal. If you haven't already, I do recommend watching it. Through the whole thing I felt like I'm watching the best bits of Alien and Aliens stitched together.
Same with Nolan's Batman
I really enjoyed the Dark Watsit, the one with Mackenzie Davis.
If the 3rd is mid at least the 2019 one is comparable
Terminator? T2 is regarded as that franchise's best flick and it's only downhill from T3 onward.
Robocop as a franchise also infamously went down the toilet after the first movie, each sequel degraded in quality until the complete mess that was Robocop 3 happened.
Also Alien and Aliens were good, the rest not so much.
Most all of them?
Machete.
Machete was masterpiece.
Machete Kills was so bad that it killed the franchise.
So Machete Kills did exactly what it promised, it sounds like!
Resident Evil, Underworld
The thankfully dead Snyderverse
Loved it even if I understand it wasn't for everybody
Troll 2...?
Unlike it's completely forgettable predecessor, Troll 2 being so bad it's good arguably makes it a better movie.
Desperado?
Was pretty popular when it came out but I haven't heard a peep about it since. The first movie "El Mariachi" was low budget af
All of them and no one can convince me otherwise.
Alien and Terminator have absolutely amazing second films, after that it slides off.
Empire strikes back too
Godfather II
Star Trek? (Specifically the original series movies)
all?
Universal Soldier
All of them.
The Land Before Time
all of it
Alien has been in slow decline but it's steady, the puppy dog alien of alien:earth was the latest offender.
Also: do we really need so many terminator movies?
At this point Jurassic Park movies are whatever. The first one is awesome, the sequels disappoint.
I was like 9 when Jurassic Park came out. My impression of any movie will never be topped simply due being a jaded old man now. The Jurassic World movies aren’t as good but it’s still dinosaurs. I’m entertained for a couple hours and that’s enough.
@WanderWisley Halloween
What percentage of "first movie was based on a popular novel; all subsequent ones were purely the product of screen-writers" movie series didn't fall into the "all subsequent installments suck" trap?
Jumanji
Ghost Rider. First one was goofy action, but still kinda cool. Second one was boring, confusing and lame. But at least it had an exploding bucket-wheel excavator in it, which was the only good scene.
All of them.