After reading a Rambo quote in the
Patriotism thread
I thought of me ranting about the Rambo sequels and some others and immediately wanted to share that.
IMHO that there are three types of sequels.
1.
Sequels that make sense because the first film features strong main characters who are the focus of the film and a story that mostly relys on them. This can be because the plot is taken from a series of books or just because the main characters are charismatic enough to give him another movie.
Good (and commonly known) examples are The Bond series, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Die Hard, American Pie, ...
NB: The 2nd movie doesn't need to be better or equally good but just a "good flick"
2.
Sequels that make no sense because the first movie mostly relied on an original idea that is nothing new in the sequel. Therefore the sequel is boring like "Oh, Babe the pig can still speak" or "Wow, this time it's a boat that needs to be kept on
Speed"
3.
The first movie was great for one reason but the sequel(s) rely on a different one. Rambo and Rocky are good examples of that.
The first movies were great because they told an interesting story. A war hero doesn't get appreciated because the war was lost. He did everything for his country but it was decided that the cause he fought for was wrong. A boxer can't cope with his success, he's not smart enough to live nicely on his success. He's a good guy who is only great at one thing: boxing, but that isn't enough so he gets thrown around.
The sequels were sort of like "Hey Rambo/Rocky showed 'em. He's tough! Let's make another film where Rambo/Rocky shows 'em!"
All the essence of the story was lost, now there was only Sly Stallone and a lot of explosions.
Other (commonly known) examples here are: "Matrix (well there's a whole different story of exaggerating everything here and maybe it fits better under 2.), Scream, ...
I personally dislike the third type the most. These films should have been let alone to stand out as masterpieces (exaggerating a little bit) of their kind and not continued to be the start of a mindless series.
[ 06-09-2003, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Faceman ]