I have a quest to watch all movies with an Oscar nomination or win for the major categories.
So I watched Three Colors: Red because it was nominated for Best Director.
I also watched Three Colors: White because it was part of the same trilogy.
For some reason, I never got around to watching Three Colors: Blue
And now it’s been several months later, and I don’t remember a damn thing about either Red or White, which indicates to me that both movies were strictly “meh” as far as I was concerned.
Now, part of me wants to see Three Colors: Blue just to complete the trilogy, and another part of me doesn’t want to sit through what will probably be a “meh” movie just to say I’ve seen the whole thing. I won’t be able to discuss what I’ve seen because I don’t remember a damn thing about the other two. If you were to ask me what those two movies were about, my answer would sound like, “Well, there’s these foreign guys…and um…some girlfriend…and one guy is a hitman, I think, but he doesn’t want to be,…I think…and ummm, there’s a train, and a fancy house…and ummm…damn…was that guy a hitman? I forget…”
If you read or see two parts of a trilogy, but not the third part, can you die from it? Does your subconscious mind nag your mind into jelly until you surrender, or can you ignore those compulsive urges to do what you don’t want to do? Is there treatment for this sort of thing other than reading or seeing the dreaded third part?
Have any trilogies affected you strangely like this?
If I am not impressed with the first part of a trilogy, I do not bother to read the second. In fact, if I lose interest in the story while reading the first book I might not finish that volume.
Life is getting too short to spend any more of it reading boring stuff when I want to be entertained.
(I cannot think of the last time I watch all three films in a trilogy, since LOTR at least.)
I read all of Anne McCaffrey’s Twins of Petaybe trilogy, just because it’s a trilogy.
Book One was BAD–I loved her original Petaybee trilogy. Well actually, I loved Powers that Be. The other two were not quite as good. So when I saw she’d written a follow-up trilogy about the Twins, I wanted to read it.
Book One was BAD. The original trilogy was written for grown-ups, the new trilogy was obviously young adult in all the bad ways (incompetent adults, so children save the world . . . )
I read book Two in case my perception of book One was an aberration. Nope–plus, the middle work of a trilogy is often the weakest link.
I read Book Three in search of completion. It was less bad than Book Two, but still unworthy of the original beloved trilogy.
And while I don’t think it’s a trilogy, I read at least one of the Ender’s Shadow books by Orson Scott Card in pursuit of completion. I actually mostly liked the last one (although I didn’t think highly of the timeline Card claimed the book took place in).
I was about 25% though the third book in The Golden Compass/Dark Materials (whatever it’s called) trilogy when I realized I didn’t care about any of the characters or what happens to them. I put the book down and have no desire to revisit any of them.
In the case of Three Colors, the three films are not really connected other than in title and the fact that their themes match the colors of the French flag of Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité. Blue is also the stupidest of the bunch.
It’s about a woman who loses her family and goes into a deep depression and can’t connect with other people. This goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, the point being made over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Then she discovers that her husband had an affair and five minutes later everything is peachy. No one with a depression that deep would cheer up so easily, and the affair is a really lame cliche
In general, though, I will finish a trilogy if it’s any good. It’s one reason I stay away from them.
Two Many Cats, do you always watch your trilogies backwards, or just in this particular case?
BTW, Blue (which you’re supposed to watch first) is probably the strongest of the three, and has stuff in it that resonates throughout the others (if you watch them in proper order).
I watched the first Lord of the Rings. It’s just not my thing but I heard such great reviews about it so I rented it. It wasn’t bad. I rented the second one and it felt like the first one…barely made it through the movie (like I said, it’s just not my thing). It’s a trilogy and I knew this going in, so I rented the third one, saw that it was over 3 hours long and sent it back.
So, no, I won’t finish a trilogy just because it’s a trilogy.
I just finished book 2 and I feel the same way, yet I already have book 3 (all 3 for $3 at the friends of the library sale). I will speed skim my way through it I guess.
I have terrible habits of reading because I feel some sort of a commitment to the series. I kept reading the Xanth books even after I stopped really enjoying them for example.
It is not a trilogy but I doubt I will finish “A Song of Ice and Fire”. I had hopes with the last book (the previous one was horrible), those hopes were dissapointed.
Even if the author cares to finish the story I don’t know if I will read the rest.
In my youth, I stumbled across a book by Robert Anton Wilson. It was the first book of the Iluminatus Trilogy. I didn’t get it. So I hunted down book two. Still lost, I searched for and found book three. So now I’m invested in figuring out WTF is going on, and over the years I hunted down every other book he wrote. I’m still scratching my head, but it was a fun ride.
I don’t know if this counts, but: Terry Brooks’s “Shannara” books. Got through Sword of Shannara and Elfstones of Shannara. With the first, I was stunned by how awful it was, and how blatant a rip-off of Lord of the Rings it was. The second book wasn’t any better, but at least it was a more original story. Got partway through the third book, Wishsong of Shannara, and realized it wasn’t getting any better, so I just stopped and never finished it.
Mr. Sali was enthused over Titus Groan (I glanced through it and thought, uh, no, it’s not for me.) He was less enthused about the second book, and the third book was utterly disappointing. Not even finished, as I recall (the author didn’t finish it, I mean. Mr. Sali persevered but it was a waste of time.)
Hold on to your Renquist, it’s gonna get confusing. It’s been awhile since I read RAW. But if I remeber correctly, at the time I just assumed that most of the point was that once you start buying into conspiracy theories, the rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper.
Well, be careful. If you enter a trilogy in the wrong direction after having a few drinks, you could crash the plot and your spouse will sue the director.
