I would nominate Ocean’s 12.
The cool thing about Ocean’s 11 (Brad Pitt , George Clooney et al) was they got the better of the ‘bastard’-Terry Benedict.
Then in 12 , Terry Benedict tracks them down. I do not want to hear that. It ruins the first movie. They got away!
The Star Wars prequels. So awful that they made me change my entire opinion on the original trilogy, and start getting rid of all my old toys. They ruined the mythology by diluting it, as far as I’m concerned.
The Matrix sequels were horrendous too, but at least I pretend the original exists in a vacuum.
Alien 3 and Terminator 3; both basically screwed over the previous move. In Alien 3, the little girl and Hicks died anyway, and Ripley dies at the end. In T3, it turns out there is such a thing as fate, the struggle in the last movie accomplished nothing, and we’re all screwed.
The first one was a fun popcorn flick. The second made me think maybe they really had something going on with their symbolic mumbo jumbo. The third one revealed that no, in fact, they were just picking random religious sounding stuff out of the air and in fact had nothing to say at all.
The Matrix was, at the time, the Coolest Movie I Had Ever Seen- I was totally blown away by it, and when I heard about the sequels, I was a bit skeptical, but thought “Sure, why not?”
The second one was OK. There was some potential there, and the Twins were very cool, and things were looking very promising for the third one.
I went out and got some of the Collectible Figurines (Admittedly they weren’t expensive), as well as some Movie Posters- not purely for investment, but I’ll admit that thought wasn’t far from my mind- and then the third movie came out.
My collectible figurines and movie posters are now gathering dust in the back of a cupboard.
I stopped in to express that very sentiment. Ocean’s 12 was the one I thought of immediately and for the same reasons.
As far as Highlander - well, there wasn’t a single movie that didn’t contradict the previous ones. They should have stopped at the first.
Matrix Revolutions made me think less of Reloaded because it revealed they had no idea what they were doing. It didn’t really ruin the original since that one was made separately.
I said it once and I’ll say it again. “We don’t fucking care about Zion. We don’t know anyone there and don’t care about anyone there. If it isn’t in the Matrix itself…I don’t care!”
How could we speak of such a thing? No such movie was ever made.
I’ve heard rumors that George Lucas is planning to make prequels to the three Star Wars movies. I hope he doesn’t. He’d probably add something stupid like a talking kangaroo with a dumb name like Jug-Jug or other container. There’s no whay it would be near as cool as Ice-T in Tank Girl.
The crappiness of Men in Black 2 has the effect of revealing how the first one isn’t really all that good either. When you see how the sequel is coasting on little more than visual effects and snarky attitude, the first one suddenly starts to feel nearly as thin and pointless.
When I was a kid I loved Smokey and the Bandit (the “when I was a kid” part is very important). Its sequel was my first exposure with a “My God what have they done” moment of a studio squeezing the tube til it was empty and then adding in baking soda and shoe polish for a sequel.
Thirded or whatevered to Star Wars (which for me began with Return of the Jedi which I thought was untrue to the first two in the way it overcommercialized and overgrossed out and over "cute"d its way through the completion.
Godfather 3 didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the first two Godfather movies so much as it detracted from my enjoyment of Coppola. It was so clearly a “let’s make a lot of money for my vineyard” project and yet it could have been so good. It was the end (for me) of the Coppola=Mark-of-Quality association.
I also did not enjoy the prequels for Star Wars . It also really bothers me that my child will not be able to enjoy these movies on the same level, not shock about Darth Vader, none of that.
I nominate the original Planet of the Apes, which was a brilliant movie, but the following numerous sequels went downhill very very steeply. The subway mutant A-Bomb worshippers really took the cake. Now I try to pretend that the sequels weren’t made.
However, *Conquest of the Planet of the Apes * (1972) managed to be disturbing and really entertaining.
Disturbing in the sense that it makes you root for the ape revolt. When it was shown in the late 70’s in El Salvador, I was amazed that the repressive government allowed a film of a revolution to be shown in a place that was ready to start one. I bet the gorillas in government missed the allegory, but I think the guerrillas did like it.
I’ve seen the Matrix, Men in Black and Ocean’s 11 sequels and Star Wars prequels, and agree completely with all of those nominations.
I’ll add the Austin Powers sequels. In the first three minutes of the second movie, they kill of Elizabeth Hurley’s character and undo all of the maturing Austin did in the first movie. There were some very funny things in the second movie, but they were offset by an unending stream of shit, dick and fat jokes. And then the third one had three good jokes spread out across 90 minutes. It lessened my enjoyment of the first movie and also my respect for Mike Myers, who suddenly seemed like the world’s biggest one-trick pony.
I have to add my agreement with regard to the Star Wars prequels. The fact that I’ve seen them and so they exist in my memory lowers my ability to just enjoy the first one. Star Wars was fun; the prequels are just dreary and morbid. That I know the disgusting origin of Darth Vader has just sucked a lot of the enjoyment and fun out of the original.
On the other hand, while I agree that the sequels to Planet of the Apes are bad, they don’t in any way prevent me from enjoying and marvelling at the original. The storyline(s) in the sequels are just so far removed from the first one that there doesn’t feel like there’s all that much connection, so it’s easy to just forget about them when watching the original. (And, fortunately, I made a point of not seeing the remake, so I don’t have that polluting my memories).
Ooooh. Hated the Star Wars prequels; so much so that I didn’t even bother to see the third one. Starship Troopers is also a favorite of mine, and the sequel was completely terrible.