Movie sequels that were better than the original / first?

[CalMeacham]

I have to admit, I liked Army of Darkness a whole lot more than The Evil Dead or The Evil Dead II.

[TriPolar]

@Alessan

I saw *Jumanji *again last month and it’s… not good. It’s not a matter of aging special effects; it’s just a screeching, chaotic, unpleasant little movie. The new one is better. In fact, I’d say that the half-forgotten semi-sequel *Zathura *is also much better than the first film.

I just saw this. I’ve never seen the first one beginning to end but it was a mess. The second one is no award winner in my book but a much better movie none-the-less.

In general, I see the chance of a sequel exceeding the original is based on the original being awful or the sequel to be a something of a new story altogether. I’m sure there are exceptions.

[MichaelEmouse]

Mission Impossible has been pretty good at not going to shit over time, unlike, say, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Video about it: Is Mission: Impossible the Best Action Franchise? - YouTube

I see 2 patterns: 1) Change the genre (Aliens) or do a major variation on a theme found in the previous movie (Terminator 2) 2) Be a light/popcorn adventure movie that lends itself to an episodic format like Back to the future, Indiana Jones or Mission Impossible. They’re like watching a TV show which had the advantage of a lot of time and money.

[LLCoolL]

@gdave

For those mentioned so far, I liked Aliens much more than Alien and Terminator 2 much more than Terminator - but I like action movies and don’t like horror movies, and for both of those franchises, the first movie was a horror movie with some action elements, and the sequel was an action movie with some horror elements…

I think you’ve nailed it. Alien vs Aliens is like apples and oranges. T1 and T2 are closer, but T1 has much stronger thriller/horror elements. T2 is more action.

I prefer Alien and T1, but I think it’s mainly down to genre, rather than the quality of the films. All four of them are top-notch, just in different ways.

Responding to a related question down-thread: I saw all four of these films in the theater on first run. That’s probably to the benefit of the original films, which might look slightly “cheaper” and dated on video compared to their more technically polished sequels. BTW: I think ‘Alien’ holds up incredibly well from the standpoint of visuals for a sci-fi film made in 1979. Ridley Scott was way ahead of his time. [Too bad he’s lost his touch on the last two Alien films. Aargh.]

[cmkeller]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was better than Captain America: The First Avenger, and I say that as someone who likes Cap 1 better than most people seem to.

From Russia With Love and Goldfinger were both better than Dr. No, but since they were each based on their own books (granted, starring the same character), I don’t know if you’d consider them sequels to it.