There were two sequels, actually, and both of them bothered me. At the end of the first one, you may recall, Bastienwent for a ride through his home town on the Luck Dragon, and showed the local bullies how real bullying is done. I thought that was a bit dickish of him, but in The Neverending Story II, he pretty much did the same thing. After he saved Fantasia, he went home and used supernatural tools and allies to whale on some bully ass. Way to take the moral high ground, there, Bastien.
The third movie, to my mind, had the most egregious ending of all. After Bastien gets the magic wish-granting item back and fixes all the chaos that Jack Black and his buddies caused, hetook it upon himself to actually change Jack Black’s (and his gang’s) personalities, taking away their free will, and turning them into the chess club. Or something.
Bastien is such an amoral bastard. I’m scared of him, and I hope there’s no fourth installment.
And of course history shows that you were right - they clearly never intended a sequel.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actually hang out waiting for a sequel to appear. When I saw the final scene (bear in mind I’ve only seen the movie once) all I could think was, “Gee, that looks like a setup for a sequel.” I didn’t then think it through, it was just the thought that struck me given the way the scene was presented. On reflection, as you point out, it would be pretty difficult to make it “work.”
Probably. After all, they repeat these things every 7-12 years for the new generations, so given enough time, yes, of course they’ll do the Joker again. My point was that the ending of TDK, with the Joker not dying, was obviously set up for a sequel, and when they shot the sequence it was more than likely assumed that Heath Ledger would reprise the role. Which is not going to happen.
And probably shouldn’t, at least during this iteration as I’m sure there are plenty of other villians for Nolan/Bale’s Batman to conquer.
With lots of pretty explosions and fistacuffs, of course.
There are indeed talks in the works of a True Lies II when Schwarzenegger leaves office in 2011. Who knows if it will actually materialize, though? I know the original TL2 was dropped when 9/11 occurred.