What about that great science fiction epic about visitors banished from their home planet being pursued by their enemies, Highlander II? I looked up the prequel, Highlander, and it had none of that wonderful futuristic multi-planet stuff going for it-just a bunch of old guys sword fighting.
Then I have to mention One Million B.C. A middle part of a several billion sequence.
It was supposed to be the opening movie in a long series. But they never even made the second movie, Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine B.C. They couldn’t get the financing for the title card.
Zatoichi, I presume?
Mr. Billion
'Nuff said.
Yes, it is a generational thing. I saw “The Rescuers” when it first ran in the theaters as a kid and had no idea before this thread that there was a sequel, because at that time I wasn’t exactly in that target group anymore.
How about Five Million Years to Earth (aka Quatermass and the Pit)? At least to American audiences, the two previous movies are mostly unknown. 5MYtE was shown on TV a lot when I was a kid (and it made quite the impression) but I still have never seen the first two. Outside of maybe TCM who would show them? I don’t see them available on Amazon at all.
I’m almost exactly in between the two of you (I’m 39). I’m guessing the difference is the fact that I never had the opportunity to see The Rescuers as a kid for whatever reason, and you did.
I grew up watching The Creeping Unknown (AKA The Quatermass Xperiment – the first Quatermass movie) on WPIX’s Chiller Theater many, many times. Chiller Theater had a way of showing the same movies over and over and over, so I eventually figured they probably simply owned copies and tossed them in at random*. This Quatermass film was arguably the classiest of their low-budget bunch. I don’t know if anyone outside the New York Metropolitan area broadcast it, but, if it was that cheap, my guess is “yes”
I saw Enemy from Space (AKA “Quatermass 2”) on the Late Movie on CBS the first time, and was riveted by it. I hadn’t known there was a sequel at first. I own a copy now, but I taped it from TNT, then transferred it to DVD.
All three films are available on DVD, if you look for them. In fact, the original BBC serial versions are available, too (except in the case of The Quatermass Experiment – the TV version wasn’t cute with the spelling – only two episodes survive. You can find them on YouTube).
But it’s true, they’re not shown much anymore, especially with things like Monstervision and MST3K off the air. Who wants to watch black and white 1950s movies with poor special effects when you can rewatch Star Wars? Even science fiction conventions rarely run these films.
For that matter, who shows Five Million Years to Earth anymore? (AKA Quatermass and the Pit) It’s just as obscure as the first two films these days.
*Some of Chiller Theaters offerings:
The Ape Man
The Cyclops
Cape Canaveral Monsters
The Black Sleep
Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman
Voodoo Island
One data point to the contrary: I’ve never seen either, but I am aware of Willard being a horror movie involving rats and I had never heard of Ben before now.
For a sequel to be better known, does it literally have to be that people don’t know the earlier book/movie exists, or just more people have seen the second? If it’s the first, you pretty much need it to not be something that has a number in the title.
Something relatively recently released that doesn’t have a number is going to be known by more people than know of the original. So Mad Max: Fury Road likely qualifies. I bet there are more young people aware of the recent one and unaware of the older ones than there are old people aware of the old ones and unaware of the new one.
In the 80s, The Color of Money might have qualified? These days The Hustler is likely better known.
Most people in the U.S. know Final Fantasy 3, which was actually the 6th game in the series. Strangely they corrected the numbering for FF7. Anyway, I believe very few Americans ever played 1-4, although I do remember playing FF5.
Road Warrior has already been mentioned.
Desperado not only had a different story than El Mariachi, it literally had a flashback to the first. In Desperado, the Mariachi is seeking revenge for what happened to Domino in the first film (as well as the damage to his hand).
IV came out in the US as II (though it was originally the dumbed down “kids” version) and was very popular.
5 never came out in the US until later.
To be fair, it’s really hard nowadays to get familiar with the first season with David Keel, because only three full episodes still exist.
And the fifth season is probably the best-known one. Seasons four and five had Emma Peel, but season 4 was in black and white; season 5 was when it moved to colour.
I think “familiarity” has to go a little further than “knows it exists”. I mean, I know that the two Ultima games I played were numbered III and IV, so logically, I know that I and II exist. But all I know about them is what others have mentioned in this thread, so I’m certainly more familiar with the sequels than with them.
I think the original was just called Breakin’, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
The title of the sequel is epic! Up there with Pootie Tang on the list of memorably outlandish movie titles.
For Americans, the introduction to The Avengers, as with Doctor Who, came late in the series. The b&w Avengers season four was the first one shown. And Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor, was the first one shown. You would have to have made an effort years later to see any of the earlier episodes. Unseeable programs aren’t going to make any impression.
BTW, as I point out in my robot book, the first episode of each shown was a robot episode. The Avengers started out of order with “The Cybernauts” and Doctor Who led off with a four-parter called “The Robot.”
Voltron was a combination of two Japanese cartoons that were only connected in the sense that they starred a giant robot made by combining smaller vehicles. The producers had already bought the rights for a third similar Japanese show and would have grafted that one on to the other two, but the show got canceled.
The 1,2,and 3 designations for the three series are in-house for the production staff and are geographical (near/far from Earth), not chronological. The Voltron with the lions was the first one broadcast in the US and the oldest of the three shows in Japan.
The best-known Sherlock Holmes story is probably* The Hound of the Baskervilles*, but the first is A Study in Scarlet. Not really sure how to rank Sherlock Holmes stories.
James Bond was mentioned upthread. The books came out in one order and the films in another, which really murks things up, but I would say objectively that Goldfinger is better-known than either Dr. No or Casino Royale, as it’s the first of the films where all the classic Bond elements were finally in place.
Your username and post gives rise to the following question: What’s the best-known Horatio Hornblower book? If it’s not the first, then it might qualify for this thread.