# Were there any sequel movies before Star Wars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628 "2015-04-02T16:04:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/101 "2015-04-15T00:26:15Z")
Herman Raucher wrote the semiautobiographical SUMMER OF '42 – which featured Gary Grimes as Hermie, with Oliver Conant as Benjie and Jerry Houser as Oscy – and the coming-of-age story was a surprise hit, grossing $32 million on a $1 million budget. And so it was followed a couple of years later by CLASS OF '44, with Grimes as Hermie off at college, and Conant as Benjie joining the military, and Houser as Oscy getting expelled from college before joining the military, and it wasn’t a hit at all. But it did come out before STAR WARS, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/102 "2015-04-15T15:56:08Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Of course, Clint Eastwood then moved on to _Dirty Harry_ in 1971, and _Magnum Force_ in 1973, and _The Enforcer_ in 1976 – before following up with _Sudden Impact_ and _The Dead Pool_ in the '80s. (Was that six, or five? Tell ya the truth, in all this excitement I kinda lost track.) ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/103 "2015-04-15T16:09:10Z")
There were many sequels before Empire, but isn’t it the first movie that intentionally set up a necessary sequel because the heroes didn’t save the day and live happily ever after? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/104 "2015-04-15T16:22:48Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > Does that Japanese monster movie The Gargantuas count as a Titanic sequel? For that matter, François Rabelais’s original _Gargantua_ (1534) was a prequel to _Pantagruel_, and was followed by _The Third Book of Pantagruel_, _The Fourth Book of Pantagruel_, and _The Fifth Book of Pantagruel_. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/105 "2015-04-15T18:09:51Z")
Whenever I hear a sequel with “2” in its title, I always imagine a “harder” appearing afterward, like they did with _Die Hard 2: Die Harder_. The results can be quite … enlightening. Like: _Bambi II: Bambi Harder_ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/106 "2015-04-17T10:55:35Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > There were many sequels before Empire, but isn’t it the first movie that intentionally set up a necessary sequel because the heroes didn’t save the day and live happily ever after? Again, the James Bond movies arguably count: we’re most of the way through the first film when Doctor No reveals that he’s not some independent operator, but a company man who starts pitching our hero on joining up with SPECTRE – and so while that middleman goes down by the end of the movie, the sequel involves Blofeld sending assassins to deal with 007 once and for all… …and after _that_ fails, Blofeld is still at large, and Bond still has a target on his back, so it’s time for a movie where our hero fakes his death so he can get some freedom of movement and finally _meet_ the Big Bad… …who of course gets away to fight another day, by which I mean _killing Bond’s wife_ at the end of the next movie, which is why the movie after _that_ opens with Bond coldly taking people apart and asking WHERE’S BLOFELD?!?! Switching gears entirely, **Cheaper By The Dozen** dealt mainly with an efficiency expert and his wife raising a whole lot of kids – until he _dies,_ which means she’ll have to raise them on her own in the sequel; cue **Belles On Their Toes**. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628/107 "2015-04-17T14:28:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I said earlier that Edison was producing sequels. > > In 1901 his company, meaning director Edwin S. Porter, produced “Fun in the Butcher Shop,” in which a dog is placed into a machine and instantly converted into a string of sausages. In 1904, they did “Dog Factory,” a sequel in which a string of sausages is turned into the original dog. > > The concept was stolen from the American Mutograph & Biograph Co., whose “The Sausage Machine” was filmed in 1897. A sequel, “Making Sausages,” followed in 1898 but the concept wasn’t switched; they just used both cats and dogs. > > Another early pair was “Liquid Electricity” (AKA “The Inventor’s Galvanic Fluid”) from Vitagraph in 1907, followed by “Galvanic Fluid” (AKA “More Fun with Liquid Electricity”) in 1908. > > “Dog Factory” can be seen on [YouTube](https://youtu.be/ac2fWCwDH9Y). None of the others have survived, AFAIK. A footnote. Lumiere himself made the original, [La charcuterie mécanique - The Mechanical Butcher (1895)](https://youtu.be/X6PNgbOxNDg), and it survives, all 44 seconds of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-sequel-movies-before-star-wars/716628.md?page=5)