Agreed. The sequels were entirely unnecessary and serve to tarnish the original which was a rollicking good sea story.
If there is an alternate reality where the movie “Son of Rosemary” exists, it will win this thread. And I do not want to go there.
Does anyone remember that there was a sequel to Psycho made 23 years later? Can a sequel diminish the original if nobody remembers that there was a sequel?
In comparison to “Jaws” and the obsession with sharks that ensued because of it, the sequels were dismal. The one about the decedent of the original shark that somehow was able to track and follow them around looking for revenge was the most ridiculous sequel of them all. Plus, the shark starting looking more and more fake as time went on. You’d think the ongoing evolution of special effects would make it look better, but not so.
There were three sequels that no one remembers.
The 1968 version of “Panet of the Apes”. Although I do have a soft spot for the bad 1970 ”Beneath” because Charlton Heston nukes the planet of those damn, dirty apes.
I feel the Sharknado sequels stole away some of the quiet dignity found in the original. People hardly take the film seriously anymore.
Plus, the shark roared like Spot on, “The Munsters.”
Return of the Jedi.
The Force Awakens just pisses all over the original trilogy. The heroes of the first trilogy fight against all odds to be an evil empire, but it doesn’t matter because the First Order arises and is even worse. The love story between Han and Leia is ruined as they are divorced and their kid is evil. Luke learning to use the force is pointless because he trains Kylo Ren who turns out to be evil and kills Han. Plus Luke didn’t actually need any training because someone can hold their own with a Sith lord the first time they touch a lightsaber.
Literally everything good about the first trilogy is ruined by the Force Awakens, its like the director had a checklist.
The prequels.
RotJ certainly had its flaws, but Luke’s actions at the end show what being a Jedi was supposed to be all about.
But in ANH Obi-wan speaks of the Jedi as noble. What we see of them in the prequels are a bunch of boobs who get hoodwinked by this clown until the last minute. Why respect them? Sure they are good in fighting, but to be emulated? Not hardly.
I will second Police Academy. I haven’t seen it in probably a decade and suspect it hasn’t aged well bu at the time was a funny and well made comedy followed by shit sequels that got worse and worse.
I will say Jurassic Park. The first movie has issues but is a good movie. The Lost World was not terrible but bad. Three was completely forgettable (other than Pterodactyls I literally remember nothing about it). Jurassic World was complete garbage. It was like four scripts and a pile of turds were put in a blender.
100% agree with this.
This is so true… they should leave the bad guys BAD. Think about the Terminator- he was so awesome because he was, as Reese put it,
Kind of like a force of nature, but more malevolent because it’s technological.
And what do they do? They make him care and one of the good guys in the sequels.
Same thing in the new Battlestar Galactica; the best episodes were early on when the Cylons were unstoppable, unknown and terrible. The further in you got, the less terrifying they became, and the show devolved into a soap opera.
Darth Vader was much the same way after about the halfway point of ROTJ. It’s what made the end scenes in Rogue One so entertaining; THAT’s what you wanted to see Vader do all along.
Hell, even The Walking Dead fell prey to this particular law. In the first season or so, the walkers were a real and present threat. But by the time they found the prison, they were… manageable.
And in the Star Wars prequels, they never even established the Sith as being that scary or ominous.
High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane (1980)
I haven’t actually seen this and I am not really that fond of the original (though it does have some undeniable virtues), but given the general esteem which the original is held, I can’t imagine this made-for-TV sequel does anything but taint it.
King Kong (1933) is of course a classic. The Son of Kong (1934) is not as good, but still very enjoyable for me. However, there can be no defense for King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) or* King Kong Escapes* (1967) as doing anything but devaluing the earlier flicks. I am inclined to include King Kong Lives (1986), but I haven’t seen it and I think it would be challenging to argue it “diminished” King Kong (1976) given how bad that film is (other than Rick Baker’s make-up and Jessica Lange).
Indiana Jones movies – The second one is bad, but …Crystal Skull plays like an awful parody. What a waste of film stock.
Memories of Chinatown (1974) are ill-served by The Two Jakes (1990), though whether it actually “diminishes” the earlier film is open to debate.
No loathing for 2010 (1984)?
The Fly (1958) is camp horror. I don’t even remember *The Return of the Fly (1959). * Curse of the Fly (1965), however, is something else; a sequel going off in an entirely different direction. It has an awesome opening (girl in her underwear fleeing the loony bin), creepy mutations evoking Lovecraft and a cool ending, and is neither camp nor derivative of other horror films (or at least none I can think of offhand). Not without flaws, to be sure, but superior imo to any other “fly” film.
Second best line, but it set up the best line, when Rocky replied " Don’t want one"
This. By going fifteen rounds with the champ, Rocky’s proved everything about himself that one man could need to prove.
Also, he and Creed have fought their war to a draw (with tie going to the defending champ, of course), and neither one wants to have to fight the other a second time.
All that, conveyed perfectly in that handful of words: “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.” “Don’t want one.”
I’m going to disagree about Pirates of the Caribbean. The sequels may not be as good as the original, but they’re still pretty enjoyable, IMHO. I hardly think they’re anywhere near the sort of drop-off that the Rocky or Jaws sequels are, or that the prequels/sequels to the original Star Wars trilogy are.
I’ve seen The Curse of the Fly and it’s pretty much a SINO (sequel-in-name-only). It seemed like it out with a screenplay for a separate movie but the studio shoehorned into the series. Also, one of film’s storylines straight out of “Jane Eyre”.
I disagree with all of the Rocky sequel dislike. I think Rocky 2 plausibly showed the rationale for Creed and Rocky’s setup for a rematch, with Creed playing the perfect narcissist role trying to save his legacy and Rocky set up well as the reluctant goadee.
Rocky 3 and 4 are pure shiny-pec-man-awesome like the Predator movies.
Ok, here’s kind of an odd choice: The Land Before Time(1988). They made thirteen direct to video sequels; the last one being released in 2016.
For that matter, The Secret of NIMH has a direct to video sequel. It has none of charm and mystery of the first and is just an all-around horrible film.