I have no opinion on Highlander II, having seen neither the original nor II, but how could I forget the massive pile of suckiture that is Temple Of Doom? I guess I didn’t post it myself because I had blanked it out of my mind. There are two Indy films, no more.
Honestly prior to this thread I had no idea this existed.
The Rotten Tomatoes delta is a staggering 83 points.
Temple of Doom is a perfectly good and competently made movie. IT’s not as good as the first one, but it’s not a BAD movie.
I thought I was the only one… in no way is ToD a bad film.
Some folks are pushing the limit to what “immediate” sequel means. Terminator 3 was a fairly long time after Terminator 2, for example.
Even Highlander 2 is pretty long to be called immediate, but if 5 years is short enough, it’s my pick.
The Matrix 3 is probably one of the most shockingly bad immediate sequels, especially because I trusted the directors and I thought the second one was not anywhere near as bad as some did.
Yeah, I’ve never heard Robocop 2 in any conversation of horrible sequels. It’s just a less good movie, a big step down…but not horrific.
I like QoS and Skyfall. Did everyone forget about Spectre? Don’t feel bad if you did. You should have. The one where Blofeld is revealed to be his brother.
Eh, 11 years later isn’t quite immediate.
Count me in. T3 was fantastic. So was T2; they’re different, but I don’t see one as “better” than the other.
Another point that IMHO should have been included in terms of worst immediate sequel is keeping the same (or mostly) cast. It’s a big part of your (legitimate) complaint in the example of Pacific Rim → Uprising, because they keep the supporting cast and jettison the rest, so there’s little-to-no continuity of protagonists. Granted, the main protagonist of the first film was dishwasher dull, and almost all of it therefore went to Idris Elba’s character (with cause!) so a true continuity was impossible… but it’s different. So see my answer to the question later.
Robocop 2 is terribly flawed, Highlander 2 is terrible, period, end of sentence, end of discussion. But lots of others have said it. But it had to be repeated. Forever. Until I can get a MIB flashy thing to obliterate all cinematic sequels to Highlander. IMHO, of course… THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
It is a truly terrible sequel, and could quality (IMHO) if it was the direct sequel to Blade (I) which is a remarkably good movie for it’s premise and content… but Blade 2 (it’s direct predecessor) was already a pretty big drop from the first. Not bad enough to be worthy of a mention in this thread, but worth a moment of consideration.
Having gotten all of that out of the way, I’m going with my personal judgement. It’s probably not the most technically correct answer to being the Absolute Worst immediate sequel (again Highlander II literally killed it’s entire premise in the first few minutes, and broke our minds by recreating Ramirez only to utterly waste him!), but it’s probably the most disappointing immediate sequel, with the full original cast and team.
Ghostbusters II. There. I said it. The first was fun, unique, made great uses of the talents of everyone involved, and was a great favorite of mine as a child.
The sequel came out 5 years later (just within the OP’s range), still had everyone involved, and had almost none of the magic of the first. Everyone, from the characters to the actors, didn’t seem to care, the plot was under-developed, the subplot was insipid, and while some of the one liners were still good, I just walked out feeling disappointed, even as a child.
In terms of absolute drops, Rotten Tomatoes (which most are using) gives the first 95% (possibly with a bit of nostalgia, but still, I think it’s at least close to that), and Ghostbusters 2 55% - so a 40% loss, powerful, but not as dramatic as Highlander… but dammit, that combination of cast and crew had no objective reason to not be able to create another great (if almost certainly doomed to be lesser) effort, though all the reporting of the behind of scenes conflicts seems to have made it inevitable.
I came here to nominate this. My golfing buddy said “Caddyshack is the best movie ever made about golf and Caddyshack 2 is the worst movie ever made about golf.” So they span the entire spectrum.
The Matrix 3 is a bad movie for precisely the same reason Return of the Jedi is a so-so movie; there was never actually a plan for taking the story that far.
Blofeld being Bond’s brother still won’t make it worse than Skyfall (and Spectre IS bad).
Silva’s plan of everyone in MI6 doing exactly the perfect thing at the perfect time transcends almost all bad plots. ANY one thing Bond or Q (stupid Q!) would have done differently would have made Silva’s plan fall apart. Not to mention Bond’s “plan”, which was unintelligible, or M running away in the dark, using a flashlight! (here I am! Shoot me!)
I’m one of those people who doesn’t “get” the original “2001” movie. I did see “2010” in the theater, and while it wasn’t great cinema, it was a good sci-fi drama.
I never heard anything good about “Airplane 2.”
They were when it bombed to oblivion.
2010 has to be seen on a big screen to be appreciated. The scene where they are crossing over between ships and look down at the swirling mass of Jupiter was stunning in the theater. It has zero impact on tv.
The criticism of Airplane 2 being a total retread of the first one is valid. It’s still funny and has a few notable bits of its own.
Heck, I’d argue that Shatner’s performance alone should keep this movie out of this thread.
Yeah, I concur. Entertaining- yes. Great? No.
Apparently the Director’s cut isnt so bad.
Absolutely craptastic. But doesnt qualify here.
Had a few decent songs, so yeah, bad but not terrible.
Some great music pulled it from being terrible. The ploy was terrible however.
It is still fun and entertaining, but yeah, so wrong after Indy 1.
Right, It was just disappointing after the greatness of the first film.
Again, a disappointing sequel after a great one.
Because it completely does away with any possible reason for the first movie. It craps all over the premise of the franchise, and makes everything illogical.
Speed ][ might be a bad movie, but it doesn’t try to say "There never was a Sandra Bullock, she’s not on the cruise ship, was never on the bus… and in fact modern society never invented the bus."
The biggest issue with it was that the directors/writers of the original had no involvement in the sequel, having opted to instead make Top Secret!. Paramount owned the original, wanted a sequel, and hired others to make it.
And that (Top Secret!) was actually a very good movie (I think). Maybe not Oscar worthy but I enjoyed watching it. Maybe it helps that I know a little German. 
I really don’t see the problem with 2.
So what if it wasn’t made by ZAZ, and they won’t watch it. I understand their decision, but they’re missing a good movie.
It’s done in the same style, same type of humor, with most of the same cast. At the time it was new, I couldn’t tell it wasn’t “official” ZAZ.
Top Secret is fine. There’s room for both.
I’ll never be over Macho Grande.
Movies are incredibly complex projects usually involving the efforts and creativity of a bunch of different people and I think their success or lack thereof is sometimes - not always but sometimes - more a matter of luck than we are prepared to admit.
In most opinion, “Ghostbusters” was one of the luckiest great movies ever. It was a one in a thousand shot that those pieces would fall together as effectively as they did.
“Ghostbusters II” (or any of the subsequent films) is really just the likelier outcome.