Robocop 2 didn’t completely trash the entire fundamental premise of the original movie. Highlander 2 can’t exist if we accept the first movie on its own terms. It wasn’t “The Gathering”, Macleod isn’t the last of the immortals, now mortal with other kinds of superpowers, and everything.
At least with Robocop 2, Robocop still existed, and was an exceptional police officer and robot. The second movie accepted the point that making that particular cop into Robocop is what made the whole program work. They couldn’t just swap out any old cop for Murphy. It was Murphy’s qualities as a man that made Robocop as good as he was.
It’s not written on the epic and psychedelic scale of the original, but if approached as a mid-80s attempt at a (mostly) hard sci-fi space movie, it’s a decent movie. Very Cold War in its politics, of course, but the space adventure scenes are pretty good.
Yeah, like I mentioned in my post about the original JP–I’m really not sure if it was that great a movie or if the effects were just something we’d never seen before.
My litmus test is generally “do I remember anything from it?” I remember a lot of scenes from the original Jurassic Park but staggeringly few from any of the subsequent movies.
Frankly, I’m not entirely certain how enjoyable I would have found 2001 otherwise. Were viewers expected to understand what’s going on or were they just expected to marvel at the effects? Because the overarching plot of the books doesn’t really seem entirely clear to me from the movies alone. (In fact, I’d say 2010 is probably easier to follow in that regard.)
I’m too young to have seen 2001 in its original run, but from what I’ve gleaned, a lot of people at the time didn’t really get it. I recall one of my friends dad, who was an engineer in the 60s, complaining that, when he went to see 2001 in the theatre, the place was “full of hippies smoking dope”, which he seemed to consider to be a negative.
Hot Tub Time Machine while not a “great” movie was definitely one of the better juvenile gross-out comedies. A lot of people took a pass on this one on the name alone but it was really well written, creative, and funny.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2? Oh geez… just.. no.
How about Cannonball Run II? Younger generations may recognize it from The Good Place as one of only two movies available for viewing in the Medium Place, the other being The Making of Cannonball Run II.
What about Halloween II. In my mind, the original Halloween is one of, if not the best, horror movies of all time. The second is not out and out horrible, but significantly worse in every way.
The Blair Witch Project (1999) was flawed but interesting. It’s hard to call it a great film, but it became a cultural touchstone even if it ultimately didn’t deliver on its promise. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) is a complete crapfest with no redeeming features.
My biggest issue with The Lost World is that the book had one clear setup for a sequel, but the movie had a different clear setup for a sequel. So which one do they use? Neither, of course.
Wait, no, that wasn’t my biggest issue. My biggest issue was with them bringing a dead character back just because he was popular. “Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated”. Yup, and so were rumors of your burial on an island which was then rumored to have been firebombed into oblivion.
Wait, no, fear, surprise, AND a fanatical devotion to the Pope.