When I heard about Ice age 4, now I think this is a bit too much.
Now it’s all sequels, (Im not taking sides) Pixar, Monsters Inc 2 And Cars 2.
Dreamworks, Shrek 4, Madagascar 3 (which they had to make) And How To Train Youre Dragon 2.
(Other Anamation Studios) Ice Age 4.
Are any of you tired of thses repetative story’s?.
Or do you like the same Story Charicters?.
I for one (sort of) don’t like too many sequels, some are fine but there is to many coming out now.
I just hope in the future (or sometime later) that people will come up with storys that are not sequels.
P.S If their any sequel movies i missed, can you tell me by commenting or sending a private message? Thanks.
I know exactally what you mean. The reasoning seems to be if a movie is successful, make a sequel. I can’t think of many HUGE movies that haven’t had a sequel or doesn’t have one in the works… Titanic, I guess? Finding Nemo?
Biggest ‘no’ i’ve given in a while,
Not just the last year or so (recently), but in my opinion, the last 10-15 years, except for Pixar and the odd few, like Lord of the Rings trilogy, Titanic kind of, Cast away for example, the movies have overall, been 100% trash.
And i hate how a 15 year old person says, ‘Avatar is better than The Terminator’, or ‘Dark Knight is one of the movies ever’… it’s stupid.
Within the last year os so, my mates say, ‘have you seen Twilight’, or ‘have you seen Shrelock Holmes’, (i never go cinema btw), and i’m like…what’s that?
I’d prefer to watch a two hour, 1943 black and white movie, with good actors, a good script and plot and zero action, than a cheesy 3 hour special effect-full garbage like Avatar.
Am not tryna be mean or offend the people who like the new movies, but i don’t see how they prefer CGi to dialogue
I haven’t seen Avatar, but a lot of people say it’s really liberal and really boring, so I’ll pass. I hate the new Batman movies. I’ll take Michael Keaton-Jack Nicholson over Bale-Ledger any day.
As a general rule, I HATE sequels. As I’ve argued in another thread, in my opinion a sequel actually devalues its predecessor. The whole idea of sequels just really irritates me, especially when, nine times out of ten, they’re clearly a money-making scheme.
It all depends on Movies.
I mean Pixar made a good choice to make TS3 because TS is one of the best movies in history .
But i just don’t like sequils keep repetative like shrek now their up to 4.
And soon Cars 2 and Monsters Inc 2
I just don’t know about those 2 if their going to bring in a good audiance
Brave might be a good movie to settle in
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You guys are way too dualistic here. Where’s the in between option?
In general, if I feel that they could still do more with the story’s universe, then sure, why not? If the squeal is good, it’s good. If it sucks, it sucks. And if it does suck, I really don’t think that it damages the original/predictor; in fact it only makes the first film look better.
I too am in the middle about them. I guess on one hand I’d prefer the studios would try and be more creative and come up with new worlds rather than re-hashing what’s already been done. And sequels do have that stigma of rarely being as good as the original. But on the other if the sequels are good movies, I dont mind seeing them. Although I think in most cases 3 should be it.
I have nothing against sequels. They are made because people want to see them. If people stopped watching them then they would no longer be produced.
I think there are a number of fantastic sequels, some that imo improve on the first… empire strikes back comes to mind.
Pixarinho* there are plenty of good modern films, by only watching classics you are missing out on so much. I can name you a pretty big list of films made in the last 10-15 years that are worth your time.
And for the record, I thought The Dark Knight as brilliant
Okay, I’m tired with the recent spate of sequels, but I recall I enjoyed a few more than their predecessors. Here’s some worthy sequels:
The Dark Knight
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Toy Story 2
New Police Story
Stuart Little 2
Star Wars old trilogy
Lethal Weapon 3 and 4 (haven’t seen 2)
Matrix: Reloaded (but only the action scenes, the storyline in the first was better)
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Madagascar Escape 2 Africa
When we talk of sequels, I don’t usually think of original films released intending to have sequels, like Star Wars and Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, that sort of thing. The sequels in those cases aren’t an extension to the original plot, they’re intrinsic to the original and are one part of a whole, and hence tend to be a lot better than sequels planned well after the release of the original.
There are of course always going to be exceptions to the rule, such as The Dark Knight and Toy Story 2, where the sequels continue to develop the characters and plot whilst successfully integrating new characters and ideas in the same world. It’s just that the majority of sequels, I think, don’t manage to do this very well.
And the reason why so many people go to see sequels is because they’re routine, they’re unsurprising, you know what you’re going to get. Going to the cinema is always a gamble, so if you’ve enjoyed the original and hear about a sequel that’s coming out, you’re more likely to be willing to invest your time and money into going and seeing the thing. Look at the numbers for Shrek and its sequels- the original is the one that made the least amount of money on opening weekend out of them all, though undoubtedly it’s better than say the fourth one, which, though it hasn’t lived up to predictions, has still made a LOT of money. That’s why these movie companies have been making so many sequels over the last ten or so years, because it’s a near guarantee, and a cheap one at that; in the animation world for example, having characters already made is much cheaper and quicker than having to create a whole new cast in a whole new world.
It’s so easy to become lazy with sequels, and hence I find it difficult not to associate sequels with laziness the majority of times I’ve heard about a sequel or the few times when I’ve actually bothered to go and see one. Lastly, I find them quite depressing just thinking of them. You wouldn’t get this sort of re-hashing or extending of already well-used concepts in other media or art forms, not to such a monetary value at least.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting now. I’m sure you all get the idea.
I like Gremlins 2: The New Batch better than the original. Sure, the original’s still great and all, but the sequel has an unusually articulate gremlin voiced by Tony Randall, for pete’s sake. And there’s just no way you can possibly top that.
We call that “asset reuse”. James Cameron certainly had that in mind when he announced Avatar 2.
I can cite James Patterson and Anthony Horowitz novels as clear examples for books. As for music, there’s always covers, which are 99% done by the cast of Glee, and remixes, which are 99% done by Youtube audio artists.
I think you have to get the director of the original movie on board, and he has to have a clear and direct vision for the sequel, not just for a cheap buck, but if there’s room to expand the characters and their universe, and only if it’s necessary.
Again, to cite my examples, Terminator was brilliant on its own, but Cameron improved upon it by turning Arnie into a good guy and pitting him against a better machine. The whole Skynet saga was explained in greater detail, and every penny of the extra budget was used to maximum effect. There was room for expansion, we wanted to know how Sarah Connor lived on after conceiving John, how John became the future resistance leader, etc.
Unfortunately, T2 was a pretty tied-up ending, since Skynet would cease to exist with the destruction of both Terminators. Then McGee got on board and he got an infinitely bigger budget to play with and we get two unnecessary and bloated sequels.
The same story goes for the Matrix and the Pirates films (both had perfect endings, but then they had to go on further adventures). Of course, with bigger budgets, the action sequences significantly improve, but often it’s at the expense of tight, lucid scriptwriting. There’s rumours that Pirates 4 will scale back on its expenditure, which might be a good thing after the bombastic effects-laden AWE.
Sometimes, having a good story to tell beats throwing as much money as you can at special-effects. Actually, I correct myself. This wisdom is true all the time.
I’m not as a rule anti-sequel, but there are a few upcoming ones which strike me as pointless. Take Cats and Dogs for example, which has a sequel coming out later this year. Oh sure, the original was a big hit in its day (undeservedly so, in my opinion), but the day in question was nine freakin’ years ago. It hasn’t exactly lingered in the public’s collective conscience since, and I suspect that much of its target audience from 2001 wouldn’t want to watch such a film now. I note that they’re not actually billing it as a sequel - nowhere does the digit “2” feature in the title, and judging from the trailer, it seems to revolve around a largely different group of characters - so I’m guessing that they’re trying to pass this off to today’s youngsters as something completely fresh and new…in which case, why not actually try making something fresh and new, instead of reviving a film which few people even care about any more?
They’re doing that a lot nowadays. Ex: TF: ROTF, IA: DotD, SForeverA, etc. It also implies there will be further installments down the road, and is not as limiting as numbers (cos’ really, if you start seeing a Saw 6, you know the franchise is getting long, instead of seeing a new subtitle).
This removes the cheese factor of having a numerical next to your title, plus, it summarizes your sequel’s plot perfectly. I think we really have Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Pirates to blame…
They’re even doing this ‘subtitle’ business with first movies… may I refer you to the recent GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as examples.
I see what you mean about it implying that each installment is a separate chapter in one cohesive storyline, as opposed an afterthought put together to cash in on the success of the original. I have to wonder, though, if it does automatically have less “cheese factor” to swap a numerical for what is in effect a very long-winded title. I can see this being brutally mocked when it falls out of fashion. There was a time, throughout the 80s, when it was fashionable to use Roman numerals as a way of toning down that stigma (because Roman numerals imply sophistication, right?), though this seemed to largely fall out of favour throughout the 90s. In the early 90s, Arabic numbers were embraced again, though it became customary to affix a subtitle, eg: “Judgement Day”, “The New Batch”, “Lost In New York”, etc, to suggest that, while not necessarily an essential continuation of the previous story arc, this was at least a distinctive installment in its own right. By the 00s, these subtitles seemed to be replacing the numbers altogether. So I wonder - where will we go from here?
Actually, it’s interesting to see how some film series have attempted to adapt and change according to what’s fashionable. Take Halloween, for example:
Halloween
Halloween II
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
Halloween: Resurrection
Which actually seems like an exercise in neatness and consistency, when compared to…
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (O RLY?) Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
Jason X
Freddy vs Jason
On the subject of live action movies (as before I was mainly just thinking about animated sequels) I’m pretty much in the middle with them too. After all, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan anyone? That was one thats 10x better than the first. The Trek movies I guess as a generality were kind of hit and miss, some were good, others not so much. But there have been 11 of them, with at least 2 more coming:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
ST II: Wrath of Khan
ST III: Search for Spock
ST IV: Voyage Home (II, III, IV are kind of a stand alone trilogy)
ST V: Final Frontier
ST VI: Undiscovered Country
ST: Generations
ST: First Contact
ST: Insurrection
ST: Nemesis
Star Trek (2009)
Interesting points, lennonluvr9 and mogwai_milkshake.
I also notice that they’re getting lazy and dropping the numbers altogether, and just adding or removing an article, as in:
Fast and Furious
The Final Destination
Or in the case of remakes, changing a few words or two:
The Taking of Pelham 123 (as opposed to the original ‘One-Two-Three’)
Race to Witch Mountain (Escape to Witch Mountain)
Or not even changing the title at all:
Ocean’s Eleven
Batman (the 1989 film was a remake of the Adam West 1966 one)
The Italian Job
The Thomas Crown Affair
The Wicker Man
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Which makes it hard to distinguish between the original and its remake. “Did you mean the one with Michael Caine or Mark Wahlberg?” etc.
And while we’re on the subject, I think remakes are an exercise in futility. Firstly, you gotta live up to the original’s high standards by the fans, which is possible, but improbable. Secondly, there’s always the nostalgia factor, and how there will always be detractors who don’t appreciate the ‘jazzing up’ of technology or the contemporary events added in (sometimes, rightfully so). And thirdly, a new director almost always means a different kind of cinematic vision, which would make it difficult to judge the film on its own merits since some would expect it to be a homage to the original.
It’s like reinventing the wheel. There’s also a trend in origins stories/reboots, and some like Batman Begins, Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man and Casino Royale are excellent. Others like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Superman Returns… er… not so excellent.
When I heard about Ice age 4, now I think this is a bit too much.
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