Seven Sequel Sins

after my rundown on films that i wished there had been a sequel to, i got to thinking of all the sequels that i have seen and wished that i had not.

there are of course many films that you could bestow that wish upon, but i have tried to narrow it down to cases where you have seen one great film and the follow-up has been abysmal and dire. as a consequence, there would be little point in including things like the Police Academy series or the Batman films of the 90’s – they may have been in some instances poor, but there is a school of thought that suggests they were merely delivering more of the same from the basis of the original.

here, then, are my seven cases of sequels doing their best to tarnish the good name and reputation of the original. they are in no particular order, and as ever, i am always keen to see and read your comments on them!! on that note, my thanks to Spiros for his help in selecting the seven, and for his discussions and ideas around this article.




ALIEN 3 / ALIEN RESURRECTION

Alien is one of the finest Sci Fi horror films ever made, perhaps bar none. Aliens is pretty much the greatest Sci Fi action film ever made, and is as much of an excellent rollercoaster ride today as it was in 1986. The two films were made to perfection, and stand well in their own right and together. Common sense must have said to all that there was nothing else to tell, leave these two films as they are.
Alas, a few years into the 90’s and someone somewhere decides that a 3rd Alien film is a rather good idea. Presumably determined that they could not be wrong on this note, they went off and made the film to in fact show just how wrong they were.
There is next to nothing good to say of this 3rd installment, sadly. The film starts off with Newt, the beacon of hope and survival from Aliens, just written off as dead, which seems to sum up this whole sorry mess. Sigourney Weaver is clearly just going through the motions as required for a presumably big payday, and the supporting cast holds no interest whatsoever.
I think the studio knew the had a mess on their hands – as you will recall, the only promotion gimmick they had at the time was “come and see Sigourney Weaver with her hed shaved”. exactly how David Fincher emerged from this mess to go on and make classics like Se7en and Fight Club is a mystery, but a happy one at least.
as for Alien Resurrection, well, it is almost as if the powers that be felt so bad about the mess of Alien 3 that they felt obliged to make another one as some sort of apology. in short, better than 3, but still far off being of the quality of the first two films. too little too late is a phrase that has never been more apt that when applied to this fourth film.



GHOSTBUSTERS II

Ghostbusters is fondly remembered as one of the greatest blockbusters of the 80’s, and quite rightly so – fantastically funny, filled with humourous light-hearted scares and rather inventive use of some great special effects. Ghostbusters II, in comparison to the original and in general, is barely remembered at all.
the approach taken with this one was “let’s make the same film again, but with just a slightly different twist”. quite a common approach, and one that seldom (if ever) works. the twists on this are numerous, an example would be “do not think of anyuthing” becomes “think positive thoughts” to assist in getting rid of the baddie. and on that note, the seemingly constant appearance of the villain of the piece in this one removes all the suspense of the first, where the villain of the piece was always hidden away until the end.
i would dare suggest that the world at large would have embraced an even at best average sequel to Ghostbusters, but instead we were given this “not even trying” mess. it is unfunny, contrived and oddly a step backwards in terms of the effects on display. at least it did so poorly, one presumes, that there was no chance of us ever getting a 3rd outing – the mind boggles as to just how bad that could have been.
if you have never actually endured Ghostbusters II in your life, the best advice i can give is keep it that way. rather just watch the original film twice, it is the far better expeirence.




THE GODFATHER PART III

well over a decade later, Francis Ford Coppola decided to revisit two of his finest films and create a final chapter for it. considering that Parts I and II are across the board seen as two of the finest achievements ever made in the world of cinema, this was a brave decision and, in retrospect, a stupid one.
abandoning the works of Mario Puzo and and logical character development is one thing, but Coppola’s decision to base the film pretty much around books and theories on the infamous “30 Day Pope” legends and stories was quite another. you get one or two familiar character names (Michael Corleone, obviously), but they have next to no resemblance to the characters as developed in the first films. This is not a film in the tradition of the legacy of The Godfather – it is spiritual redemption of the self as opposed to the value and principals of family and loyalty. the fact that they had to digress so far away from the heart of the original films should have given someone enough of a warning sign to stop the project before it went the way it did.
at the time there was criticism of Sophia Coppola being cast, but in retrospect she was one of the wiser casting decisions. Dropping Robert Duvall’s character, and making a light comment about him during the film, was probably the worst mistake – Tom Hagen, being trusted inside the family whilst not of it, was pivotal to the story. his absence is perhaps the main reason why the narrative structure goes all over the place. Andy Garcia did as well as he could with a badly constructed and devised role, but it is little wonder that the big time eluded him after being associated with this.
with I & II, Coppola set a benchmark for any and all films relating to the mob, the mafia or whatever you wish to call them. it did not help that Part III was released in the year of GoodFellas, a film that most certainly raised the bar of high standards within this genre. if you are a big fan of III, compare it to Scorsese’s classic and you will clock just how bad it is, sadly.




THE MATRIX RELOADED / REVOLUTIONS
to be perfectly honest, i am not exactly a big fan of The Matrix. that said, it is a fool who disregards the reasons why it was so popular. the original, inventive camerawork and the advanced, groundbreaking special effects on display were extraordinary. for me, though, the story was rather dull and contrived.
having said that, i was taken aback at just how shockingly poor the sequels to the film were. there was enough of a foundation to make a series of classic films in the same style, but instead it seems those involved went out of their way to focus on the elements of the first film that were not all that interesting.
in Reloaded, gone is the concept of programming memories or knowledge, and pretty much gone are the staggering visuals. instead the film seems to revolve around a keymaker, someone who is important here but not in the 1st or 3rd films, and an 8km stretch of concrete road that they built just for the film. the latter point is interesting – this was supposed to be more of the same sci-fi action of the first, if not better, and the promoters of the film chose to celebrate the fact that they laid down several thousand tonnes of concrete just for the making of Reloaded. exactly how excited did they think we would all get about seeing some exclusive concrete action? the albino twins, so heavily featured in the promo work and looking cool, feature less here than Darth Maul did in The Phantom Menace.
Revolutions is a qualified disaster. many good action films have commenced with a slow build up to the events, granted, but no other film has ever dared start a 120 minute action escapade with 30 minutes of the lead character stood on a train station platform mumbling at random. it is almost as if they were taking the proverbial.
what happens after the train platform performance is a step backwards from the dull sequences in the second film, which is saying something. as for the visuals, well, there was not even an Oscar nomination for either film as i recall, which shows just how much of the magic that everyone else saw in the first film was rejected for the sequels.
i didn’t like The Matrix, but i did see enough in it to suggest that there was the potential to create something that could rival the supremacy of Star Wars and Star Trek for sci-fi fans. at best you could say they buckled under the weight of expectation as a consequence, and thus pretty much destroyed that which could have been great.
like Back To The Future before it and Pirates of The Caribbean after it, Reloaded and Revolutions illustrate that making “back to back” sequels by the studios just leaves the audience with two halves of a film, neither part being of all that interest.



HIGHLANDER II

when you see a film that has the tagline “there can be only one”, it is reasonable to expect it to be the one and only one as a consequence. alas, the somewhat surprise nature of the huge success of Highlander meant that pressure was placed, despite the lack of general public demand, and a second one was made.
Highlander was a surprise success. You have to remember that in the mid-80’s Christopher Lambert was relatively unknown, and Sean Connery was in the middle of a massive career slump. In respect of the Scostman playing a Spaniard, it was Highlander and later The Untouchables that rejuvinated his career, but it is a miracle that being involved with Highlander II did not bury it once and for all. Mr Lambert barely recovered from it, if he even did at all – it’s not like he has done all that much with his career other than many Highlander films!
the first film, as you will recall, revolved around the immortals of the world battling, or rather duelling, it out until only one remained. this happened, and thus there was a closed chapter, final end to the matter. i am not even going to bother reminding you of the contrived way around this little bit of information in order to make what they felt was a “plausible” plot development. needless to say, it was a very bad idea, and yet again one can only imagine that the majority of people involved were there for the money.
Clancy Brown as The Kurgan was pretty much a favourite of all lovers of the first film. had they brought this character back and delivered a pretty much average rehash of the original, or even some flashback “prequel” thing they would have got away with it. the futuristic spin on this one, as well as the massive holes in their own logic from the first, just consign this one to being a waste of an opportunity.
if you must watch Highlander II, then at the least look out for the re-edited “renegade version”. there is only so much polishing you can do to a car wreck of a movie, but at least they tried to salvage something from it with this edit.
the fact that any further Highlander films were made after this is astonishing - needless to say, the advice would be to avoid them.




THE BOOK OF SHADOWS

The Blair Witch Project borrowed heavily from a number of films, in particular the "found documentary" style of Cannibal Holocaust, was made on the cheap and was the first film to really take advantage of the idea of “internet advertising”. the result of this was a rather large, justified financial success on a very small investment.
sadly, the consequence of this result was the immediate demand for a second film. instead of delivering more of the same. however, for some inexplicable reason, the makers of the sequel decided to imitate the very worst of the lame teen horror films from the 90’s in their attempts to emulate the success of the first film. maybe they thought that they could go one better than what they saw as lesser films. as it happens, they probably did, but then again they also made a film that had next to nothing to do with the original, save the most threadbare of tedious links. the film pretty much sank without a trace owing to this.
the folly of this is pretty much the same as the remake of The Italian Job. in its own right, the remake was a good film, but was tarnished as it was labelled as a “remake” when, beyond minis and character names, there was no relation to the original. if Book Of Shadows had been made with different names and no reference to The Blair Witch Project, i imagine it would have been a lot better accepted than it was. sticking the name of something successful does not guarantee success as we know, but in this case the image people had of the original is tarnished by this confusingly planned and implemented sequel.





STAYING ALIVE

the character of Tony Manero was so well defined and portrayed in Saturday Night Fever that it made the film stand good in its own right. there was no more story to tell, this film exemplified and exposed the underbelly of 70’s nightlife perfectly. everything was fine, it should have been left to stand unblemished.
alas, someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to take this character of the king of the disco floor, add a few years and basically reinvent him as some sort of wannabe Broadway star. this is what Staying Alive achieves, and in doing so underlines just what a bad idea it all was.
the symbolic reason of Tony Manero was that his star rose, shone and fell in conjunction with the rise and fall of disco. as great as the character was, or perhaps because of it, you do not watch Saturday Night Fever and then find yourself wondering what would have happened to him as the years went by. all showing this does is tarnish and badly damage the image you have of the character from the first film.
there is an easy way to show what a mess this is. Staying Alive ends as Saturday Night Fever begins – the John Travolta strut down a street. in Night Fever, however, it is a natural, cocksure swagger that we are introduced to, something that immediatley defined the character. in Staying Alive, the character actually takes the time to announce that he is going to do the strut, and Travolta cannot even muster something that could be considered a halfway decent parody. Travolta is even smiling as he does it, as if the whole thing was some sort of private, in-joke parody.
if Staying Alive had never been made, there is a good chance that Travolta would not have had such a massive career slump in the 80’s. i leave it to you to decide whether that would have been better or worse!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!