Sh*tty Sequels!

This is the so-called "Summer of the Sequels", so as a cheap tie-in, how about we moan and complain about bad sequels? Prequels technically are allowed as well.

CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984)

Sequel to: CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
Why the Original Rocked: Mythical excellent storytelling
Why the Sequels Sucks: PG rating, goofyness, Dino

In 1982, crazy mountain man filmmaker John Milius gave us the most awesome comic book movie of all time. Forget SIN CITY, BATMAN BEGINS, and whatever blockbuster-formula action compounded movies we get these days.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN is just so awesome because Milius delivers a myth the right way, the appropriate way, and not simply shoehorned into a friendly package. Using its R-rating well, the hero in Arnold Shwarzenegger hacks, fucks, and slave-breed his way to revenge against Thulsa Doom and chop himself an empire, opening all for an even cooler sequel.

Crom is denied!

Basically, some bad things happened. One, producer Dino DeLaurentiis looked at BARBARIAN's profits and had some theory that if the sequel was PG-rated friendly, it would make MORE of a profit for the meatball than another R-rated movie.

John Milius stood up to him and politely disagreed....Dino fired him. Dino gathers up Richard Fleischer, that journeyman director who shot stuff from the incredibly silly DR. DOOLITTLE (yes, a guy that shot a musical is shooting a CONAN sequel ) and Wilt Chamberlin is added to cast. Sadly, without his 2000 lays.

So we get CONAN THE DESTROYER, where everything is incredibly cheesy, silly, goofy, so friendly, so Shitty. Conan goes from an awesome badass hero to a loser. Crom is MAD!

Oh, and Dino made less money on DESTROYER than on BARBARIAN. Opps.

A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)

Sequel to: All previous Roger Moore 007 outings 1973-1983, mostly THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
Why the Original(SPY) Rocked: Moore being played with his limitations and strengths, and with a strong female co-star.
Why the Sequel Sucks: Moore's old ass, the crappy rehashed plot, the 1980s, did I mention Moore already?

Let me get this out front: I hated the Roger Moore-era with the James Bond movies. I hated his half-serious campyness that the producers parlayed to with full support, and as an action figure like James Bond is supposed to be, he is the William Shatner of 007. In other words, completely unbelievable.

But there was one good movie from his administration: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. Why did it work, despite reusing the same basic villain scheme of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE? It worked because Bond had a love interest who WAS his equal, and the film plays into the fact that he *did* murder her lover. The fact he still bangs her despite this fact, now thats impressive Mr. Bond.

Anyway, it still worked as a movie, and when Moore goes into the sinking sea fortress to save her, you CARE. Most of the time, Bond girls are hacks with tits that you don't give a flip about.

Oh, and it had JAWS, such a great popular henchman baddie, he returned for the ill-advised MOONRAKER.

But that was in 1977, and by 1980, alot of people thought Roger Moore was too old and that he should just retire. His 007 movies kept making a profit, and EON Films had this silly idea that they're screwed WITHOUT Moore (yet they survived after Connery left. Go figure) and since Moore was willing to take the money, he stayed until A VIEW TO A KILL in 1985, when he finally quit 007.

At the age of 57!

And oh God, it SHOWS.

Allegedly, Moore claims that he quit 007 finally when he found out that not only was he younger than his female co-star Tanya Roberts...he was older than her MOTHER.

DAAAAAAAMN!

Anyway, Moore has this stupid looking pathetic attempt at make-up to make him seem younger, and to keep his hair from being too gray. Just sad, really sad. Plus, Moore going to bed with Grace Jones was just damn disgusting.

But its not Moore's fault. A VIEW TO A KILL proves that the Bond classic GOLDFINGER could have sucked. why?

Because AVTAK has the exact same basic scheme as GOLDFINGER. A billionaire corporate conglomerate, with aid from those damn Communists, plans to destroy all of an industry just so to make himself a tad richer.

Except AVTAK sucks. Whats tragic is, it sucks while wasting away Christopher Walken for that crappy part. Walken is cool, and when he's wasted, its always sad. In a way, its like he was Max Shrek in BATMAN RETURNS, except 7 years earlier, and in a bad movie.

But the cherry-popper was the music. I know some folks like Duran-Duran, but their song (which was a #1 hit back in the day) is garbage, appropriate of a dark druid era in pop rock. Oh the humanity...

The 21st Century feels like a whole summer of sequels,

My vote would go to the "Matrix" Sequels,im sure Keanu reeves isn't complaing,after making hundreds of Millions from the pile of shit trilogy..

A Few Others..

All the Star trek Sequals
Dumb and Dumberer
Grease 2
Dirty Dancing 2
Speed 2
Texas Chainshaw Massacre 2
The Fly 2
and im sure theres many more ive missed and cringed at...

GF2(Just Kidding)Best

Oh and Mission Impossible 2 and 3, evan though 1 was just as bad..

Batman Forever.

Batman and Robin.

The Police Acadamy films were pretty shocking from 4-65

I thought 2-3 was Ok

I agree with Deniro about matrix trilogy. The third part couldn't have been any worse.

Blues Brothers 2000!! How can you even think about making a sequel without Belushi!? That movie just made me mad.

The first one was bearable,but it was something new, i watched 30 mins of 2 and i swithced off it was just so over the top and the 3rd part,i can probley say that i will never ever watch this film.

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989)

Sequel to: Directly STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986) and softly to STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) and of course the 1960s TV show.
Why the Original Rocked: Fluid organic pulp storytelling, good plots, Shatner restrained
Why the Sequel Sucks: Shatner NOT restrained, Shatner as Director, bad plot, bad luck.

Ok, Trekkies here know about the 1960s series, and how the first 4 STAR TREK movies made a damn good profit for Paramount from 1979 to 1986, but VOYAGE HOME was, and still is, the highest-grossing TREK movie yet (hell, the only one to penetrate $100 million) because it appealed to an audience outside of TREK fan corps.

Paramount used this opportunity to do two thing: (1) Launch a new TREK tv show to capatilize on this potential money-making marketplace, and thus we get STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. (2) Make a fifth TREK flick that would make as much money as TREK IV.

Considering that the first four TREK movies were good, it seemed a clinch, RIGHT?

Not so Scotty.

Long story short and sweet, William Shatner wanted more money to do TREK 5, and he wanted to direct it ("Spock" Leonard Nimoy had helmed TREK 3 and 4) and a hand in cooking up the story. Paramount caved in, and we get THE FINAL FRONTIER.

OK, so what the hell happened?

Paramount basically cut the movie's funding during shooting, which famously cut an elaborate finale involving Kirk duking it out with a rock monster.

But its screwed not just because the ending sucks. The whole movie sucks. The movie tried to be "funny" and you know what movie is worse than a bad adventure movie?

A comedy that isn't funny.

Then there was the Yuck factor. Like Roger Moore in A VIEW TO A KILL, we see old people getting their freak on, and I lost my breakfast. Trek fans know what I'm talking about.

Thing is, the basic plot idea of TREK V isn't a bad idea....but how could one make it work as a decent enough plot? I mean, the idea of the Enterprise finding God is sorta silly like Third Season The Original Series Silly....

Then again, thats what Germans said about fascism, another one of those good ideas sorta "botched"....

No, maybe the biggest problem of TREK V was Shatner's control of the movie. We see Kirk in his 50s being this Rambo of an action hero, and its goofy. You know how FUTURAMA made fun of Shatner always screwing the alien chick and getting his shirt torn in the same fight?

Well, this is the ugly stereotype come to life, and its not funny at all. Its just pathetic.

Still, TREK V was a dud and Paramount panicked enough to hire back Nicholas Meyer (WRATH OF KAHN) to helm TREK VI, and give a satisfying capper to the TOS crew.

the godfather part III anyone?

Lot of people are very kind with the third part saying that it is a good standalone film. I don't even agree with that. It is pretty bad, the least due to sophia's acting. Bad script is the primary problem with GF-3

OCEAN'S TWELVE

i stopped after the first hour and 10 minutes, i just couldnt force myself to watch something so badly written.
i didnt think sophia's acting was all that bad either. it fit the role.

I watched Oceans 13>As i am a huge fan of Pacino i thought with him in it i should enjoy myself.WRONG.

I was going to see this,is it that bad..

I didn't like it.Maybe because i had high expectations cause of Pacino.Then again i wasn't really a fan of the first two.If your a fan of the Ocean movies then you might like it.

I wouldn't say im a fan,i thought 11 and 12 was quiet entertaining.Im glad ms Roberts is not in 13,can'tstand that woman

11 was good, 12 was horrible and 13 was the best. I don't understand why you didn't enjoy it whisper?

OCEAN'S 12 (2004)

Sequel to: OCEAN'S 11 (2001)
Why the Original Rocked: Large star-cast with everyone written with a purpose, fluid entertainment, nice twist
Why the Sequel Sucks: Large star-cast that doesn't have a creative purpose, bloated flatness, stupid twist

Steven Soderbergh's OCEAN'S 11 was disposable entertainment, but that crew had fun making it, and its a fluff fun flick. Maybe they didn't put enough serious effort that could hvae made a REALLY good movie, but screw it. Its a nice movie.

The sequel though just sucks.

The initial idea for this series was that it would keep the core squad of robbers (Clooney, Pitt, Damon) while assembling 8 new robbers for each movie (and thus give alot of cool actors and movie stars a chance to get attached to a surefire moneymaker). Instead, that was botched and everyone from OCEAN'S 11 was brought back, but thats the problem.

Alot of characters that had purpose or at least a logical function in the first movie now exists that don't do anything at all. They might as well not have been featured. The scripted narrative is just bloated with Soderbergh trying and failing to give EVERYONE something to work with, at the deterent of the organic storytelling flow and of the actual story itself.

Speaking of that, the "twist" pulled in the third act of OCEAN'S 12 escapes my comprehension of which bad words to use.

Ok, its f****** retarded.* I mean, it doesn't even make any logical sense, and what I don't understand is, Soderbergh is above such stupidity, and he greenlights it. What the hell Steve?

Apparently, OCEAN'S 13 returns the series to being fluff entertainment like #11, which is nice. Too bad OCEAN'S 12 was 12 too many mistakes.

*=Think about it. You have Matt Damon scrambling to salvage the crew's robbery in the third act, but with the twist revealed, and him being in it from the beginning....why would he scramble to salvage the operation?

Every JAWS sequel!!

Did anyone mention Rocky5?

Jeepers Creepers 2.

The only really good thing about it was the monster. But even he was camped up so bad at times, I was like whatever.

A bunch of kids from highschool(who else) get stranded on a bus on the same highway that Trish and Darry were victimized on in JC#1. Well, the Creepers swoops in and conviniently took all the adults first, leaving the cheerleaders and jocks alone.

A few get eaten, bla bla bla, it just really wasn't as good at all. The first JC was great, and even got into the characters heads, which made the ending more shocking.

But they could have kept that "sequal."

Yes I agree with all the stuff you guys mentioned.What is it about good movies that makes me want to see a sequel?

Caddy Shack II is probably the worst that I've ever actually watched in its entirety.

The scene where the monster licks the window and winks at the one guy was pretty cool though.