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Even the best sequels ever will in one way or another repeat the same basic story of the original. The worst examples are ones that do it in the most contrived way imaginable (e.g. Hangover II) but what are the followups that focus more on just going with the logical progression of the story regardless of how different the end result is? I like how the Raid 2 expanded the setting to a ludicrous degree and ironically, Hangover III is a good example of this as well (even though that movie was complete toilet).
Chronicles of Riddick.
They went from the survival horror of Pitch Black to a space opera that felt like Dune Lite.
Yup, then riddick went back to being to following pitch blacks formula
Like... literally the same movie. Kind of disappointing.
They didn't have the budget for a proper third
If I remember correctly Vin Diesel financed this himself, at least initially. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2013/09/06/riddick-the-franchise-vin-diesel-refuses-to-let-die/
I actually liked this one more than Chronicles of Riddick. The character works best as b-movies. Riddick delivered enough dumb action thrills for me I was happy with it
But somehow not good.
I liked it! It was fun
Yesss I love Pitch Black and I remember seeing Chronicles for the first time and thinking “damn this is different”
I saw them when I was younger and didn’t even realize chronicles was a sequel to pitch black
As an adult I feel so dumb for it, but I did the same thing.
Just thought, “Oh, Riddick’s in this too!” Like it was Jason Statham or something.
Off topic but I just looked these up and woah how did Chronicles of Riddick have such a large budget after Pitch Black, while successful, only made ~$53M?
Theory: After Pitch Black, Vin Disel went on to star in The Fast and The Furious and XXX, both of which were hits. I'm guessing he used those successes to argue to the studio that he was a bigger star and therefore deserved a bigger budget for Chronicles.
He tends to do what he wants: like once he mentioned a Dungeons & Dragons campaign of his in the foreword to a book, and then turned it into a movie: The Last Witch Hunter.
also has it in his contract to do Fast movies to get the 2nd and 3rd Riddick made. Also, think they are going to be doing a 4th one (again because of him doing Fast) but I could be wrong, I just remember hearing about it like 2 years back.
You forgot to add that between those 2 they did an animated short film.
Plus the video game
Chronicles of Riddick is such an underrated film
I still contend that Chronicles is the closest thing g we’ve ever gotten to a 40k movie.
Hope it’s not the closest we ever get…
Did you forget about Event Horizon?
I really liked Pitch Black, it was surprisingly enjoyable.
Chronicles? Yeah, that's not my cup of tea. They changed so much and with it, they threw out what made Pitch Black good.
It's not surprising that Riddick was basically a Pitch Black remake.
I fucking love chronicles. Give me more of that world not rebel moon episodes
I think its because Vin Diesel is a nerd and a huge fan of D&D. He had the opportunity to make a sci-fi fantasy and thats what he went for.
Babylon AD was pure sci-fi and The Last Witch Hunter mixed fantasy horror and sci-fi. The opening to The Last Witcher Hunter was great. If they would have continued with that I think it would have been better. More expensive, but better.
Fun fact: He invited Judi Dench to a D&D game as a thank you for taking part in the movie.
She accepted the invitation, apparently.
I think Riddick was based on one of his D&D characters which is pretty cool
Gremlins 2 purposely is everything a sequel shouldn't be, and it's amazing for it.
The Key and Peele sketch about it is one of my favorites.
For those who haven't seen it
Also if you have seen it, I here's a version that splices in clips from the Gremlins movie itself, which is cool.
I still can't believe this mfer went on to direct, write, and produce Us.
I love it, it's in the movie!!!
Vegetable gremlin?
Brainy gremlin
Spider gremlin
Bat gremlin
Female gremlin
Googly eyed gremlin
Electricity gremlin
Vegetable gremlin
Hulk Hogan
You just said noun and gremlin like you're playing madlibs.
You're talking about a gremlin whose sole purpose is that he looks goofy as fuuuuuuuck ITS IN THE MOVIE
I gotta go put some cowboys in Back to the Future III.
“You talking about professional wrestler turned cultural icon hulk hogan”
It is a live action looney tunes cartoon. Nothing makes sense, there are gags every few minutes characters are completely self aware and lampoon the fact it's a movie. Its Joe Donte's love letter to Warner Bros and the boys at Termite Terrace.
I laughed my ass off the first time I saw the Gremlin grab the bottle that said “acid, do not throw in face” then turns and throws it in another gremlins face.
My daughter is 4.5 year old and inexplicably, Gremlins 2 is her favorite movie. It’s great, but I know she’s getting none of the satire.
I think you spelled understandably wrong.
'Now...was that civilized?'
The greatest sequel of all time.
Rambo had absolutely sod all in common with First Blood.
First Blood was pretty close to the novel. Things got changed a bit to give the protagonist more redeeming qualities. He was a star by that point and First Blood did so well a sequel was guaranteed.
They didn't have a novel to work off of so they had to come up with their own orignal story. Its more action and more violence.
The author of First Blood wrote the sequel novelization after FBP2 came out. In the introduction he basically notes. ‘In the novel First Blood Rambo dies. In the movie, he does not. And now, let’s move on.’
Rambo died. But then he got better.
Somehow, Rambo returned.
Rambo died in the book.
Yea. I read the book before I watched the movie. I saw the sequels. Then found the book in my dad's bookcase. So I read it. Then I went and rented the vhs of First Blood.
When I was a kid, I just thought that the First Blood/Rambo movies were fun action-war movies. When I got older, I realized how much nuanced commentary they had about the Vietnam War and Vietnam vets.
Hey there was a guy called Rambo incidentally played by the same actor
The Road Warrior is nothing like Mad Max.
I saw original Mad Max first out of the films, but I'd seen the series parodied and referenced so much already that it wasn't what I expected almost at all.
It's insane what that series has become compared to the first
Same with First Blood vs the other Rambos. Rambi. Rambices.
First one is a critique of the Vietnam war and treatment of its veterans and the sequels are all RAAAAAAAAH DAKAAKAKAKAAKKAKAKAKAKAKA.
Writers were all into WH40K for some reason.
Rambeaus.
I think most people never even saw the first one and incorrectly remember Road Warrior as the first
True for Americans, where it was called The Road Warrior. It was called Mad Max 2 elsewhere.
Seriously. Society still exists, there’s no indication of an apocalypse, Max’s wife pops by the store for ice cream, their family spends a lot of the 2nd act on vacation….
You can see society start to unravel, but yeah it’s not complete wasteland like the others
It is unraveling but in a real world contemporary way.
Probably a lot of that was due to budget. The farther along the series goes you can see what Miller’s ultimate vision was, but was likely restricted by budget, technology, etc.
The Road Warrior is a logical sequel to the first even if it’s a very different film. The first one is early societal breakdown and the second is years later when civilized society is completely gone after the oil wars but before the nuclear apocalypse the happens before 3. Mad Max is almost a prequel in terms of the setting.
The only thing that bothers me is that the apocalypse happened way too fast and went way too far along between films. Mutations and other weird developmental defects take generations to occur, but there isn’t even one generation between relatively normal society and full-on post-apocalyptic wasteland full of degenerates and monsters. It seemingly happened in, at most, 3-5 years.
There’s all kinds of theories I’ve heard that would square that up, like if Road Warrior is really his son or something, or Max is just a general myth being told throughout generations, but still, it irks me.
The myth thing makes most sense. Max shows up, helps some people then peaces out. I think even George Miller himself even said there's not much point in thinking about the timeline.
I think that’s fair - I especially with the new mythos with Fury Road and Furiosa
I love that Hugh Keays-Byrne played the chief villain twice: Toecutter in the original Mad Max and Immortan Joe in Fury Road.
Wasn't the Road Warrior released first in the US?
Road Warrior was the first movie released in the US, hence that title. But in the great island of Australia land, we called it Mad Max 2, because it was a follow up from the first Mad Max a couple years prior.
Pacific Rim 2, director and actors huddled up, took a knee, and said no WAY we're going to make a good movie. And then they got to work.
I'd say disneyfication of titles is a plague, but it worked for the Godzilla franchise apparently. Just look at how it changes with each subsequent movie.
Funny you mention Godzilla. The "Monsterverse" steered right into the cheese. Japan then released Minus One.
It makes sense. The appeal of Godzilla was the VS storyline. Now that the west is doing a big budget version, Japan can well do films in the spirit of the very first.
Godzilla (assuming you mean the Legendary movies) is less Disneyfication and more Showafication
Evil Dead.
So the first Evil Dead is a classic 80s horror movie. It’s dumbass young people being slaughtered at a cabin in the woods. Bruce Campbell’s Ash is really just a straight laced boring protagonist.
The 2nd Evil Dead is a bit of a reimagining of the first movie except it ramps up the comedy like 30-40%. Bruce Campbell is now kinda a badass with some personality and one liners.
The third installment, Army of Darkness, is a batshit insane overtly comedic supernatural adventure. Bruce Campbell’s Ash is thrust into the middle ages through a time portal and battles all kinds of ghouls and shit. Not to mention he’s basically so fuckin cool and full of one liner quips that he’s just a parody of every action star at that point. It’s incredible and bizarre how we got here from a generic but solid slasher/zombie flick
I actually saw Army of Darkness first, I was scrolling through the channels on TiVo and saw this description, which I’ll never forget:
“A supermarket employee fights zombies in medieval England with a chainsaw and a ‘73 Oldsmobile.”
For novelty alone of course I had to watch it. Now I’ve read both of Campbell’s books, seen the trilogy countless times and had one of them (and a Blu-ray of AoD) signed by the Chin himself
He’s so great. Even before seeing the Dead movies, I always enjoyed his little bit parts in the Raimi Spider-man movies as well as the voice work he did in the games as the tutorial narrator.
The second Evil Dead starts at the cabin again, because Sam Raimi couldn't get the legal rights to his first movie from the studio. So he "remade" the first movie with just Ash and only his girlfriend going to the cabin for Evil Dead 2. Now, if you watch