It Came From Part 2 the best and worst sequel ever.

Sequels, from the Latin sequela which means "the crap that follows", or something like that. The very word sends shivers through the spines of movie lovers everywhere. All things considered I began to wonder, what are the best and worst sequels ever made.

To began with we have to understand why Hollywood makes such lousy sequels. It all has to do with the almighty dollar. Despite conservative claims of liberal Hollywood, movie studios are a business and when it comes to making movies they are only interested in the bottom line. So studios don't want to take a big risk on a large financial investments.

When a writer approaches a studio with a script, and the storyline is new and untested, the producers are naturally wary. Imagine that same writer trying to convince a studio to make multiple movies based upon a single story, any producer would think twice about investing in an untested story, if the first part flops they are stuck with the next film or two. So Hollywood prefers a single movie that runs along the standard lines of, In the beginning, something happens, and they lived happily ever after.

Once the film is released and becomes a hit studios find themselves in an awkward position. They want to make a second film and they have to put it out as quickly as possible, consider the lesson of The Phantom Menace. They need to get the next film into theaters while the audience is still interested in the story, and the actors are still available to reprieve their rolls. It probably took the original author years to write a script and now they are being asked to come up with more despite the fact that the original film came to a neat conclusion. So what can they do but rehash the original story with just enough changes to make it seem like a new plot line.

And so we, the public, generally get a film that is a shadowy echo of the original film rather than a story line that goes off into a new adventure. Thus most sequels suck due to money. Which brings us back to the original question, what was the best and worst sequel ever made. The problem is that there is a vast selection to choose from and so I devised a method to reduce the field. I came up with a set of rules that had to be applied to the film before I made my decision, and here they are:

I. Theatrical release. I decided that the only films to be considered were those that both the original and the sequel were released in theaters. For instance we can look at two sets of Disney films. First there was Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Was it a good sequel? Was it a bad sequel? It doesn't matter since it was a Straight to Video released. The Disney studio didn't have enough faith in the film to have a box office test.
On the other hand there is Disney's High School Musical part III. This film was released into theaters but the two other High School movies were made for TV. By the time part three rolled around Disney knew they were going to make money off of the Teenybopper fan base so where was the risk. So any sequel that either skipped the box office or was a part two a TV movie was off the list.

II is number two. Generally the rule is the higher the sequel number the worse the film. For instance Jaws IV stinks. Seriously, your family has been attacked four times by great white sharks, three times off the coast of New York state and a fourth time along the Gulf Coast in Texas. Logic says you would move to Phoenix and not even have a back yard swimming pool but not Elen Brody, widow of Sheriff Brody, she moves to the Bahamas in some convoluted plot line about chasing a shark that is targeting her family. The movie stank and was the real killer of Jaws. But regardless of how bad the movie was it didn't make the cut since it wasn't part 2.

III Reprising of original rolls. When it came to making the final decision I found that the number of original actors returning to recreate their rolls was a major factor in my final decision. And as such I will give the example when I get to the worst film, there's a hint in there.

IV Sequel vs. To Be Continued. As I said earlier most studios are not willing to take a chance on a multi film storyline, but there are exceptions, or there are clever writers who come to the "and they lived happily ever after" and slip in a "but....". The "for instance" are two story lines created by Gorge Lucas. On the one hand is the six part Star Wars series, some people believe there are possibly even three more parts based upon the children of Princess Leah and Han Solo. Each chapter was a "to be continued" movie, even the original. On the other hand you have the Indiana Jones movies that although follow the adventures of Dr. Jones each are a separate story. Consider seeing The Two Towers without knowing anything about Tolkien's work or having seen The Fellowship, you would be completely lost. So I decided that the movies had to stand alone, you had to be able to walk into a theater and watch part two without having seen part one and you wouldn't be lost in the storyline or who the characters are.

With my rules in place I started my search, and found it was harder than I had anticipated. After reviewing numerous sequels and reading though the plot lines of even more I finally came to my conclusion. I will start with the worst sequel ever made.

And my decision was.....Highlander 2, The Quickening. The plot was incredibly convoluted, somehow Conner MacLeod has saved humanity from the failing ozone layer but had instead condemned them to a world of darkness and a horrible greenhouse effect. And the world has become controlled by the evil Shield Corporation operators of the artificial ozone layer. Conner in the meantime has become mortal and is really old. So you might think the movie is how he defeats the evil Shield corporation but noooo, there is a complete second storyline, it turns out the immortals weren't just regular humans but aliens from outer space and now the evil space overlords want to kill Conner, the last of the fugitive aliens. Seriously, they ripped the plot of Highlander 2 straight from the pages of Scientology. In fact, the movie was so bad that when they decided to make part three and a TV series they pretended The Quickening never existed. I was sure it was the worst sequel ever made, and then one day I remembered.

It hit me like a repressed memory. There was a sequel so bad I had intentionally forgotten about it, but the movie came back to me. The worst sequel ever made was The Sting Part Two.
The original The Sting came out in 1973 and starred the two biggest actors of the day, Robert Redford and Paul Newman. It was the story about two con men trying to get revenge on a Chicago mobster for the death of a close friend and former fellow grifter. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won 7 including Picture, Director, Screenplay and Score. The soundtrack made the song The Entertainer a smash hit and Scott Joplin a household name, and sparked a revival of rag time music. It is considered to be one of the best films of the 1970's.

And then they made a sequel, The Sting II. The move was made in 1983, 10 years after the original. The plot line revolved around a fixed boxing match and the Chicago gangsters, Doyle Lonnegan, trying to con the con men, rather than just killing them outright like a real mobster would do. The entire plot is just a rehash of the original, even though they had ten years to write a new script.

Remember what I said about returning actors? The casting was hard to believe. The part of Gondorff which was originally played by Paul Newman, still one of the top actors of the time, was filled by Jackie Gleason. The part of Hooker originally played by Robert Redford, who still was on the list of most hansom actors at the time, was played by Mac Davis. (If you don't recognize the name I wouldn't be surprised). The part of Lonnegan was played by Oliver Reed, Robert Shaw who had originally played the part had passed away due to a lifetime of alcoholism. They even tossed in Terri Garr to add an extra and unnecessary twist to the story. In the end they took one of the most successful films and made the worst sequel. Ever. In my humble opinion.

So what was the best sequel? Ask any movie buff and they will say The Godfather II. It fits all the criteria, both moves were box office releases, and to this day are the only part one and two films to both win an Oscar. The cast reprised their original rolls even with a scene at the end featuring the characters who had died in the first film. And thanks to the Prequel/Sequel aspect of the film you can keep up with the plot line without having seen the original. By normal standards it should be the best ever, but those aren't my standards.

As hard as it is to believe I chose a different film for my best sequel, are you sitting down, be prepared to be shocked. My best sequel was Star Trek II Wrath of Khan. I know what you are saying, "Better than The Godfather II?? Are you mad?" but hear me out, I have a reason. Like Godfather II Star Trek II fulfills all the requirements of a sequel. All the Star Trek movies were box office releases. All the actors reprise their rolls not only from Star Trek The Movie but also from the original TV series, including Ricardo Montalban as the maniacal genetically enhanced super man Khan Singh. You could go to the theater and fully understood the plot line without ever having seen either the original film or the TV series. And unlike The Godfather II, Star Trek II was better than the original Star Trek The Movie, which seemed to be more focused on special effects than story line.

Again, it turned out I was wrong. There was a sequel that was actually better than either The Godfather II or Star Trek II. The best sequel ever made was The Road Warrior. The 1981 film about a post apocalyptic Australian wasteland in which oil was the most valuable asset became not only a major hit but a cult classic.

People were shocked to find out that the movie was a sequel, most had never even heard of Mad Max, an Australian film about a rebel highway patrol officer in the Outback who's family is brutally murdered by a rove motorcycle gang. And again like Star Trek II, the Road Warrior was far superior to the original Mad Max. And so it has earned the spot, on my list, as the best sequel ever made.

Thankfully Hollywood has learned a lesson and now makes multi part movies. Of course they are based upon popular book series but it is better than trying to force a complex storyline into two hours. Perhaps the day will come when they learn that the audience will be willing to be loyal to a really good story line over the lengthy of more than one film, but then agian there was the Golden Compass so maybe not.