Let me preface this rant by saying that no, I don't hate ALL movie sequels. I can appreciate the ones that take all of the great things you loved about the original movie, and develop the plot and characters in novel and compelling ways. Obviously, after becoming attached to a story and the quirks of the characters, we naturally to want to see more.
This article is not about these wonderful additions to an already captivating plot line. No, THIS article focuses on the absurd, unnecessary follow-up movies that almost make you hate the original. In fact, some of these movies can actually make you hate yourself for even experiencing the emotion of enjoyment when watching the first film. Aggressive, I know, but I have strong feelings on this topic.
The Hangover II, and it pains me to even say it, The Hangover III are a perfect example of this. Let me know how a group of adult men once again get so blackout drunk that they lose one of their friends. The second movie is so painfully not funny that you actually need to drink heavily yourself just to sit through it. I couldn't even imagine going to see how they could have possibly advanced this plot into a third movie. The Hangover, in itself, was an original. Unfortunately, everything that made it an instant classic was thrown together sloppily and beaten to the point where I can't even appreciate the first movie anymore.
The thing that bothers me the most about sequels is that nearly every movie in theaters is now a follow-up to a previous movie. It's become a rarity and even a luxury to see a trailer on television that is new and interesting. It's unfortunate to me that rather than writing enthralling new stories to capture an audience's attention, most companies are defaulting on previous plot lines that for the most part probably don't need to be expanded on.
Obviously, I can guess that the motivation behind releasing sequels to interesting movies is money. The phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. But even if all of these follow-up films were produced to pull in massive amounts of money, that isn't a sufficient explanation of why so many of them are ridiculous and redundant, and often convey the feeling that absolutely no effort was put into them.
Unfortunately, we've reached a point where we can come to expect mediocrity from many of the next steps in the stories we've come to love, but all we can really do is hope that the sequel is a gem that keeps us yearning for more to the story and not an unpleasant failure.
