Top 15 movie sequels that have nothing to do with the original, what’s this story?
If generally the goal of a sequel to the cinema is to continue the story where the first film ended by keeping more or less the same tone and respecting the codes put in place, certain exceptions come a little to make a finger of honor to this principle. If in fact it can give really good results because it’s original to take another treatment, it can just as well give infamous shit whose meaning we don’t understand. And so we’re going to see a little summary of all that.
1. Halloween 3
If the first two films Halloween consisted more or less of seeing Michael Myers kill teenagers without showing remorse (or the slightest emotion for that matter), the third had completely changed the register by not showing the famous killer on the screen at all. Instead, the focus was on stories of pagan rituals, child killers against a backdrop of Halloween folklore, and lots and lots of onlooker misunderstanding. It’s hard to say even today what I managed to remember from this film.
2. Blair Witch 2
If the very first film was a real original independent horror film which reinvented a lot of directing techniques mainly for lack of money, the second was a formless thing with a much more inflated budget and with the only real point in common with the first installment the words “Blair Witch” in its title. No need to advise you not to watch it, it’s like drinking bleach, it wouldn’t occur to you completely innately.
3. Logan
The turn was tight. After a long string of mainstream blockbusters to take one of the most iconic characters in superhero movies and give him a conclusion like this was pretty ballsy. Unlike previous blockbusters, Logan was resolutely darker, more violent, more pessimistic and intimate. So we had in front of us a film forbidden to the youngest (Rated R in the United States, a first since Deadpool) who was going to draw ideas from the video game The last of us and created a particularly original atmosphere for a film of its kind. Probably the first superhero auteur film.
4. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
If the first film did not show any scenes inside the game, the second made it the center of its story. By transforming the board game into a video game, we were almost certain that the film was going to be useless and dishonor this fabulous film of our childhood, but the reality was quite different. The cast worked well, it was funny, it changed completely but in a good way and overall it was a good surprise. It’s not a masterpiece either, don’t exaggerate what I say, but it was far from missed.
5. Evil Dead 2 / Evil Dead 3
To make it simple, let’s say that Evil Dead first of the name was a properly successful traditional horror film intended to freak out viewers. The second part was a real horror comedy where we laughed frankly in the face of certain funny situations and other good ideas. The third, yet another twist, was half-comedy half-horror but above all placed in a historical context of the Middle Ages completely out of nowhere. And overall everything works very well, each episode reinvented itself in a totally unexpected way and it was a success. Something you’ll never hear me say about the saga Twilight for example.
6. Troll 2
If the first movie Troll was already a bad horror movie that we like, the second surpasses the first in this discipline. Why does it obviously have nothing to do with the first one? Quite simply because it was not at all written as a sequel but as a completely different project and it was given the same title at the last moment to try to capitalize on the propensity of the (few) fans of the first film to buy a cinema ticket. It also has the particularity of having one of the weirdest deaths in films with a character drowning in popcorn, a scene as funny as it is creepy that it is of public utility to see.
7. S. Darko
If you have seen the movie Donnie Darko you probably noticed something undeniable: the story was quite conclusive and therefore needed no sequel. But as where we can find the limits of human decency is generally Cyril Hanouna, near where there is a hope of dough to be made prowl the producers of cinema very often. So we decided to do a “sequel” centered on Donnie’s sister (who this time had powers when we didn’t imply that for a second in the first film) just to try to make some money on the fame of the first. As you can imagine it doesn’t work at all and it causes torrential diarrhea in the viewer, the color of which is reminiscent of certain coffee beans freshly harvested on the Colombian hills.
8. American Psycho 2
If you have just learned of the existence of the sequel to American Psycho reading the title of this point so don’t change anything, you haven’t missed anything. The “second part” actually has nothing in common except the title and it was given this one only to ride on the success of the first. We are talking about a film released directly on video and therefore never shown in cinemas, which in 90% of cases is a really bad sign except for a good bunch of porn films. It has nothing to do with it, it’s bad and we advise you just as much to eat five kilos of flour with a spoon while being more than five kilometers from the nearest water point as to watch it.
9. The Suicide Squad
Opinions differ on this sequel but overall we can agree on one point: it was completely different from the first. Already there was this much more comic and gore aspect which works relatively well and which was totally absent from the first part which took itself much too seriously, which the second part does not even try to do for a single second; but there was also an overall less “academic” realization that sticks to the style of superhero films. Say what you want about James Gunn, the gentleman still has his paw.
10. The Riddick Chronicles
It is difficult to find a lot of common points between Pitch Black and its sequel, the first being a kind of survival camera with few characters and a rather dark atmosphere while the second is an incomprehensible blockbuster space-opera in which we can still see Judy Dench flying, according to certain rumors without any special effects (the English acting method is always truly amazing). There is the character of Riddick who comes back with his big muscles and his black diving goggles but apart from that, let me tell you that the atmosphere is very different.
11. Fast and Furious : Tokyo Drift
If there’s one thing that can tell you that you’re going to make a bad movie, it’s when Vin Diesel reads the script and says “no”. ‘Cause even when the guy who said yes to Babysittor judges that your scenario is not good enough it is that you are on the point of making a big bullshit. Tokyo Drift therefore had, apart from fast cars, nothing to do with the two previous films and generally nothing to do with the sequels in terms of characters and story. That being said, it’s still a film about car racing, nor did they center the story on the epidemic of Justinian’s plague in the heart of ancient Rome, you won’t be completely out of place.
12. 10 Cloverfield Lane / The Cloverfield Paradox
The first film was a traditional “found-footage” with a guy holding a camera and trying to escape a damn alien invasion, the second was a stressful psychological behind-the-scenes where a young woman finds herself trapped in a crazy who told him that aliens had invaded the Earth (and who was right) and the third a kind of survival in space totally heated which only served to remind us how much the first Alien was great. Suffice to say that each film has the merit of being frankly different, whether they are successful or not.
13. Highlander 2
An immortal type who has lived since the beautiful Scottish era when it was still the fashion to walk in the moors with his balls in the air under his kilt manages to survive until our time when he must lead a great and final fight. Here, summarized in a highly questionable way, is the narrative framework of the first film. The second ? It’s a completely strange kind of futuristic sci-fi film (but not without a few good ideas) in which the same characters as in the first return without us understanding for a single second the damn logic behind this sudden change of direction. ‘universe.
14. The whole Rambo saga
If you’ve never seen the very first movie Rambo I can only recommend it to you as it is a good film, well directed, very well acted and which speaks of a subject rarely broached in the cinema: the syndrome of the soldier who returns from the front. However, what happened with the sequels is truly regrettable since it has become a machine of extremely variable quality but which never reaches the ankle of the first film. Too bad, it was definitely one of Stallone’s best roles and I say that literally (with the excellent Copland).
15. Drive
Few people know it, but nevertheless Jean-Jacques Annaud confirmed it himself: The fire war is the prequel to Drive, as the fact that Ron Pearlman would reprise his role there hinted. A sequel relatively far from the basic material, but only because it “takes place at a time very far from the first part” as the director of the bear. If the choice of another director had been forced because of a story of schedule, that of Ryan Gosling in the title role had been decided during the shooting of the first film when this one was only old one year. Uplifting.