The first Jurassic Park movie is all time one of the greatest films ever made with the special effects still holding up to this day. The 2nd film was still very enjoyable in my opinion but it was just a cookie cutter sequel not bad, not good. The 3rd film wasn’t great at all. But compared to the rest of the series the 3rd film is basically the godfather.
As another personal pick the 1st blade movie is a hood classic good. The other 2 not so much.
The actual question should be: which doesn’t?
I’d add Back to the Future, it’s pretty consistent IMO.
I’m just thinking in big franchises, because I’m not a well-schooled film-nerd. But even I can think of a lot of examples of sequels better than the originals.
It’s a matter of taste, but I think Rocky 2 is the strongest film in the franchise. I think it’s more commonly believed that Aliens is a stronger film than Alien. Evil Dead 2 is better than Evil Dead, but that might not count since its a soft reboot. Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan is pretty much a classic example. Terminator 2 is a very different movie than Terminator 1, making comparison weird but it’s usually regarded as better. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is arguably stronger than Spider-Man, though obviously 3 was a bit of a mess.
Going to put this in a separate section. Admittedly, whether this should count is arguable. Still, If you count Marvel movies as direct sequels to others, it gets ridiculously easy: Thor: Ragnarok is so much better than all the other Thor movies its kind of nuts. Winter Soldier is stronger than First Avenger and Civil War might be better than both. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is the strongest film in that franchise.
Star Wars original trilogy. All three are fantastic but Empire and ROTJ are better both because of budget and having superior directors behind the camera. George has a great imagination but should not be allowed to be the one who brings his stories to life. I’d also offer that out of the Prequels, ROTS is far superior to I & II and is in roughly the same league as the OT. And then there’s Rogue One; oh it’s beautiful.
I haven’t seen fourth, but Kung fu Panda was one of the best trilogies ever.
Yeah, that’s all I can think of right now.
Glass Onion was disappointing?
At lest to me and my friends who watched it with me. See my other reply for an explanation why. But of course, tastes differ and there seem to be quite a few people on here who liked it.
Lord of the Rings barely counts, because not only were all three books out and classics before the movies started (obviously), but the three movies were basically worked on at the same time. It’s nuts, but somehow they managed to do it.
So it’s not like they released the first, got crazy hype, and then phoned everyone up and said “electric Boogaloo, you in?”. They’d already shot most of the second and third by the time the first came out, as I recall.
Also I really liked Glass Onion 😛
Like bttf 1 and 2 where filmed back to back and then released a year apart from each other. That was ambitious. Nothing based on books or prior proof. They just knew they had such a banger they did 2 movies right out of the gate.
2 and 3, not 1 and 2
Well fuck
Knives Out 2 is by far my favorite and I love all three. I’ve only laughed that hard at a movie a handful of times.
My main criticism about Glass Onion is that the twist only works because Blanc knows something from the start that the audience can’t really figure out on their own. I prefer detective stories where the main character has the same opportunities to gather information as I have and if I pay close enough attention, I can figure out most of what happened before the big reveal.
But I’m glad that you liked it. Shows that the series caters to different tastes.
Terminator 2 is always the classic example, been downhill since then though
I haven’t seen Toy Story 4 yet but the original trilogy was awesome
The planet of the apes movies, it’s a trilogy and actually very good