It is a common occurrence in Hollywood that the first movie in a major franchise is well-established as the best. Filmmakers hope that they can produce a movie sequel that is better than the original, but this is no small feat. As the franchise loses steam, they sometimes resort to cheaper or video-release sequels that the major review sites don’t even bother to score.
In many cases, the first movie in the franchise is the best because the premise was only ever suited to one movie; as soon as it reaches a sequel, everything falls apart. However, other stories possibly could have held up a successful blockbuster franchise, but one botched sequel kicked off a bad trend that the filmmakers could never recover from. However, there is one last scenario: The relevant movie franchise has no bad movies, but the first one is just a little bit better than the ones that came after it.
Jurassic Park could have constituted an excellent extended story because there are many different avenues to explore the message of not tampering with nature. This formula probably would have eventually grown stale, but it still had some mileage after the first movie. The Lost World: Jurassic Park manages to do something with this theme in how the dinosaurs have thrived since being left alone on the island.
The first sequel suffered from the loss of Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, but its biggest problems were in being the follow-up to a Hollywood milestone of storytelling and special effects. On the other hand, Jurassic Park III has a completely ludicrous plot that not even Sam Neil can save. The Jurassic Park sequels could have been good, but they still didn’t need to happen — and neither did the Jurassic World trilogy, which has its own set of problems.
While the best Scream movies still trend toward the early days of the franchise, the series has done remarkably well in upholding the original movie’s style. There are doubtlessly some weak points, like the disappointing conclusion to the original trilogy and the first, failed attempt to bring the franchise back in the 2010s. However, Scream made a surprising comeback in 2022 with some great new cast members working well with the legacy actors.
Yet the first Scream is still incrementally the best of the series. The novelty of the shamelessly meta movie mocking all the tropes of the horror genre is the strongest on its first run, although Scream 2 does an excellent job of building upon it. The Scream franchise is an excellent example of the struggle sequels face in following a landmark movie, which may always be considered the best simply because of the cultural impact it made with its release.
Steven Spielberg set the bar for horrors and thrillers with his tale of a rampaging shark at a Cape Cod beach. The first movie has plenty of great performances, iconic lines, and, of course, its famous haunting score. The second movie asks the audience to suspend its disbelief further when another shark hell-bent on destruction attacks the same beach. While Jaws 2 lost Spielberg, it at least benefits from the return of Roy Scheider.
However, there was no hope for Jaws 3-D or Jaws: The Revenge, which each present increasingly implausible shark attack scenarios with none of the original’s excellent writing or directing to prop them up. A rotating cast of genuinely good actors, including Dennis Quaid, Lea Thompson, and Michael Caine, were drawn in by the title’s fame but were not enough to turn things around. Jaws at least had the common sense to have quit in the 1980s when it was clear the franchise was beyond salvaging.
Most rankings of the Taken movies can tell everyone who hasn’t seen them that the quality steadily dropped with each new installment. Despite achieving generally average reviews, the first Taken managed to become a staple action movie that influenced many which came after it. The same cannot be said for Taken 2 and Taken 3, which devolve into meaningless action and destruction.
The Taken sequels try to put new spins on the initial premise. Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills is the one who is kidnapped in Taken 2 before he is thrust into a new adventure to protect his family. Taken 3 then introduces a new storyline of Mills being framed for murder and having to clear his name while continuing to protect his daughter. Neither was as well-received as the first. Taken was lucky to have become as popular as it did, and producing any sequels was risking ruining the movie’s reputation.
The Halloween franchise has a shocking number of sequels and reboots when the ratings would say that none since the original have been worthwhile. The exception is the surprise hit of 2018’s Halloween, with a long stretch of bad movies in between. The fact that creator John Carpenter never planned to make a sequel says a lot about why the franchise has been such a mess since the 1970s. After becoming the benchmark slasher that would inspire countless other horror movies, Halloween spiraled into chaos.
Essentially, filmmakers have tried and failed to restart the Halloween franchise several times. The first movie without Michael Myers was a disaster, while the starting points of new planned trilogies also flopped. The 2018 Halloween achieves something reminiscent of the original with a much simpler story focusing on Laurie and her family trying to survive the killer, earning the best reviews the series had seen in 40 years. However, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends signaled a return to reliably bad sequels.
The How to Train Your Dragon sequels are not bad, certainly not in the sense of some franchises where everything after the first movie was a downhill spiral. How to Train Your Dragon 2 and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World claim some amazing moments that simply could not have happened in the first movie due to the necessity of a years-long relationship between the main characters. However, the first How to Train Your Dragon still has the strongest story of the trilogy, combined with the first-time effect of the breathtaking design and music.
The How to Train Your Dragon sequels feature two completely generic villains whose biggest contribution to the story is catalyzing character development and epic battles. The plot points of Hiccup’s mother’s secret double life and the Light Fury are somewhat contrived for relationship drama. The first movie’s storyline with no real villain, only the prejudices and misconceptions of the main characters, is the most powerful of the series.
The quality gap between the original The Crow movie and its sequels is astounding. Adapted from James O’Barr’s graphic novel, The Crow came out within two years of Scream and is just as much of a quintessential 90s horror movie.The Crow achieved dazzling reviews due to its beautifully dark tone and the stunning performance of lead actor Brandon Lee. However, The Crow also has a thematic depth that helps it rise above meaningless violence and jump scares.
Meanwhile, all of The Crow’s sequels received reviews as stunningly bad as the first movie’s were good. Some surprising casting choices were brought on at different points, including Terminator 2’s Edward Furlong, but the terrible acting and writing cannot be reasoned with. Now, a The Crow reboot is coming soon. This perhaps demonstrates a determination to make a better legacy for The Crow, when the first movie is such an outstanding contribution to cinema.
Die Hard’s quality dipped and rose again, with multiple surprising comebacks. However, the slew of “Die Hard on/with a (blank)” movies that are in no way as good as Die Hard demonstrates how it is also a concept that loses some of its impact simply because of repetition. The first Die Hard sequel in particular was confronted with this very problem — John McClane even says himself that the odds of an average police officer finding himself in the same situation twice are laughable. Bruce Willis’ performance is the only thing that saves the movie.
However, Die Hard with a Vengeance came back strong thanks to the new buddy-cop dynamic and the incomparable on-screen chemistry between Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. It is widely considered the best sequel of the franchise, although not the best movie overall, an honor that still goes to the genre-defining first installment. Live Free or Die Hard was well-received, while A Good Day to Die Hard abandons the very premise of Die Hard by making John too prone to violence.
The Matrix remains the undisputed best Matrix movie, with the following two movies being too disappointing and the legacy sequel too divisive to have ever stood a chance. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions also faced the insurmountable challenge of living up to a groundbreaking movie that functions as a standalone. Screenwriter John August aptly described the problem with the first two Matrix sequels as the filmmakers “playing obscurity for depth” (via denofgeek.com).
While The Matrix is known for revolutionary action sequences that made waves in the genre, the ones of the next two movies are largely generic if not criticized outright — except for the famous freeway chase. The characters throw out a lot of philosophical diatribes that mean absolutely nothing, and the story ends with Trinity’s terrible death and a weird cliffhanger. The Matrix sequels are good enough if all one wants is a complete trilogy of adventures, but they are bland movies on their own.