MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: The middle of the trilogies

> There's a spanish saying which goes like "second parts were never good" (segundas
> partes nunca fueron buenas). And I think many people would agree, like how would you
> compare The Color Of Money to The Hustler? The latter is one of my fav movies ever,
> while the former, a quite forced sequel, has its peak when Com Truise (sic) plays
> Stocker. And that happens at minute five of a 115 min movie! (Ok I'm just
> exaggerating, I also like the sequel a bit.)
>
> However, when movies are part of a trilogy, sometimes I find that I like them more
> than the first or the last. My examples:
> * The Two Towers, and I also prefer that volume in the books.
> * Empire Strikes Back. No, really.
> * Attack Of The Clones. The lesser of three evils?
> * Terminator 2 - Judgement Day. While the first is truly original and great, the
> second is better IMHO.
> * The Chronicles Of Riddick. While Pitch Black is decent, Chronicles goes a step
> beyond in terms of entertainment, as cheesy as it gets, and Riddick is a bit weak for
> my tastes (yet I bought it used, just to have them all in blue-ray).
> * Dead Man's Chest. My fav of the Pirates Of The Caribbean saga.
>
> Of course these are my tastes, and of course there are lots of second parts which
> don't live up to expectations, just to be followed with a decent movie... Matrix
> Reloaded, Hannibal (Red Dragon is so much better), Quantum Of Solace (I like it but
> Casino Royale and Skyfall are so much better even if they are not technically a
> trilogy), Back To The Future II, etc. And I'm not including the loads of sagas which
> just go downhill after the first.
>
> And I'm not counting one of the best, if not the best (for me) sequel ever, Aliens.
> However Alien and Aliens are too different to be compared easily. I find each movie
> in the saga to fit in different genres than the previous ones.
>
> Well I just wanted to talk about movies, I'm in the mood after rearraging my
> collection for the nth time so I can squeeze in a few more before building/buying
> more shelfs.

I think there's a good reason for that in a lot of cases. The second movie of a trilogy doesn't have any of the constraints of the first and third. The first is saddled with backstory. You have to explain the world, the hero, the villain, and everything else. The third is saddled with wrapping everything up, which in most cases means building to the mega-happy ending. Second movies have none of that. The audience is already familiar with the bulk of the characters and setting, so you don't need more than a brief recap, if anything. And you have the entire third movie to resolve any tension, so there are no preset requirements for the story to get to a particular place. As a result, second movies are free to focus on pure storytelling, and tend to be better overall as a result.