By: Roberto Rojas
Asst. Perspectives Editor
Sequels have become commonplace in cinema. Because of the success of major original movies, it’s easy to say that the sequels also tend to ride off the success that its predecessor had. You can take your pick for great sequels that were perhaps better than its predecessors: The Empire Strikes Back, Shrek 2, The Dark Knight, Spiderman 2, The Godfather Part II, and even Toy Story 2. A majority of those movies have also ended up having franchises that spanned two or three more movies after its original version, or even more.
For myself, it’s always more interesting to see what the sequels end up being than the originals. One of my favorite franchises has been “The Fast and Furious” because of all the entertaining surprises that the original couldn’t have been able to demonstrate.
If you want a reason to support sequels over its original movies, you only have to look at the box office. Of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time, six of them are actual sequels, which only proves, at least in my opinion, that many people are really interested in these kinds of movies, and personally, it’s something that I’m happy to see.
Despite the common opinion that perhaps sequels are inferior to originals, some sequels have a story worth telling. It may be a negative thing to see creators get lazy because of the familiarity that we receive with the characters, but personally, there are certain exceptions to the narratives that sequels get. A good example would be if you look at the popularity of The Avengers or the films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is because people were generally interested and excited because of the hype that comes surrounding these movies. So with that, I think there is always a sort of love that should be given to sequels, just like original movies.
