Two questions about movie sequels ...

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**Necroagogo**

Hi all,

I'd appreciate some help in resolving a dispute at work, so all feedback would be appreciated.

Firstly: if a prequel is made, does that automatically make the original film a sequel? Specifically, would 'A New Hope' be considered a sequel to 'The Phantom Menace'?

Second: can you think of sequels that bettered the original? My work colleague is adamant that there are none. Zip. Nada.

I thought of Alien / Aliens (not better, maybe, but certainly not worse) and Star Wars / Empire.

Over to you ...

**malfred**

Evil Dead 2

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, then Army of Darkness

**Khornholio**

Return of the King

**BrookM**

Empire Strikes Back, the Godfather 2, A Better Tomorrow II.

**Howard A Treesong**

Alien/Aliens, Terminator/T2 and Star Wars/ Empire are all too close to call, it's a matter of personal preference.

I think For a Few Dollars more is better than A Fist Full of Dollars.

Wrath of Khan is waaaay better than The Motion Picture but I don't know if something as part of an ongoing film franchise can count for the purposes of a sequel as reasoned here.

**Kilkrazy**

What typically happens with a film is that if it is very successful, and the end allows the possibility of a sequel, then the studios will try to make sequels of decreasing quality until they get one which is so crappy that they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

E.g. Alien/Aliens/Alien3/Alien4
Predator/Predator2/Aliens vs Predator1/2

The idea of "prequels" is an attempt to resuscitate the mouldering corpse of a once glorious concept.

**Big Mek Dattrukk**

For the most part, production companies look at a movie, and see that it did very well at the box office, as well as in Video. Then, they go to the in house writers, and say :Make a new one, and make sure it has (insert list of cliches marginally related to the genre of the movie) and take out (insert list of tropes that actually made the original good)

As for Sequels that are better than the original, they are indeed Very rare. one has a better chance of seeing a Giant squid than they do of a sequel that was better than the original.

**Slarg232**

I don't know, personally I enjoy The Dark Knight over Batman Begins.

**Lint**

+1 for Dark Knight
Might be a personal preference but I liked Dawn of the Dead better than Night of...

**Necroagogo**

Thanks all! My sparring partner ducked and dodged but couldn't eventually argue that Batman Begins was superior to Dark Knight.

Victory!

**Perkustin**

Batman Begins IS superior to the Boring Knight. I think that is all the obvious ones tbh. The first three bond movies went up in quality. Same with the Jason Bourne Films.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

Each Twilight movie has gotten better than the previous (anytime someone bashes Twilight in this thread, their manhood loses an inch).

**Soladrin**

I have plenty of inches to spare (har har) Twilight is just a no-go

**KingCracker**

I agree. Certainly with the last one anyways. My god I could barely keep my brain from melting watching that with the wife. Te first 2 were actually pretty decent though

Also Id say that in the case of prequels no, the original is not an auto sequel. Sure the story line is before the original, but the original was first, and due to success or whatever, lead to the making of the story before the story.