With the release of EIDR 2.5 on April 25, our thoughts turn to other sequels that are better than the original. While EIDR 2.5 is faster, easier to use, and more accessible than its predecessor, it’s not as often the case that a movie sequel is an improvement. The temptation to “cash in” on a prior success by looking for a “winning formula” can lead to works best described as “ill advised.” So even more credit goes to those thoughtful filmmakers who apply their creativity to expanding their established worlds while breathing new life into their characters and giving them fresh challenges to face.
Various people have turned their attention to the very important task of determining which sequels are better than their originals, given that the original had to be good enough to warrant a sequel in the first place. Such lists are available from Time, The Independent , and Twitter[1]. There are also poll-driven lists from IMDb (viewers) and Rotten Tomatoes (critics via a ranking of most improved Tomatometer scores). If you find yourself with time on your hands and access to a video streaming service or two, you might want to program your own sequel movie festival, first watching the original and then the sequel to see if you agree that the one is a significant improvement on the other.
There may be the occasional entry in this list where the cultural and critical redeeming values of the original were so low that the sequel did not have to stretch far to surpass its predecessor (I’m looking at you Fast Five), but I suggest you start your sequelic[2] quest by taking a page from film critic Gary Franklin’s book. He popularized “the Franklin scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best” with his movie reviews that appeared on KABC-TV in Los Angeles during the late 1980s. But more importantly, he’d didn’t just judge everything he reviewed based on what he liked. If he was reviewing a vacuous teen comedy, he rated the film based on how well it succeeded as a vacuous teen comedy, not whether or not it was high art.
So, perhaps I’m being too hard on Fast Five and I should give The Fast and the Furious a fresh look with an open mind. I mean, just because any self-respecting criminal enterprise that ends in a high speed car chase has actually failed in its primary purpose doesn’t mean that undercover LAPD officer Brian and street racing/criminal gang member Mia can’t find love and that whether or not you arrest the mastermind of a hijacking ring really is a decision best decided by a drag race. Then again, I stand by my original assessment.
As you have come to expect, all the films on this list are registered in EIDR. To find out more about them, follow the links below to the EIDR Web UI and then explore the myriad Alternate IDs associated with the EIDR records. While you’re at it, you might try registering some new records so you can fully appreciate the accomplishments of the new EIDR 2.5 de-duplication service, especially given the very high bar it had to cross that was established over the past 10 years by the original EIDR de-duplication service, in successful use since EIDR 1.0 was launched in late 2010. So, kudos to the EIDR original, now let’s all enjoy the EIDR sequel.
Sequels that are Better than the Original
[1] Well, director James Gunn posting via Twitter, so with more authority than your average conspiracy theory tweet.
[2] Sequelous? Sequelary? Sequelish? Is there a generally accepted adjective form of “sequel?”