Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Mad Max: The Road Warrior
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Die Hard: Die Hard I
The Thin Man: The Thin Man (1934)
Disagree on Star Wars, Mad Max,Indy and LOTR...as for the rest agreed:)
Very interesting post and i hope others contribute
The Matrix
share"The Matrix" is a fantastic example. The sequels added nothing.
How about "Back To The Future"?
I would agree with your Mad Max and Empire Strikes Back choices. As for LOTR, The Fellowship is more literarily wonderful than its sequels, but I think that's due to its advantage of being the first. It introduced us to a world about which we had read literally volumes, but had never seen. I think the two sequles were equally well-crafted films, and done with every bit as much love as the first, in sad contrast to The Hobbit monstrously. The chapter, The Battle of the Pellinor Fields, in TROTK, where the Rohirim mow down the Orcs with their onrushing steeds, is as thrilling and satisfying a scene as any other to be found in the series.
Turning to Raiders: well the name Indiana Jones was never part of the title until they released the box set collection, which I own, and was saddened to see the total had by some means transformed to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc--on the DVD case. Play the actual disc, and that ain't the title. To me, Raiders is head, shoulders and belly-button above the other Indy movies.
To contribute, rather than comment: Hellboy: The Golden Army is a 'way better movie than Hellboy, which is a good movie but not nearly as good as its sequel.
Hellboy Golden Army is in my cue
I need to chk it thanks!
Sorry to butt in...The BTTF sequals were pretty dumb but i still really enjoyed them
Fun stuff imo!
Great example
I couldnt even finish the rest
I would have preferred the future depicted in "Back to the Future II" left instead to the viewer's imagination. The original was as perfect a time-travel story as you were going to get in the Reagan era. Why tamper with that?
shareI agree. The sequels were not needed. I saw them, and found them exasperating, with all this I-have-to-be-careful-that-me-from-this-era-doesn't-see-ME-sneaking-around-bullshit. It ruined the first movie for me--especially that thing set in the Wild West?! The sequels were a cash-grab.
share"Back To The Future 3" is the worst. Yeah, let's put Marty and Doc in the middle of an oater -- barf.
shareI agree with The Matrix... Sequels dilute it
shareMisssion impossible.
shareIf you mean the first "Impossible" with DePalma at the helm then I agree. DePalma did two pretty unthinkable things: 1. he killed off the entire IMF team 2. he made Mr. Phelps a heavy. DePalma's sacrilegious instincts served him well... and would be even more suited to this franchise today (maybe they'll let him return for Cruise's final outing so he can do to Hunt what he so brazenly did to Phelps; it would be the perfect send-off to a character that never ingratiated himself to begin with).
shareThe DePalma Mission Impossible is at such a higher level than the others, that it makes them seem "not good", but some of them are good movies...
Rogue Nation was good as was the one with Philip Seymour Hoffman... They're just dwarfed by DePalma's version in terms of directing, aesthetics, sex appeal and just how audatious he was with the material...
The first Children of the Corn was probably they only one you could really call good.
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