Let's face it; most sequels suck! But some don't. Some even surpass the original. What's your favorite?

From the choices, I had to select "Godfather 2". As I recall, when this film hit the theaters, I couldn't imagine how "The Godfather" could've been topped, but this one did it! However, if you go back further into the depths of time, I think one of the most memorable film sequels was "Curse of the Cat People". This film marked Robert Wise's debut, and proved you can make a quality sequel (and, in this case especially, on a meager budget!) and still not have to have a repeat of the original story (in this case,"Cat People").

"Godfather II" and "Empire Strikes Back" are what sequels should be: they surpass and enhance their originals. And going way back in time: "Bride of Frankenstein".

JSA

I chose "Godfather II" also, but I have to agree with Fedoozle that "Curse of the Cat People" is a superb sequel that can actually stand alone from the original. That was my all-time favorite movie when I was 6 years old, back in 1961. The movie that replaced it as my favorite two years later was also by Robert Wise: "West Side Story".

Every one of these sequels are good.To keep it "in the box", I had to go with "Godfather II " and "Empire Strikes Back" a close second.

"Funny Lady"

This was a tough call for me, despite the fact that I suggested the poll. For me, the best kind of sequel has always been in terms of what kind of "all new" material it can offer me, rather than a re-hashing of the same story. Too many times, sequels have only offered "more of the same and not as good".

On the one hand, I cannot ignore THE GODFATHER-PART II for its powerful story and its superb acting. It is one of only two sequels to ever win the Oscar for best picture of the year.

On another hand, I cannot ignore TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY. Not only is this still my favorite action film of all time, but it is also a story that sends a powerful message about the human race and our destructive capabilities.

But in the end, I finally went with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! When you've created the most popular and highest grossing science fiction film of all time, how do you even begin to hope to surpass yourself? Or at the very least, not repeat yourself? George Lucas did it, and the result was a practically all-new story with a much darker tone. I remember not only being surprised when I found out that Darth Vader was Luke's father, but also when I found out that Darth Vader was HUMAN underneath (or had been once). From 1977 to 1980, I thought Vader was a robot! I was a child. What did I know?

By the way, regarding THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN - I realize I'm probably in a serious minority here, but I never liked that film. I felt that the true horror of the original FRANKENSTEIN had been traded in for a more campy approach. The scene with the shrunken people in the glass jars I found nothing short of ridiculous.

But hey, that's just me.

Not that it would have affected my voting any, but a couple of those listed were the third installments (Indy and LOTR). As for my favorite sequel, I have to go with The Road Warrior, so I chose "Other".
As for the sequel that FAR surpassed the original, the winner would have to be Star Trek II. The plot for ST one, as well as the costumes, sucked. To me, it was a "look what we can do with special effects" movie.

Bill, I agree with you on STAR TREK - THE MOTION PICTURE. It was dull, dull, dull! And yet, somehow I find myself returning to watch it every once in a while because the visuals are a wonder to behold; like watching a flipside of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, which is what I think Robert Wise was trying to pay homage to when he made it.

Another sequel I've always loved was BACK TO THE FUTURE-PART II. I liked the plot twist involving their time travels between the future and the alternate past. Every once in a while, I like a movie where I have to think a little bit.

During the summer of 1985, I saw RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD-PART II three times! Obviously, I was going through my "I-love-to-watch-Stallone-blow-sh*t-up" phase at the time!

the empire strikes back is the perfect example of an original sequel not based on other media, and it is the poster child of what a sequel should be...a movie with a cliffhanger twist. when vader revealed his parenthood to his son, that gave me chills...i thought that vader was the bad guy in all the old star wars films. by the time i watched jedi, it was the emperor, not vader, that was the mastermind of the star wars that began after part three ended.

It's certainly a very short list that would include all those sequels that actually improved upon the original film, but in my opinion, "Godfather Part II" is the best of the lot. Epic, operatic, tragic... one of the great films of the '70's, period.

Others that come to mind:

"Road Warrior"
"Terminator II: Judgement Day"
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
"Bride of Frankenstien"
"The Bourne Supremacy"
"From Russia With Love"
"Empire Strikes Back"
"A Shot in the Dark"

While I do consider "Aliens" to be an excellent sequel - I would stop short of calling it an improvement upon Ridley Scott's original thriller.

how about bourne ultimatum..that was good. also blade ii.

While I chose THE GODFATHER PART II from the above list, in looking back over all motion picture history, a sequel that far surpassed the first, but which we don't think of as a sequel, although it was, is MOBY DICK (1956). For prior to MOBY DICK (1956) there had been another Moby Dick movie with John Barrymore cast as Captain Ahab. Both movies are based on Herman Melville's novel, but concentrate on completely different aspects of it. The John Barrymore version tells the part of the story leading up to how Captain Ahab lost his leg and shows a whistling, happy-go-lucky Ahab throughout most of the film. And as such it's really not much a story. It lacks traces of any real sort of authenticity, and over all falls flat as being very bland. In fact, when you do see that movie you realize why it's rarely ever shown.

But when John Huston picked up where that movie left off with his 1956 version, as sequels go it's now ranked as among the greatest films of all time. Though not thought of as a "sequel." Yet it is, really.

I saw THE COLOR OF MONEY when it was released in 1986 for no other reason than I had loved Tom Cruise in TOP GUN the previous summer. I was barely aware of THE HUSTLER or Martin Scorcese's work, for that matter, and yet I loved it. After I become more familiar with Scorcese's work and had seen THE HUSTLER several times, I revisited the sequel and loved it all over again, this time for Scorcese and Newman more than Cruise.

I tried to like THE TWO JAKES (sequel to CHINATOWN) four years later. I tried. No dice.

You know what I wish they HAD made a sequel to? Remember the movie BREAKING AWAY from 1979? I would have enjoyed catching up with the lives of those four boys, say ten or twenty years later.

A sequel to BREAKING AWAY would indeed be very interesting! For I always wondered after seeing that movie if Mike [played by Dennis Quaid] went on to become "mean old man Mike" after all!

Meantime, speaking of sequel letdowns, the most disappointing one I can recall is TEXASVILLE, the sequel to THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. However, I felt CLASS OF '44 -- sequel to THE SUMMER OF '42 -- was a pretty close second. Meaning when it comes to wanting to see a sequel it ofttimes becomes a classic case of "be careful what you wish for."

Another film I would have liked a sequel to is ORDINARY PEOPLE. The end of that film saw Mary Tyler Moore's character (Beth) leaving her family and other issues left unresolved. I would be interesting to catch up with Moore, Sutherland and Hutton more than 25 years later.

Continuing the thread of "Love Movies" and "Theater Buff', here are two sequels I wish had been made: Ernest Borgnine is still alive and well, but I wish he had made a sequel to "Marty" in the 70's or 80's.(Any sequel now would have to take place in a nursing home)-Of course, we would've needed a writer with the talent of Paddy Chayevsky, who died in '81. Also, I wish there had been at least one more round with "The Bowery Boys" while Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey were alive-You could hardly call that a sequel, due to the vast amount of films they made, just a "revistation".

OTHERS:

Nothing cerebral here just sequels I find extremely entertaining.

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"
"From Russia With Love"
"That's Entertainment Part II"
"The Pink Panther Strikes Again"
"Children of the Damned"
"The Enforcer"

SEQUEL I WOULD HAVE ENJOYED: More of Gordon and his mother from "Where's Poppa?"

The only bad points about the "Godfather II" is that some of the lighting seems to be too dark at times. Otherwise flawless. Possibly the finest sequel EVER, I see it not as a sequel, but a continuation of the Coreleone saga that broke new grounds in the way the past and present were bought together to tell the story. "Godfather III" did absolutely nothing for the series. I only saw it as a failed attempt by Coppola to resurect the franchise. Nothing too remarkable to say about this one except- as they say in Brooklyn- Forgeddaboutit!

"a revistation" - thanks fedoozle! Written in the true spirit of Slip Mahoney himself!

"Superman II", "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Lethal Weapon II" have no business on this list. You may as well include "Hardbodies II" or "Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" if you include those.

Of the other fine films, my money is on "Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan". Thanks to its fine quality. it saved the franchise and led to 8 more movies and three ST TV series.

Hey, I liked THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING! The one that took place in Japan - now that sucked!

By the way, to this day, I'm still not 100% clear on what "in breaking training" is really supposed to mean.

Anybody know?

I`d rate "Last Crusade" on an equal basis to "Raiders" for the very fact that Sean Connery gives one of his most endearing performances as Indy`s father. "Temple of Doom" was just a very bad movie with no real substance to it. It took too long to reach a climax, and once you got there, you just did not care anymore.

I think a sequel to ON THE WATERFRONT might've been interesting, that is, to see Terry Malloy (Brando) become the contender he so longed to be, and which we presume he does become at that movie's end.

Toy Story 2 probably rates a mention here.

Excellent point, Ron Newman. Both "Toy Story II" and "Shrek II" are excellent sequels. Some consider "Toy Story II" to be superior to the first. Forgot about that one!

I, too, loved TOY STORY 2 better than the original. SHREK 2, however, I felt was more of the same and not nearly as good.

It's logical that sequels should always be better than the original, just as it pretty much is with any other product. This PC I'm using right now, for instance, makes the first one I ever bought many years ago look like a Model T. And it appears that product improvement principle did happen with TOY STORY II and SHREK II. But why this isn't always the case I'm hardpressed to understand. Anyone have any clues as to why?

No clues, TheaterBuff, just the assumption that the urge for profit superceded the creative urge! A couple of other sequels that shouldn't have been made: "Sting 2" and "Psycho 2". Anthony Perkins must've really needed money for that one! And I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for "Godzilla 2"!

The urge for profit applies in all cases of ongoing productivity. Except....so often this doesn't apply to movie sequels, while it's not fully clear to me exactly why. Although in the case of PSYCHO II, without Hitchcock as the director it's like come on, of course the sequel could not possibly be better than the original! But both THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and its sequel, TEXASVILLE, were directed by Peter Bogdonovich, yet the first was a masterpiece, while the sequel was one of the worst films I've ever seen!

You would think that the success of a movie would be a solid guarantee that the sequel will be even better. Based on the success of the original, the sequel should not have any difficulty finding backers unlike how it was with the original, while those directing the sequel should have a much clearer grasp of what works and what doesn't, and a willingness to retain and build upon that which worked in the trial run. The camera work of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, the moodiness of it and the choice of using black & white, was a huuuuge part of what made that movie so great. So what does Bogdonovich do with the sequel? Get rid of all that made the original so memorable. I can understand his making the sequel in color to differentiate between the past and present. But whereby in the first film he focused on the spiritual depth and mystery of that west Texas town as it was in the 1950s, in the second film there was no effort whatsoever to do that. Even though it is fully possible to do that when working in color. But apparently Bogdonovich found it wise to shrug all that off. And why? A type of question that I think can be applied to many sequels, not just this one.

Crappy sequels by the original director:

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"
"Phantom Menace"
"Son of the Pink Panther"
"Trial of Billy Jack"
"Blues Brothers 2000"
"Batman Returns"

No doubt there are many, many more.

Well, not only did THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and TEXASVILLE have the same director, but Peter Bogdanovich wrote the screenplay for both, both movies were based on novels by the same author -- Larry McMurtry -- and both movies for the most part had the same cast, albeit minus Ben Johnson in the sequel. But then maybe that last detail was the sequel's whole point, to show that that west Texas town never did recover as a place of spiritual depth, even many years after Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson) had passed away.

Meantime, since I saw both THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and EASY RIDER at a theater as a double-feature in 1972, suddenly I'm wondering if EASY RIDER was a sequel to THE TRIP, made two years before in 1967. For both movies starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, while Jack Nicholson wrote THE TRIP. For if that was the case, it's another instance where the sequel is a thousand times better than the original, the first being a campy period film, and the second a breakthrough masterpiece.

I went with "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back", but I also could have have voted "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" or "Halloween II"

The BOURNE films just continue to get better and better.

Obviously, Godfather II, The Empire Strikes Back and Indiana Jones-Last Crusade are classic references, but I'd say Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan is the definitive example of a sequel being so well done and received that it created a host of Star Trek films and television series. Terminator II, Back to the Future II, Lord of the Rings-The Return of the King and The Bourne Supremacy were excellent sequels as well. The worst, perhaps, was Blues Brothers 2000. What an insult to the original.

Blues Brothers 2000 was OK. They tried too hard to be like the original. The parking the car scene was WAY overdone. Taken separately from the first, it was decent. I can't think right now, but I'm sure I can think of ones I consider worse sequels.

Gotta disagree, Bill... Can't think of too many sequels that were worse than "Blues Brothers 2000" - maybe the worst comedic sequel of all time, other than "Caddyshack II." Hmmmm... both with Dan Aykroyd!

Anyway, WORST sequel is the topic of another poll, I believe!

What about 1984's CONAN THE DESTROYER, the follow up to 1982's CONAN THE BARBARIAN? A good sequel or no? The reason why I ask, I'm not sure if I ever saw it. But CONAN THE BARBARIAN I remember very well, because I saw that in a well-run single-screen theater no less.

Ed,
As a sequel, I can't disagree too much, admittedly. Like I said, taken separately, it was just OK.
Worse? Meatballs 2, maybe? Just for a start. I've been a bit busy too think about it much.

If you delve into the world of B movies you'll never get to the end of coming up with the worst sequel. In the realm of A movies though, certainly GODFATHER III and TEXASVILLE count among the top 10.