1/14/2009 10:19 AM
posted awhile ago
Re:The Onion AV Club recently featured a list of "5 unnecessary film sequels that are great anyway." Which do you find the best?
Wow, I'm the first one to vote for Before Sunset!
I'll tell you why.
The article in the paper I picked up didn't define their criteria further than the phrase "unnecessary film sequels that are great anyway"
Here's what I think they mean by that.
1. The original film must have been great
2. After finishing watching the first movie you do not necessarily feel like a sequel is warrented or required to fulfill the full movie experience
3. The sequel must be almost equally great
So here's my reasoning.
First of all, I just have not seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 so I can't say much about that.
I absolutely LOVED Alien. And after watching it you do not feel like a sequel is necessarily required. As for Aliens, it was cool that since it was unnecessary it was in a different genre, more of sort of a straight up action movie than horror / suspence. But I did not like it nearly as much.
It is kind of the opposite for me with the Mad Max movies. While I enjoyed the original I did not think it was really THAT great. Also the same as before, the sequel was not necessary and it was in a different genre of sorts. The Road Warrior is really more of a straight up action movie over Mad Max which had a lot more drama. In fact it's maybe my favorite action movie. But since I did not find the original as great, I didn't vote for it. Is that fair? Maybe not.
As for the Godfather series, I'd say that both movies are fantastic! But, maybe it's difficult for me to judge on this since as long as I've been alive I've known that there was a sequel, so the first time I watched the original I had that in mind. And so to me the sequel didn't seem that uncessary. I felt like I needed to know more. You may disagree with me.
You may disagree with me even more and say that the same is the case with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, that in that case you also want to know what happens later! Maybe it's because the movie was made so much later with such a different outcome than you would have assumed after watching the first movie that makes me love it. Anyways, I think both of these films are fantastic.
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