Good Late Sequels

I also very much get the impression that the crew pays close attention to exactly what people do and don’t like about each season, and adjust the next one accordingly. Season 2 has Carmen unfairly blow up at Johnny as if Miguel getting hurt was all his fault, and Season 3 has her admit she was just lashing out in her grief. In Season 3, Eli’s redemption story was considered rushed and unearned, so Season 4 has him truly earn it.

3 Likes

Yes oh YES are you so right, though truth be told, seeing those two moments in the heat of the moment worked so well for me (I sure as hell would be illogically mad at someone for paralyzing my child)! And who in the world thought Eli would end up being the GOAT of the series?! That’s not easy to do in this show!

1 Like

While not perfect by any means, I thought Bill & Ted Face the Music was a heartfelt conclusion to a story I didn’t know I even wanted that badly.

It’s exactly the kind of project I would have assumed was going to be a cynical nostalgia cash grab, but it was clearly a labor of love and just generally very sweet. I think COVID probably did some damage to the overall quality of the movie here and there, but it also released at a dark moment and kind of felt like a genuine candle of human kindness and hope.

Plenty of small nitpicks to be had regarding the story and visuals (although you can do that with the original two movies as well, if you can get over the nostalgia factor), but I’m glad that movie exists as a final chapter to those doofy characters.

3 Likes

The 90s Gamera trilogy (aka The Heisei Trilogy) are excellent and essential viewing for fans of Kaiju films.

Is that the one with the naked bathhouse fight? I do remember that being very good (and not just because it has a naked bathhouse fight). Funny thing is that it was less than ten years after the original despite being the 21st film. They really churned them out but there was a remarkable consistency to them. I don’t remember any being outright bad just formulaic at times. Katsu Shintaro is so charismatic in the role that you just enjoy watching him.

3 Likes

He’s fine when he manages to stay off the heroin.

1 Like

Aliens. Not necessarily better than the first but holds its own and is very good. A lot of people didn’t like Aliens 3, but I contend that it showed more of the ecology of the xenomorph and the introduction of a religious element made it different enough to be interesting. However those that were just hoping for a repeat of the action/military element instead of a slightly more cerebral thriller we’re left unimpressed.

The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best in the entire series but isn’t technically late as it came out three years later.

Remake of Oceans 11 (2001) was great. Some of the sequels fell to the maxim…

Bladerunner 2049. Some didn’t like this but Denis Villeneuve executed a beautiful cinematic masterpiece.

Your opinions and mileage may vary on these :wink:

2 Likes

friday the 13th horror movies GIF by absurdnoise

1 Like

I think we’ve agreed on this point before.

Every sequel toMad Max is both better than the original and different from the last.

I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Die Hard, the 20-year-late sequel to The Detective.

I thought Zombieland: Double-Tap (ten years after the first) was fine, though I guess it’s lesser than the original, or we’re ten years more exhausted from zombies.

I re-viewed Son of Frankenstein recently and it was way better than I remembered.

The Ma & Pa Kettle franchise…pretty solid for ten films or so. I doubt I could rank them.

The Ernest movies follow an arc. That sometimes happens where it takes a while for a franchise to find it’s feet.

Oh, Fast and Furious…like, I started hearing about how good those movies were getting around the 7th or 8th one. To me that whole series is like Resident Evil or F13, they don’t really get entertaining until they get really dumb.

1 Like

I’ve heard good things about Doctor Sleep.

3 Likes

I know Star Trek talk has taken over a few threads (and I’ve been part of that… I’m deeply sorry), but I promise I won’t try to turn this into another Trek thread.

However, I think that Star Trek VI is really amazing as a sendoff for TOS crew. Star Trek V had a good moment or two (mostly the first and final five minutes) but overall was pretty off the rails after Star Trek IV (which I loved). Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979 and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released in 1991. (And all those movies were based on a TV show from the mid-60s!)

And this scene is just about my favorite:

My only Trek post in this thread. I promise. :smiley:

3 Likes

That we have, good sir.

There were parts of Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan that were brilliant, but too much of the movie was sunk under the mire of THAT DAMN SHIP

2 Likes

I appreciated Rambo (2008) as an experiment in, “What if Rambo were real? Oh god, it’s awful. Nobody should want that.” It would have been a fine ending to the series, but they had to dredge the franchise back up for the tedious and ultra-reactionary (even for Rambo) Rambo: Last Blood (2019).

3 Likes

Yup, that has the bathhouse scene (and did that inspire the one in Eastern Promises?)

And yeah, the formula was more the problem later in the series, than the quality of the films. But there were still a few that felt fresh in the telling or the style and stood out as some of the best in the series.

1 Like