As 2024 continues, so does the movie industry in its increasingly abundant production of sequels. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Joker: Folie à Deux. Moana 2. Gladiators 2. For film lovers, no matter the genre, our screens have been bombarded with promises of a part two that gives us the same emotions of excitement and wonder as part one. Some of those promises have fallen flat, yet still we hope. What caused some sequels to become box-office flops? What must a sequel accomplish in order to surpass the original? Are sequels worth it, or by “definition alone” are they “inferior films,” as Randy Meeks in Scream 2 suggests?
As it turns out, the class debate in Scream 2 was onto something when they listed The Godfather Part II and Terminator 2: Judgment Day as superior films to their original counterparts. The Godfather Part II is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, a rare sequel among the mix. Why? To begin, the story itself set the movie up for success. Shifting between the continuing drama of Michael Corleone and the unknown past of his father, Vito, the film presents itself as both sequel and prequel. This means that while it carries on the feeling of The Godfather, the movie also adds to the existing narrative. From the example of The Godfather Part II, we get the first ingredient for a successful sequel: a healthy dose of originality and nostalgia. When audience members crowd into theaters for a sequel, they do not want to watch the same movie over again, yet neither do they want to completely abandon the spirit of the first movie. When sequels like Joker: Folie à Deux undermine the work of the original film, tossing aside the values and expectations of their own audience, they are doomed to become disasters. On the sequel’s part, there must be some action taken to buy into the wants of the audience to participate in a similar experience as the first film. Yet, the sequel cannot indulge these wants too much, for danger of becoming oversaturated with repetition. A healthy dose includes new material that progresses the plot, yet enough familiarity that the audience feels continuity.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day satisfies both of these points very well, fundamentally altering the story to make Arnold Schwarzenegger fight on the side of good, while still exhibiting qualities of the preceding film. Yet what makes this film work is not just this balance, but even more importantly, the development it provides to its characters. One of the main gripes fans had against Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was the way in which original characters like Lydia Deetz had not changed … at all: same haircut, same personality, different movie. Character development is crucial to producing a quality sequel, showing audience members that the film they are watching grows in the same way life does (“life imitating art imitating life,” as Scream 2 put it). In Terminator 2, Linda Hamilton masterfully portrays a transformed Sarah Connor. In the first film, Sarah was the classic damsel-in-distress, constantly falling into trouble she cannot save herself from. Years have passed, and Sarah Connor has become a formidable warrior, complete with edgy outfits and large weapons. What Beetlejuice Beetlejuice failed to accomplish, Terminator 2 excelled at. In reality, people are not stagnant, stuck in their same childish or immature ways for their entire life. If life is imitating art which is imitating life, then movies, as art, should reflect our world to some extent. This would include the evolution of a person’s personality, a fact which especially comes into play in the making of sequels. In order to make an audience believe in the scenes acted out on screen, you have to make your characters perform as humans do. Besides this, stale characters make for stale movies. Returning to the balance of originality and nostalgia, if a character never develops, then a sequel fails to produce that sense of newness an audience craves for. If Sarah Connor never became the scourge of robot-kind that she did, Terminator 2 would have become another sequel in the long list of flops.
Are sequels worth it? Art, for art’s sake, is not. A sequel made only to grab money most often exhibits those traits least desirable of a film: too much echoing, not enough character growth. Art, for the sake of making something truly wonderful, however, will more often than not result in a Terminator 2 or The Godfather Part II. When films truly embrace their roles as continuer and innovator, they become art. It doesn’t matter if it is a sequel or a part one, because if it does everything just right, it could become one of the greatest films of all time. We, as film lovers, have to continue our wait and trust that perhaps, the next one will be better.
Jane Locke is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at jal562@cornell.edu.
