Comments on: Why Sequels Fail

By: Alex Caswell

Alex Caswell — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:22:06 +0000

Ah. I always treat random events in my life as not random relative to me, because then when a whole string of bad things occurs, you feel like the universe is out to get you. I have a different outlook on life and the universe in several ways, and I guess now I should add this one to the list. Of course, since there is no list, instead I might just scratch it into my wall. (Or not).

By: Brian D. Buckley

Brian D. Buckley — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:55:13 +0000

There’s a Grease 2? Seriously?! Haha I’ve never heard of that one, I feel so uncultured now…

By: Brian D. Buckley

Brian D. Buckley — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:54:11 +0000

You’ve brought up several points here, so I’ll answer them separately.

RE: “nothing in the universe is truly random.” I guess it depends on your definition of “random.” To me, randomness means unpredictable variability. We could predict dice rolls if we could measure precisely enough and calculate physics fast enough, but we can’t, so they’re random to us. Randomness is relative to the observer. For our purposes here, all that matters is that there’s unpredictable variation – fluctuations in movie quality uncorrelated to the director’s skill – and these fluctuations are unlikely to hit a high note twice in a row, leading to the “regression to the mean” phenomenon.

RE: “you can’t just repeatedly give a character a totally new arc and expect it to work.” This is partly related to what I’m saying, though. It’s hard to know in advance whether any given story will work with any given character. Getting it right once doesn’t necessarily improve your odds of getting it right the next time. I’m not saying it’s purely luck, of course, just that there’s an element of unpredictable variability.

RE: “The original movie just wasn’t planned to be a series – it was intended to stand alone.” Yeah, I agree this can also be a factor. If you tie up all your loose ends the first time around, it’s tough to know where to go from there.

Thanks for the comment, Alex!

By: Shaila Mudambi

Shaila Mudambi — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:42:52 +0000

I agree with Alex’s point that ‘the original movie just wasn’t planned to be a series-it was intended to stand alone’. Maybe most of the exceptions were already thought out to be a series? Anyway I have a long list of bad sequels but Dirty dancing 2, Speed 2 and Grease 2 probably top my list!

By: Alex Caswell

Alex Caswell — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:20:43 +0000

I’m not so sure about the idea that luck is a part of it- I hold to the theory that nothing in the universe is truly random (With the exception of digital number and data generators, and other such digital anomalies). Everything is affected by diverse factors that, if you don’t know what they are, will seem random. And to be honest, I doubt that the human brain can process all of the those variables at once.
For example, a dice roll is determined by the way that you hold the die, air resistance, height above surface, interference, etc.
Back to my original topic. I think that the sequels are also just not as . . . inspired. By which I mean the writers didn’t have the mysterious force that i refer to as auras. When I’m really inspired for a story, my brain can draw upon an image that is usually a fairly good indicator for how I feel about the story, and the mood that the story should have. Sequels don’t have writers that have an aura for the new movie that’s new and fresh. Also, they don’t have as good character arcs, since you can’t just repeatedly give a character a totally new arc and expect it to work. That is why I think that sequels for movies usually fail. The original movie just wasn’t planned to be a series-it was intended to stand alone, and then the the second one falls flat because the characters are already happy.
That said, there are exceptions. but since this is already a very long comment and I have to go eat dinner, I’ll just leave the comment as it is. What do you think?