The Top 100 Sequels That Should Have Never Been Made

To start off this new blog our panel of movie experts tackles unnecessary sequels, gives you upcoming blockbuster alerts, and gives you some meaningless lists all in the name of film fun! First up former senior editor of and critic for the sadly defunct Cinema Simple magazine in the '90's Edward Callistan starts us off right with a list that floored me, made me laugh but then made me realize how much of my life was wasted watching :

THE TOP 100 SEQUELS THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN MADE

There was a Simpsons episode where Bart was trapped in a room with multiple doors labeled with roman numerals. At first he wasn't able to read them as numbers but suddenly his knowledge of Rocky films kicked in and he was able to indentify the numerals correctly and pick the right door in which to make his exit. That might be the only practical purpose for most movie sequels. I mean sure there's a few good to excellent sequels - Godfather Part II comes immediately to mind. I mean that one even won the best picture Academy Award! But for every good sequel like say The Empire Strikes Back or Superman II there are literally hundreds of awful unneccessary movie grubbing retreads. Here's the cream of the crap. 100 bad sequels, well actually more than that considering I use one entry for multiple movies out of or including a whole series at times.

Lastly many would argue that in some cases the original movie shouldn't have been made either but that's a whole 'nuther list!

Read them and weep -

1. Godfather Part III - Godfather Part II pretty much summed it up didn't it? This defines the term "unneccessary and pointless sequel" but considering at one point in the '80's Stallone came close to fronting an entry in the Godfather series it could have been a lot worse. Many blame Sophia Coppola's acting or lack of acting but in my book the project was doomed the second Robert Duvall passed. They replaced him with George Hamilton. George Hamilton for Christ's sake!
2. Ghostbusters 2
3. Fletch Lives
4. City Slickers 2
5. More American Graffiti - The post-script to the original movie said what the fates of the characters were - so why do we need this unfunny, stiff, and visually bombastic mess? I can't think of a reason.
6. Blues Brothers 2000 - Or course if you're reading this list you know that sequels mostly always suck but if one of the major players from the first film is dead they are destined for the Hall of Suck. Aykroyd's misguided attempt to revive the Blues Brothers film career replacing the great John Belushi with John Goodman is a embarrassment and almost as much of an insult to Belushi's legacy as Bob Woodward's Wired.
7. Back To The Future 2, 3
8. Airplane 2 - The Sequel - Probably one of the worst offenders of the retreading of the entire first film with no shame. In the commentary for the Airplane! DVD the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams stress that they had nothing to do with the sequel and that to this day neither of them has seen it. Good decision. Wish I had made it too.
9. All of the Pink Panther movies made after Peter Sellers Died
10. Star Trek V
11. All of the National Lampoon Vacation sequels
12. Jaws 2, 3, and Jaws : The Revenge
13. Superman 3 & 4
14. Beverly Hills Cop 2 & 3
15. Batman Returns, Fever, & Batman And Robin
16. Analyse That
17. Naked 2 2/2 & 33 1/3
18. Waynes World 2
19. Austin Powers 2 & 3
20. Lethal Weapon 2, 3, & 4
21. Star Wars I The Phatom Menace & II Attack of the Clones : "Prequel? More like Nyquil" - David Letterman
22. Speed 2
23. The Two Jakes (Chinatown sequel)
24. The Fly 2
25. Father Of The Bride 2
26. Rocky II, III, IV, and V and let's go ahead and sum up Rambo II, III, & IV
27. Robocop 2 & 3 : Wasn't there a TV show or made for TV movie or something else too? Whatever - I'm too lazy to IMDB it. Like it really matters anyway.
28. Caddyshack 2
29. Alien 3 & Resurrection
30. Psycho II, III - There was also some lame made for TV, cable TV that is, deal with E.T.'s Henry Thomas playing a young Norman Bates while Anthony Perkins recounted his youth to some radio call-in show. It was Psycho IV - The Beginning. I got off my ass and IMDB'ed something for once!
31. Die Hard 2 & 3
32. Weekend At Bernie's 2
33. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
34. Men In Black II
35. American Psycho 2
36. Scream 2 & 3
37. Scary Movie 2 & 3 - The poster campaign for the original Scary Movie said "No shame, no mercy, no sequel". Need I say more?
38. Major League 2 & 3
39. Halloween II, III - Season Of The Witch, 4 - The Return Of Michael Myers, 5, 6 - The Curse Of Michael Myers, H20 - 20 Years Later, & Ressurection
40. Arrival 2
41. Oh God Book II & Oh God You Devil
42. Escape From L.A. (Escape From New York sequel, duh!)
43. Texasville (The Last American Picture Show sequel)
44. The Evening Star (Terms Of Endearment sequel)
45. Book Of Shadows - Blair Witch 2
46. Nightmare On Elm Street, 2 - Freddy's Revenge, 3 - Dream Warriors, 4 - The Dream Master, 5 - The Dream Child, 6- Freddy's Dead - The Final NIghtmare, 7-New Nightmare, 8 - Freddy Vs. Jason - A first! 2 bad movie series unite into a crossover bad movie! Of course that brings us to :
47. Friday the 13th Part II, Part 3 in 3D!, IV - The Final Chapter (what a freakin' lie!), Part V - A New Beginning (of course), Part VI - Jason Lives, Part VII - The New Blood, Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan, Part VIIII - Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday (another freakin' lie!), Jason X - Jason X took place in outer space. Consider it the Moonraker of the series.
48. The Color Of Money (The Hustler sequel)
49. Crocodile Dundee II & Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. Holy crap! Can't we be finished with this guy?!!?
50. The Neverending Story II - The Next Chapter & III - If the first one was neverending then why did they make a sequel? - Dennis Miller
51. Poltergeist II - The Other Side, III, and some TV movie crap - The Legacy. Jesus let the ghost go.
52. The Gods Must Be Crazy 2
53. Legally Blond 2
54. FX 2
55. U.S. Marshalls (The Fugitive sequel,sort of)
56. American Pie 2 & American Wedding
57. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes & Battle For the Planet of the Apes
58. Amityville Horror
59. Another Stakeout
60. Another 48 Hours
61. Nutty Professor 2
62. Dr. Doolittle 2 - I mean while we're on Eddie Murphy we might as well cancel these out.
63. 2010
64. Predator 2
65. Terminator 3
66. Exorcist II - The Heretic
67. Revenge Of The Nerds II - Nerds In Paradise, and the 2 made for TV sequels III - The Next Generation, and IV - Nerds In Love.
68. Smokey and the Bandit 2 and 3
69. Grease 2
70. Three Men and a Little Lady
71. Look Who's Talking 2 & 3
72. Jurrasic Park II & III
73. Mission Impossible 2
74. Damien - Omen II & III - The Final Conflict + some damn TV movie Omen IV - The Awakening
75. Jewell Of The Nile (Romancing The Stone sequel)
76. Mad Max 3 - Beyond Thunderdome
77. Return To Oz
78. House Party 2 & 3
79. Police Academy 2-whatever : all of them. Please don't ask me to list them!
80. The Sting 2
81. Death Wish 2, 3, & 4 - The Crackdown, V - The Face Of Death : Man Charles Bronson sure looks like the face of death to me!
82. Shock Treatment (Rocky Horror Picture Show sequel)
83. Highlander II, III, IV - again I think there was some made for TV crap too but let's leave it at these.
84. Conan The Destroyer
85. The French Connection 2
86. Meatballs 2
87. Hot Shots Part Deux
88. King Kong Lives
89. Home Alone 2 & 3
90. A Very Brady Sequel
91. The Crow 2 - City Of Angels
92. Ace Ventura 2 - When Nature Calls
93. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
94. Children of the Corn II - The Final Sacrifice (Bad move. Wait to yer 4th or 5th flick to use words like final), III, IV - The Gathering, V - Fields Of Terror, & 666 - Isaac's Return, The Revelation
95. Matrix Reloaded
96. Tremors 2 & 3
97. The Mummy Returns
98. Arthur 2 - On The Rocks
99. Teen Wolf Too
100. Porky's 2 - The Next Day & Porky's Revenge

Whew! That's quite a list of worthless film follow-ups. Since the Ring 2, Before Sunset, Birth Of The Pink Panther, and Star Wars Episode III haven't been released yet I'm sure I'll post a sequel to this list at some point in the future.

- Edward Callistan

Thanks Ed. Look for more of his lists and bitchin' 'bout bogus cinema on future blog posts. Film babble at it's purest. Now my friend and fellow movie geek Bill Bird gives us some lowdown on some upcoming theatrical releases. Go Bill!

BIRD'S EYE VIEW : WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MOVIELAND

There's a lot of buzz going around about the upcoming Garfield movie that's a CGI deal with Bill Murray voicing everybody's favorite funny fat cat but what's little remarked on is Murray's taking the vocal duties over after the death of former animated Garfield voice Lorenzo Music in 2001. What's interesting is that Lorenzo Music did Garfield's voice from 1982 with a debut on a prime time special followed by several others and then a saturday morning series in the late '80's. Music was best known before Garfield doing the voice of the never-seen-in-person Carlton the doorman (who was also later animated) on the Mary Tyler Moore spin-off Rhoda in the mid to late 70's. He had a lot of voice-over work during that same period including doing the voice of Peter Venkman on the cartoon version of Ghostbusters in 1986-87. You understand what I'm getting at? That was the role played by Bill Murray in the 1984 film. So the family of Lorenzo Music has yet to comment on this. But stay tuned 'cause the Bird always gets his worm!

Brian Wilson finally unveiled Smile - his notorious unreleased supposed masterwork a few weeks ago at a live performance in England. A friend - actually the editor/creator of this film babble blog - Danny gave me a new mix of the original Smile material resequenced to reflect Wilson's setlist and Mojo magazine's track listing suggestions. What an amazing sequence of songs! What does this have to do with movies? I found out somehow that it matches up with Birth Of A Nation! That's right the trend of synching up movies with albums (you know Wizard Of Oz + Dark Side Of The Moon, right?) hasn't died at least in my household. The driving track "Heroes And Villains" on Smile fits so perfectly with the footage of the Clan in Birth... that I thought I was goona die!

Things get hairier on the set of the long delayed Gilligan's Island movie. Apparently John Goodman has left the production leaving the role of the Skipper in jeopardy. Madonna (originally slated to play glamorous movie star Ginger but was replaced by Mia Sorvino after she made negative comments about Joe Eszterhas's script) was recently quoted as saying she was "glad to get off a sinking ship". That may be the most apt description as the troubled production faces more setbacks. "The weather started getting rough" indeed.

- Bill Bird

Lastly contributer Sarah Warner gives us some random movie lists for no real reason whatsoever! Enjoy-

TEN MOVIES THAT HAVE HITLER IN THEM :

1. Zelig
2. To Be Or Not To Be
3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4. Contact
5. Triumph of the Will
6. Double Headed Eagle
7. The Producers
8. Little Nicky
9. Max
10. Caligula Reincarnated As Hitler (I'm not making this up)

TEN MOVIE TITLE QUESTIONS :

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
2. What About Bob?
3. What's Love Got To Do With It?
4. Who's That Girl?
5. Who's That Knocking At My Door?
6. What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
7. Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
8. Which Way Is Up?
9. What's Eating Gilbert Grope?
10. What's Up Doc?

TEN PG-RATED MOVIES THAT HAVE NUDITY IN THEM :
(Some brief, some not so brief)

1. Brainstorm
2. Logan's Run
3. The Ruling Class
4. Airplane!
5. Clash Of The Titans
6. The Wedding
7. 16 Candles
8. Barbarella
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1979 remake)
10. Alice's Restaurant

- Sarah "I love making lists" Warner

Thanks Sarah. Well that's it this time. We'll be back later with more Film Babble Blog so keep posted and we'll keep posting.