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Films where the sequel is better than the original

Temple of doom was crap, last crusade is a great film, but not as good as raiders was.

Superhero films tend to be the exception to sequel decay, the first film tends to get bogged down by the origin story. The second has much more free reign.
Eg
Spider-Man -> Spider-Man 2
Batman begins -> The Dark Knight
 
Hard to disagree with pretty much everything that's been said in this thread so far. The Godfather II, The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2, The Bourne Supremacy, Toy Story 3, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Aliens are some of my favorite movies, let alone sequels.

I'm not sure any of the Rocky sequels are better than the original, but in my opinion, Rocky IV comes close. Mission Impossible 3 is also pretty good, I think a bit better than the first.

These are all part of large series, though. In the spirit of Jordan's request for non-trilogy/saga sequel films, I'd say Kill Bill Vol. 2 is a little better than the first, although those two movies really are just separate parts of the same film.
 
ECG said:
furie - Can't believe you didn't mention that Godfather II was the best of the trilogy. Hell, probably the best sequel ever!
And what about The Empire Strikes Back & The Dark Knight? Both are clearly superior to the originals as well.
I'd even go as far to say that most people like Spiderman 2, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, X2: X-Men United, & even Die Hard 2 - Die Harder! more than their predecessors.
There's also The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which is the best of Leone's & Eastwood's Man with No Name trilogy.
Can we also count Bourne or Bond movies? Supremacy is a better Bourne sequel & do we consider From Russia With Love & Goldfinger as sequels?
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Sorry, as madhjsp says, it's Jordan's rules; not mine :lol:

Nadroj said:
Not including trilogies/sagas etc.
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I didn't know which films were already a "planned series" and which were made based entirely on the popularity of the original. Empire Strikes Back is the best example of this and the one that also falls most foul of Jordan's iron fist rule here :p

The Empire Strikes Back is a better film because it's the dark middle of the trilogy. It expands on the original film and firmly sets up the trilogy. It was also "planned" as part of Lucas' nine part series. However, Star Wars is deliberately a stand alone film in case it flopped. So TESB would never have been made if Star Wars hadn't made a few people exceptionally rich. So it's a sequel in the "first one was a closed story" sense, but it was planned and grew the first film into part of a trilogy.

I always thought that Godfather II was similar? Temple of Doom is actually an okay film, but it's the weakest of the three Indiana Jones films (there are only THREE films, okay? ;) )- though it is indeed a true sequel according to Jordan :p

Dark Knight was part of a planned trilogy, same with Harry Potter. Die Hard 2 was abysmal (the original was fantastic). I always found the original X-Men better than the sequel, the second is a bit draggy in parts, but I don't massively rate either (both are perfunctory).

Superman 2? Hmmmmmm... I can't decide on that one because both are superb films.
 
kimahri said:
I like The Mummy Returns over The Mummy. *Shame*

Edit: and Gremlins 2 *more shame*
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There's nothing shameful about either of those comments. Gremlins 2 is amazing, the talking Gremlin is just fantastic.

Furie, totally agreed on the "only 3" Indy films :D

Actually I agree with most of the comments in this topic.
 
Shrek 2, Lethal Weapon 2, Addamns Family Values, A Shot In The Dark, The Bourne Supremacy, all better than the original.
 
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