We all love a good movie, and sometimes we are blessed with a sequel, or sequels that manage to recreate what we love about the original, or even surpass it. But more often than not, we are stuck with a series that goes far beyond their original purpose, and while many times it is for the better, it can also be for the worst. What follows is a short list of franchises that have gone astray from their original vision, and no, not all of them have necessarily churned out inferior films, but they all have lost the charm of the original.
The Fast and the Furious
What started as a look into the world of underground racing, has evolved into one of the most long-running action franchises in history. Whether this was for better or worse, is a matter of opinion, but it would be hard to make the argument that a shift in gears (no pun intended) in the series hasn't taken place since the release of
2 Fast 2 Furious. Tokyo Drift tried to restore the series to its roots and I think it is an underrated film. Had they had a higher budget, I think it would have been extremely successful, and totally changed the tone of the more recent entries in the series. I don't really have a gripe about the newer
Fast and Furious entries, it just seems to me that they are like any other action film and are becoming more and more cliche. Another issue I have with this franchise is the amount of belief one must suspend to actually enjoy the movie. The first movie asked us to merely suspend our belief, which is the case with all movies, but from the second one on, they started taking belief and throwing it out the window, and by the time we got to the fifth entry in the series, believability was nowhere to be seen. While it is notable that
The Fast and the Furious movies have been more commercially successful than ever lately, the excitement, mystery, and romantic notions of the world of underground racing introduced in the first one have all but vanished. With its budget and star power bigger than ever, you can't argue that the film quality of these later entries are better than the first one, but they are totally lacking what made us fall in love with the franchise in the first place.
Rush Hour
Rush Hour is not a comedy action movie, but an action movie with humor. It achieved a balance of humor and action not seen since the likes of
Beverley Hills Cop, nor since. The chemistry between Jackie Chan as Inspector Lee from Hong Kong and Chris Tucker as Detective Carter form the LAPD was perhaps the best cop pairing since Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in
Lethal Weapon. Rush Hour 2 had basically nothing going for it, just dwelling on Lee's depression over trying to solve a case involving the man he thinks killed his father. They focused on that side of the drama a little too much and Chis Tucker's Carter is just kind of there, not really contributing much to the story, and it's just not funny. they took an action movie and turned it into a comedy, but didn't bother to write humor into the script, at least not funny humor. The third was better because the jokes were at least funny, but the thing is, the first one didn't really have any jokes at all, that's what made it funny, the realism and finding humor in a serious situation, not trying to manufacture it like they did in the second and third. And while
Rush Hour 3 was a definite step up from the second, able to at least match the humor of the first, it likewise was unable to replicate the semi-serious tone that made the first one a legitimate action film, as well as failing in character development, by continuing to cast Carter as the idiot, instead of the fast talking cool and totally competent detective portrayed in the first one.
Terminator
The first
Terminator played like a horror movie, whereas
Judgement Day and onward made the leap to a legitimate action and science fiction franchise. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but given the quality of the
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, I'm sure everyone wishes they would've just stopped at two, it was a perfect pairing, kind of like Richard Donner's first two
Superman movies.
Terminator: Salvation didn't do much for the franchise either, resulting in a dull, boring story about the apocalypse. We can hope the reboot will restore a bit of what made the original great, but I wouldn't count on it. It looks like it's taking its cue from
Judgement Day, while telling the story of the first one. It will make it at least decent action film, but far from the horror tone of the first one, and while we all love
Judgement Day, it would've been nice to go back to the horror roots that was the original, if for no other reason than variety. But in all honesty, I don't think it would work, and I'm not really complaining that the
Terminator series took the shift with
Judgement Day, which is far superior to the original in so many ways, I'm just upset that the quality of the films haven't been as good since.
Die Hard
You have to admit that it's hard to make an action movie feel "Christmasy", and I'm sure the idea was even laughable back in the day, but
Die Hard did it not once, but twice, and they were both amazing! What makes it work, of course, is the screenplay and the actors. Like every successful franchise that becomes immortal, it is the believability and relatability that makes it memorable. John McClane is an everyday kind of person and while he does extraordinary things, he isn't the kind of big action hero like Arnold Schwarzenegger. We root for John because we all hope we could be like him in that situation. He does what needs to be done, not because he wants to, but because he can and must. The story of his life is he's just always "the wrong guy, at the wrong place, at the wrong time!" The first two were great, and while the third one was a good action film, it lacked the tone of its predecessors. I think the secret to the series was the confinement factor that played a pivotal role in parts one and two, the tower in the first and the airport in the second, as well as the plot revolving around him trying to save his wife (with the added bonus of him trying to save his marriage in the first one). They tried to bring back one part for the fourth one, making him save his daughter, but that was only introduced more than halfway into the film and it wasn't the driving force in the movie. It also made the leap of turning him into a full blown hero by making him do impossible things. That's what made the first ones so great. He did the improbable, but totally possible, so you were willing to suspend you belief slightly and enjoy the film. As for the fifth one, let's just forget THAT ever happened, and we'll all be happier for it.
Men in Black
When the original
Men in Black came out, it was just unlike anything we had ever seen. it had action, comedy, and science fiction, starring the up and coming Will Smith fresh out of
Independence Day and the great Tommy Lee Jones. The first one played like a cop buddy/mentor film with a science fiction setting and it just worked, mostly because the actors were able to not take themselves too seriously and yet not make it completely laughable. The second
Men in Black already started to stray but it kept the wonder and mystery of the first and tried to replicate the buddy element by having Will Smith having to restore Tommy Lee Jones' memory, although it wasn't really successful in terms of restoring the charm of the original. I don't think anyone really liked
Men in Black II, but let's face it, at least it stayed true to form. The third one was infinitely better, but it is hard to argue that it didn't completely stray from the tone of the first one. But, given the results of the second, I'm not sure that was a bad thing. It did give us character similar to a cop buddy film, but the tone and feeling didn't really come through for me, and while Josh Brolin did an amazing job playing the younger Tommy Lee Jones, it was very different from the first. This isn't a bad thing, but just another example how, for better or worse, series change.
Indiana Jones
If there's one thing that they should have learned from
Temple of Doom it was that the biblical aspect and theme was good for the series. We all thought they learned their lesson by making
The Last Crusade, but evidently this was not the case, as they came up with an more absurd premise for
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Aliens! They should have known that was gonna be DOA from the beginning, but I guess not. While admittedly it, like
Temple of Doom, at least got the characterization right, we still can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the film as a whole. At least
Temple of Doom gave us a grounded premise. Once again, the creators of the film took us from suspending belief to throwing it out the window, which is usually how franchises begin to fail and stray. There are talks of a new
Indiana Jones film, but how I hope those are just rumors. I can't take another
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and I don't think anyone else can either.
Mission: Impossible
This is one that didn't really stray from form or vision, but more from style and feel. The first one was a traditional spy thriller perfectly coupled with an action movie, but not so much action that you forget the whole movie is about espionage. The only one that went really overboard was the second one, but they did a good job at erasing that one from memory. I guess where the problem lies in the series as it currently stands is the grandiose nature of the movies. They are good, really good, but sometimes they feel a little impersonal compared to the first one. In all honesty, I don't really think it could have been avoided in this case. You can only tell an origin story once and that's basically what the first one was. They ran a great danger in losing control of the series with John Woo's sequel, but they worked very hard on returning to the series' roots in the third, and
Ghost Protocol is one of the best action movies in years. This is one of the few that changed for the better rather than for the worse, but I feel they run a danger if they continue with the series of becoming cliche. The stories are by their very nature somewhat redundant, much like the
James Bond series, and even
Indiana Jones. They are not really sequels, but a collection of stories following the same characters in their civil servant jobs. Their work just happens to be a bit more interesting than delivering the mail.
Pirates of the Caribbean
This is one that actually really angers me because the sequels made a radical change in direction and it seems to be for no other reason than pure profit. If you stop to think about it,
Curse of the Black Pearl plays out like any traditional pirate film, with the added concept of cursed pirates. If we were to ignore the curse aspect, the movie would still work, and it would be a great movie. The plot of the film is not dependent on the curse, it merely enhances the story and makes it a little more unique than the traditional pirates searching for buried treasure story-line, but at its heart, that is what the movie is about. Parts two and three, aside from being completely unrealistic and idiotic, plays nothing like a pirate film. This franchise is another example of how they took a grounded film and suspended belief to the point of absurdity. the difference is how fast and how bad things got.
On Stranger Tides did do a lot to restore the spirit of the franchise and its main problem isn't so much the supernatural premise, as it works well without it, but the fact that the main character was Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbosa, and Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow fell by the wayside. It is still, however, a far superior film to parts 2 and 3 in every way.
This list is by no means all inclusive. There are other franchises that have strayed from their original path, for better or worse. This is more often than not the natural path for a series to take and they are often done to avoid repetition and we shouldn't be too quick to judge the quality of the film just because they don't follow the trend of its predecessor. But it is worthwhile to note when a beloved franchise has abandoned it's roots, and useful to recognize when and why, and whether or not it was for the better.
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