If you carried out a survey on the topic of sequels, many people will probably say that sequels, of movies, books etc, “absolutely suck”.
“Do they?” I ask myself ,and if yes, why?
As per Wikipedia definition – “A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work”. So, as such, everything is a sequel because no matter how new something is, there is always some prior work that has touched upon the concept, at least partly. But if we loosen the definition a bit, a sequel is anything that continues a story and takes it forward to similar or completely unchartered territories. And the amount of new characters, new concepts, or any type of new element varies. Some sequels are very close to what came before, some widely different.
Now the question – do sequels suck? Personally, I would say “not always”. Two examples come readily to my mind (inspired entirely by my personal opinion) – Harry Potter books and the movie The dark knight, a sequel to Batman begins. Every Harry Potter book from #2 onwards took the story from the previous book forward while using a lot of the old elements and introducing some new. And if you ask me, each book is exciting in its own right and doesn’t “suck” as a sequel.
The dark knight is a slightly different case study. It can not necessarily be seen as a “story sequel” to Batman begins. It has a completely different story and doesn’t continue where Batman Begins left off (they even changed the actress who plays Batman’s love interest). It could be watched as a standalone movie (this is how my friend made me watch it actually – The Dark Knight before Batman begins; I kept getting confused between Gotham and Gordon). But it is still counted as a sequel because it uses the characters and origin story introduced in Batman begins and tells a new chapter in the protagonist’s life. And it was amazing, ironically because of the biggest “new element” they used – the Joker. How good was Heath Ledger! And the movie? A brilliant (pseudo-) sequel, if you ask me.
So, if not all sequel suck, why do people think they do? Because a lot of them do. Harry Potter books, The Dark Knight and any other example you can come up with are usually exceptions that only prove the point. So, let’s have a look at possible reasons why sequels suck.
1) Novelty is gone. When a book, movie, play, or any type of artwork is introduced to the public, it’s new (if it wasn’t, it is either dismissed as “completely derrivative” or is itself considered to be a sequel or homage). Not all the new ideas are exciting though and many of them die without being famous enough to be made into sequels. The ones with most exciting new stuff are liked by the audience and if they are liked enough to make a good business case for a sequel, the artists associated with them get to work and conceive a sequel. But whatever they come up with is based on the first installment and will lose some of the novelty factor. And if the artists make way too many changes, they can’t be sure if the audience would like this new formula. So, they have to find the balance between keeping the sequel quite close to the winning formula from the last time and making the sequel novel enough to generate excitement on its own. If they play safe and make the sequel a lot like the first one, they lose (“rehash of the old stuff”). If they play adventurously and change too much, they lose (“changed too much”). It’s not easy to find the sweet-spot and that’s why it’s quite likely that the sequel will suck.
2) No “umph”. When the artists are making the very first part, they are usually lesser known. They want to give more than their 100% into the book/movie/play or whatever. The use their best ideas in the artwork, the best acting, the best paints, the best everything. For the sequel, on the other hand, they are riding the success-wave and are not so desparate for success. No need for the extra “umph”. If a poet has written 100 poems and needs to publish 20 for her very poetry collection, she will probably select the best of the lot, if not all 20 then at least 15. Once she gets some fame and love with her first book, she has a little more “wiggle-room” and might select a few more from the less than the best lot. But she can’t take that chance on the very first book when she is trying to make her place. Funnily enough, once she is famous, even her less than best stuff might get more praise than what they might have had they been published in the first book. On the other hand though, once she is famous, the criticism will be higher too and that’s what brings us to reason number 3.
3) The scrutiny is higher. With the first part of an artwork, the idea is new and the artists are typically lesser known. So, the audience and critics are much more forgiving. (As such, the audience and the critics are not forgiving at all; a lot of new stuff crash and burn in the brutal world of arts but since that’s the stuff that isn’t made into sequels, it doesn’t appear in our discussion) If the idea is brilliant enough, they might forgive a few negatives in the acting, the production, the color composition, the flow from chapter 28 to 29 and such. If the flow is brilliant, they might forgive the little things in the story. If the music is wonderful, they might forgive a few mistakes in the dance steps. But once the artwork has established itself well enough to be made into a sequel, it’s in spotlight where any tiny flaw is magnified. The audience is more critical too because they are expecting “a certain level” from the subsequent works of the artists. The critics have a new point of reference, the first part, for comparision. And that’s our next point.
4) There is something to beat. Before the first part, there was no point of reference. The audience and critics had to judge it standalone. But when the sequels come out, they already have the first part to compete with. They have to beat that because no matter how good they are in their own, if they aren’t at least a little better than the part that came before, they are not received that warmly. This is because humans are good in judgement only in relative terms. We can consider something expensive or well-priced only when we have a point of reference. That’s why a product of a brand new category can choose (almost) arbitrarily high price but any product in an established category has to consider the price that people already pay for similar products. Game of thrones is a good example to take here. Pretty much every GoT fan was disappointed with the final season (season number 8) of the show. I was too but when I took some time to think about it, I realized that the show actually had outdone itself in every season. Every season was better than what came before it but life is a game of diminishing returns (an economics term which means that every subsequent dollar we receive has less value than the previous dollar). By the time the last season came around, people wanted … they wanted … well something they didn’t know what exactly but surely something that would blow their minds. And no matter how brilliant the season had been, they would’ve expected more. So, even though they showmakers outdid themselves (in my opinion), the fans ended up being disappointed. (spoilers alert) To be fair to the fans, turning Khaleesi into a mad queen and killing her was not cool at all. Then again, having Arya kill the Nightking was awesome! (I never use this adjective except for truly brilliant things). Then again, building up the terror of the whitewalkers for 8 seasons and then killing them all in one episode was a bit disappointing. Then again … ahh never mind!
There you have it – reasons why sequels suck (more often than not). And when a sequel doesn’t suck, it’s usually because of the introduction of some brilliant new concepts or charcaters which means the sequel becomes a thing in its own, a separate entity from the previous parts, a different species.
P.S. I have noticed that books or movies based with child characters are much more enjoyable than those with adult ones (To kill a mocking bird, Angela’s ashes, …). So, if a person writes their life story in serialized fashion, it might be that the first part deals with childhood and is loved but the sequels deal with adulthood and aren’t perceived to be as nice (this happened to me while reading ‘Tis, the sequel of Angela’s ashes). Just something to think about!