Not always, but in most cases, the 3rd sequel of a trilogy, as far as I could remember, is a sequel that shouldn’t have been made! That was true in the Godfather case, it was true in the Jurassic Park case, Spider Man, Terminator, Jaws, … and the list goes on.
I got Shrek the 3rd (and the worst) the other day hoping it would be as great and funny as the first two, obviously, I was disappointed.. it was so bad that I couldn’t finished it all the way till the end, it was basically a bad sequences of copy-paste ideas from the first two movies and some TV sitcoms, it was so pathetic that I got sick in my stomach just by watching this poor stupid production.
My trilogy theory goes like this: the 1st one is a lonely movie, people don’t know it’s the 1st of a trilogy.. if they liked it the producers produce a sequel. The second is the best, motivated by the success of the 1st movie they work hard to make this one better, and they use the feedback they got from the first one, so it usually turns out to be the best part.
After they get satisfied, they say “hey, why not make another one to complete the trilogy to perfect 3, and make more money on the trilogy brand”, so it comes out shit, with no real creative purpose! I guess “third time is the charm” doesn’t apply to Hollywood!
March 29th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Ghassan, You’re right, most triologies don’t deserve to be watched.
I’m going to provide an example of a successful triology and apply it to your theory
The most successful third part I came across is “The Lord of the rings: The Return of the King” and the reason that they made the whole sequence as one, they didn’t make the first and then according to the statistics made the other parts, which I think is the success factor like you said.