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Notes -
Why do you think it is impossible to create good Terminator and Predator sequels past part 2 (I stand firm that predator 2 is underappreciated)
It takes a lot of skill to create tension, in general.
T1 there was the whole "this is an implacable, nigh-invulnerable killing machine that is programmed to kill YOU, specifically. And your only defense is a squishy standard human."
T2 had that, PLUS the target was a child, who now had to befriend his own implacable, nigh-invulnerable killing machine.
Repeating the formula starts to break that tension, even if you ostensibly escalate with a bigger, badder robot. Harder to manipulate audience expectations.
Similar with Predator. You can keep iterating "now they're in the 1700s. Now they're in Japan. Now its an alien planet and there's 10 preds." But how do you get audiences to buy in a third, fourth, fifth time?
And the Alien series. "Oh man one of these things was terrifying. How about HUNDREDS of them?"
Where to do you go from there without being derivative?
I think this has also hurt the John Wick films. By the third, we know he's going to be pull his suit up to cover his head and will never take a serious wound during an action sequence.
By 4 he's surviving MULTIPLE 30 foot drops.
Its still great action, I still like the films, but the appeal in the first was that he did seem vulnerable.
Its should, I think, sometimes be easy to say that you can capture "lightning in a bottle" only 2-3 times and unless you're a generational talent at filmmaking, things will inherently get formulaic if you keep trying to recreate that success.
Zvi Mowshowitz had a post about the legal systems of John Wick in which he says that the "legal"/political background of the films (and therefore the types of story that get told) is what changes from episode to episode. [Basically, from an "honorable" criminal organisation where the morality is Lawful Evil, the Continental Hotel is sacrosanct, and markers are honoured, to outlaw life as opponents of a lawless shadowy conspiracy which controls the High Table and includes the man who finds Wick in the desert, to something vaguely reminiscent of feudalism by the fourth film].
The situation seemed to have changed from the Cops being aware that the assassin underworld exists and willingly staying hands off (Jimmy the cop asking John if he's working again), to one where the Cops are functionally powerless since the assassins operate an international network with friends in high places.
Then the "High Table" seems to be some absurdly powerful entity that still operates outside the law, but its not clear exactly how powerful (dropping whole busses full of armored spec ops at the Continental is a clue), to, yeah, seemingly being a world power of some kind.
My 'headcanon' as far as that goes is that national governments accept their existence and use them as a nonmilitary method of intervention and conflict resolution, and this is what sustains the overall assassin economy (which otherwise barely makes any sense), as long as the High Table can keep collateral damage to a minimum.
Hence why John repeatedly going ham at dance parties/nightclubs becomes a real problem.
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