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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1932 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 1, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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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)

Because the more sequels you add to any franchise, the more it gets diluted. You have your novel idea, that's the first movie. You have questions arising or undeveloped plot points from the first movie, that's your second. Maybe you can get a third out of it, but from that point on, you're just trapped in Flanderization (see all the slasher movie/horror movie franchises which run out of ideas until they're at the point of "for the fifteenth time, the dead serial killer is resurrected but this time in, uh, spins wheel of fortune space!")

What pisses me off is the constant drive to create sequels that recontextualize the originals as only one part of a larger narrative with higher stakes that is almost always less creative than the original vision. It actively damages story of the original unless you decide to be arbitrary with canon. See, for instance, Alien. The monster being just a monster that can hunt humans effectively is very good. It is actively harmed if you actually need to know that it was found because David in Alien Covenant did blah blah blah... and in Prometheus we learn that the xenomorphs are actually... None of that shit matters, let the monster be a monster, I don't WANT the answers, the unknown is better.

A sequel should be another story. For instance, in Ghostbusters II, they don't suddenly decide that actually, that Goser in first movie was just Vigo's lieutenant and now the real battle is happening. For all we know, the stakes are similar between the two movies, maybe even lower in the second one (after all, they're no longer facing a literal god of antiquity).

A sequel should be another story.

For fairly good examples of this, see Indiana Jones 2 & 3. They don't try to reinvent the canon of the first movie but are simply further adventures that Indy embarks on.

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