Sequels that (attempt to) invalidate predecessor plot points - Page 2

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Originally Posted by Episode29 

KARATE KID: Isn't Elizabeth Shue amazing?! Class difference be damned! Love conquers all!

 

KARATE KID 2: Elizabeth Shue is a slut! She fucked off with some football player AND wrecked my car! Let's go to Japan!

I've always been a little bothered by uncharacteristic attitude changes as a way of writing characters out. Something similar happened with the second Child's Play when the hero cop of the first film supposedly recanted his statement about Chucky being alive and sided with the toy company.
 

Troll 2. Completely ruins the first film. 

The Evil Dead series is notorious for ignoring the ending to every one of its films. Not that I'm complaining! 

And I would get worked up about abandoning the Old Man as OCP's leader in Robocop 3, but that would require thinking about that film which simply isn't worth the effort. 

Bride of the Re-Animator's entire existence is due to an enormous ret-con of the original film's last few minutes.  

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Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 
Another is the subtle, possible subplot in Poltergeist that Dana is pregnant. Whether or not that's what the filmmakers intended, Poltergeist II leaves no doubt that she wasn't, as it's a year later and Dana is now off at college. No mention of baby. The absence of Dana can be chalked up to Dominique Dunne's murder, and an illegitimate baby wouldn't have added anything to the plot.

Unless Dana exercised a woman's right to choose. "This womb is CLEAN!"

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Originally Posted by Episode29 

KARATE KID: Isn't Elizabeth Shue amazing?! Class difference be damned! Love conquers all!

 

KARATE KID 2: Elizabeth Shue is a slut! She fucked off with some football player AND wrecked my car! Let's go to Japan!

KARATE KID 2:  Karate is about family.  Karate is about honor.  Karate is life or DEATH!

KARATE KID 3:  You don't want to train me to win a pointless competition?  Even though these guys keep being the crap out of me?  Fine.  I'll just hang out with this ponytail guy and he'll teach me.  He's seems on the level.

Or alternatively

KARATE KID 2:  This Japanese girl and I are madly in love, and it's way deeper and more meaningful and stuff than it was with that skank Ali!

KARATE KID 3:  Ehh, she wanted to dance in Japan.  I give up on ladies.  I am in no way dating this new girl I just met.  We are 100% platonic.

I've always thought the themes of these movies would work much better if you just switched parts 2 and 3.

Not exactly invalidating, but it's kinda hilarious that every lead change in the Kickboxer series is kicked off by having the previous lead getting killed.  Even the fifth one which is completely separate from the Sloan brothers.

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Originally Posted by Bill McNeal 

KARATE KID 2:  Karate is about family.  Karate is about honor.  Karate is life or DEATH!

 

KARATE KID 3:  You don't want to train me to win a pointless competition?  Even though these guys keep being the crap out of me?  Fine.  I'll just hang out with this ponytail guy and he'll teach me.  He's seems on the level.

 

Or alternatively

 

KARATE KID 2:  This Japanese girl and I are madly in love, and it's way deeper and more meaningful and stuff than it was with that skank Ali!

 

KARATE KID 3:  Ehh, she wanted to dance in Japan.  I give up on ladies.  I am in no way dating this new girl I just met.  We are 100% platonic.

 

 

I've always thought the themes of these movies would work much better if you just switched parts 2 and 3.

I think this has finally tapped into the gay subtext of part 3. Pony-tail guy = gender confusion. Who can blame Daniel for drifting into the "Dark Side" with his luck in women.

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Originally Posted by neoolong 

Not exactly invalidating, but it's kinda hilarious that every lead change in the Kickboxer series is kicked off by having the previous lead getting killed.  Even the fifth one which is completely separate from the Sloan brothers.

The second film somewhat invalidates the first since Kurt at one point gives a breakdown of their family history and makes no mention of a third, younger brother.

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Originally Posted by Syd 

 

The Evil Dead series is notorious for ignoring the ending to every one of its films. Not that I'm complaining!

They don't so much ignore the endings as they are forced to recreate them due to rights issues. It's a little more confusing with Evil Dead 2 as they remake the first movie with just Ash and his girlfriend as opposed to Ash, his girl, and three other friends.

 

Midichlorians.

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Originally Posted by Ashxking2001 

Ghostbusters 2. The save the world. Everyone with a tv could see that its not just some lazer light show. Walter Peck was covered with a ton of Mashmellow goo. Yet they get sued as frauds

I might be giving the movie more credit than it's due, but I always thought that was a fun joke on the ungratefulness of New Yorkers. Heroes one week, replaced by He-Man the next one.

Contractual obligation?  They figured they wouldn't get a second movie, so they just killed him off, but oh crap, there's a second movie.

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Originally Posted by Judas Booth 

BLADE II did a shitty job of shoehorning in Whistler. I'm sorry, but he DIED in the first film. I hated how he was brought back.

Yeah. I was actually thinking about that one, the other day. And it's not like his return serves much of a purpose either.

In watching First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II. back to back, there is such a weird shift in the dynamic between Rambo and Trautman. I'm not sure if it neccesarily invalidates the first movie but it really feels like you're watching different characters altogether. In First Blood, there's this real sense of Trautman being kind of a Dr. Frankenstein sent in to destroy his own creation, where in the sequel he is Rambo's mentor and trusted confidante.
 

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Originally Posted by Judas Booth 

BLADE II did a shitty job of shoehorning in Whistler. I'm sorry, but he DIED in the first film. I hated how he was brought back.

I didn't mind because Whistler is such a great character. 

What really pisses me off is his death in 3. All that, for that? 

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Originally Posted by AtomTastic 

 

 

I might be giving the movie more credit than it's due, but I always thought that was a fun joke on the ungratefulness of New Yorkers. Heroes one week, replaced by He-Man the next one.

I would not say that it tried to invalidate the first ones plot points, but the film just ended up being pretty much a remake of the first film.

The Undisputed movies KINDA do this.  The first one's villan is the hero in the 2nd and the baddie from the 2nd is the goodie in the 3rd.  Which, personally, is something that I LOVE.

Horror sequels are notorious for invalidating what came before, particularly the Universal classics. Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Invisible Man franchises were leading the pack with inconsistencies.

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Originally Posted by mediumdave 

The Undisputed movies KINDA do this.  The first one's villan is the hero in the 2nd and the baddie from the 2nd is the goodie in the 3rd.  Which, personally, is something that I LOVE.

Isn't that just called character development instead of invalidating the one that came before?  Though I wouldn't necessarily say Boyka became a "hero."

Arthur 2: On the Rocks. I know Arthur is still drinking at the end of Arthur, but you got the sense he was moving in the right direction. On The Rocks shows him as the same drunken louse, making you wonder why she stays with him. Oh, how I hate On The Rocks.

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Originally Posted by Malmordo 

Horror sequels are notorious for invalidating what came before, particularly the Universal classics. Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Invisible Man franchises were leading the pack with inconsistencies.

 

 

Hammer as well. Try not to find much faulty continuity in the FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, and KARNSTEIN franchises.
 

The Incredible Hulk tries to be a sequel to Hulk by beginning in South America but invalidates that by giving Bruce Banner a new origin. Instead of crazy daddy issues it is just tied into the Super Soldier program.

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Originally Posted by Untitled 

The Incredible Hulk tries to be a sequel to Hulk by beginning in South America but invalidates that by giving Bruce Banner a new origin. Instead of crazy daddy issues it is just tied into the Super Soldier program.

It still kind of worked.

The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel though, any way you slice it.

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Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 

Similarly, I Know What You Did Last Summer ends with Jennifer Love Hewitt getting attacked in the shower. In the sequel, she's in college and everything is cool, no mention of fishhook man, and she's surprised when he shows up again. 

 

There's actually a line of dialogue in the sequel that dismisses the ending of the first film as a dream. It's still one of the biggest cheats I've seen to date, since the sequel BEGINS with JLH having a different dream that ends badly for her.

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Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 

Similarly, I Know What You Did Last Summer ends with Jennifer Love Hewitt getting attacked in the shower.

I've had that same dream about JLH, only replace "attack" with "lather".
 

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Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 

X-Men 2 ends with Xavier looking out the window with a knowing smile, which fades into the shot of the Phoenix underwater. X-Men 3 starts, and it's months later and no one has gone to check out the lake.

 

Funny....I always thought the image of the Phoenix was a reflection of the viewer. You see, you're flying as the Phoenix, and you look down into the water to see your reflection. Which means six more weeks of winter.

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Originally Posted by Judas Booth 

BLADE II did a shitty job of shoehorning in Whistler. I'm sorry, but he DIED in the first film. I hated how he was brought back.

Not to mention the fact that it doesn't make much sense for Whistler to come back as a vampire, since Frost himself utters the words: "I'm not gonna bite ya", right before kicking the crap out of him, very much leading one to believe that Frost and his cronies would rather stomp Whistler to the death than make him one of their own. Wouldn't fit in with Frost's character much to make Whistler a vampire either, not to me at least. He seemed to prefer turning attractive, young, dark-skinned women.

Really sucks the emotion out of that scene as well, knowing that he's in the second and third films. Whistler is a great character, but I would've preferred that his death haunt Blade for the remainder of the trilogy, and for further scenes of him be in flashbacks. That would've made for great material.

I pretty much always hate it when they bring back characters that should have remained dead. Horror villains get a pass on this, because without the villain, there is no horror movie, and god damn do I love watching a big ugly retard in a hockey mask kill teenagers in delightfully horrific methods.

The Evil Dead flicks flow together as one long, perfect movie -- if you trim the beginning and end of Part II. I cut a copy of it together years ago, and I still have it as a prized possession. 

The relationship in Die Hard 3 I always saw as working just fine. Whose to say the marriage didn't get on the rocks between 2 and 3? Its perfectly plausible. They're human beings.

Psycho II broke my damn heart with that retcon nonsense. Pretty funny that in Psycho III they tried to retcon the retcon.

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Originally Posted by Swahili 

The relationship in Die Hard 3 I always saw as working just fine. Whose to say the marriage didn't get on the rocks between 2 and 3? Its perfectly plausible. They're human beings.

It's plausible, but I still think it lessens McClane's arc in the first film.

I couldn't argue that, you're right. It lessens it substantially, but in a weird way, it somehow reinforces the character of McClane to me. Not many movie action heroes go through divorces in the middle of a series of films. Very much brings him down to a more realistic level, character-wise.

Not often do we get to see a divorcee surfing the wing of a fighter jet. 

Spider-Man 3 screenplay: Hey, guess what, guys! The crook who shot Uncle Ben in "Spider-Man"? It totally wasn't his fault. The Sandman (before he became The Sandman) totally made him do it. I have to to do something to give him some dramatic weight, since the way he becomes The Sandman in the movie is so fucking stupid. Also, there's no other way I can connect him naturally to Spider-Man like The Green Goblin (best friend's father), Dr. Octopus and Lizard (kindred spirits in science/friendly professors), or Venom (professional rival photographer).

I'm gambling on this retcon about Uncle Ben making it possible for you to take this ridiculous Sandman character seriously. See, he's the REAL brains behind Ben's death! See how he's connected to Spider-Man even more significantly than those guys who are actually part of Peter's life as a student or photographer? Isn't that reason enough to believe he's as important as them? Can't you see how Spider-Man wouldn't even exist if not for him? Can you take him seriously now? Please?

He's about as responsible for Spider-Man's existence as Bruce Campbell's wrestling announcer is for insisting on calling him "Spider-Man" instead of "The Human Spider". At least when Bruce Campbell said Spider-Man wouldn't exist if not for his character, he was joking. This screenplay seriously wants us to believe Flint Marko has fuckall to do with Spider-Man's journey because of that shitty retcon.

Robocop 2 again ...

It turns out in the sequel that Bob Morton got really lucky in the first film (well, until he suddenly got *unlucky* not much later) with getting Alex Murphy to be his test subject as every single other police officer in the sequel that they tried to use proceeded to kill themselves and/or self destruct within minutes as apparently they "couldn't cope" with being made into a cyborg.