User:LancedSoul/sandbox/Surprisingly Improved Sequel in movies

Surprisingly Improved Sequel (or Surprisingly Improved Prequel, Surprisingly Improved Remake/Reboot and Surprisingly Improved Adaptation) is a trope that it reduced the problems of either the first film or sequel. The story is more original, the pacing was fixed, the characters who seemed so flat before are now more fleshed out and interesting in their own right. You weren't expecting the next product to be this good, but it seems the creator(s) did indeed learn from their mistakes. You're rightly impressed.

Note this can still apply if the original is utterly terrible and the follow-up is merely So Okay, It's Average — the improvement is still very much there, even if the end result isn't as notable.

The opposite of Sequelitis in many cases, though sometimes a great sequel can produce a bad third or fourth installment, which would make it the opposite of Sophomore Slump. One rule espoused by some fans of comic-book style movies is that the sequels will have a chance to be better films overall, due to not having to get the origin out of the way.

This is about the sequels, prequels, remakes/reboot or adaptations to products that either sucked or weren't that good to begin with, but somehow magically improved a lot in the next installment. This is not about products that were already very good but got better. If the original was excellent to begin with rather than mediocre, then it's an Even Better Sequel.

Notable Offenders

 * The mh:awfulmovies:Annabelle series has always been considered the weaker half of The Conjuring Universe, with the first film not being well-received by both critics and the audience. However, its sequel, Annabelle: Creation, while still not reaching up to The Conjuring level, is considered a better movie.
 * mh:awfulmovies:The Angry Birds Movie (despite being well received by fans) is more divisive than straight-up bad, ranking at a Rotten 43% on Rotten Tomatoes (though as far as video game movies go, that might as well be a compliment). The 2019 sequel, on the other hand, is widely considered an improvement over the former thanks to improving the relationship between the pigs and the birds and generally improved humor. Its Fresh 73% Tomatometer rating currently makes the sequel the most critically successful video game movie in film history. However, it ends up being underperformed at the box office and some people find it worse than the first movie, due to the problems still carried over the first movie, like the characters being dumbed down, less faithfulness of the source material and its accompanying marketing campaign making the film look like a rehash of the first movie.
 * Bad Boys for Life puts more focus on the characters given after 17 years the actors are now playing 50-something cops, and has a less frantic approach than its predecessor, and was very well-received as a result - it even outscored the other two on Rotten Tomatoes!
 * Bumblebee received stronger critical reviews than every other film in the Transformers film franchise by a wide margin - in fact, it's better reviewed than the last four put together. This was especially impressive coming off of Transformers: The Last Knight, which was seen as exceptionally bad even by prior standards, and given that it had a budget of less than half of its predecessor.
 * Cars isn't considered a bad film per se, but some people still view it as Pixar's weakest film due to its rather generic story and becoming somewhat of a Cash Cow Franchise. Then came Cars 2, which served as a sore spot in Pixar's filmography due to how much it detracted from the original, and ended up becoming their worst-reviewed film to date. Admittedly, reviews were more mixed than outright negative, but no Pixar film had ever received a film rating as low as 39%. In noticeable contrast to the two previous films, Cars 3 got a much better reception for returning to the original aspects of the first film, having a more original story, and focusing heavily on Character Development. Some even went as far as to say it's better than the original.
 * The DC Extended Universe has seen its up and downs, though people agree that for every time the series tumbles, it comes back stronger than before.
 * After the lukewarm mh:awfulmovies:Man of Steel and the critically trashed mh:awfulmovies:Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and mh:awfulmovies:Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman was welcomed as a breath of fresh air, being regarded as a far superior movie than any of its predecessors. On Rotten Tomatoes, it is the first in the franchise to attain a Fresh rating.
 * mh:awfulmovies:Justice League is a Contested Sequel and seen as a letdown after the awesomeness that is Wonder Woman. It's also a bomb domestically, only barely making even by factoring overseas gross, putting doubt on the franchise' ability to continue. Then came Aquaman, which was able to Win Back the Crowd massively; while not exactly a critical darling, everyone agreed that it improved on Justice League. The biggest news, however, was it becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise, thanks to a very strong performance in China.
 * Zack Snyder's Justice League shockingly became the Zack Snyder film with the best reviews and audience scores in the whole setting (especially compared to Batman v Superman) in addition to being now considered the superior mh:awfulmovies:Justice League film.
 * mh:awfulmovies:Suicide Squad offers two cases, which instead of the tonal clash caused by Executive Meddling went all-in to a whimsical approach and thus were better received for it, first Harley Quinn's next outing, mh:awfulmovies:Birds of Prey (despite the audiences rating being not well received), and then the not-quite-sequel ''The Suicide Squad'.
 * mh:awfulmovies:Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was deemed a disappointing follow-up with its excessive subplots, inconsistencies with existing lore, and problematic story decisions and character choices. Thus audiences and reviewers found Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore an improvement for having a more streamlined script, better pacing, and more in depth character work, and some also considered Mads Mikkelsen a More Popular Replacement to Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. Many of the two former consider it the best film in the series, evidenced by its higher fan score on Rotten Tomatoes that has held consistently in the mid 80s and much better holds at the box office (outside the US), which implies good word of mouth.
 * mh:awfulmovies:The Final Destination was the first Final Destination disliked by fans and reviewers alike. Final Destination 5 managed to Win Back the Crowd, being called the best since the original (it even has the highest scores of the franchise on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic).
 * After the divisiveness of Ghostbusters II and the 2016 movie taking a controversial approach with a complete Continuity Reboot with an all-female cast, fans have warmed up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with some calling this the best Ghostbusters since the original and a return to form for the franchise, and some even going as far as to say this finally broke the Sequelitis curse that held onto the franchise for decades.
 * The horror film Ouija was universally panned by critics. The prequel Ouija: Origins of Evil, however, received far warmer reviews, holding an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the original's 6%.
 * mh:awfulmovies:Planes has a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was generally lambasted as a worse, more obviously Merchandise-Driven Cliché Storm than Cars. The sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue, while earning a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, is generally considered much better - more interesting and semi-original plot and characters, good music, etc. The fandom also generally likes it better. It also helps that it focuses on a profession— aerial firefighting— that gets relatively little exposure in pop culture.
 * Popular opinion is that The Purge came down with a bad case of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot. Instead of the titular event being the primary focus of the film, it was instead relegated to being a Framing Device for an otherwise So Okay, It's Average home invasion flick; as a result, it was largely panned by critics and moviegoers alike. Its sequel, The Purge: Anarchy, addressed the issue head-on by throwing the spotlight onto the Purge itself, telling stories from both perspectives (those reveling in the anarchy, and those trying to stay alive) and going much deeper into the causes and consequences of the event. General consensus is that the sequel was what the original film should have been.
 * Smurfs: The Lost Village isn't considered a great movie or anything, but its Truer to the Text approach means it's viewed as a far better attempt to translate the little blue people to the big screen than the two live-action movies and their rather sad and stale efforts to update the franchise for a new audience.
 * Star Trek:
 * Star Trek: The Motion Picture was dull, padded out with Leave the Camera Running scenes, and didn't really feel like Star Trek. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, however, is widely regarded as one of the franchise's finest moments. Everyone agrees that the rest of the films vary in quality between the two; this gave rise to the Star Trek Movie Curse, which posits that the even-numbered films in the series are the better ones.
 * Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was an unmitigated disaster and is usually (alongside Into Darkness as seen below) seen as the worst Trek film ever made, with a poor plot, appalling special effects and a focus on Kirk (and to a lesser extent the big three) that reduced most of the cast little more than extras. Three years later Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was seen as both a massive return to form and a fitting send off for the original cast as they were (for the most part) retiring from the franchise at that point.
 * Also continued in The Next Generation films. Star Trek: Generations was in general badly received by fans and critics. Its sequel Star Trek: First Contact is generally viewed as a vast improvement, being widely considered as by far the best Next Generation film and by some as one of the best Star Trek films. Sadly Star Trek: Insurrection and especially Star Trek: Nemesis saw the series decline rapidly in quality with the latter essentially a remake of Wrath of Khan. As a result the TNG film series ended and most of the TNG cast would not be involved in Trek again until Star Trek: Picard nearly twenty years later. Meanwhile Star Trek (2009) saw the franchise revived after the failed later TNG films and the collapse and cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise.
 * And now the Kelvin Timeline has its own case. mh:awfulmovies:Star Trek Into Darkness is considered a very "meh" film due to the director getting ready to jump ship to the franchise he really wanted to direct, a weak rehash of one of the best villains, and a muddled plot. The sequel, Star Trek Beyond, is hailed as the best of the Kelvin Timeline series and the first time Trek has managed to make a great Away Mission Film.
 * Trolls, despite being on this wiki, is more of a divisive film rather than a straight-up bad one, with detractors pointing to the soundtrack consisting of modern pop music, the emphasis on overly cutesy imagery, stupid amount of celebrity voices and having a somewhat generic story as the film's biggest weaknesses. The 2020 sequel, Trolls World Tour, is unanimously considered a better film due to focusing heavily on world exploration, having a solid message regarding cultural appropriation, more genres of music, and the cutesy tone being dialed back to an extent. It also helped by the fact that their online revenue surpassed its own budget within 3 weeks, when it took the first film 5 months.
 * Friday The 13th, After Friday The 13th A New Beginning, The Reviews Were Negative But Its Sequel Jason Lives Was Basically An Improvement