Movie sequels

Narrative work that represents the continuation of a story begun in an earlier work

During the 1980’s, as blockbusters became increasingly important to Hollywood’s financial model, movie sequels began to drive the film industry’s profits. Because large-scale sequels tended to be easier to promote effectively as “event” films, they were among the most financially successful films of the decade, although they were often less successful with professional critics.

The 1980’s opened with Superman 2 (1980), bringing Christopher Reeve back to the big screen for a sequel to the blockbuster Superman: The Movie (1978). The sequel proved popular enough to inspire two more, Superman 3 (1983) and Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (1987). The original movie had been a big-budget version of a comic book whose protagonist heretofore had been relegated to inexpensive movie serials, a television series, and the low-budget Superman and the Mole Men (1951). By 1989, Superman’s comic-book cohort Batman received a similar big-budget movie treatment. That film’s success not only led to Batman sequels but also legitimized the adaptation to major motion pictures of other comic book characters with appropriate sequels, a trend which would continue.

Another 1980 sequel was The Empire Strikes Back, the second installment in George Lucas’s trend-setting Star Wars trilogy. The final work of the trilogy, Return of the Jedi, followed in 1983. Three prequels would later be made as well. The Star Wars films were deliberately designed in the style of 1950’s movie serials, in which a short chapter would be released each week and each chapter would end with a cliffhanger to draw audiences back the following week. Star Wars did much the same thing, only over a period of years instead of weeks.

Steven Spielberg launched another series with a deliberately nostalgic style with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). That film, the first in the Indiana Jones series, borrowed from the vintage movie serials, but it and other films in the series each featured a self-contained story arc. In fact, the series’ second film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), was a prequel rather than a sequel, taking place before the events portrayed in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The next film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), was a true sequel, taking place later than the first two.

All of these movies showcased the latest in special effects . Such realist effects in science-fiction and fantasy films were initially pioneered by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and rejuvenated by Star Wars (1977). In 1984, a sequel to 2001 was released: 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Meanwhile, author Arthur C. Clarke, who had written the books on which both films were based, continued to produce several more literary sequels in that series.

Many other movies that inspired sequels also featured heavy special-effects elements. John Carpenter’s The Terminator (1984), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, would be followed by two sequels in subsequent decades. The comedic Ghostbusters (1984) was followed by Ghostbusters II (1989). The success of Star Wars inspired the creators of television’s Star Trek series to create special-effects driven movies, starting with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and continuing with four sequels during the 1980’s. Other science-fiction sequels of the 1980’s included follow-ups to Alien (1979), Cocoon (1985), and Back to the Future (1985). Indeed, so sure was Universal Pictures of the marketability of sequels to the latter film that Back to the Future, Part II (1989) and Back to the Future, Part III (1990) were filmed simultaneously for separate releases.

The James Bond franchise had been a mainstay of the film sequel business since the 1960’s, but the 1980’s saw no less than five Bond films released. Sylvester Stallone, the star of the Rocky franchise, launched a new series featuring a military hero named Rambo with First Blood (1982). Mad Max, the 1979 Australian movie that introduced Mel Gibson to American audiences as an ex-policeman in an apocalyptic future, produced two sequels in the 1980’s: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

Gibson would also co-star with Danny Glover in the buddy cop movie Lethal Weapon (1987), which also became a franchise. Die Hard (1988) launched a franchise starring Bruce Willis as a dogged New York detective with a knack for fighting terrorists. Clint Eastwood continued his Dirty Harry detective series with sequels into the 1980’s. Beverly Hills Cop (1984), starring Eddie Murphy, was also successful enough to demand sequels. Police action sequels vied with the fantasy and science-fiction sequels that launched the trend.

Some movies of the 1980’s inspired only a single sequel, such as the outdoor adventure Man from Snowy River (1982), as well as relatively low-budget comedies including Airplane! (1980), Arthur (1981), Look Who’s Talking (1989), Porky’s (1982), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), and Crocodile Dundee (1986). There was even a musical sequel, Grease 2 (1982).

Sequels differ from earlier movie series, which ranged from B-Westerns to mysteries and comedies featuring the same actor or actors, but had plots unrelated from one picture to another. While some movies in series like the Andy Hardy and Thin Man series could be considered sequels in that the characters grow and change from film to film, such others as the Charlie Chan and Bowery Boys series, as well as innumerable Westerns of earlier decades, simply told individual stories featuring the same characters. In this, they resembled television series of the 1950’s through 1970’s, although in the 1980’s some series began to feature significant character development over the course of the show.

Impact

During the 1980’s, Hollywood became defined by the drive to make a few blockbusters (large-budget films with extreme profits), rather than a greater number of cheaper, more modestly successful films. As a result, studios’ interest in high-concept stories (that is, stories that could be easily understood and exhaustively summarized in one sentence) increased dramatically. High-concept films were the easiest to market to a mass audience, and there was no higher concept than “the sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark,” for example. At the same time, blockbusters often featured fantastic worlds portrayed by special effects. It was easier to mimic the overall look and feel of an earlier film and invest in more impressive effects than it was to create entirely new art, set, and costume designs from scratch. This fact also drove the trend toward sequels. After the 1980’s, movie sequels became a mainstay of the entertainment industry.

Bibliography

Budra, Paul, and Betty A. Schellenberg, eds. Part Two: Reflections on the Sequel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Compilation of essays on literary and cinematic sequels, including two essays on cinema of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Nowlan, Robert A., and Gwendolyn Wright Nolan. Cinema Sequels and Remakes, 1903-1987. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000. Scholarly overview of both sequels to and remakes of successful films.

Stanley, John. Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide. New York: Berkley Trade, 2000. Thousands of capsule reviews of movies from this genre, including sequels.

Thompson, David. The Alien Quartet: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 1999. Analyzes different aspects of the Alien films, including themes, directors, and the relation of each film to the others.