8 Movies That Were Wiped Out Of Continuity By Their Sequels

So long X-Men: The Last Stand, we hardly knew ye.

Sequels are inherently a tricky proposition. They have to evolve an existing story in a natural way, but also increase size and scope with each new entry. Some sequels have done this effortlessly - take Terminator 2 for just one example - but many others have floundered. One of the biggest mistakes they can make is just copying the template of the original and tweaking it a bit (see Die Hard 2, Ghostbusters 2 etc.), but filmmakers are generally a little more creative now. Still, mistakes can be made, and some of them mess up real bad. Take Alien 3, where most people were aghast that Newt and Hicks were killed off in the opening moments, only to be angered when the movie killed Ripley too. Then the studio reconsidered and cloned her for Alien: Resurrection. How will the forthcoming Alien 5 deal with this messiness? Simple: ignore Parts 3 and 4, and bring Hicks (and maybe Newt) back to life for a new adventure. A sequel ignoring the previous entry isn€™t a new tactic. One recent example is this summer€™s Jurassic World, which is said to ignore the last two movies entirely. In a lot of cases this is a smart move; if a sequel is made that the fans or the filmmakers hate, then why not hit reset? Here are eight movies that did just that, sweeping their predecessors under the rug in the name of progress. Whether or not they did a better job is up for debate.
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Handsome. Charismatic. Intelligent. Noble. Witty. I'm none of these things, but I'm a half decent writer, I guess.