10 More Sequels That Totally Ruined The Previous Movie's Ending
So many classic endings were undone just a few years later.
Everybody loves a sequel, right? A chance to check in with your favourite characters from the previous movie, to see what they've been up to and what fresh adventures await them. What could possibly be bad about that?
As it turns out, lots of things.
You'd think that the very least a sequel could do would be to honour the ending of the previous film. How could you expect an audience to stay invested in the next chapter if you don't treat the first one with respect? Sadly, a lot of filmmakers have ignored this ironclad advice over the years - enough for an entirely different list.
These 10 further examples prove that, when it comes to continuity, most big studios couldn't give a hoot. Whether they ruined a character's happy ending, undid a bunch of character development, or just completely ignored large chunks of the previous story, these sequels all got under viewers' skin for reasons that were entirely unavoidable.
That's not to say that these are "bad" movies on the whole - they just should have been paying more attention to their own histories.
10. Jack Doesn't Come Back - Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down - AKA Speed - is widely regarded as an action classic, partly for its unique premise and partly for the sizzling chemistry between Keanu Reeves' daring police officer Jack Traven and Sandra Bullock's wildcat passenger Annie Porter.
Jack and Annie end Jan de Bont's movie in a romantic embrace, having just survived two brushes with death. This set them up perfectly to return as a couple in the sequel, but when that movie rolled around, Officer Traven was nowhere to be seen.
In The Boat That Couldn't Slow Down - AKA Speed 2: Cruise Control - Annie and Jack have apparently broken up, as she's now dating another cop, this time played by Jason Patric. She clearly has a type. Reeves was asked to return and was even offered $12 million for the job, but he took one look at the script and decided that the movie wasn't for him.
Without Jack and Annie's relationship, the second Speed movie wasn't nearly as fun, and this twist made the dramatic ending to the first movie seem like a total waste of time.
Turns out Annie was right - relationships based on intense experiences never work.