10 Movie Sequels That Didn't Go The Way They Should Have
Did they even watch the previous film?
"This isn't going to go the way you think," Luke Skywalker tells Rey midway through Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a line of dialogue that sums up the gist of the movie. Rian Johnson's contribution to the iconic space saga belongs to a category of sequels that subverted the audience's expectations by flying in the face of series conventions.
Some fans will tell you this was controversial, but most critics rightly hailed The Last Jedi as one of the most unpredictable films of 2017. It was by no means the first sequel to turn out like nobody expected, and when other franchise fodder has attempted this, the results haven't always been so inspired.
When filmmakers get bold and daring and deviate from the established norm, they run the risk of incurring a fan backlash. In the case of Star Wars Episode VIII, this was unfairly the case, though in other instances it was completely justified.
There are sequels that leave you wondering if the creative team knew what the previous movie stood for, or even bothered to watch it at all, like this lot, for instance.
10. RoboCop 3
No film satirised the 1980s as effectively as Paul Verhoeven's science fiction masterpiece RoboCop, a film which pulled no punches while deconstructing the decade amid a hails of bullet and a storm of bloodshed.
Its sequel RoboCop 2 was inferior in every respect, but at least attempted to emulate its predecessor's use of social commentary and graphic violence, unlike the third instalment, which reigned it all in to pander to a family audience.
In the original, Alex Murphy is a tragic protagonist who battles against the odds to reclaim a shred of his humanity, which is the greatest victory anyone could have hoped for in the movie's twisted, dystopian world. But in RoboCop 3, he's your cliche good guy and the stakes he fights for are no higher than property rights.
Although the threequel was an unmitigated disaster in every possible way, it did prove one thing: RoboCop simply doesn't work when reduced to a family-friendly hero.
Peter Weller dodged a bullet when scheduling commitments prevented him from reprising the lead role for a third time.