10 Movie Trilogies That Had The WORST Endings
Halloween Ends sure dropped the ball alright.
Landing a trilogy sure is tough - by the time any movie series reaches three films, fan expectations are so high and so firmly set that it's incredibly easy for filmmakers to lose sight of what the audience wants. Or, perhaps, they just don't care about what fans want to see.
Delivering a trilogy-capping film that pays off the established characters and story arcs is incredibly challenging for even extremely talented writers and directors, hence why fans are so often left underwhelmed.
But then there are those trilogy-ending movies that didn't just mildly disappoint: they were bad enough that they forced fans to reconsider just how much they liked the two previous films in the first place.
These threequels all categorically failed to satisfy fans or even service the existing characters, themes, and general ideas on the most basic level.
Each left large swaths of the fandom frustrated that things sputtered out in such dispiriting, even boring fashion, leaving them to consider the many better ways things could've actually been wrapped up.
Regardless of where these series went afterwards, these contained movie trilogies all flopped big time at the most crucial hurdle...
10. The Star Wars Sequels
The middle entry into the Star Wars sequel trilogy - Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi - certainly didn't please all fans, but it did at least represent a bold and artful attempt to do something new with the series, and get fans out of their most complacent, dew-eyed habits.
Following the substantial backlash to The Last Jedi, though, J.J. Abrams decided to fashion threequel The Rise of Skywalker as a glorified apology to those "offended" by the previous film.
In turn, he delivered a finale to the new three-movie arc - as well as the entire nine-film Skywalker Saga - that pleased almost nobody.
The Rise of Skywalker ultimately walked back or downplayed many of The Last Jedi's most interesting ideas, while dusting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) off for another villainous go-around, cramming a bevy of new, underdeveloped characters into the roster, and basically delivering the laziest, least imaginative conclusion to this story possible.
What should've been a triumphant and emotional climax to a trilogy that got Star Wars back on track was ultimately a deeply frustrating exercise in filmmakers kowtowing to the very worst kinds of fans.