10 Insane Changes Movie Sequels Made
You can't accuse these sequels of just doing the same thing again.
Hollywood quite understandably loves making sequels, because the safest bet a studio can make is just producing more of the successful same, right?
Yet not all sequels are merely content to just rehash the same hit formula again and again, and sometimes they do something so specifically insane you have to wonder quite what the hell they were thinking.
These 10 movie sequels - some of them well-received, others absolutely not - made a change to the status quo so unexpected and ridiculous that it damn-near threatened to alienate the fanbase.
In the very least, you can't accuse these films of just going through the successful motions of what came before, even if many of these creative choices were ultimately intensively divisive with fans.
Whether played totally straight or for wink-wink laughs, nobody saw these sequel changes coming, from shamelessly retconning the narrative, to changing the series' genre out of nowhere, and just going way, way harder than the original ever dared to.
These sequels weren't perfect - and in fact, some of them weren't very good at all - but each at least dared to rock the boat and try something different...
10. Luke & Leia Are Actually Siblings - Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi
In the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) famously plants a rather passionate lip-lock on Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in an attempt to prove to Han Solo (Harrison Ford) that she doesn't love him.
This would be all well and good, except for the fact that sequel Return of the Jedi reveals Luke and Leia to be siblings, making that cheeky kiss seem considerably ickier in retrospect.
It's even more questionable given that, after learning the news, Leia tells Luke, "Somehow I've always known," in turn making the unfortunate implication that Leia knew on some level that she was macking her brother at the time.
In reality this awkward change is simply a result of George Lucas not sufficiently planning the Star Wars trilogy out, as Luke and Leia weren't intended to be siblings during production of The Empire Strikes Back.
But as widely mocked as the familial twist is, the franchise has weathered it pretty damn well considering. Imagine how social media would react to a movie sequel inadvertently introducing incest in this day and age.