10 Movie Franchises That Got Better With Each Film

8. Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

And now onto a series that started badly and (thankfully) got better. Expectations were so ridiculously high for George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace that he was never really going to live up to them: audiences just thought they'd get better than midichlorians, "Now this is pod racing!" and...Jar Jar Binks. The Phantom Menace set such a low standard that even the relatively dull Attack of the Clones was a solid improvement. Audiences had dealt with the shock of the previous film and were now fully prepared for something equally terrible, but in fact, there's some decent action, and the Dooku/Yoda fight is both awesome and hilarious. Just forget about that terrible "I don't like sand" line and it's definitely better than The Phantom Menace. Then came 2005's finale, Revenge of the Sith, which completely smoked the previous two films, yet when all it had to do was tell the origin of Darth Vader half-way competently, it didn't exactly have to work too hard. Even with the usual creaky dialogue and Darth Vader's terrible "Nooooooo!", the action and drama were significant improvements over what came before.