10 Sequels That Totally Undermined The Previous Movie's Ending

Sequels are a difficult thing to get right. Typically when any movie sees even slight success there's a call for a second film, but rarely do they ever match the magic of the original. Certainly not never, see the likes of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Godfather Part II, and plenty of others, but generally sequels tend to be disappointing.

This is particularly true when it feels disconnected from the film that came before it. A second, or even third or fourth film is supposed to build on what has come before, but too many just seem to completely ignore it instead.

In theory, a big part of the reason why sequels are even greenlit to begin with is because of the popularity of the previous film. Clearly it did something right, and so the natural next step would be to continue that. These 10 films thought otherwise, however, divesting from their predecessors in bizarre and sometimes unfortunate ways.

Whether ignoring a set-up that had a different story in mind, completely retconning what was laid out before it, or even almost pretending the previous film - or at least a big part of it - didn't happen at all, these 10 movies all retroactively wasted the ending that preceded them.

Up there with Rocky Balboa as one of the characters who helped make Sylvester Stallone an action megastar in the 1980s is John Rambo. In his first appearance in First Blood, the Vietnam veteran fought a very personal war, while battling debilitating PTSD, betrayal from the government who sent him to battle in the first place, and being made a pariah on the streets.

After eventually being talked down from taking on an entire army of the authorities by himself, Rambo's situation got the better of him and he broke down. Living a civilian life had been made impossible for him, and he turned himself in, ultimately to be sent to prison. The 1972 novel by David Morrell ends on an even darker note, with Rambo being killed by Trautman rather than being talked down from the brink. 

Rambo: First Blood Part II is a different beast entirely, a gonzo eighties action-fest that presents John Rambo with a chance to get his soldiering on again by the same government who betrayed him, lied to him, and ruined his life in the first place. He accepted the offer in a move that completely undermined the meaning of First Blood's emotional ending, with Rambo happily redeployed to the jungles of Vietnam almost a decade after the United States' withdrawal.

Though the sequel was a commercial success, it wasn't received so well critically, and you could argue that the franchise would have been better served ending after just one movie. Had Rambo stayed in prison and never been seen on screens again, the message put across by the first film would have been so much stronger.