8 Sequels Ruined By Idiotic Changes To The Original Concept

The importance of an original and interesting concept is a crucial component for any film, but the ability to maintain this concept over an entire film franchise can be somewhat trickier.

For a franchise to succeed, filmmakers must find the balance between original ideas, character arcs, honouring the lore of the original film and utilising the premise that made the first film work. The James Bond and Mission Impossible film franchises serve as prime examples of products that have generally succeeded in this juggling act for their sequels, even at times producing films that mirror or improve on the original.

The films on this list have proven incapable of achieving such a feat. This has been mainly through a lack of understanding from those producing the film of what made the original so successful in the first place. The films on this list have all contained interesting and inventive premises that were bizarrely discarded for seemingly no logical reason.

All films on this list saw significant drops in the box office and critical reception for their sequels. However, some such as Transformers and The Transporter did make subsequent moves in the right direction for future sequels and spinoffs to embrace the original concept once more.

The Silence of the Lambs was a significant box office and critical success, but the sequel suffered from not realising what made the film so great in the first place.

Anthony Hopkins won a Best Actor award for his brilliant portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in the original, but he was not actually the protagonist, this instead falling on the shoulders of Det. Clarice Starling, brilliantly portrayed by Jodie Foster. What made the original film the modern day masterpiece it is, was the battle of wills between the demented genius Lecter and the innocent, vulnerable, yet courageous Clarice.

The film is all about Clarice overcoming her fears, dealing with past traumas so she can effectively manage the threat she faces in the present day. Hannibal is representative of this fear; a brooding, scary monster of a man who Clarice must confront to move on with her life and stop the chaos occurring around her.

The problem with the sequel, Hannibal, is that the film becomes more of a study of Lecter and loses its edge as a psychological thriller.

While the prequel Red Dragon made a better fist of things, Hannibal leaves us with too much time to spend with a man who actually has very little interest to the audience without Clarice to chastise. Yes, he’s a cannibal, but it was this combined with his ability as a master Psychologist that made the original film so interesting in the first place.

The movie reverts to quirky lobotomy scenes and places Clarice as a secondary character resulting in the whole thing falling flat, when what we really want is Clarice engaged in more psychological battles with the most infamous of cannibals.