What Makes a Good Sequel?

And is it Different to What Makes a Good Film or Game In General?

So I was on a friends podcast recently, and the topic of discussion for that episode was: What Makes a Good Sequel? This was in relation to both computer games and films. A good amount of what I had prepared and wanted to talk about with that subject we did touch on in the podcast so if you like audio-on-demand discussions then go check that out and then come back to this article where I plan to expound my thoughts to my usual level of overindulgence.

Lightning Striking Twice. Or Thrice?

Firstly, as you will hear in the podcast we did, in preparation for that discussion I compiled a list of best and worst sequels for both games and movies, the ‘best’ lists were 11 items each (a top ten with one honourable mention each) and the ‘worst’ lists were 3 items each. That is just a reflection of the fact that I like more things than I dislike in general. I’m really not a negative person and would rather talk at length about things I love rather than things I hate. So, in case you were curious at all, (and I’m sure you will be once you see the lists haha), below are the lists themselves. I’m not necessarily going to go through and mention every single one, this isn’t meant to be a listicle. But there are some items on these lists that people will surely balk at and I think that is where I will focus my attention. That and a few items that I didn’t get to discuss on the podcast itself.

A few quick notes on how I decided on these lists: I didn’t count any movie series that was more like a single story told over multiple films, such as Lord of the Rings. These are also personal preferences, not objective, critical lists. Finally a number of these items were chosen not because there was no example that might rank higher, but because they were exemplary of some aspect of what can make or break a sequel for me personally. With no further ado, the lists:

Best Sequels

Games:

• Baldur’s Gate II
• Pokémon Gold/Silver
• Conker’s Bad Fur Day
• Metal Gear Solid
• Red Dead Redemption
• Guitar Hero III
• Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Resident Evil 2 (or 4)
• Final Fantasy 8 (or 7)
• Saints Row 2

Honourable Mention:

• Age of Empires 2

Movies:

• The Matrix Reloaded / Revolutions
• Aliens (and Terminator 2: Judgement Day)
• Thor: Ragnarok
• Desperado
• 10 Cloverfield Lane
• The Dark Knight
• The Empire Strikes Back
• X-Men: Days Of Future Past
• Planes: Fire & Rescue
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Honourable Mention:

• Back to the Future Part II

Worst Sequels

Games:

• World of Warcraft (And any other games that become mmos for no reason, like FF11)
• Dragon Age 2
• The Sims 4

Movies:

• Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
• The Crow: City of Angels
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I feel like anyone who actually played Pokémon Gold and/or Silver would tell you that those two games are probably the best game sequels ever made. (Games? Game? Do they count as separate? Gah!) I said as much about them on the podcast so I wont go into detail on Pokémon, but they were awesome and you should play them. So what then would people not generally agree with on my lists? The Matrix sequels probably. Very few people I talk to seem to agree when I say that they contained way better stories than the original film. That topic is something I could, and most likely will, write a good five thousand words on at some point in the future. So I won’t go painfully deep into why they are so good in my personal opinion, instead I will try to explain it as briefly as possible. (Ha!)

What else? Planes: Fire & Rescue seems like a film that very few people would expect to see on a list of best ever sequels, standing right next to The Dark Knight no less! But yeah, I stand behind that choice. If you can get past the premise of planes and cars that have eyes and are basically alive or whatever, (a big ask, I know), then yeah Fire & Rescue is actually an amazing example of how a sequel and provide a truly deep and satisfying conclusion or continuation to a story. Even one you might not be that invested in to begin with.

In terms of worst sequels that are contentious, yeah World of Warcraft is an interesting one. If you like that game, that is fine. It’s obviously a hugely successful game. But personally I was pretty invested in the story of Warcraft and wanted to know more about it, but grinding my way through an MMO was not the way I wanted to experience it. Not at all. Personally I have grown to hate it when game sequels end up in a different genera. Especially when they are just a slight shift, like in Dragon Age 2. They started with an awesome successor to the classic Infinity Engine games and then pushed it into like an action rpg? Why? Sure both of those genres are rpgs, but otherwise they are nothing alike. The people who like Dragon Age 2 hate Origins, and the people who like Origins hate 2. Surely there is some small percentage who like both, but even they should be able to admit that they are very different games and wonder why the hell they decided to change the game so much.

In terms of worst movie sequels, well my short list there basically illustrates that a bad movie is a bad movie. Regardless of whether or not it is a sequel. With films I feel very differently than with games, just in that, unless the filmmakers decide to do something radically different and/or extremely annoying I will generally be along for the ride. Unless they just make a pile of shit movie like basically all of The Crow’s sequels. Revenge of the Fallen was just blegh and Book of Shadows is something we talk a good bit about in the podcast so I won’t go over it here. Except to say, wow that ending…

But enough about the bad stuff, like I said I want to focus on what is awesome, and the most awesome thing on my lists is… actually that’s way too hard to call, let me rephrase. One of the most awesome things on my lists of great sequels is, what I would call my all time second-favorite game, Baldur’s Gate II.

Baldur’s Gate II: Reloaded Revengeance

Baldur’s Gate is a pretty difficult series to explain on paper to someone who isn’t at least passingly familiar with D&D, computer role playing games, or at the very least fantasy stories in general. But hey this is me, so I’m going to try. In essence the story of Baldur’s Gate is one about the many children of the god of murder and how having that title can adversely affect your life pretty much top to bottom. It is set in the Forgotten Realms, which is a popular D&D setting. It’s not a great one, but it’s functional. It has typical fantasy tropes all over the place like dragons and goblins and little towns with blacksmiths and local wizards and all that fun stuff. I should mention that none of that ‘god of murder’ type stuff really impacts the story until very far into the first game.

The first game starts off as would any normal D&D campaign, with a couple of average joes who have to leave their life of peace behind and go on the road to uncover a mystery and solve problems along the way. Like many crpgs, and most tabletop rpgs as well, you start off the game by creating a character and seeing that character get swept up into a great mystery. I don’t want to go into too much spoiler territory, but to be honest I can’t talk about the second game without doing so, and the games are nearly twenty years old now so fucking get over it.

So, very long story cut very short, in the first game, after roaming around solving problems and stealing everyone’s belongings if you so choose, you eventually come to realise you are what is called Bhaalspawn, aka the spawn of the murder-god. And, unsurprisingly, one of your siblings really wants to murder you. Said sibling tries again and again to murder you from the beginning till the end of that first game. Until you deal with them. What you do from start to end is entirely up to you really, as it is in most rpgs. You can act like a total murder loving murderbot, or be an innocent soul trapped by circumstance. And this level of player direction continues until the end of the series in Throne of Bhaal, which is kind of an expansion to Baldur’s Gate II and also in some ways it could be called Baldur’s Gate III, so I’m not entirely sure whether to include it’s content in Baldur’s Gate II for the purposes of this explanation. But it seems like I should, so I will.

At the of Throne of Bhaal you can literally become the god of murder. Or some type of good-guy-god. Or not become a god. Or whatever, it is really up to you what you do and how you approach everything. Remember this was before the current four-option-bioware-dialogue-tree became so popular. So it was not like you can be a good guy, a dickhead or an invocation of the darkest evils. I mean yeah you could be all of those things at different times if you wanted. But there were so many more options, so much subtly. Not this good, bad and ugly bullshit that boils player choice down to ‘pick the option that is obviously going to have the most interesting outcomes and voice acting’, not ‘pick the one that you as a player actually agree with.’ In more modern crpgs it often feels like there really is only one answer that the dev’s want you to pick and you are an idiot if you pick anything else. This didn’t feel like that. This felt like, and still does feel like, the best attempt at making a D&D style game for a computer that has ever occurred.

Many games have come pretty close to it over the years. And many of those were basically trying to be, what has become a bit of an overused buzzword at this point, a ‘Baldur’s Gate II Spiritual Successor’. (Seriously why can’t we have an actual remake or some kind of real sequel? Please humanity. If we are aiming to colonize mars why can’t we aim for this as well?). None of these so called successors have really lived up to Baldur’s Gate II sadly. It still tops the list of D&D style computer gaming in my opinion. And maybe it always will. But what made it so much better than Baldur’s Gate the original? Basically everything. But mostly the villain. A very wise writer once said ‘The strength of your villain is the strength of your story’. And I think once you understand that to be true, a lot of hard-to-articulate story problems become pretty clear pretty quickly.

The villain in the first game is… well it’s this guy:

I mean he looks kind of badass I guess? And his voice acting, although back in the day you didn’t get very much of it, was pretty dang great. So what made him a lesser villain? I mean you can see the problem right there in that image but some of you might not be able to articulate it all that well. He was obvious! He clearly is ready for some hardcore medieval battle. And we see him kick the ass of our older, higher level, patron early in the game. But what the hell is his motivation? Become a god… or something? Kill his siblings… because ‘there can only be one’? I guess? Maybe?

The differences between the villain in BG whose name is Sarevok and the villain in BG II whose name is just Jon are actually numerous now that I think on it. I mean here look at the BG II villain:

Looks pretty average right? I mean his face looks a little weird but we get nothing of the overwhelming obvious evilness of the first villain. Well you might be surprised to learn he pretty much immediately becomes the stuff of vivid psychological nightmares. When the second game starts you have been captured by unknown assailants and put in a horrible prison. And these are the first things you hear out of BG IIs main villain:

Fucking haunting. And very different to what we got in the previous game. In the last game we knew the villain was powerful, wanted more power, and wanted to kill us to get it. We get the same gist here but the ephemeral nature of these threats and the vague shape of this villain’s plans are just so horrifying compared to the original villain. Interestingly as well, a lot of the differences between the two are shown in how they affect the party. In the first game, for spoilery reasons that I won’t go into, your first companion Imoen is just as threatened by the main villain as you are. But she is basically an annoying child the whole time never taking anything seriously. In BG II however, the game starts with ole Jon conducting ‘experiments’ on Imoen and for the rest of the game she is mentally shattered by the experience. You can’t help but empathise with her and the emotional toll of all this is heavy and lasting.

Going into any more details of the plot of these games would be a whole lot of ‘telling’ and not enough ‘showing’. And ultimately I would love it if I could actually convince someone to play one of these games who hasn’t as yet. So I won’t go into more detail on the Baldur’s Gate series, (to do so properly would require its own post), except to say that you should play it, obviously. But especially the second game. That is where the fun really lies. And yes you can just learn about what happens in the first game through the second one, sure playing the first might help, and you can import your save into the second one so that is awesome. But overall, it’s not needed.

The Transform Matrix

Since the title of this section is a reference to how video games render graphics in three dimensions you can probably infer that I love both video games, and multidimensionality. Wait you didn’t infer that? Are my references too esoteric? Whatever. Anyway, The Matrix series has both of those things. Video games, and multidimensionality. Yeah ok I can see why people say my use of language is a bit strange.

But it’s true! The video games actually form huge parts of The Matrix’s story, telling the tale that lies between the first movie and the second movie in Path of Neo, and then canonically telling the tale of everything that happens within the matrix itself, after the films, based on player actions in The Matrix Online. (There was also a game that followed a side story called Enter the Matrix).

Did you know Morpheus dies later on in the story of The Matrix? You didn’t? Well he died because players of The Matrix Online failed to defend him from an assassin during a ten day multiplayer event. Pretty neat if you ask me, that the fans had so much influence on the canon of the universe. But I didn’t play that game (well I created an account and ran around a bit, but MMOs have never been my thing), and besides, other people have told that tale better than I could, even the [wiki] is pretty good. That said, I do have a lot to say about the movie sequels. And how they are better than the original film. In every way that matters.

In order for us, myself as a writer, and you as a reader, to be on the same page here we both need to agree on one thing. The Matrix, while a very enjoyable film for a whole host of reasons, is, at its core, a white male led power fantasy. Now that isn’t bad in and of itself. But for a lot of us out here in the world it gets pretty fucking tiresome. Clearly that is true for the Wachowskis. You just have to look at one of their more recent works [Sense8] to get an idea of how they feel about the typical hero’s journey plot of a white male who has no knowledge of how to fight, meeting and of course surpassing, various people of other ethnicities and genders just because he is the ‘chosen one’. Sense8 pretty much shoves the idea of the chosen one up its own ass, and manages to be the best TV show I’ve watched in decades.

So why then would the Wachowskis make a movie that is exactly that ‘chosen one’ plot filled with every possible trope from those plots imaginable? Well, I don’t claim to have any inside knowledge of what they might have been thinking, I can only guess there was no simple answer to that question. But the answer that I find to be the most satisfying, and probable from my point of view, lies within one of the most controversial scenes that involve only dialogue in a film that I can think of. The infamous Architect scene in The Matrix Reloaded.

I will link here to a full video of the scene Neo has with The Architect. But of course it is spoilery as hell, so just in case someone who hasn’t watched this movie is reading this and doesn’t want spoilers (who the hell would do such a thing…), I’ll just repeat the main line I want to dissect here:

Architect: The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art…flawless, sublime. And triumphed equally only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus: I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.

Now different people take this line differently. For me, within the context of the movie, this was fairly obvious and literal. Meant to express a machine’s inherent distaste for biological life. But the more I thought about this movie in the face of the many people who shit all over the matrix sequels and this scene especially, the more this line seemed like a kind of meta lampshading. I can read this line, and imagine it being said by the Wachowskis themselves in reference to The Matrix films. I can read this line, and realise, that in all honesty, the Wachowskis most likely created that first movie to fully satisfy the audience of typical white-male power-fantasies exactly so that they could follow up that movie with a total deconstruction of the very concept of it. The fact that the plot of that first film is so gross, and yet so appealing to the movie going masses leads me to believe that the Wachowskis may have even intentionally rewritten their original movie script, due to an unfortunate realisation that this would be the only way they could make a successful film.

I can’t blame them for wanting to make a successful film to launch their careers. But I absolutely celebrate the fact that they ultimately gave the people that love the tired ass ‘chosen one’ plot the middle finger with their follow up films. Reloaded and Revolutions shatter the very idea of the chosen one plot. They explicitly state that the entire world and everything that Neo has experienced right up until he walks out of the wrong (or very right?) door in the Architects room was entirely contrived to appeal to humanity’s basest nature. The whole plot of the film up to that point is a reflection of the most grotesque parts of the collective unconscious of humanity’s hive mind. I think we were meant to love that plot, because we are all horrible ass hats who somehow love the idea of a pasty white guy with no personality becoming the most powerful being imaginable. Whether or not this is also a direct deconstruction of messianic plots in general I can’t say for sure, these films are deeply laden with philosophic meaning and it is hard to decipher any exact point of view on the part of their creators, but I strongly assume that it is.

At this point I should make a slight addendum, and admit that in large part there are shades of the chosen one plot right up until the end of the story. Even though we receive direct confirmation that there is no actual ‘prophecy’ and that the Oracle is just a program who has her own agenda, we still do see Neo exhibit some pretty real, pretty ‘chosen one’ esq powers throughout the films, especially once he realises that he can control stuff with his mind in the real world. Now you might see that as a bit limp if you are on the bandwagon of disliking those kinds of stories like me, but remember these films are deep, deep affairs and rarely can anything hold up to a single pass of analysis. For example one common belief around why and how Neo is able to do this, is the ‘matrix within a matrix’ theory. The idea that the whole thing from start to finish is some kind of simulation about breaking out of simulations. I’m not sure where I land on this topic since I actually love the idea that agent smith was able to inhabit a real human body, the idea that it is just another digital persona that he is taking over surely makes a lot more sense but it is also somehow less cool from my point of view. Regardless The Matrix is a trilogy of films that I think we should never stop talking about and filmmakers should strive to live up to.

Now If you are the kind of person who has watched all of the Wachowskis various follow-ups to The Matrix and felt disappointed that they haven’t just made a new messianic, white-guy power-fantasy, I understand that you probably are not convinced that Reloaded and Revolutions are better than the original film. That is ok. We can disagree on this point if we have to. But I would ask that you go back and watch all their newer stuff again, but think about it from a different point of view. For example: Jupiter Ascending isn’t for you. It is for a certain kind of young, female, sci-fi fan who wants a protagonist that they can relate to. Not one who is a badass, or a powerful fighter, just one who is kind of ditsy and has a good sense of humour. That movie is filled with wish fulfilment for that audience, just as The Matrix is filled with the kind of wish fulfilment that you like. You got a badass woman who kicks dudes in the head and is hopelessly in love with the chosen one, they got a badass wolf-dude who can fly and is hopelessly in love with the chosen one. Both were played by awesome actors and fulfilled their roles wonderfully. Just because one was obviously not intended to satisfy your sexual fantasies, doesn’t mean he isn’t satisfying someone’s sexual fantasies. And satisfying them damn well, have you seen Channing Tatum for fuck’s sake? Magic Mike anyone? Hot damn!

I would love for everyone who feels this way about movies to just be able to say to themselves, ‘this movie isn’t for me, but I can see that it would be awesome for the kind of person it was meant to satisfy’. Rather than just saying ‘this movie is shit’ because it didn’t get their dick hard. But that isn’t the world we live in. All I can do is make a case for why these sequels are so lovely. And I will endeavour to do that even more than I have here, in a real meaty post at some point in the future. For now, I would recommend you go back and check them out, or at least watch Sense8. That show is insanely good, being the most expensive Netflix show made up until now. It fully blows my mind that such a show could ever have been made. If you get that show, and then go back and rewatch The Matrix sequels thinking about who their creators really are, you might see something else this time.

That one where the cars have eyes and shit

So Cars, (the Pixar movie not the death traps we all willing get into on the daily), was a pretty average kids film. Not quite up there with the rest of the Pixar line-up to be honest. But I mean, kids like it. So, as above, just because a film isn’t meant for me doesn’t mean it’s bad. And it’s not just kids that like it either. My partner Jess really liked that movie as well. It was under her insistence that I even watched that movie, or it’s sequel, which was also pretty average. I then also watched Planes with my partner, which was the same basic movie, but now they can sell toy planes I guess instead of just toy cars. And then I watched Planes: Fire & Rescue. And my opinion on the whole affair changed pretty dramatically. The premise of the whole thing, as in, the fact that vehicles have big eyes instead of windshields and they are alive, is still pretty weird. But the story in Fire & Rescue is very real and not weird at all.

Planes: Fire & Rescue is about a crop duster plane called Dusty. (I am about to spoil Planes 1 pretty heavily in case you can’t tell yet. So if you care about that sort of thing, go watch it and then come back.) In the last film Dusty went on quite a journey, going from plucky young crop duster to full on racing plane. It was uplifting and enjoyable in whatever measure you were able to look past the fact that a plane had eyes and was alive. So for me, by that point, having watched two other similar movies, pretty enjoyable. But I am pretty great at the art of suspension of disbelief, so your results may vary.

At the start of Fire & Rescue however, we see Dusty have some problems. He is pushing himself harder and harder to go faster and faster and blam he breaks part of his engine. This, one might think, is not all that big a deal for an alive-vehicle. Since we all know vehicles have replaceable parts in the real world, and in fact they have established that alive-vehicles also have them in this film world as well. However, after a fairly sizeable sequence where they try and try to find a replacement for Dusty’s broken part but they just can’t seem to locate one, (spoilers for the whole film here:), they do not find one. Dusty remains broken. This film is about how he finds meaning in his life after his dreams have been permanently shattered.

Now, this actually kind of blew my mind. I mean these movies have dealt with this kind of issue before and the good guys have always come out on top, just barely managing to win the race because of true grit and determination. This was not that movie. I’m not sure exactly when, but at some point during this movie I stopped seeing all the characters as vehicles with eyes and just saw them as people. That, I suppose, is the power of narrative. If we can find ourselves drawn into a character, we go along on the journey with them. Forgetting ourselves and our lives for just a moment and living with them in their reality. (Even if said reality makes no scientific sense whatsoever.) The people in this film have real problems. Problems I have gone through. Problems I am still going through. Dusty has no fucking idea what to do with himself after his injury. I am certain people with medical problems can relate to that, but I don’t even have medical problems. Well, not to that degree at least. I have plenty of crushed dreams however.

That look in Dusty’s windshield-eyes when he finally realises that everything he wanted for himself, everything he knows that he is destined for, everything he has just had an intoxicating taste of, is dead, gone and over, was fucking harrowing for me. I know that look. I’m sure I’ve had that look on my face too. Probably more than once now. Relating to a character can come in many forms, but I have found over the years that, for me at least, the most visceral of these forms is relating to a character’s pain. And shit I can relate to Dusty’s pain. I’m right there with you man.

I should let you know, all of this pain happens fairly early in the film, as is normal in an animated kids movie, and eventually Dusty does figure out a way to give his life meaning again. He meets characters who have had similar problems in their lives, he shows us he is still a hero and blah blah blah. The actual Fire & Rescue type parts of the film are awesome, equally dramatic, and very much something I won’t spoil so that if you ever do watch this movie I haven’t actually ruined it for you. Just be ready to go on a fucking emotional rollercoaster with fucking sentient planes that are trying not to be quite so dead inside just like you are. It’s a trip man. But a good trip nonetheless.

I guess I can’t blame the movie going masses for not kicking up a bigger hoo-haa over Planes: Fire & Rescue. It was something like the fourth movie in the vehicles-have-eyes franchise, and I imagine it was pretty cheap to make, and was likely just a good way to maximise merchandise profits. But whoever was behind the script of that movie poured some real shit into it that really caught me off guard. Anyway, I forgive the academy for not honouring Fire & Rescue, but why the hell does it have a 55% audience score on rotten tomatoes?! What the hell! Blah, one can’t judge these kinds of movies based on how the internet views them. They weren’t made for the internet. I feel like this movie was made for parents to plop their kids in front of, and the people behind it were like; ‘maybe we should put some shit in this movie that makes these parents wish their life was different, but like, way more than they normally do when they just look at their kids or whatever?’ Can you tell I don’t have kids? Haha! Hooray me!

And well, in summary:

The rest of my top sequels lists are either pretty obvious, as to why they are good sequels, or they are just good movies/games that happen to be sequels. Movies like Desperado (if you don’t know what this is, or why it’s such a good sequel, google it, you will be surprised), and 10 Cloverfield Lane (also good but if you are on board yet just watch this one by itself, it would be more satisfying that way I think) are obviously amazing for various reasons when it comes to the question of ‘how do we follow up that movie/game we made that everyone likes’. And I’m not going to be able to do them justice in just a few words, nor do I have the passion for them to write thousands upon thousands of words about them. Furthermore, games like Resident Evil 2, Elder Scrolls III, and Final Fantasy VIII are all awesome in both the sequel sense (yes FF8 is better than FF7, get wrecked) and in the sense that they are just awesome games. Final Fantasy VIII, obviously being better in every way than Final Fantasy VII is something that I may write a post on one day actually. But that would be a hard post to write. Do I write it just catering for those who have played both? Those who might only have played one FF game in the past that may or may not be VII or VIII? Or those who have no idea what I am even talking about at this point? I think writing a post that explains FF 8 and how it is better than FF 7 in a way that non-gamers can understand would be an amazingly long and involved piece of work. So yeah that appeals to me obviously. Maybe that will be my next post? Should it be? What do you guys think? Oh what is that? No one is reading this even though I keep writing as if someone is? Oh ok. Well now I’m sad. :(

See ya next post phantom internet lurker people who can trick google analytics into thinking my site has zero views! ;)