MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Discussion > Hey, _I_ am the 'doesn't make sense'-pos...

Hey, _I_ am the 'doesn't make sense'-poster, not you!

posted 3 years ago by avortac4 (3752)
5 replies | jump to latest

Just kidding, but I thought it'd be funny to have this kind of title.

Actually, I want to list why this is a good sequel.

Sequels don't usually work very well, they rip off the first movie, or they break the first movie's carefully crafted story or time travel explanation or some kind of structure, or change the chracters too much, etc. Just look at 'The Terminator (1984)' with its near perfect bootstrap paradox that one could easily see happening in real life, and then what a mess T2 is, just crapping all over that paradox, destroying everything that made the first movie so good, or the 'First Blo..', oh, sorry, 'Rambo-franchise'.

Even the names don't make sense, and the character changes drastically from movie to movie.

The less said about the nonsensical and cartoony, forced sequels to 'Back to the Future', a movie that wasn't supposed to even have sequels originally (the last bit was supposed to be a joke, not canon), the better.

I don't know what it is exactly, but it seems like when you look at things from the story and motivation perspective, you can see how some movies have perfect sequels, others have absolutely horrible ones, and yet others have something inbetween, mostly 'lukewarm, unnecessary' ones.

George Lucas was a weird creature before he sold his soul to Mammon. He used to have some kind of creativity, and he got a weird 'treatment' from somewhere, that was too big for one movie, so they made it into three, and there was still some leftover stuff, so he decided to make the three movies the 'middle part' and then create the beginnin and end at a later time, Clone Wars and all that.

This was an exciting thought in the eighties - oh boy, more Star Wars-stuff, but different!

That is what makes this sequel possibly the best ever - this is literally 'more Star Wars-stuff, but different'.

There are a few points this sequel does that most sequels don't.

- The story is a continuance, but yet completely original and almost independent of the first movie - it's a different story, it doesn't repeat the first movie's story at all

- There is tremendous character growth, and there are in-depth story elements that are slowly revealed (if a bit retconned as well), that build to an amazing reveal

- It's not a completely happy story, it ends in a stressful cliffhanger that's well-crafted

- It avoids the stupidest romance cliché (while still containing annoying injected romance, though, but at least it's not a wimpy nerd, like in romantic comedies, but a man and character women all over the planet lust for, however secretly) of 'Iloveyou - Iloveyoutoo', and this ACTUALLY UPSETS some women viewers, to my astonishment.. how robotic do they want their entertainment, stories and men to be??

All in all, with this sequel, they do everything right - they EXPAND the view to the Universe, they show us more (but not too many) characters, they bring the story FORWARD without apologizing for it, they bravely blaze NEW TRAIL instead of giving us the same-old in new package, and it works!

Too many moviemakers seem to be afraid that if they make a sequel, it won't be as popular, because it might be too different from the first one, so they try to copy and refer the first movie as much as possible, losing creativity and spark in the process, that made the first movie so good in the first place.

The usual mistake is trying to make 'exactly the first movie again' without daring to venture to completely new territories. So they try to give 'more of the same' to the viewer instead of 'more of the different', which sequels should be.

In my opinion, sequel should ONLY be made if the story 'demands' it, or at least if the story can be expanded and brought forward without copying the first one. What does T2 do but copy the first one without any of the poignancy or atmosphere? What does Back to the Future II and III do but rip off the first movie - heck, they even go to the exact same year, 1955, when they COULD be going to the ancient Egypt or Napoleon's time or any kind of interesting historical era! No, we MUST do the same stuff the first movie did.

The only way Back to the Future II differs from the first one, is that its plot is as convoluted and messy as possible without giving any payoff for it - it follows a damn macguffin most of the movie, INSTEAD OF GIVING US AN INTERESTING STORY about something more meaningful. Chasing an object the viewer becomes just a dog that fetches the ball for the director!

THIS movie did it well. I am glad there's a perfect example of how to do a sequel well. Sure, much of it doesn't make sense, but compared to other movies, this one is definitely a masterpiece.

There's even a training montage in it, which I ALWAYS love, even in stupider movies, like the Rocky series - Rocky IV is my favorite because of the amazing soundtrack and the great, funny montages, and the 1980s energy and vibe of course. Not a great movie, but damn does it entertain..

[–] avortac4 (3752) 3 years ago

Still, it's guilty of the same sequel problems - they didn't dare to veer off from the Rocky-formula in almost any of the Rocky movies, at least not too far. What if Rocky became a philatelist and chases a valuable stamp all over the world? I know that would be silly, but think how SHOCKINGLY DIFFERENT it would be!

In any case, a bad sequel is too dependent on the first movie and thus, has no personality of its own. Even though 'Rush Hour 2' was better than the first movie, it still doesn't say anything too special or different that the first movie couldn't have already said.

Most sequels just take the first movie, same actors, similar permise, and just repeat it in a slightly different variation, without bringing a NEW PERSONALITY for the sequel, like this movie does.

It's like people are afraid to be CREATIVE with a sequel, and 'let it do what it wants'. They want to forcibly tie it to the fist movie, because they want it to be as successful. The people with bags of money never understand WHAT makes a movie good, so they just take 'key points' and repeat those, and then build some crap around that.

That's not how it works, that's how you KILL THE SOUL of a movie. Soul is important - all the soulful movies are popular moneymakers. Sure, there are a few 'soulless wonders', or really stupid movies, like Jurassic Park (this movie is like someone found a 'cauldron of stupidity' and poured it all into film and that became the movie - there's not a single thing about this movie that's not absolutely idiotic), but you can't make a sequel to a soulful movie by just looking at its material side and trying to replicate it as much as you can.

So many sequels are guilty of this, and are made just because of money. This is why most sequels suck, they kill the soul of the original and try to replicate the 'interesting bits' in a really manufactured and fabricated, soulless way and then people wonder why the sequel doesn't make as much money.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 3 years ago

Whenever I see a number after a title, I hesitate and I lose most, if not all of my interest. In over 90% of the cases, it's not worth even a glance.

When something becomes a 'franchise', you can bet it sucks for the most part.

A movie is good because some visionary or visionaries poured their finest self into it because they cared about the project, they loved the story, they had a good premise and so on. Not because it has famous actors or because it has a number '2' after its title.

For some reason, masses flock to sequels - maybe they're stupid, but it horrifies me to see people BEGGING for sequels to good movies. 'There should be Ferris Bueller's Day Off sequel!' I hear some people scream. Unbelievable... what could a sequel do better?

Movies used to be considered art, and people experimented with all kinds of concepts - but now they're just formulaic moneymakers or 'woke preaching' that doesn't sell.

I always wonder, why do people with money GLADLY waste so many millions on 'woke movies' and TV shows, but those same people wouldn't give a dime to 'a new, untried story written by someone unknown', no matter HOW good the story is. THIS I can't understand.. if they're ready to waste their money on formulaic woke crap that they KNOW won't sell, why not at least finance SOME unknown writers and moviemakers that could otherwise never make their story a movie? Perhaps we'd get to see a good movie some day that way..

I would settle for one more good movie, but I guess hollyweird is never going to give us that again. Time to look elsewhere, I suppose..

..it's too bad that I have a 'drawerful' of great ideas for stories, some of which would absolutely make great movies - I can't predict if they'd be popular or make any money, but I can guarantee if done well and with love for the craft and story, they WOULD make interesting and exciting, and even refreshingly new kind of movies.

Too bad.

[–] Stratego (30792) 3 years ago

This is certainly one of the best sequels in the history of cinema. However, it can not stand on it's own simply because of the cliffhanger ending that's only resolved in the vastly inferior follow-up movie.

(Hey, why the unnecessary stab at Jurassic Park?)

[–] Martoto (5057) 3 years ago

The Empire Strikes Back is to Star Wars what Pinocchio is to Disney feature animation. An enhancement of the original vision that proved to arguably be the peak of the franchise/studio's artistry.

[–] millsey72 (10599) 3 years ago

Another great sequel is Jaws 2