They largely dominate the cinemas between late April and
early September, filling the large screen with another instalment in a series
that made a lot of money or was very well received, sometimes even both, but
more often than not it comes down to the previous films box office.
The biggest criticism with sequels is that they show a lack
of originality and imagination, for the most part this is a fair arguments, a
fair majority of them exist solely to cash in, such as the Saw series or the later Terminator
films. It’s true that these films do take away from the more original summer
films that come along every couple of years, or the smaller films that populate
awards season, taking up screens and distributors or studios money, because
these sequels are a safer bet.
But not all sequels are purely money grabbing, vacuous
rubbish, one of the greatest films of all time is a sequel, I am talking about The Godfather Part II, which carried on
the story of Michael Corleone from the first film, building upon it whilst also
bringing back decisions and plot threads from the first film, mainly the answer
he gives to his wife at the very end. Also 2010’s Toy Story 3 was a fitting finale to that great series, taking us
and it’s characters on an emotionally draining and simultaneously uplifting
journey, completing the story of these loveable toys.
But in recent years we have seen further instalments in a
film franchise move backwards into a prequel such as Prometheus or Hannibal Rising
or sideways into a sidequel(?) such as The
Bourne Ultimatum, both of which have their own good points and bad points.
The prequel offers the chance to go back and spend time with characters who
stories either finished, were left ambiguous or died. But the risk is that
something has to be changed, or a something omitted that could damage the
original.
With a sidequel you face a similar scale of problems, the
good points are that it allows you to add to the world that was already created
in the first film(s), and bring in new characters and even show the affect that
the original had on the wider world. But the problem is that you may not have
the main characters from the original and risk the audience asking why they
should bother to see it, when they have no emotional attachment to these
people.
A film that did the prequel idea well(at least in my view)
was Prometheus, choosing to go back
and focus on the Space Jockey, a character that is only seen briefly in Alien, but which forms the basis for
this film. Going back thirty years before the original, we know we aren’t going
to get to see Ripley or Dallas, most of them haven’t been born or are very
young, so we meet a new cast of characters and follow them as they search for
these Engineers/Space Jockeys. The film is also careful not undermine anything
from the original, instead only loosely linking it with Alien through one outcome of the finale, while the main conclusion
sets up to take a sequel into a different place entirely.
A film that attempted the sidequel was the very recent The Bourne Legacy, the review of which
should be just below this article, which showed the affects that The Bourne Ultimatum had on this world.
It was a good idea and attempt but never seemed too linked with the other film,
which some people may like, but it would have been good to see even more of the
affects of what Jason Bourne, especially with the political side and what
conversely affects Aaron Cross’s actions had on that world going on, as that
side of story never really felt developed enough.
There are always films that wish had sequels, so that we
could either spend more time with the characters or just enjoy the world that
they live in. For me, a few examples of this would be Inception, The Departed
and Blade Runner. The reasons for
choosing these three, is that they all left me with the same question, “What
happens next?” One of them offers a fairly ambiguous ending, the other a very
traditional type of ending and the last asks one of the most fiercely debated
questions in cinema.
What is the likelihood of seeing any of these films get a
sequel? Well at least one in three at the moment, as Ridley Scott (along with
original screenwriter Hampton Fancher) are working on a sequel to Blade Runner. While there were rumours
of sequel to The Departed (that in
it’s self based on the Infernal Affairs trilogy
from Hong Kong) about a year after it’s release, nothing has happened in the
last five years and it looks less likely that it will. Finally, the closest we
will probably ever get to a sequel to Inception
from Christopher Nolan at least, is going to be in a video game, something he
himself has talked about doing.
With the difficulty of producing a sequel for these films
becoming evident, it highlights the completeness of the films themselves,
whereby a second film is not necessary as everything we need to know plays
during the film. But for the sake of a bit of fun, let’s try and imagine a
sequel to each of these films. Spoliers from here on out. With Blade Runner, I will detail the few bits
and pieces of news that have come out (believe at your risk). Firstly, it will
feature a female protagonist and that Deckard may or may not appear, but Scott
has said that he would like Ford to return, how likely that is to happen, I
don’t know. If they go this way they will probably have to answer the “Is
Deckard a replicant?” question, which I would prefer not to have answered.
For my own idea, a film focusing on the Tyrell company would
be interesting, especially considering how powerful it is and the state that it
would be left in after the climax of the first film. Blade Runner offers us a complete world, one that is full of ideas
and people that could be developed into a film that is as interesting as the
first. One suggestion would be to minimise Deckards role (if they do use him)
and set it shortly after the originals end, so we don’t have to answer that
question.
I know that The
Departed is based upon the first film in trilogy, but as I haven’t seen any
of the original trilogy I will try and put forward a reasonably interesting
idea of my own. At the end of the first film, all but two or three of the
significant characters are dead, so this poses an interesting problem as you
are faced with carrying over the story, but with hardly anyone left to continue
the plot threads on. The storylines left were about Dignum (Wahlberg) and what
he does after he kills Colin (Damon), there is also Madolyn (Farmiga) and her
child. While the child storyline is nothing more than secondary plot thread,
following Dignum, especially in the way he was portrayed would certainly be
engaging, but a man on the run, which is presumably what he would be doing, can
only fill so much time. But I would like a film that looks at the fallout of
the events of the first film, as no doubt a lot of questions would be asked
after everything that happened and someone would have to go in and sort out the
mess and with only a few people who knew the truth alive that would prove
difficult, but with those characters also having done questionable things and
possibly not wanting to come forward, there is a lot of conflict to get through
both in terms of plot and character.
With Inception,
the final shot asks us to make our own mind up about where Cobb (DiCaprio) is
and it was a great way for Nolan to end the film. So how do you get another
film out of this world? I have two, or albeit brief ideas. The first is a
prequel, not based around Cobb or any of the team from the first film, the only
character who could appear is maybe Miles (Caine) but played by a younger
actor, which would follow the development and breakout of the dream technology
and the PASIV machine in particular from the military where it was developed.
As the technology is still new at this point, faults and weaknesses with the
technology would play into the use of it and as a result create the danger for
someone using the machine.
The second idea would act as a sidequel, another job in the
same world, but completely unrelated to the first film. One criticism of the
first was that the dream world was too real, a pointless criticism when the
team are trying to ensure that the mark doesn’t know he is dreaming initially,
as well the world being two rigid and filled with hotels and skyscrapers, all
solid structures, but again that is linked to the mind of the mark, a
businessman. To change this, the mark could be someone of a creative disposition,
whose mind would be more fluid and potentially Salvador Dali-esque.
Only brief ideas explained in broad strokes, some are not as
interesting as others and more than likely, none will ever happen. But we will still
be left with the entertaining and enjoyable originals that built worlds that we
can continue on in our minds.
