Is the 3rd Film in a Trilogy always disappointing?

[soulsinging]

Weelllll no! I think it was a culmination of different things. There was so much excitement before the Phantom Menace and then it did not live up to what we all expected. Then the same happened with Attack of the Clones (Only it was worse). Then despite everything the anticipation began for the third - fuelled by an interview with a Mr Lucas who said that the others had to be light and flimsy to accommodate the darkness and the depth of the third, following the fall of a good man into darkness... only to be betrayed once again, with it being more of the same, flimsy and filled with contradictions for what was to come in the later movies.

Truth to tell I think it probably is better than the first two, but the sense of disappointment that came with it is what stop me buying it or watching it again! (I might have the other two but I don't watch 'em)

I guess that makes some sense. No doubt, they raised expectations for the 3rd to height it did not achieve. There was a lot of "the fans spoke on the last two, so we listened!" And in reality, they hadn't listened at all and the third was just a slight improvement mainly because even a poorly done battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin was going to be more interesting than the dreck the first two movies were. My buddy and I recently did a marathon of the prequels and age has not been kind to them. Oddly, they look MORE dated than the originals do in many places!

 

[Perpetual Man]

There is a key moment in ROTS which crystallized things for me (ironically right at the end), but it goes back to the ROTJ, perhaps one of the most human moments from that movie. Luke having just realised that Leia is his sister and all that comes with it, asks her if she remembers her mother.

Leia replies that she was very young when her mother died, but that when she does remember her she always seemed sad

And as I got to the end of ROTS, as Padme lies dying in childbirth, something just ended... Looking back now, I think Attack of the Clones was the weakest of the prequels and I'm just going to have to watch Revenge again...

 

[Dave]

Attack of the Clones is not the third film in a trilogy, it is the sixth film in a series, or the third film in a prequel trilogy. It therefore doesn't really count in this discussion, however, since we are on the subject, I also hated the same betrayal of the original trilogy plot as Perpetual Man did. There is definitely and generational thing about the two trilogies. When my son was young he much preferred The Phantom Menace with the young 10-year old Anakin, to the more dated original trilogy. Now he is older, I think he prefers the original trilogy, though he doesn't rate A New Hope that high. I, on the other hand, still call that film Star Wars and understand that without it, none of the rest would have ever been made. And I agree that parts of the newer trilogy have dated more than the original.

 

[digs]

Just because they were not as good as the other two doesn't necessarily make them bad films.

That's true, however, even if they're not really bad films they can still be a disappointment. If, say, the first one or two movies in a trilogy are brilliant but the third is just sort of mildly enjoyable, it can still be disappointing, even if you had a good time watching it.

For example, I think the Star Wars prequel trilogy is really enjoyable - they're great blockbusters with awesome action and special effects set in a beautifully imagined universe. For me, though, they were disappointments because they lacked that soul or whatever it was the original trilogy had.

 

[Rodders]

Are these really trilogies? Certainly LOTR and the Star Wars films as the same story is running through out the three films. Spider Man, Alien, Batman etc are three individual films featuring the same character.

 

[Dozmonic]

It often feels that films are meant to be standalone and the making of a second and third is just milking the franchise. When books that are a series are made into film, then they're likely to be better because it was probably the author's original intention to have the series culminate in such a manner in the final book. However, there aren't that many good books that're made into films. Or if they are, they're often too cannibalised and Hollywoodised. I mean, come on Jackson, do we really need Legolas skiing down everything in sight?

Something like the matrix felt great as a standalone movie. The second and third installments were more of an "ok what can we add that sort of makes sense with what's happened so far?". Something like V For Vendetta is a great movie but it would suffer from sequels. JK Rowling claims she always wanted to have a 7 part series but it's very evident that the first two books are a class lower down in terms of plot and forethought than the rest of the series.

While the Golden Compass was considered a flop, I enjoyed the movie but could not for the life of me work out why they ended the movie a chapter short of where the book ended. However, as it is a work that relies so heavily on imagination, I don't feel that a trilogy would have done the whole series justice. In reality I guess I just wanted to see Iorek fighting (but not talking) and more of Eva Green

Some trilogies not yet mentioned that I've loved have been the Ocean's movies and the Naked Gun.

 

[Captain Campion]

In regards to Star Wars, I think the prequels are the exception to one of the most ingrained "rules" in the movie world: the rule that the more studio execs and other people get involved, the worse the final product.

It seems to me that the more control Lucas gained over his 'vision' the worse he made it. He could have used more cooks in the kitchen with the prequels.

I grew up on the original Star Wars--loved em' (my grandpa worked the projection equipment in a theater; I stayed with him an entire weekend watching Star Wars over and over). I wanted to love the prequels, but with the exception of a few scenes here and there, I think he made movies that were so poorly scripted and so reliant on special effects that if they weren't part of a beloved franchise they would have been Mystery Science Theater material.

The sad part is I think there is actually a pretty good story underneath it all; Lucas just needed to get some help bringing it all out.

 

[soulsinging]

Something like the matrix felt great as a standalone movie. The second and third installments were more of an "ok what can we add that sort of makes sense with what's happened so far?".

Pirates of the Caribbean felt the same way. Both trilogies had first movies that were fantastic and inspired and fresh. However, once success came, the temptation to Say Something Important overwhelmed the fun and excitement that made the original movie so successful. The result for both was a fantastic first film, followed by a pair of muddy sequels that tried to shoehorn very deep plots into summer popcorn films and the result is a suffocatingly serious script that turns beloved characters into annoyingly long-winded philosophers.

 

[Red 13]

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade is a brilliant third film.Lets not mention number 4 though...in my mind it never happened.

 

[Null_Zone]

Tremors 3 was a good film, not great but certainly not a disapointment.

And it had Burt Gummer in it.