When Sequel-naming Goes Horrifically Wrong 2: Electric Boogaloo

When Sequel-naming Goes Horrifically Wrong 2: Electric Boogaloo

Posted on Monday August 29, 2011, 15:07 by Ali Plumb in Empire States

This is a worryingly long blog that sets out to highlight when movie sequel-naming gets done, like, well badly. So to kick things off, here are some horrific examples of when film naming goes terribly, embarrassingly wrong:

The Underworld Series

Underworld (2003)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (2009)
Underworld: Awakening (2012)

Seeing the words “Evolution”, “Awakening”, and “Rise Of The…” after a movie title immediately sets off alarm bells, doesn’t it? And that many colons, all in a row (stop it now...) , it's all a bit Resident Evil, isn't it?

The Terminator series

The Terminator (1984)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003)
Terminator Salvation (2009)

Okay, “Judgment Day” actually works – and aside from the Star Trek movies, might be responsible for making the whole “Original Successful Movie Title: Other Phrase” sequel naming technique coming to fashion in the first place – but there’s “Rise Of The…”, as well as another alarm bell number, “Salvation”. Not even a colon there, too. Very worrying.

The Fast and The Furious series

The Fast And The Furious (2001)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Fast & Furious (2009)
Fast Five (2011)

All bow down to the Lord Chief Emperor of bad movie sequel naming, the Fast and The Furious franchise. Not only is there a 2/too pun in the first sequel, an “Original Successful Movie Title: Other Phrase” for the threequel, a repeated version of the original successful movie title (more on this one later) in Fast & Furious, and them finally seeming to give up with Fast Five / Fast & Furious 5 /Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist by not working out what its actual official bloody name is, but they ALSO get the chronology TOTALLY WRONG. It’s so bad, it’s almost good, this. Much like Fast Five, really. That's right, I WENT THERE. IN CAPITALS.

The Matrix Trilogy

The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

No colons, but like “Evolution” and “Awakening”, “Reloaded” and “Revolutions” are movie sequel naming weasel words and no mistake. We should have known they’d be pants really. Got ourselves to blame.

Romero's Dead series

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
Dawn Of The Dead (1978)
Day Of The Dead (1985)
Land Of The Dead (2005)
Diary Of The Dead (2007)
Survival Of The Dead (2009)

There was a beautiful sense of time passing with the first three films, night going into dawn going into day, but everything goes skew when lands and diaries start getting involved. Seriously, since when were diaries supposed to be exciting?

The Halloween series

Halloween (1978)
Halloween II (1981)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Halloween (2007)
Halloween II (2009)

The only franchise we can think of that went back to the original original title, then made a sequel to that that happens to have the same name as the original’s original sequel, the Halloween naming committee have been cocking it up for decades. Plus, how similar do “Return” and “Revenge” look and sound on the billboard? And why the jump from “III” to “4”? Don’t think we can handle Roman numerals, eh? And as for the H20 / H₂O pun, the less said about that the better.

Oh, and there's another weasel word, “Resurrection” – as also seen in Alien Resurrection, of course. Shame, really, as Alien/Aliens is genius and Alien 3 is, well, fine. Alien Resurrection, though? Not so fine. And don't get me started on AVPR... A "Requiem"? For what? A nightmare?

The Nightmare On Elm Street series

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Another back-to-the-starter, this suffers from similar sound-alike sequel naming with “Dream Master” and “Dream Child” not to mention a “Vs.” naming – always very worrying – and a in-title director namedrop. If you’re naming the director within the title, the director may well be much better than the movie itself.

The Die Hard series

Die Hard (1988)
Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995)
Live Free Or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0 (2007)

We get it, Die Hard 2’s suffix is a bit of a gag, as is Die Hard With a Vengeance, but as for Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0… 1. Make up your mind, and 2. That's one crap pun. And “4.0” to make it sound sort of technological? Really?

The Superman series

Superman (1978)
Superman II (1980)
Superman III (1983)
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

“The Quest For Peace”? The quest for soul-crushing disappointment, more like.

The Apes franchise

Planet Of The Apes (1968)
Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970)
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971)
Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972)
Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973)
Planet Of The Apes (2001)
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)

No numbers? More prepositions? Brave. Very brave. Also, if we hadn't put their release dates to the right, could you have ordered these chronologically? Without Wikipedia? Us neither. Would make a great pub quiz tiebreaker question, mind…

The Friday The 13th franchise

Friday The 13th (1980)
Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981)
Friday The 13th Part III (1982)
Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Friday The 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
Jason X (2002)
Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
Friday The 13th (2009)

Jesus. H. Christ.

Now it’s all very easy to point and snicker at these craply-named sequel titles, but in order to do that, we’d have to give you guys a viable set of alternatives, right? Well what do you know, here they are…

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Back to the Future (1985)
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Part II, Part III. Easy. A lot we can learn from the Godfather trilogy, isn't there?

1,2,3,4

Lethal Weapon (1987)
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

A lot of franchises stick to this 1,2,3,4 format, and more power to them (See also: Beverley Hills Cop, Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Iron Man, the Rocky franchise (sort of), the Evil Dead trilogy (very sort of), and the first three Mission Impossibles)

After the book / “The Leader Character’s Name And The Macguffin Of Extreme Relevance”

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire (2005)
Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010)
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)

The Harry Potter franchise follows two good rules of thumb, sequel-naming-wise: 1. They’re just the names of the original books they were adapted from (so you’re off the hook, Twilight), much like most of the James Bond films, Jack Ryan, Bourne and Narnia – and 2. They’re “The Leader Character’s Name And The Macguffin Of Extreme Relevance” jobs, and you can’t help but love those buggers. See also: Indy (apart from Raiders, of course, but even that got tweaked posthumously).

Then there’s Star Trek, which kind of gets away with it all (apart from those Next Generation weasel words “Generations”, “Insurrection” and “Nemesis”) and Star Wars, whose ret-conning kind of, sort of, not-quite-really fixes things. Plus, Empire Strikes Back is such a good sequel name – and such a good movie – that all is forgiven. Namings-wise, anyway.

But the fact is, there’s nothing wrong with sticking a number on the end. Start off that way and taking a left turn doesn't cut it, mind. Just take a look at the Final Destinaton series: 1, 2, 3, then “The Final Destination”, which seems so self-assured that releasing “Final Destination 5” after it seems extra-preposterous, even considering the barmy nature of the franchise.

Then there’s Sherlock Holmes 2, which is now definitely calling itself Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows – a name, like Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (no colons, no mercy) that seems to indicate a lack of confidence. And as you might be able to guess from our front cover this issue, we’re quite excited about the second coming of Downey Jr.'s great detective – and from what we’ve seen, we have good reason to be – but if it’s the sequel to Sherlock Holmes, why not Sherlock Holmes 2? Perhaps “A Game Of Shadows” is much more intriguing that I thought.

Anyway, much like many of the franchises mentioned here, this blog really has has gone on far too long, so I'm going to hand it over to you guys. What movie sequel titles drive you up the wall? Do you have any personal favourites? You know, aside from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo? Let us know in the comment box below.