Editorial: Originals vs Sequels

October is always a month that delivers many sequels of horror movies and it seems over the year the number of sequels versus the number of original movies is expanding.

Now that argument and opinion i'll save for another day but I specifically want to talk about sequels to movies and if they are better than their predecessors.

I have a personal point of view about sequels. They're not better than the original, than the predecessor. To me. Has that always been the case? No, not always. In fact, just recently I had to ask myself if a sequel had topped its original and to me, it did.

The Rush Hour series was a very entertaining series to me. Were all the movies great? Not exactly. The first Rush Hour was really good, nice fun action and it introduced a good tag team in Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. The other two, though entertaining, lost a little luster when it seems like they were trying to execute the same pattern over and over.

I'll come out and say that I am a huge fan of the SAW series, going on its 7th movie tomorrow. Even though it is extremely hard to weigh the 6 SAW sequels vs. the first SAW, the original is what started it all and I stand by the original.

That's what my argument is all about right there. The original is what starts the whole series, however the series may last. So while the sequel may great, without the original, this movie just stands alone and may not be quite as good.

Every now and then though, we get a couple of cases where the sequel really does defeat the original. In more recent years, Spider-Man 2 was seen as a much better than movie than Spider-Man and i'm inclined to agree. Before The Dark Knight and Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 was seen as the perfect superhero movie. While Spider-Man did very well, Spider-Man 2 did what a true sequel should do and blew it out the water.

I mentioned The Dark Knight which was, and still is, critically acclaimed to be one of the best movies of all time, let alone a tremendous sequel. Once again, I am inclined to agree.

Finally, and most recently, Paranormal Activity 2 ended up being much better than the original. Though the sequel followed the same pattern the original did, it had a little more style to it all.

Is it bad that sequels are sometimes better than the original? Not at all! In fact, they enhance the original when they're better.

Tomorrow, part 2 is about the increasing amount of sequels vs the declining amount of original movie ideas.