Sequel Contest on Grantland

So, Dan, it looks like it'll be just you and me for a little while, and while I haven't been posting, I've been thinking of a retrospective on superhero movies, a sort of expanded version of the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher/Christopher Nolan discussion.

One of the websites I read regularly, Grantland, covers mostly sports, but they also cover, in a more limited fashion, films and other pop-culture topics. Earlier in the week, they started a contest, a sports bracket system in which they had 32 film sequels ranked and pitted off against each other.

The guy, when introducing the whole thing they're calling Sequeltology, said that such an endeavor is kinda silly, since The Godfather II could be, in his opinion, the greatest American film ever made.

How it works is, the 32 movies that made the list get ranked, and then seeded, and then they're paired off, and readers get to vote for whichever movie they feel like voting for, with no rules about why you vote the way you do.

Here's a link to one of the relating articles. In the round of 8 we've got T2 vs The Dark Knight among others matchups.

Their endeavor, and their curious idea that the Rocky sequels would fare better (seriously, they thought Indy and the Last Crusade would fall to Rocky III)(give me a fucking break), got me thinking.

Sequels and spinoffs, the television versions, are a mixed bag for me. Nowadays they seem like they plan for a sequel in the pre-production phase, with it being a safe investment, as long as the first is good enough, or makes enough money.

It's unoriginal. That's my main complaint, but with so many book and comic adaptations being made, sequels are just part of this era of big-cinema. I liked The Dark Knight Rises, but it's as unoriginal as a sequel gets. One of the sequels on the Grantland list is probably the most original sequel ever: Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. It was seeded pretty low and has since been knocked out.

But can you imagine a sequel where the heroes from the first movie are killed, con Death out of death, and then using Station to save the world through their rock music...I mean, that's like a David Lynch fever dream just ate bunch of Sweet-Tarts and cotton candy.

I guess The Godfather II was pretty original, and it should surely win this contest.

One sequel I was upset was left off of the Grantland list was Addams Family Values.

Thinking about that classic, a rare sequel I enjoy far more than the original, I started to wonder what sequel I like the most. Other peculiarities show up on their lost, like Back to the Future II but not III, clearly the superior installment. Whatever: what's the best sequel?

Besides The Godfather II, of course.

What franchises do we have? Alien (Aliens, one of the top seeds, went down to Last Crusade); The Matrix; Rocky, Superman, Batman, Rambo, Spiderman, Star Wars, Star Trek...way more than really first come to mind...

The top three sequels from those franchises are probably Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, and...The Animatrix?

Does that even count? Whatever, it's better than Reloaded and Revolutions, am I right? I don't know, I can't remember the other two so well.

I haven't yet mentioned Indiana Jones or Lord of the Rings or Toy Story...

Maybe Toy Story 3 is my favorite non-Godfather II sequel...

I'm sure you've got some opinions on this, like Aliens should kick everybody's ass...and I think we had a talk about LOTR, where you said you preferred Two Towers in the sequel department, but you could have been lecturing me for talking shit about it (which I only did half as a joke, since for the longest time it was the only DVD of the trilogy that we owned, and consequently, watched).

And dad, if you're reading this, feel free to chime in...maybe it wasn't such an impact, but...2010: The Year We Make Contact is just waiting for a tease-out.