Giggaheim.com Podcast Episode 20 had another round of our new game of “Ten In A Half”. Our podcast panel would have half an hour to pull together a top ten list of the topic presented to them. This week: Top Ten Movie Sequels.
The Rules:
1) The movie had to be better than their predecessor
2) The movie had to be a direct sequel of the previous movie
3) Franchises are fair game
10) Evil Dead 2 (1987) Sam Raimi returned to his movie with the same story but a different attitude. The movie is now a cult classic with its comedic timing, and ground breaking chase effects. Itr also catapulted Bruce Campbell to stardom.
9) 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) This sequel dared to follow Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Although slow by today’s standards, this movie clipped along at a quick pace for average movie goers in the 1980s. The dominance of modern day events leaked into this fil as to teams from the United Sates and Soviet Russia attempt to gather information on a mysterious monolith outside Jupiter and they try and uncover the mysteries surrounding the Discovery. The film’s epic ending of a birth of another sun landed this sequel in the number 9 spot for the Giggaheim.com Podcast crew.
8 ) Spider-Man 2 (2004) Sam Raimi makes the Ten in a Half sequel list again with his second installment of the Spider-Man franchise. After he got all the exposition of the character out of the way in Spider-Man, Raimi went back to work, and introduced Doctor Octopus as the lead anti-hero and infused the fan favorite “Spider-Man No More” storyline. With high-wire fight scenes, good humor, painful drama, and Academy Award Winning Special Effects, Spider-Man 2 won the comic book fans’ hearts, and made us all hopeful that if there were a Spider-Man 3, it would be fantastic.
7) Superman 2 (1980) Speaking of comic book movie sequels, Superman 2 barely edged out Marvel Comics’ wall crawler for the number 7 spot. Although Superman won audiences over in 1978, Richard Donner proved that Superman was a great hero when he returned to the movie in 1980. By introducing 3 super powered convicts from Krypton, and challenging Kal-El with normalcy Superman defeated his villains, and embraced his heritage in an action packed sequel that demonstrated what made Superman so…..super. And this time, it was without turning the world backwards. (cheat)
6) Christmas Vacation (1989) After a miserable vacation through Europe that made audiences fatigued, Jeremiah Chechik reinvigorated the National Lampoon Vacation series with what is now a Christmas movie classic. Clark Griswold attempts to survive another Christmas filled with loony family, crispy dinners, super-slick sleds, and about 100,000 Christmas lights. The movie isn’t just highly quotable, but also reminds us of at least one part of Christmas with out families.
5) Aliens (1986) You can see a pattern in the 1980s can’t you? Well the next movies we hit next on the list will all be classic sequels that were hotly debated on the Giggaheim.com Podcast, and Aliens was definitely one of them. James Cameron built an action/thriller on Ridley Scott’s terrifying space thriller with a legion of aliens, a squad of marines, and claustrophobic sets. The movie wasn’t just injected with testosterone and action though. Cameron, David Giller, and Walter Hill created a story that added to the Alien mythos, and fleshed out the world we could barely see in the shadows.
4) Batman: Dark Knight (2008) The most recent of our Ten In a Half, The Dark Knight had a superior amount of the winning combination that reboot the Batman franchise with Batman Begins in 2005. With the stoic Bruce Wayne in place, Christopher Nolan increased the amount of dramatic stress and intensity by introducing the iconic Batman villain, The Joker. Heath Ledger would envelope the role, winning himself a posthumous Oscar for his performance, devouring the screen and making his presence felt off screen. Nolan also succeeded where others failed by introducing several villains without compromising the story, pace, or interest for the viewers.
3) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) In 1966, The Seed was first aired, and TV audiences were treated to a villain that almost bested Captain James T. Kirk: Khan Noonien Singh. The genetically engineered super-villain wreaked havoc on the Enterprise, wound up maroon on a planet, and has a triumphant return in Star Trek II. Ricardo Mantalban reprised his role, and wastes no time hijacking a Federation starship and hunting down the man responsible for his sorrows. Under Nicholas Meyer’s direction, the Star Trek franchise found new life after an almost fatal start on the big screen. He brought a more Naval approach to the film, bring the sense of the military back, and treating the audience to a thrilling engagement of two starships attempting to destroy one another. Along-side the space battles, we get a deeper look into the psyche of James T. Kirk, and we see how Khan and Kirk complete a willful and deadly circle. Not only was the battle between two forceful wills engaging, but the movie broke our hearts as we (SPOILER) suffered the death of Spock. Many a fanboy’s tears were shed that day, and we still feel the pang of loss when watching our favorite science officer collapse in the Dilithium chamber.
2) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) Our other director who was able to make the Ten In A Half list was James Cameron. The director who brought new life to the Alien franchise tuned his attention to one of his first films, The Terminator. Continuing the tale of a AI shattered future, Cameron resurrects the Terminator from the original 1984 movie, and pits the unstoppable killing machine against a more advanced unstoppable killing machine. With ground breaking special effects by ILM, the shape shifting T-1000 slaughters, impersonates, and keeps on coming through this action packed, futuristic bonanza. The original was an intense chase/action film, and the sequel continued the tradition by pushing the bounds of special effects while keeping the traditional action pace.
1) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Event after 30 years, this classic tops our Ten In A Half list. No greater pressure could befall George Lucas than to follow up on his smash hit Star Wars. However, with Lawrence Kasdan’s script and Irvin Kershner’s direction, George Lucas brought an A-team to bear and created a legendary sci-fi sequel. Balancing several storylines, the Star Wars mythos deepened into a yawning chasm of Jedi teachings, Imperial dominance, bounty hunters, exotic planets, malfunctioning ships, giant battles, diminutive masters, and sorrowful endings. The amount of elements injected in this story was as vast as the world the original Star Wars had introduced. The characters only got better, the script can be repeated verbatim by any geek worth their salt, and the special effects by ILM were untouchable. Even the Special Edition of this movie released in 1997 had very little added to it since the movie was delivered as close to perfection as possible out of the can. Not only did George Lucas reinvigorate a genre, but this team he assembled showed the world how to build on greatness, and make a sequel.
