(no subject)

[jfb]

In Roger Ebert's Answer Man column this week, a reader states that "the third installment of all trilogies is either a disappointment or just terrible, even if the second film was great." He goes on to ask why people make third installments, but my immediate thought was: Are there counterexamples? Trilogies where the third film is really good and/or better than the first two?

Ebert gives a couple of examples (and ignores the question as stated). Can you guys think of any others? I've mentioned that I liked the third Matrix best, but that wasn't saying much, and anyway I know nobody agrees with me. A good third movie in a series that went on beyond three would be fine, too. Was the third James Bond movie the best one? I don't even know what it was.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

The third James Bond movie was Goldfinger, which many consider the best, but I prefer the second, From Russia With Love.

I'm expecting Return of the King to be the best of the three, but I'm not sure it counts as an "installment", since it's just the third part of the story. I'm not sure why I would make a distinction between it and, say, Return of the Jedi-- probably just because I know Tolkien originally intended it to be all one volume.

I didn't think Back to the Future 3 was any worse than the 2nd, but neither was as good as the first.

I liked Three Colors: Red the best, but not by much.

I liked the third Harry Potter book better than the first two; the movie seems promising, too, since it won't be directed by Chris Columbus.

Oh, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly might be the definitive counterexample. I think it's the only third installment on the IMDb top 100 (#25), and the other two in the trilogy aren't on there.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

My feeling about LOTR is that neither of the movies so far has been a great movie, but when we have the full trilogy in hand it will be A Great Movie. Sadly, I'm not going to the marathon screening tonight.

Red is a good example. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is part of a trilogy?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

when we have the full trilogy in hand it will be A Great Movie.

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. I think the movies kind of suck, really, but I think the third one will suck the least (because it's the most cinematic of the books).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is part of a trilogy?

Well, it's the followup to A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. None of the movies have characters or storylines in common, as far as I recall, but they're still considered a trilogy. I guess it depends on your definitions.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

Damn, I was going to say The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I'd forgotten about Red, that might have also been my favorite.

[wrog]

the Indiana Jones trilogy comes close. Last Crusade certainly beats the crap out of Temple of Doom, though I'll admit it's slightly blasphemous to suggest that it's better than Raiders of the Lost Ark,... but it's up there.

[wrog]

How about the Pink Panther series?

In fact, it's very odd to watch the first movie (The Pink Panther, which actually stars David Niven and Robert Wagner) because you realize that when they made it, they had no idea that the Clouseau character, who has relatively little screen time, would become so popular.

Then you get the second movie, A Shot in the Dark which was really more of an experiment to see if Peter Sellers could carry a movie all by himself as Clouseau. It's rather bare-bones; doesn't even have Dreyfuss (Herbert Lom) in it.

It really wasn't until the 3rd movie (Return of the Pink Panther) --- which took another 9 years to come out --- where everything comes together and the series is truly established (to the extent that Edwards could then churn out 4 more movies in somewhat rapid succession, never mind that 3 of them completely suck and two of them were after Sellers died...)