The Sequel Syndrome

Hey everyone!

It's been awhile, but I'm still alive. Before I start talking about my topic today, I have a couple things to say that you all should be aware of. I recently found out that someone posted links to porn websites in a comment in one of my posts. I've removed the comment, but I'd like to just warn all bloggers out there to be aware of activity on your blog. I've also changed the settings on my blog so now I can moderate all the comments that go on my blog. I suggest you should probably do the same thing so you avoid the problem I had. I don't know the commenter, and I'm not sure how she got my blog url, but I'm taking precautions to prevent it in the future. Seriously though, what is wrong with people? I'm pretty disgusted by the whole thing, ugh.

Anyway, on with the topic! This post is all about sequels. I was looking at the movies that have come out in the past ten years and I realized that a disturbing amount of them have been sequels and prequels. Most of you that know me know of my strong prejudice against sequels. I  can probably count on one hand the sequels I thought were good. So I thought I'd talk about sequels and my issue with them.

When I say sequels, I'm not talking about trilogies that were previously planned along with the first movie, such as Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the Batman Trilogy, (though I have a few issues with that one, but we won't go there). I'm talking about sequels that weren't previously planned that come about as a result of the popularity of movies. I feel that these types of movies fall victim to what I call the Sequel Syndrome. Movies under the Sequel Syndrome tend to have the same problems which include lack of character development or even character regression, an unoriginal plot, and inferior effects and animation.


I feel that the Sequel Syndrome comes about because a movie does so well that the creators make a sequel they didn't plan on making. As a result, they may not have the ideas for an interesting original story and instead just fall back on tropes and character regression. Now this may not be the case for all sequels but this is a common problem that I've found in most sub-par sequels. Let me explain more using a sequel as an example. For this case, I'm going to use the movie The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

So let's first look at the first problem of the Sequel Syndrome: character regression. In a good movie, the main character generally goes through a change and develops in to a stronger character and person. With bad sequels, they tend to treat the main character as if those changes never happened at all. Basically they regress in development.

In the case of The Little Mermaid II, Ariel regresses back into being a stubborn unreasonable character. She forbids her daughter from going to the sea with no reason, and refuses to listen to her side. You'd think that since she had a father who had done the same thing, she would at least be willing to explain why. But she doesn't. I feel like Ariel just doesn't grow in this show.

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

Another problem is that sequels tend to fall on overused tropes, so there's little to no originality in the plot. It's easier to fall back on a common trope instead of coming up with something original.

For example, in The Little Mermaid II, they use the whole teenager rebelling against the parent trope. This is a problem mainly because it's an overused concept and also the fact that the story is almost exactly the same for the sequel as it was for the original. A teenage girl loves a different world forbidden by her parent. In anger, she turns to a sea witch in order to be in that world. Things go sour from there, the witch rises to power, but is eventually brought down, and the girl and her parent are brought to an understanding.

There's nothing original about this story at all. The movie was meant to just ride on the success of the first movie and make a lot of easy money.

And finally, there's the issue of inferior animation/special effects. In the case of animated movies, sequels tend to have less quality animation. This is usually because they want to get the movie out as quickly and cheaply as possible.

The Little Mermaid II is no exception. While the design for the characters is fairly decent, the actual animation just isn't very good. Another good example of this is actually The Hunchback of Notre Dame II. The animation and character design is terrible and over-simplified compared to the stunning original. Check out the pictures below to see what I mean:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II

Now despite everything that I've said against sequels, I actually don't hate them. I just think they're not fulfilling their potential. My friend Jason pointed out that a sequel of a movie has the potential to create a deeper story and characters because it's not constrained by certain elements that an original movie is. An original movie has to spend a fair amount of time creating the characters, setting, and theme. A sequel already has those elements established and can focus more on other things like character development or complex plots. Unfortunately, few, if any sequels actually do this. Instead they fall to the Sequel Syndrome and are just used as cash cows.

So there's my thought on the Sequel Syndrome. Granted, in recent years I've seen some sequels that were actually pretty good (Star Trek Into Darkness, How to Train Your Dragon 2). But that's because they had an original story and the characters were developed more instead of falling back on previous issues. So I think the movie industry is wising up a little bit. We're also seeing a rise in movies that connect to each other in story, like all the individual Avengers movies. That's what sequels are meant to do: continue the story. Let's hope we keep seeing some more good sequels!

Well, that's all I've got. Until later, folks!