Terrible sequels

[Tonguez]

Highlander.

There was a sequel?

 

[Tonguez]

Ghostbusters 2
(redeemed by Ghostbusters 2021)

 

[niklinna]

Alien - excellent.
Aliens - arguable even better.
Alien 3 - ...the Hell?

Johnathan

Why did you stop there? Alien IV?!?!

 

[niklinna]

Does a movie followup to a TV series count as a sequel? 'Cause I pretty well hated Serenity for a bunch of reasons.

 

[DeviousQuail]

The Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The Kingsman was a fun movie. Not a masterpiece, but besides a very weirdly placed joke near the end I can't think of anything I would change. The sequel, on the other hand, is the type of movie that gets worse the more you think about it.

 

[Retreater]

Anything after Terminator 2
Jurassic Park 2+

 

[Clint_L]

I dont think 3 was a good movie, though I do marvel at its script. It's a really interesting story about the colony. I have no idea how it was sold as a good idea for a film in the Alien franchise.

As a grad student I was doing work on William Gibson, and I got my hands on his unused script for Alien 3. When he was hired to write it, it looked like Sigourney Weaver was done with the franchise, so Hicks and Bishop are the main characters, Newt has a significant role, and it is much more in the vein of Aliens. It would have been way more fun than the Alien 3 we got, which is not a terrible film in many respects...considered in its own right. I mean, it's Fincher. But it's an appalling sequel to Aliens (my favourite film with the possible exception of this next one...).

To the OP, I think I gotta go with Jaws 2. Yes, Jaws 3 is worse, but it was Jaws 2 that took a near perfect film and attempted to turn it into a formulaic franchise.

Edit, also, Halloween 3. Halloween 2 is not as good as the original, an almost impossible act to follow. But it does a capable job of maintaining the continuity set up at the end of the first film. But Halloween 3...WTF?

 

[Muso]

Highlander.

I totally agree

 

[MGibster]

Godfather 3 comes to mind!

It might have been a bit disappointing, but worst? Worse than Highlander 2?

The third one was pretty awful too.

I saw this in the theater. It was the last movie I ever saw with him as he died two years later. I've gotten over his death but I'll never get over choosing this movie and making him sit through it.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

For me, terrible sequels have one consistent aspect, regardless of the franchise. Invalidating the first movie. There seems to be a tendency for filmmakers to want to put everything back to how it was at the start of the first movie, which leads to some incredibly lazy writing. Look at Ghostbusters II (Oh, no one believes in ghosts despite a giant stay puft marshmallow), The Force Awakens (Han's a smuggler again and Leia a rebel), Men in Black II (we're going to undo Tommy Lee Jones' character's happy ending), Jurassic Park/World sequels (John Hammond changed his mind like 3 times on whether a dinosaur park is a good idea, and he had all these secret business partners we never heard of). A good sequel develops themes and character arcs without pressing a reset button.