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Yes, an irritating trend...

It used to be that a film was conceived as a one-shot, self-contained story. If it was a long story, there was an intermission. And if a movie became a "surprise hit", only then would the producers scramble to script a sequel.

At first, everyone knew and admitted that a sequel was simply an attempt to squeeze more money out of a successful movie. You could see The Poseidon Adventure and feel satisfied that Beyond the Poseidon Adventure was going to be a blatant exploitation that had nothing to do with the original "classic". One could accept that Jaws II would have a shark, but not much else to do with the original.

Then, with Star Wars, Lucas introduced the pretense (after the movie was a hit) that he originally conceived of a multipart series. You had to see The Empire Strikes Back (and the later sequels) to get the "whole" story.

It wasn't long after that we began to get original movies that were purposely made - and left open-ended - with the idea of a sequel in mind if they hit at the B.O. The most ridiculous example of this sort of presumption was the bomb "Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins" in the early 80's. Needless to say, the adventure ended there.

Now we're seeing long stories purposely shot in two or more parts (LOTR), pairs of sequels being shot together to form a trilogy (started by Back to the Future II and III and most recently seen in the mind-numbingly awful Matrix II and III), the two sequel movies being shown months apart when the story could have been presented as a single movie.

Worst of all, now we get an example of a single two-hour story, Kill Bill, being padded to three hours and then split in the middle to get suckers to pay twice to see the whole story.

Now , with the popularity of DVD, we see the release of a theatrical version on DVD followed only months later by a "director's cut" with additional footage to get impatient fans to buy it twice. I am really beginning to HATE the Hollywood system, especially when it purports to be creating "art".


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  • Yes, an irritating trend... - Dalton 16:48:54 12/30/03 (1)


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