tendo82 said:
Not to derail my own thread, but we've been discussing this in the office and it is at least marginally related to the sequel discussion. Discuss!
Seems that for trilogies there's a trend to go downhill after the second in the series. As a Maths student I'm doing a module in Statistics, and using my 'expert knowledge' (xD) there seems to be a trend whereby 52% (so just over half) of these films have improved or remained consistent with a sequel. However, only 24%, less than half that value, maintain consistency or improve between the second and third films. Therefore this seems to suggest that most series happen to become progressively worse as more sequels are released. However, I feel personally that sequels, especially in video games, can be good
provided they remain true to what made the series good in the first place.
Several series of games have been able to improve or stay good with the release of sequels, the most notable of these being Half Life. I never played Half Life when it first came out, but am now eagerly awaiting the release of Episode 3, just as many others are. The sequels there didn't try to change what was good about the series in the first place, but rather changed the bad things, and also expanded on the story. Half Life was originally focused on Black Mesa and the events during the Black Mesa Incident, whereas later games expanded on this and introduced us to City 17, the White Forest, and new characters too. We could see the series from the viewpoint of new people, like Alyx Vance and Adrian Sheppard. This was all done while keeping the games true to their roots.
However, sequels can also be good for other things. With Halo, for instance, we saw the sequels create a new storyline and expand in one way, while the novels and comics expanded the series in another. Many people accuse Bungie and Microsoft of doing to Halo what LucasArts have done with Star Wars, i.e. milking the cash cow. However, the sequels are to expand the story and the rest of the expanded universe is built for the fans. Too much pandering to the fans can, of course, ruin the game completely, and indeed cause the inevitable downfall that franchises such as Star Wars have undisputedly faced.
The point of all this is basically that sequels can be a good thing, provided the developers know what they're doing. Sonic is a classic example of a game that has overstayed it's welcome because the sequels ruined the franchise. When Sonic Team made the jump to making 3D Sonic games (save of course for Sonic Adventure), they basically destroyed what was so great about the original games, and so the sequels were pretty much the downfall of Sonic itself. If they had stuck to the basics that made Sonic what it was then we wouldn't have any problems with the franchise now. Sadly, this wasn't the case. If a sequel is to be successful then it needs to remember it's roots. Simple as that.
N.B. Just realised this is my 1000th post. Woooo!
