Ever watched a movie and loved it and then watched the sequels and hated them? Or perhaps the latter movies were good but simply had a different feel to them from the first. This discongruity has bothered me for a long time. I like a movie and then I feel like it was ruined by its sequels.To counter this effect I began thinking about movies in terms of real life time lines. Consider for a moment the theory that each and every decision we make creates another alternate universe, thereby creating an infinite number of universes (we've all heard of this theory). I decided to apply a similar logic to movies.
What if each and every sequel creates another movie universe. Before you say it sounds ridiculous, let's take a look at an example. "Pirates of the Caribbean": We have movie number one, "Curse of the Black Pearl". It stands completely alone and has a distinct end. From the end of "Black Pearl" we could see any number of possible next chapters (although no next chapter is required). Enter the sequel, "Dead Man's Chest", this film answers the question of what happens next. It gives a fairly competent sequel, but remember, anything could have happened at the end of "black pearl". The sequel, in effect, creates a possible universe where its events follow the events of the first movie.
To me this is a very helpful way of looking at movies. Sure they made more pirates movies, but in my mind the first movie is the true universe while subsequent sequels are possible (if unlikely) later chapters. I can like the first and ignore the others or countenance them as I wish. I know, this is a lot of complication for a simple idea, but as a movie-addict, it helps to keep me happy.
This split-universe effect holds true for only certain sequels. The first film must exist as its own concise chapter and not be set up with a cliffhanger ending. No one can claim that "the empire strikes back" is in another universe than "a new hope" because the first movie directly led into the second (no distinct ending as the villains are still at large). On the other hand, it's easy to say the the original three movies exist in their one univse while the prequel films create another.
This is where the fun begins. Let's take a look at some famous franchises. Clearly each Indiana Jones film creates another universe (in that case it even fulfill one of my pet peeves of this category, characters that are written out for sequels, what happened to Marion?). The first "Back to The Future" is in its own universe, while I would say the two sequels create a second. As they are connected by a cliffhanger ending between movie 2 and 3, I would say 2 and 3 are in the same universe (the same goes for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Matrix").
Most sequels can be viewed like this, and it really depends on how much you liked the sequels to how you want to view them. For example I loved the first two Spider-man films and view them as one universe while the horrible third movie creates a third universe, but you could easily say that the second film creates a universe also. The same holds true for Toy Story and the new Batman movies; if you liked the sequels you tend to group them with the first film.
So what films are exempt from this. Continuous series such as "Lord of the Rings", "Kill Bill", and the original Star Wars films are clearly exempt. The cliffhanger ending or undefeated villain is usually the best sign of this. Vader and Sauron both lived till the last movie, hence, no split universe. Other continuous movies (and when you think about it there aren't many) include 'Harry Potter" and "Twilight" (although this relies on how the books were written, if they books were split universe sequels than by following them, the movies are too).
Again this is a bit stupid I know, but it's also a fun way to classify sequels and get rid of disturbing ones (I've been known to use it on TV show episodes too although this gets tricky). So what do you think? Have you seen any interesting continuous or split-universe sequels recently?
