The sequel used to be tricky business. As a filmmaker, you used to have to try and stay true to the original film while advancing the story in an interesting fashion and evolving the characters. That is – back when studio executives actually gave a shit about any of their products. Now it seems that more sequels come out each year than original films (you can lump remakes in here as well). I mean, Christ, 6 of the top 10 movies of 2007 were not only sequels, but most of them were THE THIRD in the series. Six of the top ten! Are we playing it safe? Are we running out of ideas? Are we too afraid of change? Were people really that desperate to see another installment of National Treasure or Shrek? I need answers!
Of course, at least most of the time these days, the filmmakers try to invent a new adventure in which our favorite friends take part – Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann execute an impossible-to-follow series of double crosses in order to… actually I’m not really sure who was trying to achieve what in that third Pirates movie – but there was a time when it was clear the filmmakers truly just did not give a crap. The studio came knocking on their doors with armfuls of cash to pump out a sequel like yet another peculiarly named Sarah Palin child, and the filmmakers snickered as they did their best to see if they could get away with handing in the exact same script with minor adjustments without anyone at the studio noticing.
Obviously, this tactic worked at least a few times. Tell me Home Alone 2 was fundamentally any different than the first one. Convince me that the basic structure of Wayne trying to win back Cassandra from her richer and better-looking producer changed somewhere between Wayne’s World and Wayne‘s World 2. And even though they played the evil nation of Iceland in D2, the fact that Averman, Goldberg, and Spazzway still play worse hockey than your average local chapter of Jerry’s Kids renders it indecipherable from the original.
You could make the same case for Major League II. And basically, you’re not wrong. Except that I’m here to tell you that, no, in fact, you ARE wrong, dear CJS reader. Here are the main ways in which Major League II differs from (and in many ways is superior to) the original, and great, Major League. Continue Reading »
