The way it generally goes with trilogies is that the first movie is a strong start, the second movie is the best, and the third movie is a bitter disappointment. There are many reasons for this. For starters, the expectations for the third film are usually so great that they’re impossible to live up to.
Furthermore, as the final chapter of a trilogy, there’s an obligation for the movie to have a definitive conclusion, ending the overarching narrative, which is tough to do in a satisfying way. Still, some threequels manage it – and others ruin their trilogies. So, here are 5 Threequels That Lived Up To Expectations (And 5 That Ruined Their Trilogies).
Lived up to expectations: The Dark Knight Rises
Frankly, it would’ve been impossible for The Dark Knight Rises to live up to expectations. The Dark Knight was easily the best part of the movie, ed away before the movie’s release.
Against all odds, The Dark Knight Rises was Tom Hardy’s Bane was certainly memorable, if not as incredible as Ledger’s Joker.
Ruined the trilogy: Spider-Man 3
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man practically what not to do with trilogy closers. The first and second films each still stand among the all-time greatest comic book movies ever made.
The first installment introduces us to Peter Parker and his loved ones, as well as his most iconic villain, whose threat helps him to realize his purpose. The second one escalates the stakes by taking away Peter’s powers. The third one, sadly, is overstuffed with too many villains, retcons, and emo dancing.
Lived up to expectations: Toy Story 3
The touted as the final chapter in the Toy Story trilogy, so all the expectations for a trilogy closer were there.
And astoundingly, despite the first two being considered near-perfect masterpieces, the third one managed to not only live up to expectations but exceed them. It’s a fun, fast-paced, exciting adventure, but it’s also a very emotional movie, culminating in an unforgettable climax that leaves even the most stone-faced viewer in tears.
Ruined the trilogy: The Godfather Part III
This one isn’t director Francis Ford Coppola’s fault. He felt that he’d told the story of The Godfather perfectly with the first two films – and he had – and wanted to leave it as a duology. It’s easy to see that from Paramount’s perspective, “the final film in The Godfather trilogy” is a good marketing hook, but the movie didn’t need to exist.
The tale of Vito Corleone coming to America, becoming a crime lord, and unwittingly corrupting his wayward son Michael to take over the family business after his death was told in two movies. Coppola made the third one as a postscript and it hinders the trilogy as a complete work.
Lived up to expectations: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
To be fair, Revenge of the Sith didn’t have sky-high expectations to live up to, since the previous two prequel films had been divisive at best among Star Wars fans. However, to satisfy those fans, it did have to convincingly turn Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader and show us how all the characters ended up where they were in the original trilogy. And somehow, George Lucas managed to pull it off.
Anakin and Obi-Wan’s lightsaber duel on Mustafar, the birth of Luke and Leia, and the masking of Vader were all satisfying payoffs, while the opening space battle, the trip to Kashyyyk, General Grievous, and Order 66 helped to make it a memorable movie in its own right.
Ruined the trilogy: Blade: Trinity
Wesley Snipes was planning a fourth Blade movie in the vein of I Am Legend, which would’ve had Blade living alone in a vampire-infested post-apocalyptic wasteland. Unfortunately, Blade: Trinity an action-packed horror thriller directed by the great Guillermo del Toro.
But then the third one tanked. It simply wasn’t inspired. Writer-director David S. Goyer didn’t strive to try anything new – he just rehashed what worked about the first two with diminishing returns.
Lived up to expectations: The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Identity was a more-or-less generic spy movie. It was engaging and Matt Damon was great in it, but it didn’t set itself apart in the way that its sequels would. For The Bourne Supremacy, the producers brought onboard Paul Greengrass, who started using the Steadicam techniques that the franchise is now known for and began to depart from the source material.
Instead of following espionage stories that were written in the ‘80s, he updated them to involve modern spy technology and culture. The Bourne Ultimatum is a riveting spy thriller that concludes the mystery of Jason Bourne’s identity in a satisfying way.
Ruined the trilogy: The Matrix Revolutions
It’s clear that the Wachowski siblings still had plenty of vision for their curious blending of anime, Japanese kung fu movies, William Gibson-esque cyberpunk, and allusions to Lewis Carroll. It’s just a shame that the plot of the third movie left a lot to be desired.
The second movie wasn’t particularly well-received, but at least it upped the stakes from the first one, spread itself across a larger scale, and was recently announced to be in development, so this could be fixed.
Lived up to expectations: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Peter Jackson rounded out The Lord of the Rings trilogy with a masterpiece that set the record for most Academy Award nominations (which was unprecedented for a sequel, a blockbuster, or a fantasy movie, so it was quite some feat). The Return of the King follows up on the gargantuan narrative established in the trilogy’s first two installments by finally getting Frodo and Sam to Mordor to destroy the One Ring.
And then after that, every other character gets an ending. The Return of the King expands even more on the epic scale of the first two, with battle scenes aplenty.
Ruined the trilogy: X-Men: The Last Stand
This movie was so bad that the same comic book storyline was adapted this year in an ultimately ill-fated attempt (ill-fated because they got the woefully incompetent hands of Brett Ratner.
The most memorable moments in The Last Stand are memes (“I’m the Juggernaut, b***h!”) and it failed so miserably that Fox hit the reset button on the X-Men franchise and began a 13-year slope towards Disney.
