The Curse of the Black Sequel

We saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest a couple of weeks ago and we were pretty disappointed.

Why am I disappointed? Sequels are supposed to suck, right?

If a sequel's NOT ENOUGH like the first one, people will say "It wasn't at all as good as the
first one." If it's TOO MUCH like the first one, people will say it was a re-hash. And then
there's a long history of movie series gone bad:

Category 1: BAD SEQUELS

• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Star Wars: Episodes I-III
• Rocky 3 & 5
• Die Hard 2: Die Harder
• Alien^3
• Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome
• Rambo 2 & 3
• Jaws 2, 3, 4...
• Batman Returns, et cet
• The Sum of All Fears

Category 2: GOOD SEQUELS

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Star Wars: Episodes V & VI
• Rocky 2 & 4
• Die Hard with a Vengeance
• Aliens
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
• Patriot Games & Clear and Present Danger

In fact, there are only four good series that I can think of without any crappy or semi-crappy sequels:

Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Lethal Weapon
Anne of Green Gables

To conclude: Some sequels suck. Even when a sequel sucks, they can sometimes pull the series out of the toilet (ex. Indiana Jones). Sometimes a series can be really good and they take it too far (ex. Mad Max). And sometimes they should have stopped after the first one (ex. Rambo: First Blood).