Movies that ignored previous sequels.. or should

[Vaibow]

Superman Returns was for me the first movie that tried retcon and ignore previous films (Superman 3 & 4). More recently, Halloween has made a bold and so far, positive step in this direction.


I believe a few films just keep quiet and almost forget, like Psycho 4 ignored 2/3. Jurassic World too has quietly forgotten the lost world it seems, but are there any other instances where franchises have rebooted midway and kinda erased history? X men and Terminator with the aid of time travel.

Also, as an afterthought - what franchise needs to forget DCUE i'm talking to you!

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

X-Men: Days of Future Past and Terminator Genisys were indeed the first two that came to my mind that rebooted in-universe.

As for films that just ignored previous entries in the series, didn't later entries in the Universal Soldier series do that? And I think I read that the upcoming Terminator is just going to ignore any sequels after T2 (including funnily enough Genisys ).

 

[DyeLorean]

I don't like when they do that. It feels like cheating. If you made a bad part 3 or 4 or whatever, own it. If this becomes a trend, it prevents studios from making good movies in the first place, so instead they go "oh hey, if we don't make a good movie, we'll just ignore it and in a couple of years we try again". Nope. If you f****d a franchise up, don't make it look like it didn't happen.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

I believe a few films just keep quiet and almost forget, like Psycho 4 ignored 2/3. Jurassic World too has quietly forgotten the lost world it seems, but are there any other instances where franchises have rebooted midway and kinda erased history? X men and Terminator with the aid of time travel.

Also, I've only seen the first one but I've got it in the back of my mind that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films did a similar thing.


Edit: Okay, it seems so,

"The seventh film, Texas Chainsaw 3D [2013], is a direct sequel to the original 1974 film, and makes no reference to the events of the other sequels."

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (franchise) - Wikipedia

 

[DarkKnight88]

Jaws: The Revenge ignores Jaws 3D.

Of course, the Halloween series has done it twice now with H20 and 2018.

As mentioned, the new Terminator will ignore everything after the second film. Also the recently announced RoboCop sequel is ignoring all but the first film.

Dumb and Dumber To gives a glimpse into Harry and Lloyd's childhoods which ignores whatever Dumber and Dumberer prequel tried to do.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I don't like when they do that. It feels like cheating. If you made a bad part 3 or 4 or whatever, own it. If this becomes a trend, it prevents studios from making good movies in the first place, so instead they go "oh hey, if we don't make a good movie, we'll just ignore it and in a couple of years we try again". Nope. If you f****d a franchise up, don't make it look like it didn't happen.

Yeah, I think there are ways to get around it by just not specifically referencing things if you don’t have to, but it does feel like cheating when you deliberately act as though certain sequels never happened. The latest Halloween, for example, pretends that all the sequels other than maybe Halloween 2 never happened. And I think maybe that could have worked if Jamie Lee Curtis hadn’t returned for H20 and the one after that. Though I will say that the new Halloween is a MUCH better movie than either of those films and is probably the only Halloween film other than the first one that I would watch again.

 

[Teelie]

The Highlander films. Virtually every movie ignores the previous movies in the franchise after the first one. In fact all of them ignore the end of Highlander entirely except ironically, Highlander 2 which is completely excised from the canon.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

Also, I've only seen the first one but I've got it in the back of my mind that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films did a similar thing.


Edit: Okay, it seems so,

To be fair TCM hasn’t really had the best continuity. TCM2 references the first, but after that none really has much in common besides Leatherface. The family constantly changes. Only TCM remake and Beginning were really coherent, and maybe Leatherface and 3D.