Worst Third Film in a Series

Die Hard With A Vengeance is the best in the whole series!! wtf.

Most of these benefit from being the 3rd film in a series of ridiculous, low-expectations-generating movies. If the 3rd Matrix movie was anywhere as good as the promise of the 1st it would've been incredible instead of poop drippings.

Best part of Commando: When John Matrix and the girl need armaments for their suicide mission, so they break into a sporting goods store, which just happens to stock an arsenal of grenades, automatic rifles & rocket launchers.

Also, RE: "Remember when I said I'd kill you last? I lied." - "What happened to Sully?" "I had to let him go."

Fact: The script for the original Die Hard was originally intended as a Commando sequel.

is that true or is it an urban legend? reason I ask is that Die Hard's plot came from a book titled Nothing Lasts Forever.

BJO, I'm pretty sure it's true. The book was probably adapted as a Commando sequel at first. I will try to find information to verify this.

was just curious. I mean, it was a loose adaptation after all (character's names were changed and a lot of other stuff too, from what I heard...)

rong

The movie is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which was previously made into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra.

(I knew this already but just c/p'd)

didn't I just say the movie was based on that book?

From IMDB

John McTiernan was originally going to make Commando 2, but Arnold Schwarzenegger turned the role offer down. Commando 2 was transformed into Die Hard (1988) and Schwarzenegger was the first actor offered the title role, but he again declined. Eventually Bruce Willis would get the part after Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, and Richard Gere were all offered the role.

I found that earlier...the only thing that bothers me about it is I did a yahoo search containing the words "Commando" and "Die Hard" and only found that IMDB article and some other fringe fansite's info.

plus no mention of the novel...hmm. the MYSTERY REMAINS!

T3 for me. I'm a hater.

I mean, it was a loose adaptation after all (character's names were changed and a lot of other stuff too, from what I heard...)

I've actually read Nothing Lasts Forever, and very little about it was changed, with the major exceptions of:

-- The milieu is very 70s rather than very 80s
-- Joe Leland (the character's name in Thorp's novels) is going from NY to LA to visit his daughter, rather than his wife, from whom he is long divorced
-- IIRC the TV reporter subplot doesn't exist
-- The overall goal of the terrorists/thieves is slightly different, much less for personal gain than for some kind of "down with the system" anticapitalist deal
-- Someone significant who doesn't die in the movie dies in the book

Other than that, nearly every single significant action beat and plot point that appeared in the movie is in the book, from "fists with your toes" to the plastique down the elevator shaft.

I'll go with Matrix, although I hated the second one just as much. This should just have been one film, perhaps a sequel a lot later on than it was.

Tr3n released in 3001 will be the awes!

Richard Gere as John McLean!!! The wincing!

Also, people who think T3 was worse than AVP are heavily broken.

Die Hard With A Vengeance is the best in the whole series!! wtf.

-- nickalicious, Thursday, July 31, 2008 3:38 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Do you also eat dinner first thing in the morning and put your shoes on your head and your hat on your feet?

haha, it is pretty good though.

some contenders I have to dismiss...

exorcist iii: exorcist ii is one of the worst sequels ever, perhaps one of the worst movies ever.

godfather iii: I really like this movie. granted it's not up to the standard of the first two but that bar is pretty effin high.

alien3: not a great movie but fincher made some interesting choices and was majorly hassled by the studio as a reward, so he gets a pass.

return of the jedi: princess leia in a bikini forgives a host of sins.

jaws 3-D: it's in 3-D you fules! at least they tried. I actually saw this in the theaters.

I've managed to miss the majority of the remaining excrement on the list, so I have to reserve my reward for the one that broek hart: mad max beyond thunderdome.

14 year old me exited the theater that sunny summer day much further down the path of being the bitter and broken specimen you see before you now. in retrospect it's not a bad movie, but it dismisses the harsh vibes of the first two films for very little reward. judged by villain alone the progression from the toecutter -> lord humungus -> tina turner in chainmail is a pretty sharp dropoff.

Surprised at the lack of Superman 3 hate on here...

I watched Alien3 again recently and while it's definitely my least favorite of the series it's still got a few genuinely memorable moments. There's just too much lingering on the wrong things and not enough development of the potentially interesting parts. Whatever else was going wrong in the production of this thing, Sigourney Weaver is the driving engine of the series and she doesn't let down here.

Back to the Future 3 is just dopey - if you accept the premise it's fine I guess, but after the sweet high-concept comedy of #1 and all the timeline-altering hijinks of #2 it just has so much less going on. Whose idea was it that the entire thing would be in the Wild West? I admit that it beats some Quantum Leap thing where they do a cowboy part, a pirate part, etc...but it's still corny.

Die Hard With A Vengeance is a blast. It's too damn long and episodic - they clearly hadn't worked out how to end the thing - but it's got too many classic Die Hard lines to be discounted. OK, it was a weird move for the series to become a chase all around town instead of a confined-space thing, but there are other ways in which it fits into the lineage - mainly the great fake-out by the bad guy. And possibly my favorite line ever by John McClane, over a truck CB: Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, fuck-head!

No, this is Matrix: Revolutions's poll to lose. A trudging CG fest with all the detail, complexity, and drama of a video game FMV from 1998, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, let alone worst third movie in a series.

Die Hard With A Vengeance is the best in the whole series!! wtf.

-- nickalicious

Do you also eat dinner first thing in the morning and put your shoes on your head and your hat on your feet?

-- antexit

YA SRSLY. I mean, I dig on bad/campy movies as much as anyone, and enjoy movies that freely switch between bad-ass and stupid (Delta Force comes to mind). But DHWAV didn't work for me on that basis either -- I just sat there astonished at what a complete turd it became, after a sort-of promising 20 minutes.

Haven't seen Die Hard II, though, so I'm not evaluating it within the series, just as a shitty movie in its own right.

xpost the one-liners did nothing for me, and I wasn't having enough fun to want to believe in the fake-out

Superman III has one plus: Chris Reeves never looked hotter than in the scene where he flicks peanuts at booze bottles.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

this belongs to matrix revolutions

wachowskis deserve every inch of hate that can possibly be bestowed on to them.

what was the third Aladdin called...

Jurassic Park 3 shoulda been here too

Jurassic Park 3 was silly but at least it wasn't the Lost World. And it's like half an hour shorter, too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ahh, The Lost World. I wish it was a third film just so it could be on this list.

The movie famous for a young girl gymnast ACTUALLY SOMERSALTING AND KICKING OVER A DINOSAUR THAT WEIGHS SEVERAL TONS

The Schumacher Batmans I am now considering as their own separate thing, so now since 1989 there have been 3 sets of 2 Batman movies. Thus, Batman Forever is not the 3rd film of this series, but is rather the 1st in its own series. (I realize it was billed as the third and fourth upon their release, but Burton's and Shumacher's visions were so far apart from each other that in retrospect it doesn't make sense to group them together.)

disqualified

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

Matrix wins!

this really should've been won by a series where the 2nd was good enough that the 3rd could be considered a letdown.

take it to appeals!

lest we forget the other 'number 3s in 3-D' from the micro-genre:

Amityville 3-D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM0SWbO_VxE
"...as the horror reaches out beyond the edge of the screen"

and also:

Frday the 3th part 3-D! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WcC4pS_tU
"and now you can't even keep him on the screen"

Boy had i forgotten about the early 80s 3-D revival. What brought that on i wonder?

Yeah, yknow, at the time my feeling was that Matrix Reloaded was a letdown from the first but KINDA okay, so then Revolutions was just so unspeakably bad and stupid that it really stood out. But I'm watching Reloaded on TV right now and it's just as uninvolving and inept as Revolutions, just it's uninvolving dialogue scenes rather than uninvolving CG. I think it really benefited from the sense that all this portentous crap was going somewhere; knowing that it's not, it's REALLY tedious to sit through all the portents. So I think if I could I would go back and change my vote from Revolutions to Superman 3 or BTTF3.

Noted.

i don't hate jackson's LOTR trilogy as much as i used to. all wounds really do heal with time.

BTTF 3 is good.

the naked gun 33 1/3 was pretty bad.

have there been any GREAT 3rd films in a series? has there been a poll for best?

worst drop off has to be Jedi. the new Star Trek wipes the *floor* with Jedi and i said that as massive fan of the first 3 Star Wars films.

"have there been any GREAT 3rd films in a series?"

bourne ultimatums.

i must watch those.

its totally batman forever.

oh and yea bourne ultimatum was soooooooo awesome

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

I mean, the second Matrix was shitty as well, no?

Apart from the Godfather, which of these films had a sequel as good/better than the first?

i'll rep for thunderdome. critics loved it, but after the bleak awesomeness of Road Warrior, Tina Turner and some midget who is one half of "master blaster"? I didn't even finish teh movie, and I hear the second half is potentially worse!

batman forever>>>> robocop 3.

I guess you could argue that robocop 3 isn't terrible because it's such a hypnotic trainwreck.

i've never been tempted to watch it

no return of the king = bjo FUCKIN' UP

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a pretty great 3rd movie

yea i mean Samuel L. Jackson!!!11!!