2011 is the summer of sequels. And three-quels, and four-quels (Pirates of the Crappy-bean) and five-quels (Fast Five, anyone?) and probably 1,000,000-quels if yet another straight-to-dvd release of Bring it On is in the works…
I’ve recently seen two alleged sequels of two highly popular films: Mean Girls 2 and Hangover 2. They are very different movies, obviously (one went STAF–straight to abc family– and the other has grossed hundreds of millions o’ dollars.) They are also not sequels. But they are not sequels in two very different ways.
Mean Girls 2:
…In Mean Girls 2’s defense they had a totally original poster concept. I MEAN they used more purple and the one in jeans has a leather jacket.
Firstly, I was a little disappointed by Mean Girls 2’s lack of a colon title. Examples of which could have been “Mean Girls 2: Tim Meadows is in this too” or “Mean Girls 2: Paying for Friends isn’t just for Sorority Girls.” Its main characters collective credits include: Camp Rock, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (an actual sequel, and admirable usage of a colon) AND CORY IN THE HOUSE (sucktastic spin-off of sucktastic that’s so sucking raven.)
WHY IT IS NOT A SEQUEL (Grease 2, style): Mean Girls 2 is not a sequel in the way that Grease 2 isn’t. Yes, it’s lovely to see that Frenchie has survived beauty school or whatever, and that Principal Duvall is still easily manipulated by 14 year old girls, but that does not mean it is any sort of continuation of the original story. Seeing new, less talented actors regurgitate a poorly written, loosely based on the original concept, screenplay is frankly disrespectful to the Mean Girls name.
The Hangover 2:
The Hangover 2 was funny. I also liked it when I saw it two summers ago and it was called The Hangover. Omg, relax I know I’m not the first to note the similarities. I just think that the creators played a good ole game of mad libs to create the second script:
“Alan, Phil, Stu and Doug go to _________ (place where mayhem ensues) because ________ (insert main character) is getting hitched. They get extremely fucked up and wake up the next morning to realize they don’t remember the night before. Stu _________’s (painful activity in the general facial vicinity). __________ (insert male character) gets lost and the others must find him. HILARITY ENSUES. Turns out _________ (same male character) was in the ___________ (extremely obvious, meant to invoke a “duhhhhhh”, location.) Oh wait, there’s a camera. Roll credits to __________ (Flo Rida ft. SOMEONE) and obscene photographs.”
WHY IT IS NOT A SEQUEL: It is not a sequel in the way that when I watched Easy A twice in a row I did not watch Easy A and Easy B. I watched the same movie twice, and laughed a lot. That is how I felt with the Hangover 2. Hangover 3 sounds promising though, and involves the wolfpack breaking Alan out of a psych ward (although I SWEAR Zach Galifinakis just made that movie and it was kinda a funny story (no really, that was what it was called.) That might just be a sequel.
The point of this run on tangent is that maybe movies should take a page from the Toy Story franchise, and make actual sequels. As long as there is no Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer 2, I can deal. (But hey, maybe Heather Graham will be kicked out of that one too?)
Falling Upstairs 