While running some errands today, I started thinking about sequels which I like more than the original. Here are a few.
Aliens: Alien and Aliens are very different films, the former being a space monster movie and the latter being a space Vietnam movie. Space Vietnam apparently appeals to me more. No great artistic statement here on my part, though. But things blow up!
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: The objective value of anything genre is hard to determine. There are more than a few people who would put any genre work on a different, if not necessarily lower, level than a "mainstream" work of art. Putting aside the difficulties in charting the mainstream, let's just say that something like Star Trek exists in a world whose values are occluded to the majority of the public. Fans tend to judge the value of any individual piece of Star Trek, or by extension a genre work in general, by whether it is "genre" enough. That is, there is a whole set of values whose meaning is completely occult to the general audience. The new Enterprise is not "22nd century" enough? What on earth does that even mean? Well, it means a lot, if you're in on the secrets. But what I really want to say is that, any consideration of "Star Trek-ness" aside, The Wrath of Khan is a really good film. Its focus is tighter than the notoriously casual first film, but beyond that, it stands out as one of the really good science fiction films of the 80s; in my opinion at least as worthy of consideration as Terminator, or Blade Runner, or Aliens, or what have you.
Monty Python's Life of Brian: Holy Grail is a funny collection of Arthur-themed sketches. Life of Brian is just as funny, and it also happens to tell a cohesive story, making it, in my eyes, more of an actual film than any of the others. Except for the bit with the aliens, maybe.
Pinkerton: Weezer's second album, and the first one to include a song that really caught my attention. (Not due to the first album failing to do so, but due to my own "musical awakening" only occuring around the time this one was released.) There are a lot of good songs on the blue album, but with Pinkerton Rivers Cuomo presents a whole album of songs about really awkward moments in his love life. There's lots of embarrassment and pain, and things are said that Cuomo might, in retrospect, wish weren't. Which is why it is so good. After this, Weezer doesn't lose their ability to write really neat music with lots of hooks, (Assuming that word means what I think it means in this context.) but they have as of yet written no lyrics that really say anything worth saying.
That's a few, anyway.
Aliens: Alien and Aliens are very different films, the former being a space monster movie and the latter being a space Vietnam movie. Space Vietnam apparently appeals to me more. No great artistic statement here on my part, though. But things blow up!
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: The objective value of anything genre is hard to determine. There are more than a few people who would put any genre work on a different, if not necessarily lower, level than a "mainstream" work of art. Putting aside the difficulties in charting the mainstream, let's just say that something like Star Trek exists in a world whose values are occluded to the majority of the public. Fans tend to judge the value of any individual piece of Star Trek, or by extension a genre work in general, by whether it is "genre" enough. That is, there is a whole set of values whose meaning is completely occult to the general audience. The new Enterprise is not "22nd century" enough? What on earth does that even mean? Well, it means a lot, if you're in on the secrets. But what I really want to say is that, any consideration of "Star Trek-ness" aside, The Wrath of Khan is a really good film. Its focus is tighter than the notoriously casual first film, but beyond that, it stands out as one of the really good science fiction films of the 80s; in my opinion at least as worthy of consideration as Terminator, or Blade Runner, or Aliens, or what have you.
Monty Python's Life of Brian: Holy Grail is a funny collection of Arthur-themed sketches. Life of Brian is just as funny, and it also happens to tell a cohesive story, making it, in my eyes, more of an actual film than any of the others. Except for the bit with the aliens, maybe.
Pinkerton: Weezer's second album, and the first one to include a song that really caught my attention. (Not due to the first album failing to do so, but due to my own "musical awakening" only occuring around the time this one was released.) There are a lot of good songs on the blue album, but with Pinkerton Rivers Cuomo presents a whole album of songs about really awkward moments in his love life. There's lots of embarrassment and pain, and things are said that Cuomo might, in retrospect, wish weren't. Which is why it is so good. After this, Weezer doesn't lose their ability to write really neat music with lots of hooks, (Assuming that word means what I think it means in this context.) but they have as of yet written no lyrics that really say anything worth saying.
That's a few, anyway.
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