Seeing Sequels to Movies I Hated

I know I've written about this before but feel it needs reiterating: The idea that there are people who see movies, feel underwhelmed, and then say, "But you know the sequel is gonna be really good," is  beyond idiotic to me. It isn't that they needed to love a movie in order to see its sequel. It isn't even that they found a way to become invested enough in the story or characters or both to return. The idiotic part comes from the assumption that the first movie is often underwhelming but just wait for that next one, man!

Seriously? Have we become so addled by mediocrity and cynical marketing that we accept our own stupidity as justification for why our entertainment fails to work?

What bothers me even more, however, is when the people who act this way treat me as if I'm the crazy one when I say there is no way in hell I'm seeing a sequel to a movie I hated. Why would I? Why would anyone? That's anywhere from ninety minutes to over three hours of my life I'll never get back. Why the hell would I want to subject myself to that again? And more importantly, if I'm not invested after the first movie, why should I care what happens in the second one?

For years, a friend of mine has been doing this level best to convince me to see the sequels to a movie I absolutely despised because he sincerely believes I will say the second one was the one the filmmakers should have started with. When I reply that that would just piss me off because I spent time watching the first one, he seems baffled by my response.

That film series, along with the rest, is listed below in where I have compiled several examples of movies I saw whose sequels I do not ever plan to watch even for free:

The Matrix Reloaded: I found the first movie derivative, trite and poorly acted.

It: Chapter 2: Worst movie I saw in 2017. A total rape of the source material by a hack filmmaker and a terrible cast of bad actors.

The Second Pirates of the Caribbean: Come on! Have we met?

Frozen 2: (See Pirates reply)

The Hobbit 2: Not saying Jackson lost his mojo but it was nowhere on display in the first Hobbit film.


You'll notice some of these films are more than a few years old and only one hasn't yet been released. There are others but these are good examples. There have also been films whose sequels I swore I'd never see but did because of my investment in the character(s) via other interpretations, but even then I feel dirty and was pretty disappointed.

I was recently asked if I was going to wait to see the second "It" when it was released on DVD and I merely shook my head. At some point, with the exception of this post, I came to the conclusion that there really is nothing else to be said~