The most improved upon movie sequel?

People tend to say alien-aliens, terminator-terminator 2, Starwars- Empire Strikes Back but these movies tend to be great in the first place.

I think "Ripley's Game" is a case in which a sequel movie is well, well above the original. (it's worth noting a bunch of other lesser known "Ripley" movies have been made)

What are some other examples of movies that perhaps are good, not great that got an superb followup?

Kill Bill is the only one I can think of

To be fair, I think it was supposed to be one movie anyway, until the Weinsteins decided to split it into two releases. It was supposed to be re-released on DVD as one film and called Kill Bill: The whole bloody affair, but I don't know what became of it.

@Lord_Daemon said:

Ahhhh, you win.

I have seen this opinion share by others before on OT, so let me state this:

Aliens ain't a better movie than Alien. In my opinion it isn't even close. Aside from being a vehicle to showcase James Cameron's superb FX there isn't more much there. The obvious "group gets together and will die one by one" plot, the little girl plot and the most incompetent "Marines" unite in the history of the human race are some of the reasons I was dumbfounded after hearing so much good things about Aliens and then falling so short.

Why ask the question then kill the most obvious examples that come to mind? And Road Warrior was already mentioned.

Trolls 2 should be mentioned, it's a masterpiece

Empire and T2 don't apply in this case because we are talking about great sequels to bad first movies which A New Hope and T1 aren't. Now you can see how that is a hard task since it is generally more difficult to get the backing to make a sequel for a bad movie.

I would say:

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which I think is the best of the series period) since I didn't like the dark turn Temple of Doom took.
• Revenge of the Sith, since I consider Clone Wars to be worst of the 6.

And I guess you could name any good James Bond movie that was preceded by a bad one.

The Dark Knight comes to mind.

Guyver 2 > Guyver

Almost every Fast & Furious movie except for Fast 2 > Fast & Furious 1

Dawn of the Dead (original) > Night of the Living Dead (original)

Yeah, it took the franchise to whole other level. Captain America was pretty good aswell when it comes to Comic book movies

Devils Rejects was vastly superior to House of 1000 corpses

i just watched that movie a month ago for the first time in like 20 years.. its so bad now

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

X-Men 2

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Bourne Supremacy

Fletch Lives

Return of the Jedi

Some good suggestions already in here.

I am gonna add in a new one here. The Raid 2 improved on the original on every level!

Doesn't count, since it's worse than Batman Begins.

Terminator 2, The Dark Knight, Catching Fire, and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan all come to mind, but they were all building off solid foundations to begin with. I think the biggest leap in quality I can think of would be Fast 5. I enjoyed the first Fast and Furious movie in kind of a cheesy way, but the rest were all fairly mediocre. Fast 5 is one of my favorite action movies.

Still doesn't count because they are worse than Batman Returns.

.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was by far the best in the series...and that was the 3rd movie. I think all would agree with me on this one.

Terminator 2

I'm gonna give a shout out to The Rescuers Down Under. The Rescuers was a fairly lame film while the sequel had a good story, great animation, and fun characters.

Also, **** Terminator 2. I've talked at length about this so I'm not gonna elaborate further, but Terminator 2 is like if Terry Gilliam had made a flashier and higher budget sequel to 12 Monkeys. Everything that was needed to be said was said in the first movie. And if saying something new requires totally shitting on the previous movie, then you make the movies separate and not a fucking sequel.

The Original Vacation is loads better than Christmas.

It has aged a bit, since it's over 30 years old. But it's still a defining comedy for the early 80's

@Nuck81: The Original Vacation is loads better than Christmas.

Wrath of Khaaaannnnnnn!

I love devil rejects one of my fav movies.

The sequel to Anaconda. Still not a fan, but honestly...

I don't understand why so many people say Aliens is a better film than Alien. It's a better action film but Alien was a horror not an action. Aliens took away what made the Alien a good character. They made what was supposed to be the ultimate killing machine into something that can easily be mowed down by a small group of people with guns.

I enjoyed Rocky III and IV far more than I and II.