Sequel Curse

The original: I love you.

The sequel: GET OUT RIGHT NOW

The looming, dispiriting effect in fiction that tacks undesired sequels, reboots, and other additions onto a franchise. The punch delivered to a series is much more painful to watch if it's especially successful and acclaimed. Sequel Curse makes most of its hits on aged franchises that audiences have long expressed admiration for. Big-name studios, in their never-ending hunger for more money to their pockets, milk the franchise for every last potential dime it's got. These additions are often accompanied by trashy merchandise with the Fan Favorite and Cash Cow written all over it. Moving forward, the only direction the franchise can go is down.

Many UnTrashes are tied inseparably to Sequel Curse in some way. Poorly-Aged Franchise, Purely For Profit, Fan Service, Nostalgia Flash, and Rewriting History are the faucets that drain a franchise's soul as it trudges against the pressure of time. They all topple the story off its rails and send a sledgehammer flying through the audience's ability to enjoy it. A common opinion about installments that suffer the bite of Sequel Curse suggests the franchise is missing something. This "something" can be a proper usage of screen time for characters, an impactful plot, or reason to exist in the first place. The root problem may also be the opposite case in which too much is thrown into the addition. New and unexplained characters and locations are often-seen examples of this. If viewers aren't complaining about there being too little or too much, they're likely displeased by how the handling was otherwise mismanaged. The ideal sequel welcomes the audience to a continuation of the story without intruding on its ending where everything resolved just fine. The sequel's own plot may answer questions not addressed by its predecessor or show the true end to a problem the Good Guys didn't have time to fix before. In short, an effective sequel uses its time wisely to build on what the original established. When put in the hands of Sequel Curse, an addition very clearly expresses its nonexistent respect for the journey that came before it. Sequel Curse tramples over the plot and characters to pave the way to giant returns at the box office. The mangled mess cranked out from this ruthless butchering is the defining instant the franchise took its last breath before degrading to a Poorly-Aged Franchise.