We’ve got two movies opening soon-ish that are sequels to other films, yet have eschewed the usual boring Blow ’Em Up 3: The Explosioning sort of titles. Star Trek Into Darkness actually makes you think about the fact that the “trek” part of the title is actually a verb. And yes, A Good Day to Die Hard sounds as if it, too, might be a Star Trek movie focusing on Klingons, but at least it’s trying to do something fresh with its title.
Is it just me? Am I the only one mystified by why more sequels aren’t more creatively titled? I get that there’s supposed to be name recognition built into a film’s title if it’s a sequel, but these two titles demonstrate that there’s still room for some fun. And yet we hardly ever see that sort of fun happening.
Why are sequels so often unimaginatively named? How might you rename some sequel titles to ramp up the fun? What sequel titles would you invent for films you’d like to see?
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Electric Boogaloo backlash?
Going back a bit fot this one-but how about ”Even Worse Day At Black Rock”?
“The Even More Final Solution.”
that was what I came here to suggest.
Me too, although I would be delighted if every “Part 2” sequel had “Electric Boogaloo” in the title. (We’d have to figure out something else equally odd for the “Part 3” sequels.) I figure I’m in the minority on that, though.
Originality is precious, and must be rationed.
The worst title I’ve seen recently is The Last Exorcism Part II.
That’s no worse than “The Last Seduction II”. LoL.
I kinda hoped they would keep making sequels to I Know What You Did Last Summer . . . After I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, I was hoping for You May Think I’ve Forgotten What You Did Last Summer, But You’d Be Wrong, or I Also Know What You Did Last Summer, or I’m Pretty Sure I Know What You’re Going to Do This Summer. . . . followed five years later by a remake/reboot/sequel just called Last Summer.
I don’t usually post a comment just to say, “That’s funny.” But: Hee.
Ditto.
I dunno what alternatives I’d propose at the moment but I’d like to propose a moratorium on the following stock sequel subtitles: Redemption, Retaliation, Retribution, (The) Revenge, Revelation(s), (the) Return…
…actually, just ban every single subtitle that begins with the letters “Re”. As well as Ascension, (The) Rise (Of), Origin(s) and Uprising.
And The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia :P
I think there are basically two reasons for the problem. A) creativity in any form is hard and ii) ‘they’ (whomever names films) don’t think enough about possible sequels when naming the first film. I’m thinking of an example from literature. Robert Lynn Asprin has a delightful series of humorous fantasy whose titles play on the word ‘myth’. But the first book he wrote he called ‘Another Fine Myth’ (playing on the oft-used line from Laurel & Hardy of course). Later he wrote that if he had thought about it more, he would have named the first book ‘Myth Conceptions’ and named the sequel…’Another Fine Myth’. I think moviemakers are in the same boat and just don’t think about future possibilities at the beginning. Or… they don’t want to sound conceited (or hex it) by naming the film with an obvious followup.
Considering how much studio indifference the original “Planet of the Apes” series had to contend with, those films got named surprisingly creatively.
It all goes back to the day Coppola wanted the second Godfather to be titled Godfather Part II (the first time a sequel was numbered) instead of something like the Rise And Fall Of the Corleones.
Titling movies is harder than it looks. There’s only so many times you can use “Electric Boogaloo” as a subheading.
Perhaps sequel-makers figure that numerals keep the story order straight in viewers’ heads, and help them avoid unintentionally skipping ahead. Years from now, glancing at a list of videos to rent, how am I supposed to know which comes first: A Good Day to Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance, or Live Free and Die Hard? Which would a casual first-time Harry Potter viewer queue up first: Order of the Phoenix, Goblet of Fire, or Chamber of Secrets? Yes, there are easy ways of finding out, but I suppose slapping a numeral on the title makes it virtually effort-free.
I do appreciate creative titles. Marvel is going the boring numeral route, but DC has discovered that you don’t need “Superman” or “Batman” in the title of Superman or Batman movies. Amazing!
Since I sort my DVD collection in alphabetical order, I would appreciate movie series being titled alphabetically.
Every time I see Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure coming before Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, my inner OCD screams at me.
I started writing a series of Chinese historical detective stories a number of years ago, and having had terrible trouble trying to get van Gulik’s Judge Dee stories in the right order, I decided that from the very beginning I would title the books alphabetically.
Needless to say, my agent couldn’t interest a publisher in the first book, Absent Heads, let alone its never-completed sequel Betrothal Gifts, so all my (OCD-driven) plans came to naught.
obviously, martha grimes has the same tendency (all of her titles are alphabetical)
and Carole nelson Douglas also tried the same thing with her
Midnight Louie series of mysteries.
Well, I salute them! (If a little enviously)
One could have fun writing a series with titles going: First Book!, Unfinished: A Sequel, Comeback, Keep Going… and so forth.
To be fair, some of the Marvel heroes didn’t have quite the same instant familiarity as Superman or Batman. Just seeing an image of either of them in costume would tip nearly any American of any age. Before 2008, I’m not sure you could have said the same thing about Iron Man or The Mighty Thor.
Spiderman certainly has Superman/Batman-level name recognition. The best that series got was The Amazing Spiderman. That was at least consistent with Marvel’s habit to adding adjectives to book titles (not to mention The Incredible Hulk), though I’ve never figured out how the X-men were “uncanny”.
Iron Man had plenty of name recognition for its sequels, even if it lacked it for its first outing.
Thor, otoh, is avoiding numbers with Thor: the Dark World.
I think the ease-of-use argument may go in waves – everyone expected the fourth Terminator film to be Terminator IV: (subtitle).
Well, those were the titles of the Harry Potter BOOKS, weren’t they?
Wouldn’t most fans of the novels know which were which? She didn’t call them Harry Potter III or IV, did she?
(Sorry, I got a bargain on “?” this week.)
Yes, yes, I know. I was using them as an example of a bunch of non-numeraled titles that a casual first-time Harry Potter viewer would need to take some time to sort out — not necessarily when the film is in theaters, but sometime later, say, when queuing up films on Netflix. (There are lots of people who saw — and who have yet to see — the Harry Potter movies who aren’t necessarily familiar with the books.) Give it a decade or two, or a generation or two, and there will probably be even more people asking “Wait, does Phoenix or Half-Blood Prince come first?”
I’m fine with non-numeral titles, by the way, if I didn’t make it clear. Just speculating on why numerals in film sequel titles might be useful.
Now that I think of it, the spine of each Harry Potter book sequel is marked “Year 3,” “Year 4,” and so on.
Godfather Part 2 was NOT the first numbered sequel. “Quatermass 2” came out in 1957, and it even used a numeral with no “part” or the like in between.
Henry VI Part 2.
Damn it all! Shakespeare got there first! Curses…
1st and 2nd Samuel.
F.Y.D.
Star Trek Into Darkness should more appropriately be titled, “2 Trek 2 Furious: Alpha Quadrant Drift” to better illustrate the mentality of the film.
+1 for your title, but -1 for your Abrams hating.
The marketing advantage of a sequel is the brand, so to that end, a “Toy Story 2” is better than a creative renaming which hides the original moniker. Lucas was inspired by pulp serials, so his naming conventions already allowed for “Brand Name Episode X: The Funny Name!” or “Protagonist and the Latest Adventure”. Die Hard lucked into clever sequel names, even if “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” is one of the perennial bad sequel name parodies. “Forrest Gump 2: Gump Harder” for instance.
The ones that drive me bonkers are the ones where the sequels weren’t planned.
“Alien” Nice.
“Aliens” Oooh, clever.
“Alien 3” Uhh….
“Alien: Resurrection” Dafuq?
Or when the sequels weren’t planned, but the producers retroactively try to introduce continuity to the titles . . . like the awkward attempt to rename the first Indiana Jones movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Yes, this. Which applies equally to the very retroactive naming “convention” of Star Wars Episode X: Triumph of Retcon.
Somehow, even as a kid, I managed to grok that Return of the Jedi was a sequel to Empire Strikes Back, which was a sequel to this cool little movie called Star Wars.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Studios try way too hard to be clever nowadays… X-Files: I Want to Believe, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and now… The Muppets…Again! (seriously, the last name isn’t made up).
Just a simple number after the main subject is much more succinct.
I dunno, Blow’em up 3: The Explosioning has a nice ring to it.
I would simply be thrilled to never again see the following words in sequel titles:
-Vengeance
-Revolution
-Annihilation
-etc
People complaining about numbers in sequel titles are WRONG. Tell me, without numbers how can you tell whether Action Movie: Vengeance comes before or after Action Movie: Attack of the Weasels? If they aren’t going to be creative about naming sequels, then at least give me a freaking number
I was going to offer The Muppets…Again! as an example of a good movie title. I think that’s hilarious.
As my aunt likes to say: It’s a matter of taste, and someone’s is lousy.
Funny how many of the 1930s movie series (Tarzan, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman, Blondie, The Thin Man, Mexican Spitfire, etc.) got by without the need for Roman numerals. Especially when you consider that the average moviegoer back then was far less likely to have finished high school than today’s average moviegoer…