Something Completely Different

I'd like to take some time and build off a concept that Kopech touched on in his post this morning (by the way- in lieu of firing me perhaps we could just halve my pay?): the movie trilogy. There are some movie trilogies out there that flat-out rule and there are some out there that are a huge disappointment. Then there are some that aren't trilogies at all but are long-running movie franchises and sometimes you get a two-movie story arc. I wanted to briefly look at all of these and classify them. So without further ado...

MOVIE ARCS THAT OWN:

• Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi -- The original Star Wars trilogy is in a class by itself and really needs no explanation as to why it is just so goddamn good.
• James Bond -- There are infinity billion movies in this series and there have been plenty that have sucked (Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, View To a Kill, The Man With the Golden Gun) but the really good ones (From Russia With Love, Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldeneye, Casino Royale) have more than made 007 one of cinema's greatest series.
• The Godfather, The Godfather Part II -- These two also go without saying. I am excluding The Godfather Part III from this list for reasons that are equally obvious.
• Rocky I-IV -- Under the rules set forth by Godfather Part III, you're allowed to ignore the final movie (or two) in a series if the movies that preceded it (/them) kicked ass. See: Rocky.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I-II (live action) -- Another movie that had a final sequel omitted thanks to the Godfather Rules.
  
• Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II -- Kevin Smith's Jersey Shore series was just amazing: great dialogue, deep characters, dick and fart jokes... what more could you ask for?
• Back To The Future -- So good it's unfair.
• Indiana Jones -- Ditto.
• Kill Bill vols 1 & 2 -- These will go down as Tarantino's masterpiece.
• National Lampoon's Vacation -- Still one of the most underrated sets of comedy movies of all time. I can't get over how under-appreciated these flicks are.
  

MOVIE ARCS THAT SUCKED:

• The Mighty Ducks 1-3 -- See below.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith -- These movies were freaking garbage. Please don't get me started.
• Scary Movie 1-249, Epic Movie, Date Movie, etc. -- Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the world's greatest fans of parody but if you're going to parody something, please make sure that you're funny first. These movies all sucked something terrible and weren't even remotely funny.
• Scream -- Y'know what? Let's just throw all the new horror movie series in here. Saw, Hostel, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Final Destination... crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

MOVIE ARCS I AM APATHETIC TOWARD:

• The Lord of the Rings -- Never saw 'em, never will. I defer to Kopech on this one.
• Harry Potter -- Same as above, though my sources tell me that Snape kills Dumbledore.
  
• Bridget Jones' Diary -- These almost certainly belong in the "suck" category but that would not be fair as I was born with (and still have) a penis and therefore will never even consider watching any of these movies. It sort of like how I'm almost positive that Sex and the City sucks but I'll never know for sure since I'd rather give myself lasik with a rusty hand drill than watch that show.

MOVIE ARCS THAT STARTED STRONG THEN WENT DOWNHILL:

• Caddyshack -- The archetypal movie arc of this category. The first was one of the greatest movies of all time while the second was a steaming pile of feces.
• American Pie -- Started off with a bang by showing us Shannen Elizabeth's breasts and then just devolved into Jason Biggs and Sean William Scott repeatedly humiliating themselves on celluloid.
• Slap Shot -- See Caddyshack. Slap Shot is one of my favorite movies ever (#6 and climbing on my all-time list), but if I ever meet the ass-clown that green-lighted Slap Shot 2... violence.

Your thoughts welcomed in the comments.