Have you ever seen a movie that was so bad that not only did you never see it again, but you accepted that as far as the movie universe is concerned, it never happened? Four such movies qualify in my mind: 1) The Matrix III - Morpheus goes from being a GOD in the first movie, to a total pussy-whipped wuss, riding shotgun in the Axelon to his mistress in Part III? The Matrix makes a deal with humans? Beyond disgraceful 2) Transformers: Rise of the fallen: Similar to Morpheus, Megatron becomes a total pussy in this flick. In addition, poor humor, and robots leg-humping Megan Fox. 3) Rocky V: A movie SO BAD, that a sequel with Stallone boxing in his 60s was actually WAY better. 4) The Godfather Part III: Two chapters of elite filmmaking have never been so bastardized by a sequel as this series was by part three. By far the worst offender on the list.
The problem with the Godfather Part III is that almost nobody cared what happened to Michael Corleone by that point and that's what the movie was essentially about. The Godfather was a great story with great actors and that's where it hang its hat. Godfather II was the story behind the story, with Vito's backstory on the one hand and the backstory behind the assassination attempt on him on the other. Great acting again and a great movie. By Part III all the good stuff had already been done and even the acting couldn't turn it into a great movie.
I find I'm good at avoiding sequels to movies I like that are reportedly terrible. Never saw Matrix III (even 2 wasn't great), Hangover 3 (2 also not great), the sequel to Boondocks Saints and same goes for Taken 2. I avoided them out of fear of them ruining movies I liked. One that does fall into your category: Jurassic Park. I still love the first one and completely ignore that the other ones exist. Same goes for Jaws. For me it's a standalone movie, don't even acknowledge the others although I saw a few of them.
The Matrix II wasn't that bad. I totally bought Agent Smith becoming corrupt with power, and the ending made me wonder where they were going next. Unfortunately, next stop was straight down the crapper.
My only real problem with Matrix II is they really crammed the philosophical stuff down your throat. Those scenes about cause and effect vs choice. To me that should be much more subtle and let the audience come to their own conclusions but I felt like they were beating me over the head with it and that kind of turned me off. You have to pick a path: have intricate and intellectual themes deeply embedded within your narrative that the intellectual people will pick up on OR be very surface level and appeal to a mass audience who maybe isn't as intellectual and won't pick up on themes unless they are blatantly obvious. They tried to do both and it bothered me. They aren't alone in that, obviously, it happens in a lot of movies but their way of handling it seemed particularly egregious.
Mortal Kombat Annihilation [youtube]InrQBpj__Vc[/youtube] First off, how the hell do you make this film without Christopher Lambert? It was so bad
THAT was a bad movie, well worthy of the list. When they killed Johnny Cage in the first 30 seconds, I knew we were in trouble.
I don't know if you were ranking them or just listing them, but if you are ranking them, Rocky V has to be #1. Pathetic. The worst piece of shit ever made. I will add Spider-Man 3 to the list. I loved Spider-Man and enjoyed Spider-Man 2, but 3 was just awful. In fact, it ruined a franchise.
Rocky V was probably worse, but to me, the Godfather 3 gets the top spot on the list because of the quality of the franchise destroyed.
Not that any of the Fast and Furious movies are great movies by any stretch but Tokyo Drift was terrible and even they pretend that movie never happened
One class of movies that can almost literally qualify as "never happened" are terrible remakes of movies - everyone simply ignores that the remake was ever made, and goes back to the original. Examples of this include "Guess Who" (the remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), the remake of "Godzilla", the remake of "The Omen", the remake of "The Island of Dr. Moreau", the remake of "Swept Away", the remake of "The Pink Panther", the remake of "Alfie", the remake of "Total Recall", the remake of "The Karate Kid", the remake of "Arthur", "Poseidon" (the remake of "The Poseidon Adventure"), the remake of "Around the World in 80 Days", the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", etc. Admit, you didn't even remember most of these movies were even made.
Godfather III was OK. It didn't need to exist but it was not even close to bad. Couple awful ones: -Crazy, Stupid, Love -Man of Steel -2012 -Meet the Fockers -Hot Tub Time Machine
How dare you! But anyways, Starship Troopers 2 and 3 were beyond terrible, and I'm a HUGE fan of the first one.
Godzilla was realy, REALLY bad. The whole city is being destroyed, and one character is excited to be in the Knicks lockerroom?
I also never saw that new Wizard of Oz movie with James Franco but it looked terrible and a few friends of mine said they had to turn it off it was so bad. I wouldn't say it "ruined" the Wizard of Oz but that's one people will probably pretend never existed to maintain the integrity of the classic.