Synchronicity 2

The list of sequels better than their predecessors is quite short. Too often Hollywood is less interested in expanding upon an idea and letting it evolve and breathe, and more consumed with the belief that people simply want the same thing again, just with new packaging. While there is a certain percentage of the population that has, shall we say, less than discerning taste, that is simply no excuse for the mountains of drivel and absolute trash heaped upon movie goers every year. How movies like The Mummy Returns, Pink Panther 2, Indiana Jones 4, or any of the constant stream of Police Academy, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Streets which glutted cinemas during the 1980s managed to constantly get green lit is beyond comprehension. Within the cesspool of regurgitated movie scripts, however, a few shining examples have crawled out of the mire, proving themselves not only as worthy successors to their predecessors, but as truly superior pieces of work. Three of the most often cited examples of this phenomenon are The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather 2, and Aliens. While I must confess I have not seen The Godfather 2, I can truly say that both Empire and Aliens deliver on the promises that any good movie, much less sequel, are supposed to fulfill for the audience. The characters do not remain static, they change and evolve as the events of the story dictate, just as real people adjust and grow to face new conflicts. The plots follow out of a natural progression of the stories set up in the previous films, in this case Star Wars and Alien. Events do not occur simply to pad the running time or to show off some state of the art effect. They provide a real sense of weight, posing dilemmas that characters must resolve.
In Empire, there is a particular scene that both reveals much about the character of Luke Skywalker as well as the overall conflict central to the story. The scene is not forced, but is a logical extension of the events that have come before.



By revealing Luke Skywalker's face behind Darth Vader's mask, the filmmakers are not only showing the central conflict of Luke vs Vader, but of the conflict within Luke himself. The scene lets Luke know, as well as the audience, that he has the potential to become the very thing he is fighting against. It's also a good bit of foreshadowing for their real fight at the end of the film, along with perhaps the most shocking twist ending ever seen in a Hollywood movie.

In Aliens, the character of Ripley becomes more developed through the introduction of the young girl Newt, who brings out Ripley's motherly instincts. The story becomes not merely about Ripley surviving another encounter with this alien species, but about the bond between mother and child. This bond is even examined between the alien queen and her offspring. While I could not find a clip of the final fight between Ripley and the alien queen, this cool montage shows the lengths Ripley will go to protect Newt. And while I may not agree with the creator of the clip that it's the greatest movie ever, I do believe that it's the greatest action movie ever. Enjoy.



Transmission out.