Come along, Ponds

5 sequels (or continuations) you thought were better than the original.

1) The Revenge of Frankestein. As you may or may not know, dear flist, I love Peter Cushing e'er so slightly and am a bit of a fan of ye olde Hammer horror movies. One of my favourites is The Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer's first colour movie, made in 1957, a massive global success and a brilliant movie. They followed it up the next year with Revenge and, amazingly, made it even better. Somehow Cushing is even more compelling, and the movie has an excitement and confidence to it that makes it a joy to watch. (I'd also say the fifth one, Frankestein Must Be Destroyed is better than the original; it's a much darker, crueller take on the good doctor.)

2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I don't hate the first movie, I find it sort of...nice when it's on in the background and you're not really paying attention? But, omg, the second. There is nothing about it that does not fill me with glee: middle-aged superheroes, McCoy's birthday present, any scene with Saavik, the Kobayashi Maru, any scene with Khan, the submarine nebula fight, Chekov all "omg! Botany Bay", Scotty all emo over his dude that stayed at his post, "KHAAAAAAAAAN!!!", Kirk and Spock in engineering omg teh emo...not the eel creature thingies though. Those totally freaked me out as a kid, and I still can't watch those scenes.

3) The First Law Trilogy. A fantasy trilogy by Joe Abercrombie that I read earlier this year and was very "well, it's quite good, and I am enjoying it and do like the funny bits an awful lot" at the first book, and Abercrombie's first novel, The Blade Itself. And then it just got better and better, with much in the way of Exciting Plot Developments that were ridic fun to read, and many a character that it was a delight to spend time with...as fictional people on the page. I wouldn't actually want to meet any of Abercrombie's characters, they are mostly awful. By the end, my only major complaint was a sad lack of female characters in prominient roles (the first book was particularly bad in this respect, but he got a bit better) and then he followed the trilogy with Best Served Cold, set in the same world, which turned out to be both my favourite of his novels so far and has a perfectly respectable number of women in it.

4) Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Ah, Monkey Island, almighty king of the point 'n' click adventure game, how I love you, filled with wit and fun and trying puzzles of puzzleyness, and convincing me that when I grew up I wanted to be Governor Elaine Marley. Again, this is one where I loved the original like woah, and then the sequel just upped the plot, the puzzles, the, um, graphics (256 colours! amazings!), the funny and, omg, THE TERROR. When I was wee and LeChuck kept zapping me at the end I became half-convinced I really was being zapped through the mouse and my hand was in pain. Mostly though, while MI was an exciting and fun adventure game, MI2 was exciting and fun and EPIC. The puzzles intersecting and overlapping each other when you're searching for the map pieces remains one of my favourite bits of gaming of all time. Also nailing Stan in the coffin. Heh.

Okay, this is really annoying, cause now I've started to think about it, there are rather a few sequels I think are better. I shall just make a quick list or they'll be bouncing around in my head: Batman Returns, Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead are both better than Night of the Living Dead probably cause Romero got even more pissed off at the world, The Four Musketeers mostly cause it's the second half of the novel and thus has all the pay-off, The Bride of Frankenstein, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Superman II, Terminator II...but the winner of the sequels, from this lot anyway is:

5) Aliens. Just better in ALL THE WAYS. Omg, Ripley, ilu. I also love Hicks, and Newt and Vasquez and that it generally bothers to let us get to know all the characters only to CRUELLY KILL THEM. And there are shiny explosions and scary, scary xenomorphs and tension of the pleasantly frightening variety. I like the SE best for it has the sentry guns scene.