The Unseen Movie Review: Trilogy Theory

By Robert Dixter Jan 11, 2008, 17:17 GMT

This past week I popped in the Pirates 3 DVD, At World’s End. I turned it off after about half hour when I realized that nothing was happening and there was no story to speak of. All I saw were multiple Johnny Depps in the desert.

Now that 2007 is wrapped up tighter than Pete Wentz’s pants, it’s time to look back at what we learned. Aside from learning that celebrities can do less than an hour of jail time, I’ve learned trilogies need space. 

Last summer saw more third editions than Blade Runner DVDs.  Ocean’s Thirteen, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider-Man 3, and Shrek the Third.  They all came out with a greater continuing saga than Britney Spears coverage in each case.  Some were good, some were mediocre and some were bad, but I did learn one big lesson that I would like to call the Trilogy Theory.  Whenever two sequels are shot back to back they become too convoluted and do not work.  Notice I did not say shooting three films back to back to back.  We all know Lord of the Rings was a successful trilogy because those three films were all shot at the same time and the films were based on a finite source of information, the three books.  But whenever directors shoot numbers two and three at the same time they are messy, self indulgent bores.  They are more confusing than NFL playoffs.

This past week I popped in the Pirates 3 DVD, At World’s End.  I turned it off after about half hour when I realized that nothing was happening and there was no story to speak of.  All I saw were multiple Johnny Depps in the desert.  If I wanted to see weird stuff for weird stuff’s sake I would ask Crispin Glover to shoot footage of the kids leaving the school from the all girls high school across the street from my house.  When directors and producers get the green light to make back to back sequels there is so much stuff they try to cram into it that they lose track of the real story.  They see these two films as one big movie and that’s the problem. I understand they are trying to create drama and provide the audience with a cliff hanger so they’ll have to come back for the second sequel, but all they really manage to do is stretch out a mediocre story over two films when there really was only enough meat to fill one film.

Watch Pirates 2 and 3 again and see if I’m wrong.  Essentially it is one big story with so many wrong turns and needless scenes that it ruins both movies.  Pirates is not the only trilogy to run itself into the ground due to trying to be bigger than its premise.  The Matrix ran into the same problem.  The first film was genius and groundbreaking.  I hadn’t seen that much leather since my Bar Mitzvah.  Then the Wachowski brothers got the green light to make two sequels back to back, and all they produced was two messes that cost me ten bucks each.  They could have crammed those two films together and made one tight project.  Remember that guy with the white beard talking about time?  I hadn’t been that confused since the first time I got to third base.  The Matrix trilogy wasn’t the first to make this mistake, that award goes to Back to the Future.  They shot part 2 and part 3 back to back and both films suffered from it.  Again, the story was very weak and the films ended up being a chance to show off set pieces rather than a cohesive story.

The problem with this theory is that while it is probably true it will never be considered or taken seriously by studios since it is cost prohibitive to shoot back to back and all these sequels make money anyway.  But look at the box office of The Matrix Reloaded compared to the Matrix Revolutions.  The first sequel grossed $281 million while the second took in $139 million.  People flocked to the first sequel because the original movie was so good, but they were so turned off by the second film that only half returned to see Revolutions.  The same argument can be made of Pirates.  Dead Man’s Chest pulled in $423 million and set the opening weekend record at that time.  At World’s End grossed $309 million.  It still is a huge success, but a $100 million difference from the first sequel.

Trilogies are fine, but take the time to create each movie as its own episode, its own story.  Give each one the time and attention that the story calls for instead of trying to cram bloated set pieces down the throats of the audience.