Trilogy Meter

Someone posted this at work today, and since I haven't watched any movies to talk about, I think I'll comment on this.

The first glaring problem I see is under Indiana Jones. Temple of Doom (#2, for those who don't know) should really not be included on any lists ever. It just sucks. But since you need three movies to make a trilogy, and lord knows Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is even worse than Temple of Doom, I'm willing to reconcile with its existence at all on this chart. That said, it is certainly significantly worse than Last Crusade. Like maybe all the way down ala Godfather 3.

Next big problem I have is with the Lord of the Rings rankings. I think all three rankings should be a little higher, with Return of the King being the highest by a small margin. This is probably the best trilogy on this list by a pretty decent margin and I would like to see that reflected.

I agree that The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) was the best of the three. I think I like Mad Max (the original) more than Beyond Thunderdome. Or at least the same.

Back to the Future 2 is clearly better than Back to the Future 3. I mean, hover skateboards. 'nuff said. Terminator 1 is a lot closer to Terminator 2. Terminator 2 did have cool metal-melting-man action, but Terminator 1 was scarier in some ways cause it didn't rely on FX as heavily. I always like that.

Finally, there's the Alien Trilogy. Really, its tremendously difficult to put Alien and Aliens on the same list. They're completely different genres with little in common aside from some crossover characters. Alien is a horror movie- an old fashioned monster-based horror movie that's scary because you don't see the monster too much and never know when its going to strike. Its dark, wet, full of flashing lights, and relatively light on the gun play. Its paced more slowly so tension builds and you never know when the monster will pop out. Its probably among the scariest movies I've ever seen, especially on the big screen [NOTE: The scariest movie I've ever seen is probably Event Horizon, but that's a story for a different time]. Aliens, while still retaining some horror elements, is really an action movie. Its shooting, gore, tanks, and wow factor visuals. It's fast paced, non-stop action. It ends with a fight between an alien and a person in an exoskeleton robot suit.

Both are good movies in their respective genres, but Alien is more special and unique, and therefore should be rated higher in a side by side comparison.

Finally, there are a few of these that I haven't seen all three of. Most of them, I probably won't:
Star Trek, Superman, Jurassic Park (there's a third one?), Spiderman, Jaws (see Jurassic Park comment), Planet of the Apes, Rambo (I might see the third one some day).

And yes, I am quite upset that the American Pie trilogy is not on this list.