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Is Evil Dead the only franchise where the first entry is the worst?

MetalMagus

MetalMagus

Avenger
Oct 16, 2018
1,645
Maine
I'll agree with OP - though also admit that this largely comes down to a matter of taste. I'll watch ED2 and AoD anytime they come one. Really have no interest in watch the first Evil Dead again.

Captain_Cold said:
I would go with The Man With No Name trilogy on this. A Fistful of Dollars is a solid Yojimbo remake and while inspired, is fairly straightforward and a clear cutting of teeth for both Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood in the main role.

For A Few Dollars More raises the stakes and the characters are much more interesting, especially Lee Van Cleef as Mortimer. Plus the ending feels like it has more pathos.

Then The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly is an all-around classic, considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time, not to mention the soundtrack.
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This was going to be my suggestion as well - Fistful is a good movie, but it's only the first stop on a bend towards greatness.
 
Jon Carter

Jon Carter

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,746
WascallyWabbit said:
Han exists because of Better Luck Tomorrow :-)
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Sung Kang is in it because the producers wanted to make a movie set in Asia with a cool Asian character, and with Hollywood being Hollywood, they hired an Asian director, who in turn brought in his cool Asian friend. Tokyo Drift is to thank for both Han and Sung Kang being in these movies. It's the best entry and the sooner you see the light, the better you'll feel about Han's fate, and you'll finally be at peace.
 
WascallyWabbit

WascallyWabbit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,531
Jon Carter said:
Sung Kang is in it because the producers wanted to make a movie set in Asia with a cool Asian character, and with Hollywood being Hollywood, they hired an Asian director, who in turn brought in his cool Asian friend. Tokyo Drift is to thank for both Han and Sung Kang being in these movies. It's the best entry and the sooner you see the light, the better you'll feel about Han's fate, and you'll finally be at peace.
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No way you'll convince me that them introducing the world to the atrocity of Lucas' accent can be the best of the franchise...
 
Ignis

Ignis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,757
Apes Trilogy
Lord of the Rings
Captain America

Has anyone said THOR? This is a huge one.
 
Keldroc

Keldroc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,024
Jon Carter said:
Your boy Han only exists because of Tokyo Drift.
And yes, Tokyo Drift is the best. The racing scenes are very well-made. It's legitimately good filmmaking.
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Tokyo Drift is competent filmmaking at best. The race scenes are good second unit shooting. The bulk of the movie is not race scenes, it's badly written dialogue badly acted while being shot by rote. It's easily the worst film in the series (although 2 isn't that far behind), and the people who try to puff it up by saying it's "actually about racing" don't understand what the series is about. It's not about racing, it never was. It's about characters. How much is it not about racing? The first film is basically a remake of Point Break. The racing is incidental, it could be any dangerous hobby in conjunction with an illegal activity. Making Tokyo Drift primarily about racing is one of the reasons it's a bad F&F film.

Anyway, the answer to this thread is Mad Max.
 
Zutrax

Zutrax

"This guy are sick"
Member
Oct 31, 2017
4,212
Jon Carter said:
Your boy Han only exists because of Tokyo Drift.
And yes, Tokyo Drift is the best. The racing scenes are very well-made. It's legitimately good filmmaking.
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Tokyo Drift captures a specific essence of the Tokyo Underground race scene quite well, and the soundtrack and racing are both on point.

But the movie is just boring to watch compared to the rest. I don't watch Fast and Furious movies for some nobody country boy and drifting. I watch it to see some dumbass over the top setpieces with The Family.
 
dennett316

dennett316

Member
Nov 2, 2017
2,987
Blackpool, UK
I enjoy all the Evil Dead movies, but Army of Darkness is the weakest for me. Evil Dead 2 is the perfect blend of horror and Raimi's humour, and I think that Army of Darkness crosses too far into the really goofball side of Raimi. Great moments in it, Bruce Campbell's ultra cocky version of Ash is fantastic, I genuinely love the ending we got in the UK where he sleeps too long, it just doesn't come together for me like 1 and 2 do.
The Evil Dead is rough around the edges and has cheesy acting, but it's also so inventive and creepy at times and has really great nasty moments of genuine horror and atmosphere that belie its tiny budget. It's great.

In terms of other movies where the original is the worst, I'm really struggling to think of examples. The GI Joe movies that came out a few years ago, I remember preferring the 2nd one to the first. I almost want to say Night of the Living Dead of Romero's original zombie trilogy, but I think that's purely because it's the most dated of them. Even then, I think I slightly prefer it to Dawn of the Dead, which I just didn't like all that much at all. Day of the Dead blows them both out of the water, imo. If you start to include Land, Diary and Survival though, all three of those are WAY worse than the original.
Toy Story might count for me, because 2 and 3 both improved on the classic original. I haven't seen the 4th one though, so I don't know how that ranks.
 
Yautja_Warrior

Yautja_Warrior

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,798
United Kingdom
Most Evil Dead fans consider Army of Darkness to be the weakest, as it pretty much dropped all the horror and went action / comedy, but it's still totally awesome. :)

I'd probably rank them,

Evil Dead 2.
Evil Dead.
Ash vs Evil Dead.
Army of Darkness.
Evil Dead remake.

To be fair they are all great though, even the remake is solid and underrated, with some great gore effects.
 
DJMicLuv

DJMicLuv

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,179
For my money 2 is the weakest. The first was an absolute classic of the era and set the template for two to parody. Personally I probably enjoy 3 the least but it's such a different beast I couldn't say it was the weakest. Evil Dead was important for the genre though and even in hindsight is still a cracking horror film.
 
StallionDan

StallionDan

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,705
Arguably Star Trek.

The first is a slow, boring movie that takes forever to get to a story that should have been a standard episode.

2,3,4 and 6 I doubt anyone would deny are better. 5 is the toss up, it not a great movie but it has some great moments and if nothing else is entertaining start to finish. I'd rather rewatch 5 over the first easily.
 
misho8723

misho8723

Member
Jan 7, 2018
3,726
Slovakia
Evil Dead 1 is maybe worse in comparison with Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness but it's still in my opinion atleast much better than the remake.. original movie still has Ash, the remake has... no one
 
Jon Carter

Jon Carter

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,746
Keldroc said:
Tokyo Drift is competent filmmaking at best. The race scenes are good second unit shooting. The bulk of the movie is not race scenes, it's badly written dialogue badly acted while being shot by rote. It's easily the worst film in the series (although 2 isn't that far behind), and the people who try to puff it up by saying it's "actually about racing" don't understand what the series is about. It's not about racing, it never was. It's about characters. How much is it not about racing? The first film is basically a remake of Point Break. The racing is incidental, it could be any dangerous hobby in conjunction with an illegal activity. Making Tokyo Drift primarily about racing is one of the reasons it's a bad F&F film.

Anyway, the answer to this thread is Mad Max.
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The franchise wasn't about racing or characters, it was about car culture, with 1, 2 and 3 each focusing on a different side of it. It wasn't about characters, because just a single character from 1 is in 2 and the others aren't mentioned. It's only starting with 4 and the original actors' declining careers that the series transitioned to being ensemble action blockbusters that just happened to feature cars.

By the way, Tokyo Drift is the only film in the series where the main plot is actually character-driven, and not some FBI/CIA/whatever bullshit that the characters are thrust into. Tokyo Drift is entirely about the protagonist fixing the mess he created by being cocky and brash. He has an actual character arc that develops in tandem with the plot. If any movie in the franchise is really about characters, it's Tokyo Drift.
 
MrBS

MrBS

"This guy are sick"
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,272
caliph95 said:
Oh right I'm a fucking idiot

The Purge movies

No one likes the first purge movie because the premise is wasted on a standard home invasion story that wasted the premise and only the sequels took advantage of it to make commentary and cool action
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That's my pick. This really hurts as the first has the best production value. I wanted anarchy and instead a bog standard home invasion. Boo.
 
CloudWolf

CloudWolf

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,718
♡♪!? said:
Maybe Mad Max, you can barely tell it's post apocalypse. Early entry weirdness.
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The thing with Mad Max 1 is that it's hardly supposed to be post-apocalyptic. It's the beginning basically, when the world is still kind of okay. It's more dystopian than post-apocalyptic.

Also, Beyond Thunderdome is far worse than Mad Max 1. The first Mad Max is pretty solid, Beyond Thunderdome is just awful all around. It's kinda fun for all the insane stuff like Master Blaster and Tina Turner (despite her awful acting), but all of that post-apocalypse craziness has been done way better now by Fury Road, and when the movie gets beyond Thunderdome (ha ha) and those kids enter the movie, it drives right off a cliff.
 
Tribal_Cult

Tribal_Cult

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
3,548
I like it a little more than Army of Darkness which was great but I just prefer the style pf the forst two so much more. Let's say it's one of the few trilpgies out there where they're all great.
 
DIE BART DIE

DIE BART DIE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,855
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Captain America

Also, Toy Story 1 is a perfect film. Toy Story 3 is the weakest of the first 3, plus I prefer 4...
 
-JD-

-JD-

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,493
bump. I agree.

edit: I've been catching up on old horror movies and remembered this thread. After watching the trilogy I was really underwhelmed by the first film, and thankfully I started up ED2 immediately after and thought it lived up to the hype.
 
PancakeBurglar

PancakeBurglar

Member
Feb 16, 2018
1,561
Army of Darkness is the worst movie and that's still pretty good. Evil Dead 1 is low budget but the insanity of it works and that ankle stab scene is disturbing every time.

Evil Dead 2 > Evil Dead 1 > Evil Dead Remake > Army of Darkness
Haven't seen enough of Ash Vs The Evil Dead to give it a fair placement but what I saw was fun.
 
CurseVox

CurseVox

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,356
Massachusetts (USA)
the original Evil Dead is the best.

It may be campy because of it's budget but it was extremely well done. In fact it's my favorite horror movie of all time.
I also prefer straight horror to the horror comedy hybrid it morphed into.
 
jroc74

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
29,199
♡♪!? said:
Maybe Mad Max, you can barely tell it's post apocalypse. Early entry weirdness.
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Bane said:
I actually fine the movies get worse as they go. I like the more pure horror vibe of 1, still dig 2 but the comedy gets to be a bit much a few times, and am not big on Army. Including the TV show, I think it was redeemed a little and dig it more than Army.

If you're fine with a franchise only being two movies: Gremlins. 1 is a perfectly fine horror movie but 2 is just a fantastic movie.
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I agree with both of these. The comedy was off putting IMO. I like the first one the most.
 
smileyforall220

smileyforall220

Banned
Mar 3, 2019
1,831
As they say in Minnesota, oofta....

The first and second entry in evil dead are the best, army of darkness is a weird comedy movie that just feels like a seperate thing that isnt horror at all.
 
Slick Butter

Slick Butter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,510
404LinkNotFound said:
As much as i like Part 1 ,i have to agree
Also id nominate Thor 1. I know people rag on 2 but i found that movie more entertaining than 1 which was pretty whatever for me
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Eh... in terms of the anime, I think JoJo part 1 is better than 3 at least. Though they're all pretty good. I'm conflicted on part 5.
I just don't like stands conceptually I guess
 
Shadoken

Shadoken

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,210
Tokyo Drift is the best by far. Different people like different things from the franchise. And even then FnF wouldn't count because of 4 , literally nobody even talks about that one.
 
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