Pacific Rim: Uprising - A study of sequels

I believe that movie sequels fall into two categories.  There are those that are planned for and part of a longer story—The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers, for example.  Then there are those that are part of an episodic series of adventures of a character or group of characters, such as the James Bond movies and the Marvel cinematic universe. 

The first type has a significant level of consistency with the same creative vision and production throughout the series.  The sequels are planned for and the larger story is often mapped out in advance.  Because of that, if the first movie is good, the sequels tend to be good as well.

The second kind is sometimes hit or miss, depending on if the next story is compelling or not.  The danger with this type of sequel is that the creative teams can be different from one installment to the next so that there are inconsistencies in the way the sequels feel.  Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.  One example of a series that has been successful is Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible.  I have enjoyed every film in that run, even though there have been five different directors for the soon-to-be six movies. 

There’s a subset of the second category as well: the sequel that gets made only because of the success of the original.  Whether these will be good is very hard to predict.  Often, the sequel identifies what was especially enjoyed in the first movie and does more of that.  See Cars 2 (an over-the-top Tow Mater) or The Mummy 2 (the same villain and a reprise of certain undead henchmen).  The sequels of this type that do work are ones that decide to tell a different story while being true to the original characters.  One of my favorite sequels of this type is Hellboy 2.

With that introduction, it’s time to talk about Pacific Rim: Uprising.  In my opinion, I believe it’s a sequel in the vein of Hellboy 2.

The first reason for this is that Uprising’s cast has very little overlap from the original film.  There’s also a new director.  But unlike the first three or four Mission: Impossible movies, there was effort put into establishing continuity.  The events of Pacific Rim weren’t overly rehashed, but they did matter; the missing characters weren’t forgotten but were memorialized (mostly); and the new characters don’t really feel forced into place.  Therefore, the overall personality of this movie is different from the first while maintaining the world’s integrity.

The second, and maybe bigger reason, is that it didn’t suffer the insecurities of the Transformers sequels, which relied on a repeat of and increase in the successful devices of the first film.  Where Transformers 2 and 3 played up the characters’ idiosyncrasies and immaturity, Pacific Rim: Uprising kept that to a relative minimum.  The new characters had new quirks, and the returning characters were consistent rather than magnified.  Switching things up kept the humor, if not exactly fresh and original, at least not completely stale.

That’s not to say that the movie didn’t have flaws.  The story was formulaic, many of the characters were stereotypical, and there were plot holes.  This wasn’t a movie to make you think.  It relied heavily on action and special effects—which isn’t always a bad thing.  There weren’t any award-caliber performances.  But it knew it’s audience and it didn’t try to take itself too seriously, which is about the worst sin a movie like this can commit.  And it’s giant robots versus giant monsters!  There’s something about that concept that will draw me to it every time.

I know that I’m in the minority even among movie goers for liking Uprising.  I wonder if some of the disappointment came because of the dissimilarities to the original and the high cast turnover.  While I saw those things as strengths, it isn’t hard to see how some would see them as weaknesses.  For those who missed some of the original characters, there were hints that there’s a possibility at least one could return for future installments, should there be any—and there were some not-so-subtle indications that there could be.

In conclusion, Pacific Rim: Uprising is a sequel that worked because it both built on and differed from the first movie.  I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the implied third film.