Sequel Escalation: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

This trope, on the other hand, is when a sequel is made to be "bigger and better" than the last film, by taking one or more elements from the first film and expanding upon it. The film makers feel a need to "top themselves" in a sort of way.

 

{{examples}}

* The ''Magical Chronicle Lyrical Nanoha Force'' manga, the sequel to ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] StrikerS'', seems to have taken the old notion of [[Anti-Magic]] and turned it [[Up to Eleven]]. Where the old villains simply had Anti-Magic Fields, which amortized incoming attacks and made it impossible to cast magic from within (which was already treated as bad enough by the good guys), the new villains have Anti-Magic Beams that aggressively dispel any magic they hit. The [[Doylist]] explanation seems to be that since the heroes have already been established as the strongest mages in the multiverse ''back in season one'', the only plausible enemy the writers can invent for them now is an [[Anti-Magic]]-wielding one, with a [[Bigger Stick]] if needed. The fans' reactions were... mixed.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' does this with its pre- and post-[[Time Skip]] seasons. While the pre-Time Skip episodes were like your typical [[Super Robot]] show, only with bigger explosions and more [[Hot-Blooded|hot blood]], the post-Time Skip episodes bring us {{spoiler|galaxy-sized mecha throwing galaxies and big bangs at each other.}} And in the second movie, {{spoiler|we get a mech that is not only a hundred times bigger than a galaxy, it's also ''on fire'' and ''designed after the resident [[Memetic Badass]]''. Its attack clashing with an identical attack from its [[Evil Knockoff]] ''ends and restarts'' the universe.}}

 

 

== Film ==

* Some comic book movie sequels are considered superior by escalating the characterization and themes of the first film, that made the comics hits anyway. When they falter, it's often from adding new villains at the expense of the characterization and themes.

{{quote|"[It should be] smaller. More personal. More painful. By being the next thing that should happen to these characters, and not just a rehash of what seemed to work the first time. By having a theme that is completely fresh and organic to itself."}}

* Parodied in ''[[Machete]]'': "Machete will be back in... ''Machete Kills!''... and ''Machete Kills Again!''."

** Cameron also did it with ''[[Terminator 2]]'', which was the highest film budget at the time. And is widely considered as good or better than the first film.

* ''[[Jaws 2]]'' ramped up the body count. Also, they tried to increase the shark's "scariness" factor by scarring it with fire.

* ''[[Speed 2 Cruise Control]]'' was likely the worst choice of the element to escalate. Did it increase the suspense? The Danger? The velocity of the vehicle? Nope. It escalated the size of the vehicle, and actually downgraded the other elements.

* ''[[The Karate Kid]] Part III'' inverted this, and got a lot of criticism for it, among...other things. After the first film ended with Daniel winning a tournament, the second film had him fighting for his life, even including the line "This is for real." Then the third film went back to ending with a tournament.

* ''[[A Fistful of Dollars]]'' was a fairly low budget movie, with a small cast and a story confined to a single small town. ''[[For a Few Dollars More]],'' its sequel, had much more action and featured several locations, as well as a larger cast. The prequel, ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'' is nothing short of ''epic,'' with a cast of thousands, huge battle scenes, impressive set pieces, more elaborate music, a staggering body count, and nearly double the runtime of either of the previous movies.

* ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'' was a very low budget, low-key movie about some people in a farmhouse fending off a few dozen zomibes. ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'' and ''[[Day of the Dead]]'' had two more groups of people, in a shopping mall and an underground base, fighting hundreds of zombies. ''[[Land of the Dead]]'' had an entire ''city'' defending itself from ''thousands'' of the undead. Also note that the level of [[Gorn]] increases in each movie...by a lot.

* Here's a little experiment you can do at home: go watch ''[[The Human Centipede]]'', a film about three people who get sown together by their mouths and anuses. Note that its sequel has the subtitle ''The Full Sequence''. Look at an actual centipede. Then look back at the three sown-together people. Do the math.

* ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'' sent the characters through time, but ''[[Bill and Teds Bogus Journey]]'' sent them through the afterlife. There were no more movies after that, although ''[[Bio-Dome]]'' was originally written as the third film. It was probably for the best that the movie ended up being its own movie, since a follow-up in a simple conservatory would have been a huge letdown.

** Inverted by ''Caloric Attitudes'', where all they have to do is rescue one of their own from a vindictive [[Little Green Men|Grimplite]].

** And then played straight again when in ''Final Hope'', the new generation merely has to survive until Judgment Day while the universe's resident [[Complete Monster]] takes over and immediately goes on one [[Shaped Like Itself|genocidal]] [[Kill'Em All|murder spree]] after another.

 

 

** In ''Metal Gear Solid'', Solid Snake fights a HIND helicopter piloted by Liquid Snake. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'', Raiden fights a ''Harrier Jet'' piloted by Solidus Snake.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' did this to phenominal effect, largely because the first game was already over-the-top, but it also left many fans wanting so much more. For example, the first game hinted at a major boss battle featuring a bipedal dinosaur like creature called a brumak, but you never got to fight it until the [[Updated Rerelease|PC version.]] In the sequel, one level has '''five''' of these...''at once''. But they not only ramped up the scale, they also included a surprisingly powerful character story with Dom searching for his wife.

* ''[[Halo]]'' slowly ramped up the events of the plot. The first game had more in common with ''[[Die Hard]]'' in that Master Chief was the right person in the right place to deal with these event. Even still, the scale of the flood threat was more implied then actually seen. Halo 2 made Master Chief to be humanity's only hope, and featured the scarab, an enemy vehicle that took half a level to destroy. Halo 3 gave you four of those to destroy.

** The scale of threat was practically exponential. First you're exploring a new territory and defending an alien star system, then you're back home defending the ''Solar'' system, then in ''Halo 3'', as one character points out, "the fate of every sentient being in the galaxy rests in your hands!" But y'know, no pressure.

* ''Turrican II'' took the first ''Turrican'''s already large levels and made them [[Marathon Level|ludicrously enormous]]. It worked amazingly.

* ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]]'' peaks out in speed and difficulty when pieces start dropping instantly. ''Tetris: The Grand Master 2'' made the game even faster and more [[Nintendo Hard]] than its predecessor by gradually decreasing the delays for piece appearance and piece lock delay, shortening the line clear animation after you reach instant-drop speed, and adding an invisible credit roll challenge to get the titular Grand Master rank. ''Tetris: The Grand Master 3'' shortens these even more, and scores you on finesse during the credit roll challenge, in addition to requiring you to get a Grand Master-worthy score 4 out of 7 games before giving you the Promotional Exam in which you can actually earn the rank.

* ''[[Ace Combat]]'': The first superfighter, the XFA-27 in ''2'', didn't have anything particularly OTT apart from being able to launch four missiles in one salvo. If we skip over the planes from ''3'', the X-02 Wyvern from ''4'' is next, still not OTT in weapons although it has switchblade wings now. The ADF-01F Falken from ''5'' was the first (ignoring ''3'', as aforementioned) to mount a laser weapon. The ADFX-01 Morgan from ''Zero'' added the nuke-like MPBM. Then the CFA-44 Nosferatu from ''6'' swaps the MPBM out from the cluster missile ADMM. ''X'' may fit in there somewhere...

** It does, the Fenrir has the ungodly LSWM, which if you hit the missile at a specific target, the blast radius will be enough to destroy all the targets and win you the match, in theory...

* The first game in the ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' sub-series deals with civil war between [[The Federation]] and a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], while throwing in an extraterrestrial invasion in the second half of the game. The sequel throws in the first again, but adds in an [[Alternate Universe]] faction deciding to perform [[War for Fun and Profit]] and an [[Eldritch Abomination]] bent on committing a [[Kill'Em All]] scenario on a planetary scale.

* The first ''[[Glider]]'' was a 15-room adventure (1 room = 1 screen). "The House" of ''Glider 4.0'' was 62 rooms long. Finally, ''Glider PRO'''s "Slumberland" went over 300 rooms, including outdoor areas which previous games had nothing like.

** ''[[Guitar Hero]] II'' had ''Free Bird''. ''[[Guitar Hero]] III'' upped the ante with ''Through the Fire and Flames''.

** ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' started with a difficulty scale from 1 to 8 footprints. Then came the escalation:

* During [[Nintendo]]'s E3 2010 Presentation, while Reggie Fils-Aime mainly placed emphasis on the social element of ''[[Dragon Quest IX]]'', he does have this to say about the rest of the game's content:

{{quote|"You could describe it just by the numbers: with 120 [[Sidequest|mini-quests]] and additional wi-fi mini-quests, over 300 monsters, over 900 items to customize your character, and an infinite number of randomly generated treasure maps. But that would be selling it short."}}

** In that vein, ''[[The Sims]]'' changes significantly with each sequel. Even customization options and the way the Sims can change themselves is dramatically different: in the first game, there are adult sims and child sims, and never the twain shall meet. In the second game, your sims age and die, and can also gain and lose weight in a "pop" effect. In the third game, your sims can age and die and changes due to weight gain and loss, muscle gain and loss, and pregnancy are subtle and incremental. And that's not even including the expansion pack options...

* ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' is an interesting case. The sequel has an equally good story, but the villain has the opposite philosophy as the first one. The combat, on the other hand, is so far escalated to be ridiculous. [[Dual-Wielding]], playing as a Big Daddy with equally scaled up weapons (from crossbow to speargun for instance), and the plasmids... The Incinerate alone goes from tossing fire, to tossing ''exploding fire'', to being able to shoot a solid stream of fire.

** The second game features lots of explosives, radioactive waste, chainsaws, a gang boss with a minigun, and eventually you fight a {{spoiler|private military contractor}}.

** The third game features regular mooks with miniguns, airstrikes, hoverbikes, battles against entire enemy platoons of tanks, laser guns everywhere and you blow up {{spoiler|two aircraft carriers, including a flying one that's bombing the city into rubble}}.

* Banjo-Tooie is this compared to its predecessor, [[Banjo-Kazooie]] - the latter was a kind of enhanced [[Super Mario 64]], with more transformations, more collectibles, the ability to shoot eggs, and some other moves ; then Banjo-Tooie retained (almost) all the old moves of the first game ''since the beginning'', introducing more new moves than the total number of moves in the previous game, five new types of eggs, transformations in ''every'' level, and these aren't even all the new gimmicks of the game.

* The second [[Devil Survivor]] game is this. While the first one started its gameplay with the protagonists suddenly being attacked by demons spawning out of their COMPs, the second one kicks off the main storyline by having a ''subway de-rail and nearly kill off the main characters'' (after showing them their horrific deaths before it happens). The second game also has FAR more on-screen deaths (one instance being the [[Eldritch Abomination]]-[[Monster of the Week|of-the-day]] ''incinerating'' four bystanders), a more epic scope (complete with a shadowy underground organization dealing with Japan's paranormal issues over the years and [[Eldritch Abominations]] wreaking havoc), [[Loads and Loads of Characters|more characters]], more locations (taking place in multiple cities as opposed to the first one's single place), more cursing, [[Nintendo Hard|more difficulty]], [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and]] [[World of Buxom|bigger cup sizes]].

 

== Web Original ==

** And then, for the third anniversary, they make a [[Up to Eleven|2 hour and 10 minute]] fantasy film called Suburban Knights, with roughly the same amount of people, but with more plot!

* In the first [[Llamas with Hats]], Carl killed a man. In the second, he sinks a cruise ship. In the third, he topples a South American government (after pushing [[La Résistance|the resistance leader]] into a giant fan... for trying to stop him from pushing ''other'' people into it). In the fourth, he [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|tracks mud on the carpet]]. {{spoiler|And nukes an entire city.}}

[[Category:Sequel]]

[[Category:Film Tropes]]