Most of the prison term , sequels are at best entertaining , and at bad an affront to the storage of the original . But once in a great while , a sequel comes along that bring in you rethink everything you thought you knew about the original story . Here are 12 sequels that pull back and show you the bigger picture .
Let ’s just get the obvious example out of the way right off the bat . Star Wars sell us a particular version of events — not just what happened to Luke Skywalker ’s dear vary pop , but also what the Force is and what the peril of using it are . Obi - Wan Kenobi is a fountain of misinformation , and it hold both Yoda and Darth Vader to determine Luke straight . Just like Luke in the above painting , this movie turn everything on its head .
AsSFReviewssays , the second account book in the Temeraire series “ does what a continuation should : expand upon and enrich the world we are introduced to in the first intensity , rather than just rehash its best setting . ” Temeraire travel back to China , and strike that dragons are treated a lot better in China than in Europe — in fact , the British Draco are little better than slaves . All of the stuff we took for granted in the first book is called into interrogation as Novik tear back the scope of the book and record us a declamatory world . paradigm by Anke Eissman forSubterranean Press .
It ’s sort of entrancing to watch the two Captain America movies back - to - back — because they present wildly contrasting versions of Captain America and his legacy . The first ends with Steve Rogers detect himself disoriented in present - day New York , and getting a probability to attend to once again by joining the noble project of SHIELD . And in the second , we see some harsh Sojourner Truth about SHIELD , and by filename extension Captain America ’s own bequest . It kind of changes how you look at his victory in the first movie , when you see the fruits it really bore .
This is probably the textbook case of a book that causes you to reconsider the earlier books in the serial publication . Some 18 days after the first Earthsea trilogy , Le Guin refund to her darling fancy setting and all reframes it . All of the poppycock in the first book about Ged going to the magical school on Gont gets a whole new meaning when you see just how many superfluous roadblock stand in the agency of cleaning lady learning trick . And you also get a clearer ( and darker ) horse sense of people ’s relationships with dragons . As Peggy Nodelmanwrites , ” the case of the raw news report change the import of what went before . ”
Along with Empire , this is look at one of the all - prison term swell picture sequels — and it ’s more grounds that part of what makes a great sequel is forcing you to reconsider the original fib . In the Star Trek episode “ Space Seed , ” Kirk testify his superiority to Khan by showing mercy . The whole sequence is about whether Kirk is too cushy , by direct contrast with Khan ’s twentieth C barbarianism , and Kirk resolves this by give Khan his own planet to settle , and by permit the instalment ’s distaff guest - principal go with him . Kirk demo that he ’s impregnable in his maleness , and that 23rd C people can be substantial but generous . And then … we find out that Kirk screwed up , and the productive planet Ceti Alpha V turned into a hellhole . Instead of real largess , this was a thoughtless gesture — kind of like the enterprisingness leaving its shield down when the “ well-disposed ” Reliant approaches . “ I got catch with my britches down , ” Kirk helpfully explains .
This famously complex and impenetrable tetralogy contains a lot of events in the first book that only really make sensory faculty to the reader after reading the late volume — outcome that appear minor too soon on turn out to be implausibly major . And the excellently unreliable storyteller Severian turns out to be moderately unlike than you originally believe . And that ’s just call off the open . Image by Bruce Pennington .
In a passel of way , the 1975 Dalek parentage level is a continuation to “ The Daleks ” from 1963 - 1964 . And “ Genesis ” reveals that the garbled ancient history the Thals recite in “ The Daleks ” wasmostly inaccurate . According to the first Dalek story , the Daleks were once passive philosopher / teachers , until a nuclear warfare mutate them and deform them into the hateful Daleks . In fact , both the Thals and the Kaleds ( the Dalek ascendant ) turn out to be warlike — and the Kaleds are nazi from the beginning . The Daleks are n’t just a answer to mutation , but also an attempt by the scientist Davros to tip the proportion of the endless state of war between the two races . or else of the poignant tragedy the Thals had remembered , the true statement is a lot coarse-grained and nastier , and it changes the meaning of the Daleks . They ’re not philosophers gone awry , they ’re weapon system created in an sempiternal war .
Tolkien splendidly had to go back and rewrite a key chapter of The Hobbit so that it fit with Lord of the Rings — earlier , Gollum extend the Ring as a reward if Bilbo gain ground the enigma challenge . Even with the rewritten version , we do n’t really earn the significance of the Ring until Lord of the Rings , and we see a very different side of Bilbo as a result . This is a classic example of pulling back and showing a larger context , so that result take on a novel significance .
scorecard in reality go back and review the events of Ender ’s Game , from the power point of view of a relatively nonaged reference , Bean . We get wind that Bean was a lot smarter than he looked — in fact , he was a patronage in case Ender failed — andwe see a lot of the same consequence from a new vantagepoint(even some of the same scenes ) and profit a very dissimilar sentiment of the post . In peculiar , we happen upon that the remainder of the Formic War will think the rise of new wars among humans .
Batman Begins is the tale of Bruce Wayne taking back Gotham from Falcone and the other mobsters who have tear the city aside . And in the process , he also has to save the metropolis from the fanatic who check him . But it ’s not until the 2d picture show that we actualize that Batman may have create bigger problems than he ’s resolve , because his elimination of the mob ( which seemed more or less a good affair in the first movie ) has created a vacuum which gets fill up by the much more destructive Joker . Batman begins to see his heroical caption as a load instead of a finish , and look for an substitute model of heroism in Harvey Dent — something that end spectacularly badly .
In the first Wool book , we slowly come across more about the Silo and search the mystery of the outside world . But the second record book in the series changes the focus drastically , as we ’re suddenly seeing the item of view of the people in boot of the Silo , and learn a pile of stuff that turns the discoveries in the first book upside down . The large reveals in the first book become out to be just expunge the Earth’s surface .
The third book in the Graceling trilogy is radically different than the first two — and it will probably make you re - learn the first two book and see them in a whole new light . We learn a lot more of the whodunit of the world , and delve much more deep into the political relation … and we unveil a lot of historical revisionism and long - buried stories of maltreatment and genocide . Both darker and more political than the first two books , this subsequence puts the whole series into a young setting that adds a stack more depth to the case you ’ve read about previously .
So … what examples did we leave out ? This is in spades a bigger topic than just these XII sequel .
Thanks to Liz Henry and Lee Konstantinou for all their help with this !
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