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The sequel. Along with remakes and adaptations, it has been a cornerstone of the film industry for as long as it took writers and producers and directors to realize that what worked once might work twice, and even if not, audiences might be clamoring for it anyway and be willing to shell out their cash yet again. Very few films that spawn one are content to rest there and thus are franchises born. Chapter Two will look explicitly at the first sequel only.

The sequels that work the best often do one of two things: continue the story of characters we care about in a satisfying way; or take the best elements of the original film and give us another round of those with less fat in between (think of William Goldman's novel The Princess Bride and how it was slyly sold as a fairy tale with all the boring bits cut out). This latter scenario most often applies to action and horror films with bigger ‘splosions, a greater number of gruesome® death scenes or more mind-blowing special effects. Occasionally, sequels opt for the story before the story (i.e The Beginning) and become prequels. Even rarer still are those sequels that appear to disregard entirely what made the first film work and branch off on their own crazed path. Chapter Two will consider them all: the heralded, the unheralded and those that time may have passed by and deserve a second glance. I am always thankful that (so far) James Cameron has resisted any attempts to make Titanic 2. But a part of me wonders as well – Wow, what the hell would that be like? And in that vein of inquiry...welcome to Chapter Two.

Before Sunset (2004)

Richard Linklater's follow-up to his "lovers for a night" comic romance Before Sunrise (1995) marks the only sequel the idiosyncratic Austin filmmaker has delivered to date. It garnered him his first (and so far sole) Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, shared with co-writer Kim Krizan and the actors playing the couple at the center of both films - Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. It received near-universal critical acclaim and wound up grossing in real dollars more than the original. Sunset now proudly sits on my list of all-time favorite movies, but in the summer of 2004 I approached its release with ever-increasing anxiety and trepidation. Why? It marked the first time I was genuinely concerned that a sub-par sequel to a film that I adored would tarnish my affection for the predecessor.

Before Sunrise is one of those films that hit me (as I am sure it did many others) at the right point in my life to be swept up in its romantic idealism. At the time, I was in college, girlfriend-less and had never traveled abroad. The story of Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) meeting cute on a train traveling through Europe and deciding to spend the night hanging out in Vienna before going their separate ways had it all: attractive and quirky leads, smart intelligent banter and the ever-ticking clock to add suspense to what would otherwise be a plot-free movie.

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