The Curse of the Trilogy: Why Hollywood Loves the Crap Story

Spiderman 3.

It delivered in its usual schizophrenic, riveting way, and despite clocking in at almost two and a half hours, I was surprised that the heavy amount of subplots and interweaving of characters did not bore, but actually kept me involved. However, if Raimi, Maguire, Dundst and the rest of the cast ever do decide to make a fourth installment, I fear the opening of 4 might need to include a Left Behind-like list of characters in order to keep things straight. But, hey, that's a comic book movie for you, which is yet another reason why Left Behind was absolute crap fiction. If only Jerry B. Jenkins had been more like that Isaac guy on Heroes...

So, thankfully, 3 was not the source of disappointment last night at the cinema. However, I was unable to escape the Edwards without something annoying me (blame it on my cynicism, but I have to chalk this one up to bad filmmaking/storytelling). Thankfully, Spiderman 3 did not commit what I believe is one of the chief sins in movie-making these days. My annoyance came instead from the much anticipated full-length trailer to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. And, you know, as soon as I recognized it, I felt my internal organs gearing up for a short bout of gagging.

The Lord of the Rings is indeed my second favorite movie of all-time (see my profile for the first), and as much of a cinematic blessing I feel Peter Jackson's trilogy was, there is a dark side that swirls around that trilogy, affecting all films during and after its five year production and release. It seems every movie that even remotely displays similar characteristics to an "epic" story now aims at telling that story in trilogy form. Some do it well (Back to the Future, the original Star Wars), others have such an episodic difference between the stories they can hardly be called a true trilogy (The Karate Kid, Spiderman, Mission Impossible, Rambo), and then there are those trilogies that, let's face it, just plain suck (Scream, Star Wars Episodes 1-3, The Matrix). Unfortunately, Pirates seems to be setting sail on a bearing for the latter. In fact, I fear it will become the seafaring equivalent of The Matrix, becoming more and more confusing, existential, and cluttered by CGI. The trailer itself seems to hint that I'm right.

Why must every trilogy become some epic, cinematic barbaric yawp? Why must everyone from children and lions, humans dwelling deep within the earth, mutants, and now pirates make some sort of "last stand" against their enemies? Does anyone remember what made the first Pirates movie good? It was the tightness of the story, the fact that it had a satisfying resolution (devoid of a cliffhanger), and the fact that, when it came out and drew in audiences, no one was immediately thinking the T-word. That thought was only planted in our heads once the film company realized how much money the movie made and realized that movie-goers are suckers for a trilogy. And so, the writers sat down and hammered out a story that they swear they had planned all along. Guess what? That is rarely true in Hollywood. Almost every film is made on a probationary basis - by that, I mean that production companies don't always plan for sequels to original stories unless they have very little doubt the film will succeed. This is why The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean did not have a "Part One" tacked onto their name when first released. This is also why the second and third Matrix installments (and, yes, the subsequent Pirates films) had stories that confused and frustrated much more than they entertained.

I am almost positive that Pirates, had they, in the second film, revisited the same formula that worked on the first film, made just as much money as the cliffhanging Dead Man's Chest made - and it wouldn't have pissed so many ticket-buyers off that the story sucked. Things would have been wrapped up, a good romp would have been had by both filmmaker and filmwatcher alike, and if someone had gone out and interviewed people leaving the theaters two summers ago, movie-goers would have responded, "Yeah! I'd love to see another one!"

I guess the root of my laments and questions is this: "Why must we sacrifice the quality of story for the risky rush of a cliffhanger?" In the end, it rarely holds up to original, well-encapsulated stories. I mean, look at Lost, the mother-of-all-cliffhanger television shows. They're losing their audience, not gaining it. Even 24 knows better than to make their season all about the cliffhanger. If anything, most of the plot of the season is resolved by the final episode, and the cliffhanger is only a parlay into the next season. Here's hoping Heroes follows Jack Bauer's lead rather than those lame island-dwellers...

And here's hoping we all, who are so ensorcelled by the power of a good story, will not so easily shirk our principled love of a well-rounded tale for the titillating bedazzlement of a yarn that is ultimately capsizing.