Movie Sequels That Change The Genre

[Dysnomia]

Child's Play 2 had a lot of self-aware satirical moments and a generally goofy tone to it.

A Nightmare on Elm Street went that way too. Freddy got more an more goofy.

Another example is Robocop 2. But some of that was the filmmakers taking the piss out of parents groups who didn't like that the first movie attracted so many kids.

 

[Quarterback Rex Grossman]

Best of the Best, duh.

First movie is a Rocky knockoff about karate. Sequel is about deadly underground pit fighting in Vegas. Third is about fighting a racist army or something. Fourth, Tommy becomes a super spy and saves America.

 

[Paradox Mystic]

SAW, kinda.

The original Saw movies are a mix of horror and psychological thriller with a bit of mystery. Spiral a lazy mystery and it's easily the worse one as far as traps go.

From what I remember the sharpest change is Saw X, it's more of a horror-drama than something more edgy than the previous entries. The way it ends is a sharp change from how previous endings are usually action-horror twists.

If you rewrite Saw X to not show the murders then you could easily rewrite it as a soap opera without much difference.

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

The first Austin Powers movie was a cute parody of spy movies with a fish out of water character learning to navigate a more sexually responsible future. The sequel was a gross, degenerate mess that shat all over the message of the original. And had a guy drinking a fat guy's poop.

 

[31 Black]

First movie is a Rocky knockoff about karate.

Speaking of Rocky, the first Rocky was a slice of life story about a guy trying his best to be a good person, get the girl, and I guess train to be an underdog boxer. The sequels go all in with the boxxing stories.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Gremlins 2 changed genres like five times. Comedy, action, musical, and that's before John Wayne and the looney tunes show up.

It also served as a parody of the first movie. The President's Day story mocking the Christmas Morning story from Phoebe Cates was one of the funniest things ever put on film.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Leonard Part 6 was nothing at all like the others. Some of Bill Cosby's greatest work.

You know, there REALLY were 5 other Leonard movies, but Cosby gave away free drinks to the audiences.

 

[Your Starter for 10]

Malcolm X took a huge shift from the previous Malcolm I - Malcolm IX films. Mostly from all the niggers in it.

 

[Party Pizza]

Evil Dead 1 to Evil Dead 2, from straight horror to mostly horror but with some comedy to Army of Darkness which is full on Comedy horror.

 

[Calandrino]

But then, Jason Blum had the genius idea that the killer girlbot is actually a superhero and turned the sequel into a sci fi spy action adventure movie like Mission Impossible.
Fucking brilliant.

I was genuinely stunned at how fucking retarded that movie was. Apparently if you leave a R.O.B. in a drawer for 40 years it will evolve into a post-singularity techno-god so watch out for that.

 

[Idiotron]

Would Terminator count? The first one was pretty much a slasher flick, and T2 was basically an action movie

I consider T2 to also be a slasher.
Look at the kills in the 1st half of the movie, they're all horror movie kills, T-1000 is still kind of a slasher villain.
The only difference is the scale of the movie.

SAW, kinda. We went from low budget indie horror set in a tiny selection of locations to some pseudo conspiracy "policeman was a killer all along" nonsense.

I think there were seeds of everything already in Saw 1.
They just expanded on everything that the fans responded positively to.

The Raid 2. Both are amazing but the hand to hand stuff in 2 is absolutely wild.

Again, this is just the scale expanding, I think.

I guess the Rambo movies,

This fits.
First Blood and Rambo 3 are not the same genre.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I suppose TCM 3 is goofy as fuck and doesn't fit TCM 1.

I feel the same way about Child's Play.

This one definitely.

Hard to even describe what even was The Exorcist 2

I'm not sure about this one.

Gremlins 2 changed genres like five times.

Hmm, I think this can be allowed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street went that way too. Freddy got more an more goofy.

6 definitely.

Evil Dead 1 to Evil Dead 2

When I was a kid and I saw Evil Dead and then afterwards went to Army of Darkness, I didn't know those movies were the same franchise.
Only after I saw Evil Dead 2 on TV I understood.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Leonard Part 6 was nothing at all like the others. Some of Bill Cosby's greatest work.

You know, there REALLY were 5 other Leonard movies, but Cosby gave away free drinks to the audiences.

Evil Dead 1 to Evil Dead 2, from straight horror to mostly horror but with some comedy to Army of Darkness which is full on Comedy horror.

the series went from one of the tensest horror movies of all time to the goriest Three Stooges movie ever to Indiana Jones on nitrous.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Ghostbusters 2 feels like a family movie compared to the first one.

Star Trek 2 felt more relaxed than TMP too. They also added more comedy in the upcoming movies. The change wasn't bad.

Batman Returns was an improvement of first Batman, but they needed them available for kids so they made them campy and childish. Forever still was enjoyable though.

 

[Travoltron]

What about Fast and the Furious? I've only seen one of the later sequels. I understand it was originally about street racing, but the one I saw they were secret agents parachuting their cars out of planes and driving cars up and down buildings.

 

[Jesus Goldstein]

Pitch Black: basically an Alien pastiche -> Chronicles of Riddick: WTF? Warhammer 40K space opera?

 

[Ron Jeremy Stan Account]

Ghostbusters 2 feels like a family movie compared to the first one.

Basically, sequel was supposed to be more akin to the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters. They had to cut back on a lot of the adult content like swearing and smoking. If you notice, Ray and Winston weren't smoking cigarettes in that movie, unlike the first one. It's because due to the animated series, they gained a large viewership base of children. Also in keeping the consistencies of the cartoon, if you notice Janine's appearance looks different too. Instead of being a frumpy office worker, she looks more like a punk hipster.

Star Trek 2 felt more relaxed than TMP too. They also added more comedy in the upcoming movies. The change wasn't bad.

I think it's because the Motion Picture was trying to separate itself from Star Wars by being more of a thinking man's sci-fi movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey rather than an action movie with good guys vs. bad guys with lasers in space. But the film didn't do too great in the box office as expected, so for Wrath of Khan they just went with the epic space battles plot instead, especially since Empire Strikes Back was recently released.

 

[Idiotron]

I would say Ghostbusters 2 is the same exact movie as the 1st one, just more kid friendly.
They even have a big thing walk through New York at the end and the Ghostbusters defeating the villain by shooting their proton beams into a portal.

itch Black: basically an Alien pastiche -> Chronicles of Riddick: WTF? Warhammer 40K space opera?

Diesel is a huge nerd, he plays tabletop shit a lot.
He wanted his own multimedia franchise.
Chronicles of Riddick was very ambitious but I think the worldbuilding took up most of the movie and we didn't really get anything to care for.
Then he managed to get funding for the 3rd one and it's just Pitch Black again, that's lame.

 

[The Nothingness]

The MIB sequels leaned so much into the comedy they felt like bad parodies of the first movie.

 

[Travoltron]

Maybe Highlander 2: The Quickening would count? The theatrical cut, at least. Highlander 1 was fantasy and 2 retcons it all into moronic sci-fi.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

Let me propose the genre shift from Die Hard to Die Hard with a Vengeance.

The original Die Hard is very much a survival/action film. While there is some rather hamhanded plot about jewels and shit, its mostly just about John McClain storming a building and murdering terrorists.

Meanwhile, Die Hard with a Vengeance is a mystery/thriller. John and Sam need to unravel a mystery, and have to traverse the city several times to solve it. A lot of the tension comes from the threat of violence rather than the execution of violence.

Spoiler

Die Hard with a Vengeance is also a better film than the original Die Hard. Fight me, nerds.[/spoilers]