Movies are great. And the the ones that are really great frequently inspire movie studios and directors to make a sequel. If the audience liked the first film, then just give them more of what they liked. Simple.
What isn’t so simple is the naming of these films that continue the story of an existing film. Nowadays we’re very used to a film being given a number at the end to denote where it comes in the series. Lethal Weapon was followed by Lethal Weapon 2 and then Lethal Weapon 3 and then 4. It’s very easy to understand.
But whilst this is the most common practice, it’s not the only one. Some films just have a subtitle like the Harry Potter films. Other than the final two films which are called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 and part 2 there is no way just from the title to determine the order they should be watched in.
Still, the practice of subtitles somethings also accompanies a number just to give a bit more hint at the story. But let’s now look at the film series that have the strangest named sequels that often will confuse the audience to the order you are meant to watch the films in or that you may not be able to tell even if the films are in the same series at all.
Star Wars
The first film was called Star Wars which is fine, but by the time they made the sequel they were calling the next film ‘Episode V’. Some people were understandably confused as it would suggest there was an Episode 2, 3 and 4 that people had missed. Instead it was that they had renamed the first film as Episode 4…which made no sense.
The idea was that what we had already seen was going to be followed by two sequels and that within time they would produce three prequels which would be titled episodes 1, 2 and 3.
Decades later they would make what would be Episodes 7, 8 and 9 although at the cinema these films were never officially referred to as such with just subtitles given.
Something that made things more confusing was that in between episode 7 which was called The Force Awakens and episode 8 which was called the Last Jedi was another Star Wars Film which was a prequel to the first one…which itself is called the forth one. This prequel was a sequel to the previous three prequels and was called Rogue One, but the inclusion of the number one wasn’t meant to refer to ordering of the film.
Rocky
The first film was called Rocky, and the following films were all called Rocky 2, 3, 4 and 5. Nice and easy…except the films used Roman numerals, so it was Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III etc, but that is still easy enough.
Things started to become confusing with the sixth film which came many many years after the fifth. It was called Rocky Balboa and was named after the character with their first and last name. Once you know you know right?
But then the next film was called Creed and was named after surname of Rocky’s opponent from the early films. You see Creed changed things up so Rocky was now a supporting character to the son of Creed. Creed 2 and 3 followed which if you’re wondering made Creed 3 effectively Rocky 9….or should that be Rocky IX?
Rambo
Sticking with Sylvester Stallone, his other big franchise along with Rocky is Rambo. This one is more crazy.
The first film was called First Blood. That’s it. No mention of Rambo in the title at all. But then because the character was popular people just referred to the film as Rambo. So they called it Rambo: First Blood 2. This was strange in itself as surely First Blood 2: Rambo would have made more sense.
Also they could have opted for the title Second Blood maybe? Although arguably the film didn’t necessarily depict “second blood”.
They simplified things with the third film and just called it Rambo 3…even though there wasn’t technically a film called Rambo or Rambo 2.
Years later they then just made Rambo. The fourth film which sounds like it should be the first one. They had thought to call it John Rambo, probably off the back of Rocky Balboa, but they just went with Rambo.
Finally they made Rambo: Last Blood which after the confusing rest of the titles in the series actually is fairly self explanatory where it comes in the order.
Saw
This one is mostly simple, but has a weird ending. The first Saw is called Saw and the sequels are all numbered until Saw 6. Then the next one was called Saw 3D. But then the next one was called Jigsaw and after that Spiral with the subtitle being Spiral: From the Book of Saw and then the next is Saw X, which whilst in development was said to be Saw IX as Spiral wasn’t supposedly a Saw film…huh?
Fast and the Furious
And now the one that is probably the weirdest of them all.
The first film is called The Fast and the Furious. This was followed by the cleverly titled 2 Fast 2 Furious. Some could believe this meant it was a clever way of naming the 22nd movie in the franchise.
After this things became a bit more normal with the use of a subtitle for the Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift. But then things went crazy.
The fourth film is just called Fast and Furious. This just eliminated the words The and The from the original film’s title. If they wanted to be really clever it should have been The Fast and the Fourious…
Then came Fast Five. Unless you knew this was part of the same franchise they’d be no way of knowing this was connected.
Then Fast and Furious 6. Even though the last film called this wasn’t called Fast and Furious 4…
They went clever again on the next film which was Furious Seven…why not Fast Seven?
Then The Fate of the Furious which if you don’t get it is named thusly because the word Fate means you have to say the number eight. The spelling is not an inductor though.
Then came the spin-off which was called Fast & Furious presents Hobbs & Shaw. You know I have to give it to them. The inclusion of the word ‘presents’ does make it clearer it’s something different to the others.
Then after shortening the original title by removing the ‘the’s or just reducing things down to single words such as ‘Fast’ or ‘Furious’ the next entry was just F9…
Then the eleventh film but the tenth in the main franchise was called Fast X. Not only would it have been clever for it to be called FX when the films have a lot of special FX, but there’s another point of contention here.
They have switched the titles from having written words like Five, to using the numbers like 6 to now using Roman numerals…perhaps the next film should be called F That.
You can get loads more Movie and TV show articles in the Movies/TV section of the site, and don’t forget to check out the Geek Battle comedy panel show on the Extreme Improv XStreamed YouTube Channel and on the dedicated Geek Battle YouTube Channel
