5 Trilogies That Fell Apart In Their Final Act

If you're going to make a movie trilogy, wouldn't you want the opus of that trilogy to be the final instalment? Wouldn't you make it your goal that the finale blew people's minds and had them walking away with their jaws agape? Of course you would. So, why then does it seem that so many films built around the idea of a trilogy seem to fall apart in their final act? It's like they take everything they built up to at that point and just have no idea what to do with it. We can all name trilogies that we loved which suddenly went to shit when they hit the third film, right? You can have two awesome movies, but if you third film is shit, that is going to be the final thought that audiences are left with.. On that note, here are 5 movie trilogies that were kind of awesome and then completely fell apart in their third act. Also, keep in mind, with a few of these films I use the term "trilogy" quite loosely. The Matrix As much as this film has been talked about to death, we sometimes forget that the first Matrix introduced (and attempted to mainstream) a lot of Eastern philosophy and existentialism into an action movie, which few American films had done before, or at least not as blatantly as the Wachowskis did it. We can all chortle at the lame CG and one lined emptiness of Neo in the movie when we look back on it now, but we didn't feel that way when the first movie dropped. We were all lining up to see it, and all talking about it afterwards. Hell, that was the first time I saw Laurence Fishburne's complexion in HD IMAX, and it was terrifying (like the landscape of the moon). The second film in the trilogy began to really show where the series was heading (convoluted trainwreck?), but it was not until the third movie that we figured out just how poorly things would end off. Gone are the hints of Neo being a sort of new Jesus, replaced with Neo being a new Jesus. It was clearly a trilogy that knew what it wanted to do, but did not know how to actually pull that off without crapping out a cliched, cheesy ending to what was an otherwise original ride up to that point. Hell, the ending was so bad that my mind repressed it. Honestly, how did the movie end again? Neo as Jesus and some new world was built, right? WHACK! X-Men: The Last Stand I know we have had other X-Men films since this one, but we all know X-Men: Last Stand as the ending of the original trilogy, and my God was it shitty, and not even in that "fun, summer movie, shitty" way. Just shitty. Shrimp masturbator Brett Ratner (trust me, click the link) decided the best way to wrap up this trilogy was by incorporating internet memes and killing off random characters for no reason. He also felt like it might be smart to add some new characters, and for the whole thing to be like a shepherd's pie fashioned out of the meat and potatoes of miscarried babies. But I digress. The handling of Dark Phoenix in this movie was one of the biggest comic book to movie faux-pas ever put on-screen. Even the ending, where Wolvie stabs her and it is all Shakespearean and tragic.....yeah, that is not accurate (nor does it work here). Leading up to that final moment, it genuinely felt like a movie that was thrown together as an almost "fuck you" to the two movies that came before it, which were much more respectful of the source material and fan base. I'm pretty sure they called it The Last Stand because even the filmmakers knew that this piece of shit stood no chance. It was like Ratner WANTED to ruin the franchise. The Godfather Part III I am telling you right now, nepotism is not always a good thing. When people speak about cinema and the movies that have truly had an impact on them, most people talk about The Godfather. The thing is, they only talk about part one and the equally (if not more) brilliant part two. But when you name drop the third movie in the series, a hush falls over the room and the air immediately gets thicker. It feels like someone just used the N word and suddenly everyone is wickedly uncomfortable, and even a bit angry. Do you know why that is? Because The Godfather's final act would be like ending Romeo and Juliet with a fucking dance number. It was an awful, plodding, vapid film that has no place wearing The Godfather name so proudly. Oh, and back to nepotism for a second.... Though she has gone to prove in spades that she has a genuine and impressive place behind the camera, Francis Ford Coppola putting his daughter Sofia in The Godfather Part III was its death blow. It really was. She always seems uncomfortable on screen, like even SHE is well aware she should not be there. Whereas the first two films play out like an epic opus about family and power, the final film plays out like a shitty episode of My Sweet Sixteen, starring gangsters. Jaws 3 I know, I know. They made a part four. I also know that part four somehow ended up being even worse than part three, which most would imagine as an impossible feat. But Jaws was groundbreaking, and the sequel was not awful (even though it should have been, as Jaws never needed a sequel). But part three, literally, jumps the shark. It jumps the shark into fucking SeaWorld. It makes the worst use of 3D I have ever seen, and the effects, acting, and story are just awful. Beyond awful, really. Somehow, Jaws ends up in Seaworld. No joke. As you can imagine, chaos and crappy 3D ensues. What can you even say about this movie? It actually sounds HARDER to make a movie about a killer shark un-scary than it does to make it scary. The premise of a great white in itself is terrifying. Yet in this film, they proved it is actually really easy to make a scare-less shark movie. Suck out any tension, add 3D effects that look like someone pasted a shark they cut out of a magazine onto your TV screen, and make it all seem as implausible as you can. Honestly, getting lit before you watch it is the ONLY way that Jaws 3 is even bearable. RoboCop 3 Executive: So I was thinking we should make another RoboCop movie. How about we upgrade the suit and make him fly this time? Kids love that shit, right? And that would be a rather easy way to make kids go buy a whole bunch of new RoboCop toys, right? What do you mean, Robocop is not aimed at kids? What do you mean Peter Weller does not want to reprise the role he mastered so well? Oh well, fuck it. MAKE IT ANYWAY! That is exactly how I imagine the pitch meeting going for RoboCop 3. I also imagine a big mirror in the middle of the table, covered in cocaine. That is the only way this movie makes sense. A bunch of money hungry morons wanted to cash in on this series and try to milk it well past the point it was dry. Maybe this one did not set out to be a trilogy, but there ended up being three movies, so guess what that makes it? Hell, even the reboot (which lost all the sense of the satire, gore, and anything that made the original work) still got it better than this flying piece of roboshit.