rennervision

I've noticed a trend with movie trilogies where they introduce a supporting villain everyone thinks was great in the second movie. Unfortunately, he's so great we can't wait to see how the character develops in the third installment - only to see his part completely fizzle away on screen.

I think the first trilogy guilty of this was the original Star Wars. Boba Fett had a strong debut in ESB. But for many of us, ROTJ was a major disappointment when Fett ended up as the punchline in a blind man joke, complete with girly-man scream.

You would think writers would learn from this historic misstep in cinema, but this appears to be a common thing that occurs with all trilogies. I honestly can't think of any exception. Just consider these examples...

The Matrix: By the end of part 2, we're all salivating to learn more of the mysterious Merovingian. In part 3, we barely care above the sound of our yawns.

The Lord of the Rings: What a fantastic villain Christopher Lee portrayed as Saruman in The Two Towers. In Return of the King, Saruman was played by Christopher Who?

Pirates of the Caribbean: So you thought the Kracken stole the show in part 2? Well guess what – his death happens off-screen for part 3!

Back to the Future: This one is slightly different. Biff Tannen isn’t exactly a supporting villain. In part 2, he became a bona fide main villain who was very, very bad. He’s barely in part 3, leaving that job for his great, great grandfather – and by this time the same “Hey McFly, I thought I told you to never come in here” schtick was getting old.

Can anyone think of a trilogy to add to this list? Better yet, is there one that doesn't do this?

chris_sc77

ALso in LOTR: The Two Towers is Brad Dourif who is awesome as Wormtongue. Possibly My favorite character in the films.

GuessWho

Christopher Lee also had this happen to him in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Dooku was a badass in II, but quickly lost his head in III.

Yakuza Bengoshi

A trilogy that falls into your pattern is the loosely connected Mummy franchise. Dwayne Johnson is introduced in The Mummy Returns (2001) as Mathayus the Scorpion King. Then gets his own flick, The Scorpion King the following year -- I can't believe I know that.

Merkin Muffley

Harry Potter!

They make such a big deal about this Voldemort guy...and he's not even in the third movie!

pinata242

IIRC, HP6 spoilers:

I know that you were joking, but I'm just throwing that out there too.

Regarding Saruman and RotK, it's really too bad they didn't throw in the scourging. That would have really given him more oomph. His role in RotK:EE was a fine capper though, and even Wormtounge got to do what he does in the book.

whoopdido

Jurassic Park III comes to mind. Now, I know that the raptors were supposed to be kind of the main villains in the first and third movies, but the T-Rex definitely stole the show in the first one and had much more screen time in the second. Flash forward to number 3 and some goofy looking thing kills the T-Rex after about a 30 second fight.

Say what you want about Jurassic Park III, but personally I think the movie needed one more big dinosaur fight/action scene. Instead of the movie just fizzling out and ending on that beach I would have had the goofy looking dinosaur come back for one last attempt to kill the humans and right when everything looks hopeless the other T-Rex could come crashing in and save the day and of course avenge the death of its mate. Of course that would be the exact same thing that happened at the end of the first one, but you can't expect too much originality in Jurassic Park III. The movie could then end with an aerial shot from the escaping helicoptor of the T-Rex and other dinosaur fighting on the beach.

Brack

Stifler of the "American Pie" trilogy. He's not so much a villain as he is a pest (only to the characters in the movie, not to the audience of course), and he becomes a central character by "American Wedding." *Edit* A trilogy not to suffer this.

MrE

On a pace to break the mold was the Terminator series. Of course then came T3. Ditto with the Alien series - the third was the (first) big letdown.

coli

Yeah, but Lucas made up for it with Boba Fetts whole backstory in Episode II!

Brack

Sticking up for Lucas? Didn't you know that it's practically against the law to do this on message boards?

True_Story1011

Disagree - Please visit Alien Ressurrection!

notkevinbacon

I remember this being my exact reaction when I saw this in the theatres way back when. Also, I remember the loudest unintentional laughter when the Raptor says "Alan" on the plan.

Brent L

JP3 was a failure in just about every single way, don't even get me started on that one.

DonnachaOne

I wouldn't say the Merovingian was that appealing a character, but I'd say the albino twins would be a better fit for your "syndrome". An interesting duo introduced and then given nothing to do.

"We are ultimately irrelevant to the plot."
"Yes, we are."

BullGooseLoony

I find that when you have a lot of series', the thing a lot of writers are doing are introducing and killing off characters, or diminishing their role. It really depends on what's happening. The Matrix Reloaded was a movie that made a million promises, and then the next one paid off on none of them. I actually think the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End followed up nicely on the real NEW star of the series, Davy Jones, even though a lot of the times he was reduced to a "mongrol pup" as he put it.

It's just about keeping things fresh. No one wants to see the same group of characters in the same situation over and over again, because then you'd get the Police Academy movies.

Interesting topic, btw.

PopcornTreeCt

I don't know about the Matrix. The coolest characters in that movie were the ghost twins and they quickly died out.

Darth Maul was killed in The Phantom Menace and thus the franchise sucked from there.

Kracken wasn't nearly as interesting as Davy Jones but again he's wasted in the 3rd film.

If anything Back to the Future kept it real as Biff was the main villain in all the films.

Sarumon was never cool but Wormtongue rocked. Boromir was the best character in the first film but was promptly killed off. His scenes in the extended editions are part of the reason why the extended versions are so much better.

And for the record I don't understand the love for Boba Fett. I just don't get it.

RD1973

How about Cyclops in the X-Men series? (I've never seen Boba Fett or Jango Fett as bad guys)

tylergfoster

I think the prequel trilogy is the most guilty of committing this crime. They introduce several villains only to kill them off either in that same film or without any real development in the next film (Darth Maul, Jango Fett, Count Dooku, the robot with four arms whose name I forget). Here's how I'd have done it:

Episode I: Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon Jinn, gets away with it. Highly distracting to Obi-Wan Kenobi. There should also have been some foreshadowing of Jango Fett's character. Nothing much, but it should establish him as a reputable bounty hunter.

Episode II: Anakin has learned of Darth Maul and is looking for revenge. Obi-Wan also wants revenge, but knows it would be wrong. Darth Maul makes a few brief appearances, during which Obi-Wan has trouble handling both his outrage and Anakin's outrage at the same time. Jango Fett's character is fully developed and killed. Dooku is introduced more thoroughly. The death of Anakin's mother nearly takes Anakin to the dark side, but Obi-Wan brings him back around after Anakin is disturbed by how he is acting. During the fight with Dooku, however, Anakin becomes unstable again.

Episode III: Anakin finally gets to face off against Darth Maul early in the film. Obi-Wan is there, and realizes his hate of Maul is overshadowing the level of commitment and attention he was giving to Anakin and that Anakin is losing it. Obi-Wan tries to get him to back down, but instead Anakin kills Maul in rage, thus completing his path to the dark side. Afterwards, he kills Dooku too, despite an attempt by Dooku to surrender.

PopcornTreeCt

I like your ideas but I think Darth Maul would have to kill Anakin's mother or something for him to be that upset.

Darth Maul angle would've been nice to play against Anakin and his change into Darth Vader.

UAIOE

I like your idea, except that the movie was needing way more than another dino duel.

The words "better" and "script" come to mind.

thegame370

Strongly agree! Even tho third film sucked big time i was always waiting to see him kick major ass and just when i thought he was, they killed him off...WTF!!! Also, Nightcrawler was bad-ass in the 2nd film and nowhere to be found in part 3...

Meglos

Thirded. It basically felt like they were offing Cyclops just to give Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry more lines and screentime.

RD1973

I feel that all these villains were just colorful background characters. The story really revolves around Yoda, the Emperor, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme. Darth Maul in particular was a one-trick pony. He was cool in small doses, but would have sucked as the main villain of the trilogy.

GuessWho

The multiple villains were to prove that it's not easy to find a perfect apprentice, thus, Anakin was that much more rare and valuable.

Also, Anakin as an apprentice was the combination of the previous three allies of Palpatine:
Maul = youth, energy
Dooku = formal Jedi training
Grievous = part machine

Getting Anakin as an apprentice was like building Serpentor from former world leaders... a bit of each to make an ultimate