Jory

Not long ago I said that Guy Ritchie's two Sherlock Holmes movies are better Lethal Weapon films than the last two Lethal Weapons, and last year every film critic in the world was getting snarky and saying that Olympus Has Fallen is a much better Die Hard movie than A Good Day to Die Hard, which was still in theatres. This is something I've been thinking about lately: when else has the unrelated movie been better the official one? Here's what I've come up with:

To Live and Die in L.A. is a better Miami Vice movie than Miami Vice. The rumor that Michael Mann sued William Friedkin over To Live and Die in L.A. being too similar to Miami Vice isn't true, but there's a reason so many people believed it. L.A. does enough fine things of its own, but it unquestionably captures the tone and essence of Vice about as well as any movie could. The eventual Miami Vice movie was fine for what it was, but it was more like Heat 2 than Miami Vice.

Star Trek is a better Star Wars movie than the Star Wars prequels. I'm certainly not the first person to point this one out. The 2009 Star Trek not only seemed to be copying the basic structure of A New Hope, it also had more passion and energy for that concept than any Star Wars movie had in about 30 years. And with a slightly less shitty screenplay than the prequels.

Total Recall and Starship Troopers are better follow-ups to RoboCop than the official RoboCop sequels. I remember Outlaw Vern saying once on his website that the real trilogy is RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers, not RoboCop, RoboCop 2, and RoboCop 3. I can't see how anyone could disagree. Not just because Recall and Troopers are far better films than the RoboCop sequels, but because they do a much better job of capturing the tone, essence, and themes of RoboCop: the nature of humanity and holding onto it in Recall, and the satire of the media in Troopers.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is a better Creepshow movie than Creepshow III. Creepshow III was made by a bunch of charlatans who just had the rights to the name. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was much closer to the spirit of Creepshow and Creepshow 2, and was made with the involvement of George Romero and Stephen King. Darkside is, for all intents and purposes, the true conclusion to the trilogy.

The Great Mouse Detective is a better Sherlock Holmes movie than most of them. The Great Mouse Detective doesn't involve Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Professor Moriarty; it involves Basil of Baker Street, Dr. Dawson, and Professor Ratigan. But it's more obvious than obvious who everyone is supposed to be. I once made a list of all the Holmes films I've watched in my obsession with the character. Out of about 200 films, I counted about 75. Of all of those, I would put The Great Mouse Detective in the Top 5. It must have made a big impression on others as well, because the BBC's Sherlock has The Great Mouse Detective's fingerprints all over it.

Leverage is a better Mission: Impossible series than the Mission: Impossible films. I'm stretching here by including a TV series, but it absolutely belongs. After watching all nine seasons of Mission: Impossible, I was overjoyed to discover Leverage, which captures what Mission was all about far better than the Tom Cruise films. With the exception of a scene here and there, the Cruise films have more to do with traditional James Bond Hollywood spy action than what David Maurer called The Big Con in his book of that title: a team of grifters putting together the most insanely elaborate cons imaginable and pulling them off with laser precision. The fourth Mission movie finally started to get this, but Leverage had been getting it for three years by that point.

In the Mouth of Madness, Alien, and The Thing are better H. P. Lovecraft movies than most of the official ones. How many good movies have been produced from H. P. Lovecraft's writing? Re-Animator, which is based on a story that was never really a good example of what Lovecraft excelled at, and The Call of Cthulhu, which is more of a translation than an adaptation. John Carpenter was directly channeling Lovecraft when he made In the Mouth of Madness, and he almost inarguably captured the themes of isolation and the madness surrounding reality-bending otherworldly entities better than any of the official movies, and Alien and The Thing do a better job at capturing an alien who's truly alien better than pretty much any film. Official Lovecraft adaptations like Die Monster Die and The Dunwich Horror can't compete. And in a similar vein...

Some of the films loosely inspired by Philip K. Dick are better than most of the official film adaptations. The best official Philip K. Dick movie, easily, is Blade Runner. It may not do much in the way of capturing the novel's plot and details, but it's about as faithful to the essence of the book as possible. Total Recall and Minority Report also did pretty well in the area of throwing out the plot but keeping the themes. Then you've got mediocre official adaptations like Next, Screamers: The Hunting, and The Adjustment Bureau, which can't begin to stand up to movies unofficially based on Dick's ideas like The Truman Show (an unofficial adaptation of Time Out of Joint), Open Your Eyes/Vanilla Sky (an unofficial adaptation of Ubik), Jacob's Ladder, and eXistenZ, the last of which may be the most "pure" Philip K. Dick movie I've ever seen, without actually having been based on anything he wrote. The very last line of dialogue in eXistenZ is someone questioning, yet again, whether what's happening is real. Dick's novels and short stories similarly made you unsure of the nature of reality until the very end and always left you still wondering, the general theme being that you can never, ever be sure.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a better sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey than 2010: The Year We Make Contact. The Motion Picture gets a lot of shit for a lot of reasons, one of those being that it seems more like 2001 than Star Trek. But I like the movie quite a bit, and I think it handled the 2001-like themes far better than the official sequel, 2010. There was a time when I was sort of amenable to 2010, but I think I was just going along with the popular idea that it's good simply because it's not as shitty as everyone was expecting. Revisiting it recently, however, it just came across as so incredibly lame. I liked the story of The Motion Picture so much that I actually bought a paperback sequel to spend some more time with it, but I want nothing more to do with the hopelessly pedestrian answers that 2010 came up with.

Dumb & Dumber is a better Three Stooges movie than The Three Stooges. Aside from simply not being funny at all, the worst thing about the 2012 Three Stooges was the decision to hire new actors to play the old "characters." It only distracted and drew attention to the fact that it's not them; it's just three dudes doing impressions of Moe, Larry, and Curly. Dumb & Dumber, by simply following in the spirit of the Stooges rather than straight-up imitating them, ironically is much more faithful to the concept and essence. The Farrellys being in their prime rather than their decline also helped.

I'm sure I can think of more, but this post is ridiculously long as it is. Please make it even more ridiculously long by adding to it below, if you can.

Supermallet

I just want to say that Dagon is an excellent Lovecraft adaptation, but I agree about ItMoM, Alien, and The Thing.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a better Star Wars film than the Star Wars prequels (or Return of the Jedi).

Dredd and The Raid are a better Die Hard than Die Hard 2, 4, or 5.

21 Jump Street is a better Police Academy than any Police Academy since...I don't know, the third?

My Other Self

Olympus Has Fallen was originally Die Hard 5, wasn't it? I thought they just repurposed the script. Butler is clearly channeling McClane.

That really was better than it should have been. Too bad they had to potentially end the DH series on such a low note.

I agree with a lot of what you said, though.

Mondo Kane

Thank you.

The only 2 things that I re-watch ROTJ for are the throne room sequences and...The slave girl outfits.

PhantomStranger

I have a soft spot for 2010. No one short of Kubrick was going to match the power of 2001 in a sequel, but 2010 is way, way better than the typical studio hackery that passes for most sequels.

Supermallet

I refuse to watch 2010. First off, Peter Hyams is the definition of a bland director with no voice (the only film of his I can remember enjoying is Outland), pretty much the exact kind of studio hack I would expect to even dare to follow-up Kubrick's masterpiece. Second, 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest film ever made, there is no reason for there to ever be a sequel. It makes even less sense than Highlander 2, even if the story allowed for a sequel.

gmanca

Becase 2010 was a book first, it actually does follow on the themes of the film/first book that were meaningful, specifically the Monolith and its role in evolution. Only then did Hyams adapted it after Clarke went to Kubrick and said he had a sequel.

Shannon Nutt

I like 2010...it's no 2001, but what is? It's one of those movies that really reflect the political atmosphere of when it was made (during the heart of the Cold War/Reagan era).

EddieMoney

I like 2010, but the Roy Scheider voiceovers are really goofy.

Groucho

50 Shades of Grey is a better Twilight movie than any of the official entries.

cleaver

Never Say Never Again is better than Thunderball
You know that making love to Fatima was the greatest pleasure of your life.
Well, to be perfectly honest, there was this girl in Philadelphia...

inri222

Top Gun is a better Brokeback Mountain movie than Brokeback Mountain.

GoldenJCJ

About the only one I can come up with is Hatchet is a better Friday the 13th movie than the last few entries, including the reboot.

Groucho

On that note, Hatchet 3 is a better Predator movie than Predator 2.

hanshotfirst1138

You didn't post the infamous Tarantino deconstruction scenes ?

That thing has had a hell of a shelf life in the fan community.

Talkin2Phil

After years of refusing to watch 2010, I finally did. While watching i was trying to not think of it as a sequel to 2001 and I came away thinking 2010 was a very good Star Trek movie.

GoldenJCJ

I haven't seen it yet but I'm definitely going to Netflix that shit now!

OldBoy

Jason X is a better Alien movie than 3 or 4.

Rob V

No! GotG exists because of films like SW. GotG also has nearly 40 years of technology at its fingertips as well.

GoldenJCJ

The Star Wars prequels were made in the mid-70s?

superdeluxe

We watch Return of the Jedi daily. The kid likes the ewoks (He Loves Darth), who knew Lucas was right.

Sean O'Hara

Galaxy Quest is the second best Star Trek film ever made.

As a sequel 2010 sucks and literalizes all the symbolism from the first film. As a standalone sci-fi film, it's great.

Giantrobo

Ky-Fi

I think the biggie is that The Incredibles was quite a bit better than either of the Fantastic Four movies.

John Carter was better than any of the Star Wars prequels.

Jory

Gah! I knew I was forgetting a big one. Excellent example.