"Godfather Syndrome" in Movies

It's no news to anyone that movie sequels tend to pale in comparison to their original films. This can be disappointing enough to fans, but it can be all the more disappointing when a film has at least one good sequel and then a bad one. It gives us a false sense of security, a belief that the creative minds behind a franchise can do no wrong, and that makes it feel almost like a betrayal when a bad sequel finally comes along.

We've seen this happen in series like Terminator, The Dark Knight, Scream, Shrek, and dozens of others, but the odd thing that a lot of those franchises seem to share is that they didn't start to go bad until their third installment. This occurrence is so common that it's even come to be called "Godfather Syndrome" after one of its most infamous casualties. Why is the third time not the charm in so many franchises? The reasons vary, though a few trends do seem to crop up.

One frequent cause of Godfather Syndrome, of course, is studio interference. The second film in a series is often made as an experiment to see how fans of the original will respond to sequels. If that experiment is a huge success, like the sequel Aliens was, the studio tends to apply more pressure on the filmmakers for the next sequel in order to take the most advantage of the franchise's popularity. The result in this case was Alien 3, which had its release date announced before the script was finished and had to severely compromise its story, effects, and most other creative aspects in order to meet that deadline. There's also the case of Spider-Man 3, where the studio forced director Sam Raimi to include a popular villain from the comics despite his story already having two other villains in it. In the end, each franchise was left with a third film that most fans consider to be a convoluted letdown.

Another common cause of Godfather Syndrome is a change in the creative team behind a film series. Filmmakers have changing passions just like any other type of artist, so it's rare for them to remain involved with a franchise to the same extent throughout its entire run. However, if the director, writer, or any other major player hands the reins to someone new in between films, the change in style is usually noticeable. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if the key visionaries in a film series are replaced after making the first two films, a lot of their understanding of the series's themes, character arcs, and overall identity is at risk of being lost in Part 3.

For instance, the original X-Men trilogy saw a change in director from Bryan Singer to Brett Ratner for its third film X-Men: The Last Stand, and this led to a huge shift in the presentation. Major characters acted nothing like themselves, subtle undertones were replaced with ludicrous action set pieces, and storylines set up in the previous films were either badly mishandled or dropped altogether. This sequel simply didn't mesh with its predecessors, and when that happens with the third film of a trilogy that follows an ongoing story arc, it can cheapen all three films.

Probably the most disheartening cause of Godfather Syndrome, however, is when the original creators themselves simply lose their touch. Just look at the syndrome's namesake, the Godfather trilogy. The Godfather Part III was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola just like the first two films, but more than a decade had passed in between the release of Part II and the beginning of Part III's production. No storyteller is going to have the same style or perspective after such a long time, and even though Part III tried to center itself around this idea of time changing people, the fact remained that it didn't feel like a Godfather film.

In other cases, the writers run out of ideas within the scope of the series's universe after two movies and they expand the scope too much in the third one. That's why we got a third Pirates of the Caribbean film that barely took place in the Caribbean and had more characters and storylines in it than a George R.R. Martin daydream.

These aren't even the only three causes of Godfather Syndrome. Sometimes if the second movie in a series ends in a cliffhanger, the third movie gets bogged down with having to resolve those plot threads while also telling its own story. Other times the franchise starts to become self-aware after the second film's reception and panders more in the third installment. And then there are instances where a third film isn't inherently bad, but the second film was just so good that no other sequel can measure up to it. All three of these factors seem to afflict Return of the Jedi, and while it often gets hailed as the weakest film in the original Star Wars trilogy, I really don't know any Star Wars fans who hate it.

Bottom line, making any good film is something of a cinematic miracle. It takes a perfect storm of things going right in order for the product to turn out well, and unless that film is Part 1 of a preplanned story arc, every one of those things has to go right all over again for each sequel to turn out the same way. If a franchise is lucky enough to make that happen more than once, it probably can only make it happen twice -- but that doesn't stop Hollywood from trying at least three times. We fans may see Godfather Syndrome as a stab in the back from the film world, but in the words of The Godfather (and also, sadly, the third Pirates of the Caribbean film), "It's nothing personal. It's just business."

"Well, in the book it says..."

Blowing off the dust after my longest hiatus to date...

I want to begin today's entry by talking about the movie The Hobbit. No surprise there, but I promise I have a point this time.

You see, there's a scene roughly 2/3 of the way through the film where Bilbo decides that he wants to turn back and go home. He tries to sneak away from the dwarves while they're sleeping, but one of them, a character named Bofur, catches him in the act and tries to talk him out of leaving. Bofur says that Bilbo is just homesick and that he understands that feeling, to which Bilbo snaps that none of the dwarves understand because they're used to "not belonging anywhere." Bilbo immediately apologizes for this insult, but Bofur sadly admits that it's true; "We don't belong anywhere." He then wishes the hobbit well and allows him to leave -- only for them and the rest of the group to be captured by goblins a second later. It's a well done scene and a very nice moment for both characters, and it's one of my favorite parts in the whole film. However, there is one little issue that I may or may not have with it. I say "may or may not" because there's actually another, bigger issue with the film that kind of cancels out the first issue.

I'll explain.

According to all of the movie guides, visual companion books, and online character profiles for The Hobbit, Bofur and his relatives Bifur and Bombur aren't from Erebor, the dwarf kingdom that was taken over by the dragon in the story. They're actually from the Blue Mountains, which is also where the dwarves from Erebor ended up settling. In short, I can literally draw a map of what's wrong with the above mentioned scene:




So yeah, the "We don't belong anywhere" line kind of falls apart coming from Bofur. He's one of the only dwarves in the whole group that it doesn't work for, in fact. If the screenwriters had put just about anyone else in that scene with Bilbo, there would be no issue.

With that said, here's the other, bigger issue that kind of cancels it out: we never learn Bofur's personal backstory in the movie. The dialogue never explains where he's from, why he joined the quest, or what sort of relationship he has with any of the other dwarves. This is the case for most of the dwarves in the movie, minus their leader Thorin, and since their backstories don't exist in any of Tolkien's works, the supplementary guide books for the film are the only places where you can read up on that information. So if you don't bother with any of those extra materials and just watch the film by itself, that scene will play out just fine.

This finally leads me to today's topic: required reading for movies. There are entire websites and bookstore shelves filled with literature about characters, locations, chronologies, and so on from popular film franchises. Their purpose is to enrich the films by giving juicy inside information about what's happening onscreen. In some cases, they also divulge a few very important tidbits of information that pertain to the plot, which for some reason aren't spelled out nearly as well in the movies themselves. As a result, many of these "enriching" materials become necessary ones that you won't be able to follow the movies without.

Take the Star Wars prequels for instance -- the worst offenders of this, in my opinion. Virtually no one has ever been able to make sense of the villains' plans in any of those films without first consulting the billions of outside materials that Lucasfilm is happy to sell. I'm not condemning anyone for reading or buying those materials, seeing how I own several myself, but I've come to realize from them just how poorly and lazily written those movies are. You should never have to do research in order to understand a film. If the filmmakers do their jobs well, you won't have any questions by the time the end credits roll, at least not about the plot or the characters' motivations.

The same goes for movies that have been adapted from novels or comic books. Just because the audience for an adapted movie has most likely read the source material beforehand doesn't mean the screenwriters have an excuse to phone in their script and skimp on the exposition. Movies are meant to be accessible to everyone, not just to one group of people, but you can tell that a lot of popular movie adaptations out there are mainly written for people who've already read the source material. Try going into these movies cold, and you will be very confused by what you're watching. I know as an aspiring author that I should be encouraging people to read the books in addition to seeing the films, but as an aspiring filmmaker, I 'm saying that it shouldn't be necessary to do so. Movies like The Godfather, Jurassic Park, and even 2013's The Great Gatsby prove that a discernible stand-alone adaptation can be made.

So my question after all this ranting is, what makes the supplementary/source material for a movie required reading? At what point does it cross that line and start to do the screenwriters' jobs for them? Ultimately, I think it comes down to how essential to the story the information in question is. You don't need to know every aspect of how the Galactic Republic operates, but you do need to know why it's having trouble operating and why the Separatists are declaring war on it. You don't need to know how or why Sirius Black and Remus Lupin created the Marauder's Map in Harry Potter, but you do need to know that they created it so you won't be puzzled when they randomly start explaining how it works.

And then there's The Hobbit. As much as some of us may enjoy reading about Bofur the dwarf's personal background, he's a peripheral character, and thus we don't need to know anything about him in order to follow the plot. However, we do need to know a lot about Thorin, the dwarves' leader who sets the whole plot in motion. We need to learn that two of the other dwarves in the group are his nephews so we'll understand [something that happens near the end of the story]. We need to know how Gandalf managed to get the key to Erebor from Thorin's presumably dead father so we won't be questioning the logic of it the entire time. Those things haven't been made clear yet in the Hobbit trilogy, and if they never are, then we'll have issues. If they're made clear by the end of the second film, then smooth sailing. And who knows? Maybe the second film will even reveal Bofur's background after all and it'll turn out that his "We don't belong anywhere" line was just a big sad act to put Bilbo on a guilt trip. The possibilities are still endless.

So that's my two cents about extra reading materials. They're still a ton of fun to dive into, but they should remain in the shadows of the movies that they're about. Keep collecting them if you like them, and if you don't like them, then hopefully you'll never need to.

And if it's not too much to ask, Peter Jackson, could you please explain why the characters in The Hobbit can't just fly those giant eagles to their destination? I know it says in the book, but I think you finally have the opportunity you need to state it on film and put that issue to rest.