Sequelitis / Disney

What a waste of perfectly good popcorn...

"You can't top pigs with pigs."

— Walt Disney (on the failure of The Three Little Pigs follow-up shorts)

Disney has produced many classic films, both animated and live-action, in their century of existence...but they've also produced a notoriously large number of underwhelming to just plain lousy (often cheaply-made) follow-ups to their classics along the way.

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Examples:

Films — Animation

• Disney's run of Direct to Video sequels produced by Disneytoon Studios (sometimes derisively termed as "cheapquels") from 1994 to 2008 are some of the most infamous examples of Sequelitis in not just animation, but in all media, and they are near-unanimously considered to be inferior follow-ups to their predecessors for a variety of reasons, particularly for their generally poor animation and writing quality. After Aladdin: The Return of Jafar enjoyed reasonable financial success, it opened the floodgates. When John Lasseter became Chief Creative Officer of the Walt Disney Animation Studios, he unplugged any future DTV Disney sequels and prequels that were still on the drawing board^note including a Dumbo sequel that was announced on that film's 2001 DVD but had ended up in Development Hell, and only allowed films that were already in production (such as Cinderella III and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, which became the last two of Disney's 14-year slate of DTV sequels) to continue. While not all of them were disasters, there were far more poor and mediocre sequels than you should expect from their franchises.
  • The first of the sequels, The Return of Jafar, was intended as the multi-part pilot episode for Aladdin: The Series, hence why it establishes many things that would become the status quo in the TV series, e.g. the recurring Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Abis Mal, the Carpet's new design, Genie coming back, and Iago's Heel–Face Turn. However, it was hastily converted into a direct-to-video feature late in its production. While it does have a fanbase, it's universally considered to be a blatantly inferior follow up to the original Aladdin, mainly due to the much poorer animation (it was intended for television...) and replacing Robin Williams with Dan Castellaneta.
  • Beauty and the Beast has two sequels. The first one, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, is considered slightly above average for the Disney sequels, but the plot has little to do with the fairytale, being more of a standard Christmas movie. The second one, Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World, is unanimously loathed by many and is often considered one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, of the sequels; it's little more than a series of disjointed episodes clearly written for a TV series which did not happen, with Flanderization aplenty, embarrassingly bad artwork, and worse animation. As of 2016, Belle's Magical World stands as the only Beauty and the Beast installment without a Blu-ray, or even behind-the-scenes DVD bonus features. It is available on Disney+, but two segments—"A Little Thought" and "Mrs. Potts' Party"—are cut.
  • Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World brings the title character slightly closer to her historical, real-life counterpart (her romance with John Rolfe, visiting England), and also shows her making more mature decisions. However, the quality of the movie itself was met with more varied opinions. It is particularly disliked because Pocahontas has a relationship with a different man in the sequel, destroying her romance with John Smith (though granted, she did think Smith was dead for most of the movie). The original was far enough removed from historical accuracy as it was.
  • Cinderella has the first sequel, Dreams Come True, which was perceived as weak and rather episodic. This is because, like Atlantis 2 and Belle's Magical World, it's made up of episodes for a planned TV series that never got off the ground.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame II was criticized for inferior animation, generic songs, and how many of the characters were incompetent. It was also heavily panned for its villain, widely considered one of Disney's worst in a follow-up to the film that gave us Judge Claude Frollo, who is widely lauded as one of Disney's deepest villains. One of the complaints included that Victor Hugo's novel couldn't have had a sequel because close to none of the characters survived. It was largely created to give Quasimodo a girlfriend, but Madellaine was not a popular character.
    Online: "Nearly everybody died at the end of the book, and the movie didn't exactly leave loose ends itself. This leaves the writers to showcase how well they can write an original character, or a decent love story or a threatening villain without ripping it off from a classical story written 200 or so years ago - ie, they can't."
  • The Jungle Book 2 is universally considered to be inferior to the original film, due in part to its story being a blatant, watered-down rehash of the first and for undoing Mowgli's Character Development from the original. It was one of the few sequels to get a theatrical release, and while it was savaged by critics, it did quite well at the box office.
  • Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land, while by no means one of the worst Disney sequels, absolutely pales in comparison to the original film and has numerous flaws that drag it down, most notably its plot being a bland retread of the first. Like The Jungle Book 2, this movie got a theatrical release in some regions that made plenty of money despite flopping critically.
  • The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea is accused of reusing the first film's ideas, only telling the story in reverse (a human character wanting to become a mermaid) with a few new characters thrown in — including "Ursula's crazy sister" Morgana, who is so similar to Ursula herself that she's even played by the same voice actor. A prequel to the first one was also created; though its art and animation get some praise and there are some flashes of good writing and genuine wit, the story is criticized for making the characters act like idiots (Triton outlaws music from his kingdom after... his wife is killed by a very slow-moving pirate ship? Because she was trying to recover a music box?), the Foregone Conclusion puts a bit of a damper on the happy ending, and (ironically) the soundtrack is usually considered forgettable. It's most notable for being the last of Disney's DTV sequels — all future Disney sequels, like Frozen II and Ralph Breaks the Internet, have been big-budget theatrical affairs.
  • Atlantis: Milo's Return, the sequel to Atlantis: The Lost Empire, is surprisingly engaging, but only if you watch it for what it is: the cobbled-together remains of the cancelled TV series Team Atlantis. Everyone's in-character and the various Other Darrins may be surprisingly good and the mysteries cool, but the narrative is extremely disjointed due to it being three episodes held together by chewing gum and wire, and the TV level animation is a massive downgrade from the first film.
  • Tarzan had two sequels. One of them was Tarzan II, a midquel featuring a young Tarzan. The other was Tarzan & Jane, a Compilation Movie of three episodes of The Legend of Tarzan with some original framing material dealing with Jane & Tarzan celebrating their first year together. Tarzan & Jane is considered at best mediocre, but Tarzan II is largely seen as even harder to sit through, due to basically being the first twenty minutes of the original film stretched to fit a 90-minute runtime. Its only remarkable feature is the new character Zugor, an ape played by George Carlin, who seems to spend the entire movie holding back a swear. Neither film received a Blu-ray release.
  • Mulan II is decently animated, but is largely overlooked and ultimately criticized for the even greater liberties taken in its portrayal of Chinese culture, Mushu taking a level in jerkass, and for leaving the plot in which Mulan must save China once more unresolved; specifically, it was Mulan's mission to escort the Emperor's three daughters to a powerful lord to marry his sons, which would secure a union that would safeguard China from an impending invasion by the Mongols. Instead, shocked at the very idea of an Arranged Marriage, Mulan teaches the princesses to follow their own paths. This would be a meaningful lesson except for the fact that in doing so such a union apparently never took shape by the end of the film, which despite ending on an uplifting note with Mulan's wedding does not address the Mongol invasion that is now sure to happen due to these actions. Disney originally sold both Mulan and Mulan II on the same Blu-ray, until a 2015 Disney Movie Club-exclusive re-release removed Mulan II; this disc would hit general retail when bundled together with the Mulan UHD.
  • Leroy & Stitch, which does a decent job of giving Lilo & Stitch: The Series a proper ending and watching the experiments use their powers and abilities to fight back against the Leroy clones is great. However, its ending is very predictable,^note Hämsterviel is defeated, Gantu gets his old job back, 625 gets named and stops being lazy, and Jumba, Pleakley, and Stitch all decide to stay on Earth with Lilo; none of these are really surprising. Leroy is a flat Evil Doppelgänger of Stitch,^note although this did not stop him from becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse the way he is defeated (as a fail-safe, he is programmed to shut down if he hears "Aloha ʻOe") is a rather lame Deus ex Machina, and audiences still don't get to see what most of the other unseen experiments look like. (Some never-before-seen experiments do show up, and we see a list of experiment names in the credits, but that's really it.) This all makes it seem like Disney made this movie just to give the Lilo & Stitch franchise some sort of conclusion regardless of how well it would turn out. This is best summed up with what WatchMojo said when they ranked the film number 10 on their list of the "Top 10 Worst Straight to DVD Disney Sequels".
    WatchMojo's Rebecca Brayton: "The movie itself isn't unwatchable, just more of the same and entirely unnecessary."
  • The Emperor's New Groove manages to really break the mold in terms of Disney animated movies. Its sequel, Kronk's New Groove, feels rather generic in comparison, playing out more like three episodes of a TV show strung together than an actual movie and is considered to be average at best. Fittingly enough, there actually was later a TV series called The Emperor's New School, complete with a new voice actor for Kuzco and apparently having all of the soul of the first movie surgically removed and replaced with more slapstick.
  • Bambi has a direct-to-video midquel, Bambi II, which was released just shy of the original's 65th anniversary. While it fares better with fans than most other Disney sequels, it is still usually regarded as average at best. The main complaints stem from that it either adds too little new to the universe of the original, or the changes it did make (i.e. playing up contemporary humor, humanizing the characters' personalities, and using contemporary folk songs mixed in with an orchestrated soundtrack) were not for the better. It is generally praised for having good animation and visuals among the Disney sequels, however. Its high budget even garnered it a theatrical release in some regions.
  • The Fox and the Hound 2 is hated as well, due to being almost completely In Name Only with a nasty case of Mood Whiplash. The original film was one of Disney's darkest and most somber works; the sequel runs completely against that by having Copper join a country band. And, as The Nostalgia Chick pointed out, the fact it's a midquel means that, ultimately, nothing changes — Copper and Todd may tell each other they'll "always be friends", but they'll still grow apart and become enemies in the end. As with some other movies on this list, some people do think there are some silver linings, among them the well-done art and animation, Reba McEntire as one of the members of the aforementioned band, and Rob Paulsen's flawless Pat Buttram impersonation in the role of Chief. This is one of the last Direct to Video sequels to the canon produced.
  • In general, the "cheapquels" all suffer from this, simply by virtue of being lower-budget Direct to Video sequels of polished, famous classics. Almost none are considered worthy followups, and even then, only in the cases where the original film was considered poor to begin with. In general, the ones considered good films in their own right (if not compared to the original) include the Aladdin sequels, the Lion King sequels, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, and maybe Return To Neverland, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, An Extremely Goofy Movie, Bambi II, or Brother Bear 2^note The last DTV Disney sequel with a story set entirely after the original movie, save flashbacks. Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is likely the only one that many consider to be as good as, if not better than, the original movie.
  • Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, a follow up to the surprisingly good direct-to-video special Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, suffers from ugly CGI animation, Donald and Max coming off as Unintentionally Sympathetic (with Daisy and Goofy being Unintentionally Unsympathetic as well), and an overall lack of interest.
  • Planes, a spinoff of Cars made by Disneytoon Studios, managed to come off of as even more cliché and toyetic than the franchise it was spun off of, having not much heart or purpose outside of being The Merch to four-year-old boys.
  • Usually avoided with the Winnie the Pooh movies. The franchise's unique nature lends itself quite well to the simpler storytelling of Direct to Video projects^note The franchise had in fact already had two long-running TV series by that point. As such, these movies tend to be viewed separately from the rest of the sequels, and are thus exempt from the scorn thrown at the others. Pooh's Grand Adventure and The Tigger Movie in particular are seen as some of the finest works in Pooh's name. The later Pooh movies are usually considered to not have achieved the heights set by those movies, and admittedly a lot of the direct-to-video Pooh films are simply just compilations of previous New Adventures episodes with new animation to tie them all together. Still, even the weaker Pooh films are generally considered better than most Disney sequels (and considering how well-regarded New Adventures is, most don't mind that aspect).
• The Rescuers Down Under got some good reception and is still considered a good film to this day, but it became the sole financial bust of the Disney Renaissance (and only one of two Disney Animation flops during Jeffrey Katzenberg's reign, the other being The Black Cauldron). It also has a lower Rotten Tomatoes rating than the original Dark Age Disney classic, though still in fresh territory. This is what actually resulted in the start of the company’s Direct-to-Video sequel trend.
• Fantasia 2000, while enjoying quite a good reception overall, is not as well regarded as the original Fantasia thanks to a lighter tone stemming from celebrity hosts and more cartoony pieces, which speaks of lower artistic ambition. Regardless, the film is reasonably popular and generally considered a decent follow-up to the 1940 original.
• Pixar
  • One of the conditions Pixar had in place with their acquisition to Disney was that they wouldn't be required to make sequels. In fact, because one of the parts of the merger was putting Pixar's people in charge of Disney's animation studio, one of the first things they did was halting production of Toy Story 3, shutting down the studio that was making it (Circle 7 Animation, which got labeled as "Pixaren't") and then they began working on the title in-house. Consequently, Toy Story 3 has been lauded as the Even Better Sequel instead of the subpar cash grab it could have been.
  • They made a sequel to Cars, already considered one of their weaker movies, resulting in what is widely considered their worst movie, Cars 2, and shattered their nearly spotless artistic reputation^note the Cars series makes a lot more money than their other movies thanks to merchandising. The 2013 prequel to Monsters, Inc., called Monsters University, didn't help matters, despite getting several good reviews.
  • The only Pixar sequels outside of those of Toy Story to get a near-unanimously positive reception are Finding Dory and Incredibles 2^note which is the first non-Toy Story Pixar sequel to receive an Academy Award nomination, both of which still tend to be seen as slightly lacking compared to their respective first movies.
• The theatrical special Olaf's Frozen Adventure, putting aside all of the controversy involving the special being shown ahead of Coco, has some quite mixed reviews, with critics and audiences being so polarized that you would think that they were talking about different works.
• The page quote itself was a long-time slogan for Disney. With The Three Little Pigs being the best-selling Silly Symphonies cartoon, and thus a Tough Act to Follow, it's unsurprising to think about how The Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Wolves and The Practical Pig fared in comparison.

Films — Live-Action

• The Santa Clause: One reviewer put it best when he said Tim Allen "did the first one with enthusiasm, the second one with affection, and the third one for a paycheck." Tim's heart obviously isn't into it come 3, and he's upstaged completely by Martin Short. It also didn't help that in 3 one well-liked character was Demoted to Extra and another disappeared entirely with no passing mention. Heck, this trilogy's Rotten Tomatoes pages even provide the page image for Sequelitis.
• While it's somewhat divided as to whether the first Beverly Hills Chihuahua was even a good film, to begin with, even fans agree that both of the sequels are guilty pleasures at best.
• While The Princess Diaries is considered good, its sequel The Royal Engagement is not too well-liked. It diverges completely from the books and falls heavily into the Girl-Show Ghetto.
• Each sequel to The Love Bug proved less and less successful as time passed, but Herbie Goes Bananas kept Herbie on the lot for the next 25 years before his next big-screen appearance.
• Air Bud. It went from a touching story about a dog escaping an abusive owner, helping a young boy find his place, and leading a small-town sports team to victory, to a wacky comedy about talking puppies. Most fans were not amused - bar the ones amused by the fact that a story like the above somehow netted thirteen sequels, two of which star Santa's dog.
• Neither of the two sequels to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids were anywhere near as popular as the first, although some fans consider Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (ironically a Direct to Video film) to be a Surprisingly Improved Sequel compared to Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.
• Critical reception of Alice Through the Looking Glass is more unfavorable compared to the first film, and it was written off as a completely unnecessary sequel. Its poor box office numbers prove just that; this is ironically the second time in only weeks this has happened to producer Joe Roth. One of the main complaints is that while the first movie was a different take on Lewis Carroll's classic novels, its sequel was completely unconnected to Carroll's Alice books apart from the names of the characters.
• Pirates of the Caribbean began with a Sleeper Hit, and then turned into a Two-Part Trilogy that was overall liked but divided many due to an increasingly complicated plot with plenty of backstabbing and missed opportunities. The Trilogy Creep got even more haters, though some at least appreciated that there was an attempt to make the plot easier to follow in the fourth and fifth movies.

Video Games

• Epic Mickey was an average game at worst, suffering mostly from Camera Screw, janky controls, and not living up to the (admittedly impressive) hype. Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two took all the problems the original had and left them basically unchanged (if anything, they got worse), and added co-op play with a broken AI, grating voices and song sections, and boring puzzles. The resulting game collapsed with a quarter of the original's sales and took its developer with it.

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