Why the last film in a great trilogy is so often a let down
Who would say the last film in any of the below trilogies is the best?
- Star Wars (original trilogy)
- The Lord of the Rings
- Spider-Man (the Sam Raimi trilogy)
- The Godfather trilogy
- Alien 1–3
- The Dark Knight trilogy
Usually people will say their favourite part of a story is the ending, which is natural – the denouement is where characters typically achieve some sort of (positive) resolution.
Why then do many trilogies excel at putting characters through the wringer in the first and second chapters, only to fluff it at the finish line?
In the case of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, it is clear that George Lucas lost his nerve and abandoned the originally conceived, darker resolution in favour of teddy bears. Return of the King seemed to not want to end at all and was generally rather pleased with itself (personally, I checked out when the green ghost army showed up).
The failures of Spider-Man 3 and Alien 3 are largely due to the visions of their respective directors being compromised by studio meddling. Without a Kevin Feige-like overseer, franchise success can breed tinkering.
The Godfather part III smacks of unnecessary-sequel-itis, because it’s just so tempting to want to turn two great movies into the holy grail ‘perfect trilogy’.
As for The Dark Knight Rises, I actually think it suffers from being under-appreciated, while Batman Begins and especially The Dark Knight are held in too high esteem.
Or perhaps it is just human nature that we are inherently dissatisfied by happy-ever-afters. It is the struggle itself that we find most compelling, which draws us back again and again. Maybe we have a deep primal desire to see how challenges are overcome; happy endings we can figure out for ourselves.
