Our movie podcast recommendation of the week wants to make sequels to films a whole lot better.
When a really fantastic movie comes out, and makes lots of money, it’s almost inevitable that the sequel will follow. Sometimes those sequels surpass the original; The Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Toy Story 2 and Grease 2 all spring to mind. But often they simply don’t. Whether it’s a rushed production to blame, a bad script or simply retreading the same story beats as before, bad sequels are often a plague on good original storytelling.
How do you fix a bad sequel? With the help of Sequelisers, of course!
Sequelisers, which has been running since 2017, started out as a game show format podcast, with a group of guys who actually didn’t know each other that well. Two teams would compete, offering different sequel pitches, with Jack Chambers as the judge.
Since then, the format has changed and, due to other commitments and life changes, the team has reduced to a trio – original judge Jack, plus Matt Stogdon and new recruit Tim Maytom, all of whom have been working together on Sequelisers since the start of Season 5 in January 2020. All three have had experience on podcasts before, and this experience is obvious in the quality of Sequelisers.
The premise is straightforward; take those terrible sequels and fix them. These fixes can take almost any form, but ultimately, the idea is to make the sequel worthy of its predecessor. Sequelisers firstly discuss the merits of the original movie, and then launch into discussing and dissecting the sequel, to find the reasons why it’s so bad and point out the obvious and not-so-obvious problems, often with hilarity and the odd great impression. These three guys clearly have a great friendship, and this really comes across when talking about these movies. Where sequels are concerned, nothing is beyond reprehension.
They then offer a pitch to fix the movie, and create something better, including replacements of director, actors, script and setting. Pitches are incredibly thorough, wholly explaining the new plot, character development and any links to the original movie or source material. It also includes changing the title of the movie too. It gets so good that Hollywood may need to hire these guys to work on the next big budget sequel. (Their contact details are on their website, just in case any Hollywood execs are reading.)
They’ve even managed to fix Mortal Kombat: Annihilation into something they’re incredibly proud of, making it a fitting tribute to the series as a whole. I think we can all agree that if they can do that, then they’ve got the sequel fixing down to a fine art.
If you’re looking for a fun, informative and inventive podcast, then bad sequels make a great Sequelisers…
Recommended episode: Season 8, Episode 1 (4 May 2021) – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – https://open.spotify.com/episode/1MFzydLV4RbVyH9OmdXvJG?si=xbaVqXReQWOgSl4t7ZKY7w&dl_branch=1
Sequelisers can be found at https://www.sequelisers.com/
And followed at:
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Sequelisers
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/sequelisers
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Sequelisers/
All episodes of Sequelisers are available and can be listened to or downloaded from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.
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