I’ve noticed a trend in sequels to popular films, and it’s one that I consider an exercise in lazy screenwriting.  Heh… exercise… lazy…

Anywheredidshego, where did she go?  To me, the writers couldn’t develop the characters’ relationships further, so they broke them in order to fix them again, to varying degrees of suck-cess.

• Bill Murray seemed to be with Sigourney Weaver at the end of Ghostbusters, and then she (well, her character Dana) went and had a baby with someone else.
• Sure, Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia wouldn’t have won couple of the year in Die Hard, but by Die Harder, they seemed to have worked out all their kinks.  In Die Hard with a Vengeance, the kinks won.
• Orlando and Kiera’s love Bloom-ed, um, Knightley in the first Pirates of the Caribbean.  In the second, they didn’t get married and fought only to draw out a boring plot point for two films.
• Nick Cage found whatever it was he found in the first National Treasure; Diane Kruger was his booby prize.  Then repeat the above, but place a “2” before the semicolon.
• The Night at the Museum sequel doesn’t even begin to explain what happened between Carla Gugino and Ben Stiller, just so they could get to (hot?) Amelia Earhart’s doppelgänger, Amy Adams. What is this movie really… Mannequin 3: Skies the Limit?

Actually, I’m going to carry on with my Night at the Museum tirade.  It’s not like he’s Austin Powers or James Bond, picking up new ladies every flick…

Actually again, James Bond has loved Vesper Lynd for two movies so far.  One can imagine that every woman he bangs from here on out would be in an attempt to mask his pain of loving her too much.  He probably would still be with her if she didn’t, you know, die.

So in closing, writers do yourself a favor and imitate the always excellent Transformers series – instead of blowing the relationship up, blow shit up!