In My Opinion: The Movie Series

Johnny Weismuller as Tarzan

In my opinion movie series are some of the most entertaining movies Hollywood makes. The beauty in them being that it takes a established character or characters from one movie and throws them into an adventure in another. The audience already knows the character and thus there is less set up time explaining the character. The success of a movie series is squarely on the shoulders of the main character. If they are likable enough, movie goers will return to see them often. Hollywood has long known this. Back in the 1930s, Johnny Weismuller made a career out of playing Tarzan in a very successful movie series. James Bond, the longest running movie series, started in the early 1960s and is still going strong today.

I came of age to go to movies at just the right time. The first movie I ever saw with out my parents was Star Wars. I remember walking a mile and a half with a friend to go see it. I recall having conversations with friends where you would brag about how any times you saw The Empire Strikes Back. I remember being in the lunch room at school and hearing talk about this great new movie called Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I was at a local movie theatre for the sold out opening midnight showing of the first Batman movie.

Prior to Star Wars, movies seemed to be lacking in the fun quota. The Godfather, The French Connection and Cabaret were the big movies of the early 1970's. All good movies, but all so bloody serious. Even the Bond series took a nose dive in the early 70's with the absence of Sean Connery. Only with the Bond movies, they got less serious and more preposterous.

Things changed with the coming of Star Wars. It brought adventure and fun back into the box office. It became the most successful movie series ever. Movie series really had a hey day after that. James Bond even had one of it best installments, For Your Eyes Only, come out in the 80s. Consider all the below movie series that either started after Star Wars came out or were mostly made in 1980's. 

• The first Star Wars trilogy
• The Indiana Jones movies
• The Terminator movies
• The Rambo series
• Lethal Weapon
• Mad Max
• Superman
• Conan
• Rocky
• Die Hard
• Batman
• Aliens

In the 1990's movie series seem to fade. Some of the 80's movie series lingered around a bit, like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and the lousy Batman sequels. The king of the movie series, Harrison Ford, participated in the one good series of the 1990s, the Jack Ryan series. Other than that, the 1990's offered little in the way of movie series. However, a huge new crop of movie series have popped up in the last few years.Consider the below list: 

• Harry Potter
• The Lord Of The Rings
• X-Men
• Rush Hour
• The Mummy
• The second Star Wars trilogy

There is a new Spiderman movie in the works as well as talk of a sequel to Daredevil. James Bond will, of course, return for another movie. Their is even some development going on to do another installment of Indiana Jones, Rocky and Mad Max.

It is obvious that movie series have made a gigantic comeback. I welcome them all. Movie series to me are an easy sell and it is always nice to check in on a favorite movie character.

My sons are following in their dad's foot steps and have developed a passion for movies themselves. They too, are growing up in an exciting, fun time to go to the movies.