Five Movie Sequels

Well Hollywood, you were warned several times, but you didn't want to listen. I told you not to piss off Rob Schneider. I told you that he was our greatest acting resource next to that kid that was the Indian in that Harold and Kumar movie. I specifically remember predicting that, if Rob Schneider didn't receive the proper recogntion, i.e. at least one Golden Globe and two Ace Awards, that he would walk. Well, time has gone by, and where are we now? Smack dab in the middle of a blockbuster holiday movie season with Rob Schneider featured in one movie, and three more movies in production featuring the Schneidster slated to come out in 2006. Good job, Hollywood. You fucked up again.
Well, it looks like old Reggie is going to have to bail you out again with a few more of my incredible movie ideas. Seems to me that Hollywood is in such a slump right now, what with all the movies grossing tens of millions of dollars at the box office, and when new ideas are in a slump the best recourse is to revisit some old ideas and milk them for all they're worth. With that in mind, here are five movies that desperately could use a sequel.

JFK
Directed by Olver Stone
1991, color
Stone's meticulous interpretation of New Orleans' D.A. Jim Garrison's (played by Kevin Costner) quest for truth re-opened the JFK case for the umpteenth time and proved to everyone that watched it that Joe Pesci looks like a creep, fake eyebrows or no. Why Stone stopped there he did is a mystery to me, as he could have easily added ten more hours to this engrossing and hypnotic film. However, this oversight can easily be remedied by producing a spate of sequels depicting several possible futures after Costner loses his case against Clay "Tommy Lee Jones" Shaw in the movie. What if Costner becomes a gun-toting crusader for justice a la Charles Bronson in every movie Bronson's ever been in? Or maybe JFK can come back from the dead and kill a bunch of michievous teenagers staying at an abandoned summer camp. The possibilities with this movie are endless, as far as I am concerned, and we should limit ourselves to the linear--and frankly, boring--story that actually did unfold after John F. Kennedy's death, which apparently involved some kind of war and the popularization of fondue cheese. Forget that nonsense. I say turn Kennedy's presidential limo into a flying saucer and have him assault the earth with his terrifying axle lasers. Suddenly, Lee Harvey Oswald is a hero.

Overboard
Directed by Garry Marshall
1987, color
You'd think a television genius like Garry Marshall (Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi) would understand the sequential potential of this movie. This riches-to-rags story about a haughty heiress played by Goldie Hawn that bumps her head and is led to believe that she's married to the roughneck with the feathered hairdo, Kurt Russell, and suffers the indignity of having to live a middle-class existence which she eventually embraces. At the end of the movie, you're likely to be beating your hands together and demanding "More! More!" and that's exactly what we should give them. As with all of my ideas, I come up with the title first: Overboard 2: Even More Overboard, and this time, instead of Goldie Hawn thinking that she's supposed to be married to a lowly handy man, Kurt Russell bumps his head and is made to think that he's a Hoover vaccuum cleaner. At first, Goldie has fun using Kurt as a cleaning device and enjoys that he stays home with her more often, but as time goes on she learns that a Hoover vaccuum cleaner is no replacement for love, no matter how many attachments it's got. Will Goldie come clean about having duped her husband or will Kurt be made to spend the rest of his life sucking cereal crumbs from between the cracks in the kitchen's linoleum? Depends on how much money you can line up for part three.

Mazes and Monsters
Directed by Steven Hillard Stern
1982, color
Tom Hanks was just a fledgling actor when he starred in this made-for-TV movie depicting the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons addiction and stumbling around in an abandoned cave at night with a wizard's robe on. At the end of the movie, Tom Hanks' character is irrevocably warped and he stays at a countryside institution where he still thinks he's "living" the game. I think a sequel to this movie can and should be made, from Tom Hanks' perspective. Thusly, all of the regular people and familiar landmarks turn into monsters and castles, and the character commits several brutal murders and acts of vandalism and arson before the police wrap his babbling body in a straight jacket and haul him off to the looney bin. This would be a great place to use new CGI special effects, and if it is rushed to production now, the movie might come out at the same time of the imminent Dungeons & Dragons revival of which we have been on the cusp for over fifteen years now. But it's coming, D&D will be popular again. I just know it. That's why I never travel without my twenty-sided die.

Birth of a Nation
Directed by D. W. Griffith
1915, black & white
This twelve-reel turn of the century masterpiece that resurrected the Ku Klux Klan in America depicts, among other things, a group of hooded superheroes on horseback that rescue a fair-haired damsel in distress from the clutches of a amorous (and therefore, violent) negro. At the end of the movie, they sit triumphant on their horses, vanguards for purity and righteousness for all melanin deficient peoples. If you're lucky or patient or racist enough to have seen this film, then you're probably thinking the same thing I am: and then what happened? I think this movie could be spun off into a series of movies and possibly some television tie-ins. A quick check of the internet shows that there's loads of FanFic on this subject, so the audience is already built in. Borrowing from the epic storyline put forth by George Lucas in Star Wars, the sequel should be like The Empire Strikes Back where the negroes collude and rise up against the white-garbed Klansmen so they can be free to do what they want to do, which is apparently to rape white women. After this, the possibilities are endless, with both sides vying for power over something that is not really worth the fight. A great set-up for spin-offs and side stories, too.

The Last of the Mohicans
Michael Mann
1992, color
This movie is about a white scout and his two Native brothers leading a British Colonel's daughter through hostile territory during the French-Indian War. What this movie needs more than a sequel, I think, is a prequel, a story to tell of the times before the French and Indians came to America and the Natives lived in peace and harmony. Picture long shots of Natives standing around herds of bison and making sure the corn is growing okay. Conflict arises in the movie when one Native believes that his moccasins were stolen by a child from the tribe, but after much smoking of the peace pipe and the presentation of new moccasins, all is well. There is an apparent love interest between Runs With Feathers and an unnamed girl that is betrothed to him for an assortment of beads and wampum. I haven't really fleshed out all the story details of this movie yet, but I do think it should run at least six hours with no intermission.