The cinematic landscape is riddled with sequels, prequels, reboots, retellings and origin stories. Some are good, some are bad, but there is an elite class of movie sequels that are simply UNNECESSARY. Today we’re pointing an accusatory finger at the least essential sequels ever made.

For the record, we know there are a lot of horrible sequels we left off the list. Highlander II: The Quickening? Yep, we know it’s terrible. Son of the Mask? Also garbage. Speed 2: Cruise Control? Unwatchable. Yes, we left a lot of horrendous sequels off because these are what we consider the 10 most unnecessary sequels of all time. If you have more to add, please let us know in the comments section.

10. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Wait, before you kick over your computer and burn down the internet, hear me out. I love Star Wars, and I love The Empire Strikes Back. However, Empire comes with a whole load of consequences that arguably outweigh its value – I’m of course talking about the horrid prequels.

Star Wars functions perfectly as a standalone film, and I have to wonder how much more prestigious the film would be without the weight of its cartoonish sequels dragging it down. Would A New Hope be considered as much of a cinema classic as 2001: A Space Odyssey? In Fact, A New Hope may be more important if it were a single film, because it does so much in such little time. So, what? Darth Vader gets away… Darth Vader isn’t even the “big bad” Darth that we now know. In A New Hope he is simply Grand Moff Tarkin’s muscle.

The consequences of Empire may even be more devastating than just Jar Jar Binks… perhaps without the sequel we wouldn’t be living in an age of overly serialized feature films.

9. American Psycho II: All American Girl

Nope. I refuse to put much effort into talking about this movie because it’s clear director Morgan J. Freeman (the J stands for “Junk”, which is what this fucking movie is) didn’t. Having apparently only seen the trailer for the first American Psycho film, Morgan J. Freeman (the J stands for “Phoning it in”) thought, “Hey I’m talentless, let’s make a sequel!” And so he did. And audiences didn’t come because listen to the premise: American Psycho 2 features Rachel Newman (Mila Kunis) as the sole escapee of the murderous yuppie from the first film, Patrick Bateman. Since her brush with death, Rachel has found herself unhealthily obsessed with serial killers and their psyches.

No. Director Morgan J. Freeman (the J stands for “Please die”) completely misses the dark humor, satire and social commentary of the first film and instead thinks he’s making the sequel to a slasher flick. Holy shit, I’m exhausted. All American Girl is just an exercise in lazy movie-making from the boardroom pitch all the way down to the final cut. Avoid at all costs.

8. Blues Brothers 2000

Dan Aykroyd is undoubtably a talented guy. He’s a smart writer and a very funny performer. Unfortunately, he has trouble letting things go. Just looking at recent Ghostbusters 3 stories can attest to that; seemingly no one wants that movie to be made, but he keeps pushing it. And it’s not the first time. Despite the untimely passing of original Blues Brother John Belushi, Aykroyd felt the world needed another Blues Brothers movie. The original Blues Brothers is hailed as a classic; it’s full of wonderful cameos, great car chases, and hilarious comedy. Blues Brothers 2000, however, is bullshit. The musical cameos pale in comparison to the first film (get the hell out of here, Blues Traveler), and the plot is all over the place.

The original film had a pretty simple, even bare bones, plot: the Blues Brothers have to get their band back together to raise money to save the orphanage they grew up in. Blues Brothers 2000 throws all this NONSENSE at the audience, and also commits the number movie sequel sin in my book: adding an annoying “cool kid” character. Aykroyd apparently didn’t realize that we don’t want Elwood Blues to be a role model for some snot-nosed kid, but the viewing public knew better: the film was a flop, and John Belushi’s ghost came back and shook his head disapprovingly at Aykroyd. (I might have made that last bit up).

7. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Now that we’re over a decade out, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines seem to exist solely so that an aging action star can belch out cutesy one-liner callbacks to prior entries in this series. It’s entirely unnecessary as a sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a movie that comes to a satisfying and exciting conclusion and and as a prequel to Terminator: Salvation, a movie that would have actually been the logical third entry in the trilogy. They tried going with the old sequel cliche of making this film bigger than T2 by… making the villain robot a female runway model? What the? The T-X (running Windows XP Service Pack 2) has all the abilities of the liquid metal T-1000, but can access computer databases via phonelines? ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.

Rise of the Machines’ biggest offense lies in its own title. We never see any machines actually rise! The closest they come to delivering on the title is an abrupt ending in which we get a satellite view of random explosions occurring across the globe. No thanks.

6. Toy Story 2

The issue with Toy Story 2 is that is started the trend of Pixar sequels, and every Pixar sequel is another original Pixar film that isn’t being made. It also doesn’t help that Toy Story 2 isn’t an amazing movie. I understand that these are kid’s movies, but Pixar films are expected to transcend that mold – and go outside the box. There is a scene in this movie where toys drive a car to the airport… The thing that is awesome about Toy Story is that it is supposed to be happening right under our noses. Instead, with Toy Story 2 the world opens up to the toys and the estrangement narrows for the adult fan.

Only, Toy Story 3 is amazing… so maybe Toy Story 2 isn’t completely unnecessary. But I would give it up if it meant I never had to witness the existence Finding Dory.

5. Grown Ups 2

You could argue that the first Grown Ups was unnecessary to begin with. You’d probably be right but at least the idea of watching Adam Sandler, David Spade and Chris Rock sounds like a fun (and funny) way to kill two hours. Ultimately it ended up being one of the least fun movies of 2010 (right behind Little Fockers, albeit one of the most profitable. Naturally, a sequel was in order!

Grown Ups 2 imagines we want to spend more time with these unlikable characters so it allows us to spend an entire day with them. Yes that’s correct. The whole movie takes place in one day. It’s the longest day of your life, coincidentally. The technique of having a film take place over the course of a single day is usually reserved for high concept dramas focusing on character study. Well, this is almost the same thing; The fellas are planning a big summer bash, you see! That means we get to follow them as they wander into a 20 MINUTE K-MART AD. Yes, that’s correct. The boys shop for party supplies while exclaiming in wonderment at all the great products you can buy at K-Mart. Oh yeah, there’s also a scene where a moose pisses into Adam Sandler’s mouth. Get directly the fuck out of here.

Sandler recently admitted his films are just paid vacations, so perhaps Grown Ups 2 exists only because he and his friends actually just wanted a studio-funded summer BBQ bash! Either way, this movie’s existence is offensive.

4. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps

You know what does sleep? Me, while trying to watch this shitty movie. There is absolutely no reason to watch this thing, unless you want to watch Michael Douglas and Josh Brolin ride around on their hogs all over town. This movie is the epitome of lazy ideas in Hollywood- and should not exist. It attempts to inject a soft side into Gordon Gekko, you know, the ruthless stock trader from the 80’s? The plot is so convoluted, and not in an “I don’t understand finance” kind of way, but in an “I don’t give a shit” kind of way. At least it doesn’t contain this line of dialogue “Greed is good? I swear I don’t remember saying it but it sounds like something I would say in the eighties!” Oh wait, yes it does. Ugh.

3. The Matrix Reloaded & The Matrix Revolutions

1999’s The Matrix was a groundbreaking movie. And while all the leather-everything and shitty sunglasses date the film a bit, it still holds up as an achievement in sci-fi filmmaking. Hell, special effects in that movie look better than most special effects today, and it was made 15 years ago!

Yet as great as The Matrix was, one thing it did not need was a sequel—let alone two. The Wachowski’s have maintained that they always planned The Matrix as a trilogy, and maybe that’s true, but what’s more likely is after the first film broke the bank at the box office, the studio said, “Hurry, make more!” The first film ends on an intriguing note: Neo (Keanu Reeves) has become The One and he threatens to slowly wake everyone up from their cyber-sleep inside the Matrix. Then he flies into the sky and Rage Against the Machine kicks in. It’s awesome. And we don’t need to see what happens next. The story was complete. Then we got two back-to-back sequels which were just a mess, and almost killed whatever good will the first film presented.

2. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

The Blair Witch Project, despite its somewhat tarnished reputation, is a great film. It’s a chilling, subtle horror movie that makes perfect use of its found-footage angle. It takes the time to develop its own mythology, and presents everything in the most realistic way possible. The final fifteen minutes are tense and terrifying, made all the more effective by the fact that the film opens by telling us our three main characters are already missing (and probably dead).

When Blair Witch was a huge success, higher-ups probably thought a sequel was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, no one else agreed. Abandoning the found-footage angle that made the first film unique (back when found-footage movies weren’t everywhere), Book of Shadows plays upon generic fears of Goth culture while also borrowing heavily from other, better horror films. It’s all terribly ridiculous, and to this date is the only narrative film from documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, who made the Paradise Lost films. (Although he apparently has a film called Facing the Wind in pre-production, meaning it took him 14 years to recover from Book of Shadows to make a narrative movie again).

1. Weekend At Bernies II

An argument can be made that we didn’t even need a first Weekend At Bernie’s. I wouldn’t hold it against you. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a good, stupid comedy every once in a while and that’s exactly what the first film in this duology delivers. For some godforsaken reason they decided to beat a dead corpse and go back to the trough for seconds. The crazy thing is that everyone but the first film’s director is back on board, even Bernie himself!

Somehow no one has caught on to the fact that our beloved Bernie is, in fact, a rotting carcass at this point. Our protagonists, played by Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman, even store him in a mini fridge when they don’t feel like playing with the dead man in order to keep the stink at a minimum. The film hinges on a totally-not-racist plot where a voodoo curse is put on Bernie’s bacteria riddled corpse causing it to dance whenever music is played. Since it takes place in St. Thomas, there’s always music and dancing because the natives don’t have jobs? I don’t know. Either way, the once-alive Bernie dances up a fucking storm and somehow ends up with a harpoon arrow through his head? Also, a woman sleeps with him on the beach. Is anyone still reading this or have you closed the window?

The point is, as dumb as Weekend At Bernie’s was, at least it came to a conclusion. Bernie ended up in the morgue where he belongs, etc. In this utterly valueless sequel, our protagonists have to break him out of the goddamn morgue, completely undoing the logical conclusion that the first movie delivered. Simply the worst.

This list was compiled by the CutPrintFilm staff.