Two-Part Trilogy

"All we heard leading up to Halo 3 is that we were going to 'Finish the Fight.' Well, we wouldn't have to finish any fight if the Big M wouldn't have given us the big stiffy with such a shitty ending in Halo 2!"
—Stuttering Craig, ScrewAttack's Top 10 OMGWTF Moments

Sometimes when a movie is made, although no one is expecting that much to come of it, it becomes a surprise hit. Of course, the best way to capitalize on a success is to make a sequel out of it - and as the golden number in Hollywood seems to be three, what better way to hit the jackpot than to make a trilogy out of it?

However, in a lot of these situations the first movie was quite self-contained; after all, if there's no expectation of a sequel, then even if you put in a few just-in-case Sequel Hooks (since producers are nothing if not hopeful) you'll still want to tie the loose ends up enough so that the audience can enjoy the story on its own merits without needing to see a sequel that might never come. If you have a couple of sequels guaranteed no matter what, however, then you can afford to leave the audience hanging in between the second and third movies—after all, they'll be back to see both installments, right?

This can lead to an interesting situation wherein the second and third movies in the trilogy share more direct relation to each other than they do with the original. In essence, what you have is a Two-Part Trilogy—a self-contained first part with heavily-intertwined second and third parts. In fact, in some cases the second and third parts of the trilogy might as well be one long movie cut in half and released separately. As a result there are a multitude of recurring pitfalls that can pop up as a result of that mindset, see the Analysis Page for more on that.

Outside of the story, the trilogy might literally be a Two-Part Trilogy—the second and third movies are also often written and produced concurrently (in order to save costs and ideally increase revenue), so where there might be a gap of several years between One and Two, Two and Three might be released within a year (or less) of each other.

In a similar frame of mind, the first game of a video game trilogy will establish a certain gameplay style and the two sequels will be much closer related to each other than the first.

Another cause behind this is that Pop Culture has a very short shelf life, and the executives don't want to waste effort into something that will no longer be a fad in the additional two years it may take to produce the third film.

A Sub-Trope of Movie Multipack, this happens primarily with films and video games.

Examples of Two-Part Trilogy include:

Straight Examples

Film

  • An interesting comparison between the kinds of trilogy is the Star Wars trilogies; in the original trilogy, A New Hope is clearly made as a movie that can stand by itself (although the narrative is clearly open to the possibilities of later movies), whereas The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi - greenlit after the success of the first - are more closely linked together and separated by a sequel hook. In the prequel trilogy, however, it was obvious to all that all three movies were going to be made, so all are incorporated together more tightly as a trilogy. (Even still, Episode I could be a stand-alone movie despite the obvious Sequel Hooks, while Episodes II and III are more tightly linked. Lucas even went retrospective to the original trilogy to link them all together)
    • Lucas seemed to always have more story to tell, even if the exact details are not consistent (Nine films? Twelve Films? Where is Luke's actual sister? etc.), and it is apparent that at some point he decided on simplifying his own involvement with the franchise by ending the original trilogy with Return of the Jedi. We'll probably never know for sure what the original plans for sequels actually were...Although we can guess.
    • Generally all six films are relatively stand-alone compared to some of the other films on this list. The main plot of each are wrapped up quite neatly by the end.
  • Likewise, the Back to The Future movies; although the first ends on a definite Sequel Hook, it can be clearly be enjoyed by itself. The second, however, ends on a clear Cliff Hanger that obviously requires a third movie in order to be resolved (though both are quite distinct films, and the cliffhanger is actually pretty upbeat). The ending of the first film was never meant as a Sequel Hook, but only as a joke. They also envisioned the trope of heroes riding off into the sunset.
    • Note also that the second and third movie were shot and produced together (similarly to the three Lord of the Rings movies, or the first two Superman movies) whereas the first one was originally intended as a stand-alone film with the ending being a joke rather than set-up for a sequel.
    • Word of God is that the Sequel Hook in the first movie was only meant as a joke; there was no notion of actually making a sequel. Consequently, it caused serious problems because they hadn't thought any of it out; a lot of the first third of the second movie is a result of trying to tie up all that stuff, for example:
      • Marty's girlfriend leaves with Marty and Doc at the end of the original movie. The authors, when working on the sequel, didn't know what to do with her. Hence her passing most of the movie passed out (drugged by Doc / unconscious from meeting herself). If they had known they were going to get a sequel, she would not have been written in the cliffhanger. According to Word of God, everything would have been far simpler.
        • They actually had to film the last scene of the first movie again, because the actress playing Jennifer in the original declined to retake the role and had to be replaced. Particularly well done, unless you're watching the sequences side-by-side, you won't notice—except for the different actress.
      • This results in a bit of a continuity hiccup in regards to the whole "What are you, yellow/chicken?" character quirk in 2 and 3. In the first movie, Marty was pretty much in control, but the execs decided that he would need to go through some kind of growth to be interesting in the sequels. Whatever. So they decided to give him this weakness that comes out of frigging NOWHERE...
        • They also change Marty from timid about sending in an audition tape, to certain of becoming a rich rock star. Both changes could have emerged from the timeline shift of the first movie, without anyone noticing.
  • The Matrix trilogy follows the same pattern, with the Neo-becomes-the-One arc taking up the first movie, and the invasion-of-Zion arc taking up the other two movies. The Required Cliffhanger at the end of The Matrix Reloaded are both Neo and Bane being in comas.
    • The first one ends with Neo's "I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see" speech which seems to imply Neo now has God-like control of the Matrix and is going to unveil the illusion on a grand scale. Then the sequels show the Resistance is pretty much where it was before except now one of them is a Dark Messiah who can fly and fend off Agents.
    • This one is an example of the not-enough-plot-for-a-trilogy problem. The original plan was for one sequel and one prequel, which would have detailed the origins of the resistance. The studio, though, insisted on two sequels to milk out the star cast rather than hire new actors for a prequel, and the script for the sequel was stretched into two films.
  • The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy also does this. The first film was made and can be seen as a stand-alone film. Then, after seeing its box office performance, 2 sequels were scheduled to be filmed back to back. In fact, they had a chance to have some form of resolution or miniature denouement at the end of the second movie, while also preparing the audience for the nature of the third, and building excitement for the coming adventure. Instead, for their Cliff Hanger, they ended with all of the threads dangling. Not to mention that there already was a completely formed resolution for the second movie, Norrington just snatched it away at the last minute.
    • One of the points of praise given to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is that it was concerned with the plot of a single film rather than trying to stretch the story, characters and plot into multiple films.
    • The sequels also had the weird problem of having too much story AND too little story. For those who are critical of the films, the second film introduced everything and then just messed around whilst waiting for the third to show up and then the third tried to cram too many things in and tie up too many threads.
  • The Evil Dead trilogy. Though there's a distinct stylistic disconnect between parts 2 and 3, the latter was set up quite explicitly in the former.
    • Interestingly, part 2 is sometimes styled as a "remake" of part 1 because Sam Raimi was unable to get reproduction rights for the original. However, it is fully intended as a sequel, and only re-shoots the part it needs to establish the backstory.

"What's the deal with Evil Dead 2, anyway? Is it a sequel or a remake? What's up with that?"

    • Army of Darkness actually retcons the sequel hook from Evil Dead 2 into its exact opposite.
  • Though not a trilogy, the seven-part Saw franchise (particularly from Part IV onwards) operates under the same principle and suffers from a lot of the same problems. It was originally intended to be a trilogy, before Executive Meddling set in. The first movie works pretty well as a stand-alone film, but the next two were pretty obviously made to be tied together. Of course, the third movie was supposed to wrap everything up...
  • Originally, Toxic Avenger Part II and III were one long movie, but got split up, due to being too long.
  • Purposely invoked with the film version of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows; they knew there was no way they could condense the book into one movie and make it at all comprehensible, so they divided it into two parts. This was going to happen with Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire as well, but the director insisted he could do the whole book in one movie.
    • This works on another level when one considers that Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows act as a two-part story, having been at least partially designed that way by Rowling. Thus, the HBP movie and the DH movies Part I and II act as a concluding trilogy of sorts, with HBP acting as the stand-alone first part, and DH acting as the two-part conclusion with the cliffhanger in-between.
  • Intentionally done with The Human Centipede. According to Dread Central, Tom Six explained that, "My goal was that the first film will get audiences used to the concept of a human centipede and prepares them for where everything goes in the next two."
  • The somewhat expected route of the John Carter of Mars movie (it won't be as bad since they are planning the possibility of a trilogy), since Disney is unsure of its success, and there is a lot to be unsure of, since the movie has been in Development Hell for 80 years due to quality control.
  • Peter Jackson's film version of The Hobbit was forced into being one of these; originally intended to be two films, a third was essentially manufactured out of wholecloth, mostly by expanding Bilbo's fifteen-minute excursion into Smaug's lair into two hours of running from a dragon on sliding piles of coins.


Literature

  • Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) fits this trope. Sabriel features a different protagonist and antagonist completely from the latter two books, and also happens twenty years earlier.
  • Rendezvous With Rama and sequels is a literary example of a two-part tetrology. The original book is self-contained (although the last line is a very nice Sequel Hook), while the next three books tell a single story and suffer from severe Sequelitis.
  • The Inheritance Cycle has this, but in this case it was the third book that was split into two, making the trilogy into a "cycle".
  • The Indian in the Cupboard. Only the first part was adapted to film.
    • There are actually five books in the series, which would make it a Four-Part Pentalogy (the second and third books are linked as one story, while the fourth and fifth books are mostly self-contained).
  • Matthew Reilly's archaeological adventures, Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones, and The Five Greatest Warriors.
  • Dune was originally conceived as one large masterwork, with the two sequels of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune entwined into the story. Considering the original is 412 pages, the second 222, and the third 592, they were obviously split. This creates an interesting case of the first book being easily stand-alone, while the two sequels are more closely connected but can still in a way also be stand-alone. They also allowed for God-Emperor of Dune, basically a midquel that set up the last two books in the series to be written. It's just kinda hard to say where Two-Part Trilogy begins and Trilogy Creep ends, or even what was intended to be a simple, honest trilogy.
  • Ender's Game began as a stand-alone short story, then was later expanded into a novel. The novel is also sufficiently stand-alone, but the final chapter does have a sequel hook that allows for a sequel if you choose to read it. The sequel also sits surprisingly well as a stand-alone conclusion to Ender's story, but also has a sequel hook if you want to tie up some below-the-surface loose ends. This is where it gets into Two-Part Trilogy country. The final two books in the series, Xenocide and Children of the Mind, are far more connected than the previous books and were originally intended to be a single volume, but were broken off into two with a superficial cliffhanger between them. Children of the Mind returns to being a suitable conclusion, if you count the main character Ender dying, but only opens up the biggest cliffhanger in literature since Chapterhouse: Dune. Like the Dune series, it's near impossible to differentiate between the overlapping Sequelitis, Two-Part Trilogy, and Trilogy Creep.
  • The Saga of Darren Shan is probably the biggest example on this page, being a twelve-part saga divided into four trilogies which form their own story-arcs. "Vampire Blood" is about Darren becoming a half-vampire, coming to terms with his transformation and encountering a member of the vampire offshoot, the vampaneze. "Vampire Rites" is about Darren travelling to the home of the vampire clan and trying to gain acceptance by them, while uncovering a conspiricy to destroy the clan. "Vampire War" is the hunt for the Vampaneze Lord, whose death can end the war between the two clans. "Vampire Destiny" is about Darren learning disturbing revelations about the implications of the war, while it comes to its conclusion. Strangely, "Vampire War" and "Vampire Destiny" form their own Two-Part Trilogy, as the last two books of each form a complete storyline in contrast to the first, which are more establishing the change in the story after the Time Skip from the halfway point (in the case of "War") and briding the Grand Finale with the Wham! Episode that ended "War" (in the case of "Destiny").
  • The Warriors series by Erin Hunter works this way, except with series each containing six books. The first series works well by itself and nicely wraps up the ending. The ending of the second series has a few unsolved puzzles and sequel hooks, but can also work fine as the final ending of the whole book series. However when the third series ended, many plot points were still unresolved and it was clear it was just setting up the stage for the fourth series.
  • The Dark Is Rising is a two part pentology. Over Sea, Under Stone is a stand-alone, fairly standard kids treasure hunt, with very little magic, a self-contained story, the treasure found and the bad guy defeated. The next four books introduce new characters (including Will, who takes over as the main character), magic, a bigger bad, an epic background war, mythological tie-ins, and a story that all links together. And it's awesome.
  • The Twilight series is an odd example. It originally was supposed to be a two part series, but the second book, Forever Dawn, was broken into New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. This resulted in development of the wolves and Jacob, with less emphasis on Bella's point of view of her pregnancy.
  • Interview With The Vampire is basically a stand-alone memoir of Louis' life in the nineteenth century with Daniel's search for Lestat making for an ambiguous Sequel Hook. Starting with The Vampire Lestat, Louis and Daniel are pushed aside in favor of a multi-part storyline detailing Lestat's plot to awaken Queen Akasha, the resulting disaster, and his search for redemption.
  • The Land of Elyon series is two examples in one. The first book can stand on its own, and the first three can stand on their own, but not the first two or first four, making the first three a two part trilogy and the whole series a three part pentology.
  • The Millennium Trilogy also follows this format. The plot of book 1 is "find out what happened to Harriet Vanger" while book 2 and 3 are concerned with "find out what happened to Lisbet Salander and punish those responsible".
  • The first book of the Haruhi Suzumiya series was written as a standalone story without much of a Sequel Hook, but it became so popular that ten sequels (and counting) were produced. The sequels are literally intertwined: most contain several different story arcs occuring some random amount of time after the events of the first book, which has become more like a giant prologue and character introduction than an actual installment. The fourth book lampshades its own giant prologue, probably partly as a reference to the first book's transformation.
  • Peter and the Starcatchers has the first book in the trilogy be roughly standalone with all of the major plot events more or less resolved; when Cerebus Syndrome really kicks in around "Shadow Thieves", the books start to directly continue into one another. Sword of Mercy is more or less the same. however, if one looks by the major story arcs in the series, it actually does form a trilogy, with "starcatchers" and "Sword of Mercy" being relatively standalone. (Relatively because Sword of Mercy still continues an arc from "Secret of Rundoon" and "Shadow Thieves")
  • The Wheel of Time series is a rather special case, as it was originally intended by the author to be a Two-Part Trilogy, with the first book being capable of standing alone should it not be sufficiently popular... as it turns out, there was so much content to be put into the other "part" that it is now a Two Part Tetradecology. Indeed, it was such an extensive story, it suffered from Author Existence Failure when Robert Jordan died, and Brandon Sanderson had to be brought in to finish writing what was meant to be the twelfth and final book... but which ended up being turned into three books, due to the sheer volume of content still to be written.


Music

  • Frank Zappa's Hot Rats got two sequels released close to each other, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo. Then, several years after that, there was the unoffically named Läther(German for leather) trilogy, consisting of Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt(sometimes referred to as Hot Rats III), and Orchestral Favorites, making up a three-part sexology. Confused yet?


Theater

  • An Older Than Steam example occurs in Shakespeare's two historical tetralogies, which follow this pattern to a certain degree (they are both, effectively, three-part tetralogies). Henry VI Part I (which some scholars argue is actually a prequel) focuses primarily on the wars in France, while the arc of parts II and III, and Richard III, is about the Wars of the Roses. Similarly, Richard II focuses on the decline and fall of the eponymous king, while Henry IV Parts I and II feature the rise of Prince Hal, the future Henry V, culminating in his defeat of the French in (surprisingly) Henry V. While the trend in performance is to present the plays as one big cycle, scholars often dispute the degree to which the whole thing was planned out.


Video Games

  • This is exactly the case with the Halo series. Halo 2 ended on an obvious cliffhanger, leaving many, many fans feeling cheated. Of course, with the success of Halo 3, many of these sentiments have been quelled.
    • Halo: Combat Evolved itself is a bit of an aversion of this trope, though. Where most early films in a trilogy are made to stand alone, Halo seemed like it was just a small part of an galaxy-wide conflict. Not quite a Sequel Hook in itself, but that definitely lays the groundwork for more stuff in the franchise.
      • Halo is now up to six games, six novels, a graphic novel compilation, several comic series, and an anime OVA (and District 9 began life as the Halo live-action adaptation.) It's safe to say that this series went beyond the scope of just being a trilogy long, long ago, and was always meant to do as such.
  • Unlike Halo, Knights of the Old Republic has suffered the opposite. The ending of the first game is quite clear, the player has either saved the day, defeated the Big Bad, destroyed the Death Star knock off and is universally loved, or has kept the Death Star knockoff for themselves and unleashes their new fleet on the galaxy to take over. At the end of the sequel though, good or evil ending, it just ends with the character's ship flying off into space, presumably to go and find the True Sith. That was in 2004, and the plot threads were only recently followed up on with the release of a sequel/spinoff MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
    • Possibly in relation to the classic example of the original trilogy mentioned above, Star Wars: The Old Republic does this as well despite being only one game: each class has a personal story questline which is divided into three acts or chapters; the first chapter ends with the character triumphantly achieving their goal so far, while the second chapter tends to end inconclusively with a setback and a direct lead into the third and final chapter.
  • The first three Ace Attorney games fit this trope, though with an odd twist—1 and 3 have more connections to each other than 2 has to either of them, though this came about in much the same manner as any other Two-Part Trilogy. And of course, the fourth game was going to be completely unconnected until the Executive Meddling.
  • Save for some minor plot threads and a semi-cliffhanger, Kingdom Hearts stood on its own more than its two immediate sequels Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, which both opened up a new plotline involving Sora, Donald, and Goofy facing Organization XIII while searching for Riku and King Mickey.
  • All signs pointed at this happening to Modern Warfare 2. The first game was fairly grounded in reality, the second game started to discard reality in favor of Rule of Cool, introduced a lot of new characters who weren't in the first game, had obvious plot issues and ended with an very obvious sequel hook and a promise an awesome resolution. Except most of the characters from the first two games are dead. Not that that would have stopped them from introducing even more new characters who also weren't in the first game and reintroducing a few who were, to the fandom's delight. That said, with Activision's insistence on making money above all else and Infinity Ward's own statements on the matter, it's quite possible there'll be even more Modern Warfare games in the future.
  • All signs point to this happening to the God of War series. The ending of the first game implied that Kratos would remain the God of War until the present day. The second game started with Kratos losing his godly powers, and ended without them restored. It also ended on an obvious sequel hook of Kratos leading the Titans to war with the Olympians. Ready for the third game yet?
    • It was more apparent in the third game, but they also managed to explain away some of the differences between the first and second game, such as why Kratos can still kill gods without Pandora's Box, and why the gods are more malicious in the second game.
  • This is what happened with the MOTHER trilogy, but it was in no way a bad thing for the series. Still, the number of plot threads linking EarthBound and Mother 3 is significantly higher than connections MOTHER has with its two sequels combined. As Shigesato Itoi only really did it for a chance to make a compelling story in a different medium, this wasn't a case of Sequelitis; most of the threads between EarthBound and MOTHER 3 were established by MOTHER 3, with EarthBound leaving only Porky's disappearance open.
  • Kingdom Hearts, the first game was a clearly self-contained story with a vague sequel hook, and it was only when the game was a success that they added in a Bonus Boss and secret ending to the English and Final Mix relases that alluded to another story on the horizon. Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II are quite clearly two parts to a continuous story, though the franchise continued on after that. Much as with the first game, the English and Final Mix versions of II included more content to tie into three upcoming spin-offs.
  • The Golden Sun series is an interesting variation on this trope, in which the standalone piece comes last rather than first. The first Golden Sun and its sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, were originally intended to be one game, but had to be seperated due to the space limitations on the Game Boy Advance. The Two-Part Trilogy is rounded out with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (for the Nintendo DS).
    • ... or not, as Dark Dawn ends on a cliffhanger, and has enough threads left hanging to require at least one sequel.
  • Xenosaga actually flips this around; in this series its the first and second entries that are closely interconnected together (as episode 1 was originally meant to be longer, but was then split in half) and the 3rd entry that stands more on its own, having started off with a time skip.
    • Arc the Lad follows a pattern similar to the one above; Arc 1 and 2 are basicly one long video game, while Arc 3 skips ahead many years and stands on its own.
  • Phantasy Star Universe has this problem in the main story episodes. The first episode is a self-contained story about the SEED invasion, which you eventually defeat once and for all. Then Episode 2 introduces the Illuminus, who turn out to be behind a lot of the SEED trouble, and they essentially bring about another SEED invasion. Episode 2 ends on a cliffhanger with the GUARDIANS colony being destroyed and the Illuminus more or less victorious. Episode 3 finally has you tie up the loose ends of the previous episode, and end the threat once and for all... again.
  • The Dragon Age series has been accused of this. It was planned to be a series from the start, but the first game is fairly self contained with an ending that grants a fair amount of closure for most of the characters (with only one major sequel hook, and only if you did Morrigan's ritual). Dragon Age II, on the other hand, ends on a cliffhanger that pretty much forces you to buy the upcoming expansions and sequels.
  • Zig-Zagged and justified with Fire Emblem Akaneia. The only real "trilogy" in the series; but it wasn't even intended as one - What's referred to as "Fire Emblem 2" is in fact Fire Emblem Gaiden, a Gaiden Game.
  • Mass Effect is a interesting example. It was designed as a trilogy from the ground up. However, there were some serious changes in game play between Mass Effect 1 and 2. Mass Effect 3 plays much the same as Mass Effect 2. So in terms of game play you have two very closely related games and one not as related game.


Web Animation

  • The sixth, seventh and eighth seasons of Red vs. Blue make up the Recollections Saga, named in order: Reconstruction, Recreation and Revelation. Reconstruction leaves a few plot points open ended, such as the fate of Church, Wash and the Meta, as well as a cameo by Tucker acting as a Sequel Hook, but for most part, it was a stand alone piece. Recreation however, ends on a dual cliffhangar of Washington shooting Donut and Lopez, while Sarge, Grif, Caboose, Tucker and Epsilon have to contend with a squadron of aliens.
  • The Stick figure series Shock is an inversion of this trope. The first two are a two part episode and the third one basically stands on its own.


Web Original


Western Animation

  • The Fairly OddParents "Wishology" trilogy is intentionally like this, despite it being known from the beginning it would be a trilogy. Part I is a stand alone story involving Timmy's first battle against The Darkness. Part II ends on a cliffhanger, which is resolved in Part III.
  • Happened with the sequels to Arthur and the Invisibles, to the point that the U.K. distributor edited the two films (Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard and Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds) into one (Arthur and the Great Adventure) and the U.S. DVD release was a simple two-disc set of both films instead of separate releases.


Intentional Aversions

There are plenty of aversions, but these films were made and designed either as one entire story, or all as individual stories.

  • The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. None of the three films really stand alone at all; they were all approached with the assurance that all three would be successful, and all were filmed within the same time period. In other words, all three films had the characteristics of the "second part" of a Two-Part Trilogy. It was a big gamble, especially for such expensive films, which of course is why this trope happens more often than not. It helps that the movies were based on a single Doorstopper novel split into three volumes at publishing time; the trilogy was pre-existent, so it was easier to tailor the movies around a three part structure. Tolkien was not happy that the publishers made him divide it for publication.
    • In adapting the story to film, both part one and part two end in different spots in the story than their respective books, as the films were designed from the beginning as a story in three parts and needed more appropriate spots to end the first two parts. The first film ends only about a chapter later than the book (Boromir's death is the first chapter of the second book). However, the second film does have a much larger gap between the endings.
  • The Transformers sequels deliberately subverted this trope. Director Michael Bay has gone on record saying that he hates this form of movie-making and doesn't want to hold back on the current movie because he wants to save something for the sequel. As he said, "Let's go for broke on this one."
  • The Last Airbender was written from the beginning to be akin to The Lord of the Rings films matching the three seasons of the show, only filmed individually. It is to the point that just about anything not related to the main story or mythology as a whole was cut out and they emphasized key items that will become major plot points in later installments: Ba Sing Se being one of the last major cities, Sozin's Comet will arrive in three years and Azula being called on a special mission.
  • Many people assumed that this would happen with Chris Nolan's series of Batman films - Batman Begins was (as the title implies) a setup of the protagonist, using a few obscure villains from the comic, and ends on a minor Sequel Hook. The Dark Knight resolves the loose threads of the first film, pits Batman against his most famous enemy, and before its release, was assumed to be setting up Two-Face as the villain for a third installment. Instead Two-Face made his appearance in the movie itself, it resolved the major story at hand and the sequel hook was a far cry from a Cliff Hanger. Nolan's intention was to have the sequel go on to feature the Joker on trial, but with Heath Ledger's death they have apparently decided on a new direction for the third film and not recast.
  • The Complete World Knowledge trilogy. Only the first two volumes are out so far, but it looks like all three will share an equal degree of cohesion.
  • The "May Bird" book series is both an example and an aversion. Book 1 ends on a cliffhanger that is resolved in book 2, but book 3 takes place three years later and is largely self-contained.
  • The first Assassin's Creed ends with a particularly confusing sequel hook. It ends with Desmond discovering he has gained his ancestor Altair's eagle vision, and discovering creepy doomsday messages in his room. It literally ends with him asking what it means
    • Although the sequel initial seems to end with a Gainax Ending that literally has the main character (and possibly the player) going "What... the... fuck...???" just as the credits role, the after-credits scenes explain things pretty nicely and set up a clear Cliffhanger Ending, with the Assassins racing to stop the world from burning.
    • Then the trope is smashed up to pieces with the fact that it is no more a trilogy, that brotherhood explains as much as it opens new questions, that the Da Vinci disappearance shows coordinates that, apparently, do not point towards the next game, Revelations, and that Revelations is announced to… reveal a lot of things.
    • Ezio's own personal trilogy, however, seems to take a somewhat different turn. AC2 and Brotherhood have more in common with one another than they have with Revelations.
  • The Indiana Jones films were all completely stand alone. If anything, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade are most closely related because of the Nazis, while '*Temple of Doom (which was, technically, a prequel) is even more isolated. Alternatively, Raiders is continued in Crystal Skull by the presence of Marion. Ultimately, though, they're all pretty much independent of one another.
  • The "Spock trilogy" of Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III the Search For Spock and Star Trek IV the Voyage Home. Wrath of Khan was originally supposed to be the final Star Trek film involving the original cast due to how tepid the reaction was towards Star Trek: The Motion Picture, hence why the screenwriters chose to kill off Spock. Wrath Of Khan turned out to be a success that revived interest in more films, even more surprisingly Leonard Nimoy enjoyed the movie so much he was interested in returning. The entire plot of The Search for Spock revolved around bringing him back and was resolved, leaving some dangling plot threads surrounding the serious laws that were broken to make it possible. The Voyage Home concludes those plot threads, but the primary story of the film was something unrelated to Spock or their legal problems (except in as much as it gave them a chance to save the world and thus return home heroes instead of just criminals). Overall, the "trilogy" was more accidental than anything else.
  • Mass Effect is actually an aversion of this trope as BioWare had ALWAYS planned on it being a trilogy and essentially planned the plot out from the beginning. They aren't just trying to milk everything. The series has seen natural progression so far with the first two games, with each story standing alone and while the previous games are referenced they merely form a backstory and not key plot points to understand the current story.
    • The second game allows you to import your savegame from the end of the original Mass Effect, and the loading screen tips repeatedly advise the player to keep their old savegames around for Mass Effect 3. The games are all very immersive RPG's and so you aren't just saving your character's appearance, but the choices you made in the first game influence your experience of the second. In particular, a key decision made at the end of the first game reflects the way certain characters treat your character in the second game, as a Savior or an Anti-Hero.
      • Played straight in a sense though, in that the Big Bad of the second game is also The Unfought and was presumed to return in the third game, presumably picking up on the plot thread started in that game involving abducting and melting down humans to make a Human-Reaper. It did return alright... for about half a minute.
  • The Harry Potter films have generally avoided this, as they were developed and filmed individually and took cues from the books as to what was necessary for the later stories. J.K. Rowling was also on board to try to manage plot sensitive items from being omitted as the films were being made before the series concluded. That all said, the books themselves can be grouped into three sections that signify different stages of the overall story. The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets are sort of the more innocent tales of children getting involved with adventures. The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, and The Order of the Phoenix is about them starting to grow up. The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows is about shattering that innocence and breaking into a very dangerous adult world.
    • Though when the series finally got a stable director starting with Order of the Phoenix, you can see more attention paid to avoiding Adaptation Induced Plot Holes that the first four films were full of.
  • The Gears of War series was developed with each installment standing on its own. You are introduced to the basic premise via a voice-over (which is basically a long-standing war between two factions) and then the characters show up and introduce themselves. The first game is about a critical mission that puts you directly in the middle of the conflict with a Sequel Hook at the end. The second game builds upon things that were brought up in the first game but otherwise tells it's own self-contained story. The third game wanted to avoid locking people out of the story so it will also be self-contained, focusing on telling a story rather than simply resolving questions.
  • The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy averts this to the extreme. Each game is basically a self-contained plot, completely divorced from the other entries, with the only connecting thread that they share the same characters... or at least, the same faces, in the case of Lightning Returns. Critics of the trilogy have pointed out that it would have been a smarter move to just write the sequels as separate main titles, since they have so little to do with each other anyway (so instead of XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, XV and XVI.)
  • Each Jurassic Park film has a self-contained story, right down to using Rotating Protagonists. While events in earlier films make later films possible (The Lost World coulnd't happen without dinosaurs having been brought back in the first one and Jurassic Park III couldn't happen without Site B being established in The Lost World), there's still three individual adventures which are not really tied together by any kind of overriding story.
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