The meme is funny, I'm going to acknowledge that first.
But what are these rankings? Indiana Jones 3 is ranked the same quality as 2. Spider-Man 1 is ranked demonstrably worse than 2. Jurassic Park 3 is ranked work than Jurassic Park 2????
I know it comes down to a matter of opinion but I also have to wonder if the person who originally created this meme watched the movies, because those are some spicy takes.
I am fully aware I'm pretty much alone with my opinion, but I find Terminator 1 far superior to T2.
Even with the limited budget T1 manages to create a far more horrifying vision of an unstoppable killer coming after you. The lo-fi'ish synth soundtrack sets a perfect oppressive feeling. The casting is perfect, Michael Biehn' s scarred and wiry Reese with Hamilton's young and scared next door girl going against metal-Arnold in his prime is the epitome of underdog scenarios.
And the pacing is very good, the plot flows.
T2 is a good film, but like many sequels, it suffers from the "let's do the same thing from a different angle, but bigger and louder!" - syndrome. It doesn't really get to be it's own kind of beast. I was very surprised that Cameron fell for the trap, after he avoided that mistake with "Aliens". Switching genre from space horror to space action made that film stand firmly on it's own feet and the result was good.
Lastly, T2 has the young John Connor doing the "badass kid" - role, which so many seem to love. I just find the character annoying.
A lot of those crappy trilogies were not written all at once the way LOTR was. The more common case of writing follow-ups to cash in on the popularity of the original is a time-honoured way to make money while producing derivative garbage.
I feel like we need a different word to separate those “cash grab” trilogies from proper multi-part stories like LOTR.
Since no one here is talking about the Jurassic Park trilogy, I'll go ahead and say my hot take. JP3 is way better than 2. And obviously the originals are all miles ahead of the Jurassic Worlds.
Whoa whoa whoa mad max 1 is the best of the three. Sure, the sequels have crazier worldbuilding and fancier visuals but the first is tight, well shot, and tells a good story well.
A lot of sequels aren't as good because the original director and writer (and maybe other staff) aren't involved. The original staff may have had a vision for the one movie, and when it's completed, they're not interested in making another one. So the studio that owns the copyright hands it to some newbies so they can get experience and do a low-budget cash-grab sequel.
Bro. Have you seen Fellowship of the Ring? It’s 3 hours of “Hey, could you schedule a meeting so we could nail down our deliverables and figure out a timeline?”
And 30 minutes of “good meeting, everyone.”