When it comes to movie trilogies, I've noticed that the third installment is nearly always my favorite. Return of the King, Revenge of the Sith, X3 The Last Stand. The third is always when they pull out all the stops with special effects, epic battles, and story resolutions.

What about you? Do you prefer the opening, when the heroes are just discovering their potential? Or the middle, which us the bridge linking the end with the beginning?

Or is it never that consistent with you? Share your thoughts, or at least throw tomatoes at me if you think this poll is lame.

Second. ESB, T2, not a trilogy but Wrath of Khan.

Revenge of the Sith because even though the fight between Obi Wan and Anakin was full of flourishes and way too long, it was ****ing awesome.

RotS, because no talking JarJar.

RotS.. it was the only prequel that mattered whatsoever.

If only they had put darth maul in RotS

they all sucked and george lucas should be shot

I reject the notion that simply being a franchise of three films constitutes a trilogy.

Second season of Avatar, second act of Tristan, paper, Pride and Prejudice, Jedi Knight. Pretty unambiguous that second is best.

(Also, since the prequels can only compete to be ranked in order of loathing, Attack of the Clones of course comes out on top.)

In order of worst to best: Attack of the Clones, The Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith.

2nd movie. Best in ESB, Back to the Future 2, TTT, Superman 2, Spiderman 2, Aliens, Austin Powers 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze, Terminator 2.

only post so far that makes sense to me

The second is always the best. It works for video games, too.

The first is an experiment. Will this game be good?

If so, they make a second. The second takes the first and refines the gameplay. It doesn't change very much, it just gets better.

In the third, one of two things happen. They either try to 'mix it up', or they become completely formulated and soulless.

Revenge of the Sith is pretty awesome.

Lucas should kill himself twice, but AotC is the least terrible of his prequel failures.

Generally the first in a trilogy is the best. If a first movie works, the subsequent movies are frequently at least as focused on cashing in as on preserving what made the first movie great, and if a first movie doesn't work, there probably won't be any sequels.

Toy Story 3 ruins the "2nd film is always best" rule.

No Toy Story 1 did that.

I used to agree with you, then I went back and watched Toy Story 2 again. It's far better than I remembered from the cinema.

The Matrix trilogy and Lord of the Rings both ruin the rule, too, though in opposite directions. And Star Treks II through IV are essentially a trilogy, but I don't hear anyone claiming that Search for Spock was the best.

Pretty much all of the prequels were terrible.

The greatest disappointment was that it didn't have to be this way.

Also, all of the prequel lightsaber fights were awful. Every one of them. It's like there was no sense of tension or real conflict. They just go on and on and on. Boring.

Revenge of the Sith was the least cringeworthy of the prequels. But of the old triology the best one was The Empire strikes back. Lucas should have stayed with the idea of letting others direct his films.

o_O
I've never heard of such a rule.
I've heard the "1st film is always best" rule, which I find applies 95% of the time.
Exceptions:
Indiana Jones
Aliens
Terminator

1st film is always best finds it's biggest exceptions with films that are part of a trilogy in which the 2nd film is often best

???

Attack of the Clones... Not because of Yoda though. Big fan of Obi Wan. I think he was done well in that part. Kamino was awesome. People knock Hayden's performance in the two films, AotC seemed the better of the two for him. The 'Fall' in the third just seemed to anti-climactic.

read post above the one you quoted then you'll understand

if not then i can't help you

Out of the Star Wars prequels, I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith the most. I really did enjoy the part where Anakin is all "oh ****" after Windu dies and pretty much falls apart to the Dark Side. It's not to say I didn't have my problems with it, but it's definitely better than the second and far better than the first.

Out of the original trilogy, I enjoyed Empire Strikes Back the most. Again, Luke being all "oh ****" when finding out Vader is his father and such.

In general, what I consider "the best" in a trilogy is usually all over the board. For the Alien movies (which is a quadrilogy), it's a tie between the first and second, for the Matrix movies, there's parts I like and don't like about equally with all of them, for Lord of the Rings, it's a tie between the first and third, for Terminator (another quadrilogy) again, all of them have parts I like and dislike, for Indiana Jones (again a quadrilogy) it's Last Crusade, I think ALL the Toy Story movies are equally good, not going to address Star Trek because it's nothing like a trilogy/series at ALL... seriously, people are listing a lot of not-trilogies here.

Personally, I really dislike the general notions that "the first is always best" or "the second is always best" or whatever. I either look to enjoy the movie as its own thing or as it plays in the larger narrative. Even my lesser-favorite movies in trilogies/series I tend to enjoy one way or the other.

I agree with Geb, on this.

I don't arbitrarily choose the third of a trilogy as my fave, though. Its just that, looking at my favorite movies, a lot of them happen to be the third.

Still, with ST, Wrath of Khan was best. I'm split between Aliens and Alien Resurrection. I never did see Revolutions, but Reloaded had some of the most awesome fight scenes ever--at least, when it wasn't doing weird African jungle dancing and too long, drawn out philosophy scenes.

I feel the need to include my opinions about the Alien Quardrilogy:

• Alien -- I really like the horror aspect, which really can't be captured again in part because we already know what to expect of the alien species but also just because the slower-paced character-driven horror movies seem a lot harder to find in movies made in the past 30 years, instead seeing either slasher-action with characters we want to see die or shockumentary (Blair Wich, Paranormal Activty). However, surprisingly, the characters aren't terribly memorable.
• Aliens -- It's a great dark action movie that pays tribute to the original's horror before the aliens show up and built the alien 'universe' well. It has really memorable characters, but it also lacks that sexual discomfort that is characteristic in the other films as well as something else rather minor but significant I can't put my finger on right now. The end of this movie mad it really difficult to have further (good) sequels.
• Alien 3 -- Considering what the previous movie left for them and the ideas being thrown around, it's a miracle this movie is as good as it is (which isn't to say it's that good, only that there was some terrible stuff to work with). It's more a reflection on Ripley's character than an "Alien" movie, but (apart from how they had to set it up and the title), I consider this an acceptable sequel in the franchise.
• Alien Ressurection -- This suffers from the opposite problem of Alien 3 in that it had some good ideas but it was just executed very blandly and weird in the wrong places, which I blame mostly on the director. It still has some good moments, but it really should have been directed by someone else.

Also, with ST (original) movies, I think Undiscovered Country captured the Star Trek spirit the most, but my favorite is a tie between that one, Voyage Home and Wrath of Khan. Out of the Next Gen movies, it's hard not to go with First Contact. I enjoyed the new movie but I feel it's sort of abandoning the spirit of Star Trek (which I may be proven wrong with in a following movie).

Alien was the best.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was the best.

The Empire Strikes back was the best.

Revenge of the Sith was the best.

Every single next gen movie is terrlble, first contact is the least terrible. Wrath of Khan is a great movie, TMP is great too but in different ways. The entire prequel series sucked.

First Contact is possibly the second-best of all the Star Trek films. And the first isn't Wrath of Khan.

Which of the TNG movies is the one where Riker just calmly says "fire" before completely obliterating an enemy ship?

I like that one.

I basically agree. Alien was fantastic. Aliens had Vasquez, though.. <_< Alien 3 was a complete abortion. Also I will never forgive them for killing off Newt off-screen in between movies-- heartbreakingly tragic and unnecessary; I literally think about that at least once a month and still hate them for it to this day. Alien 4 never happened.

I didn't even list a trilogy as an exception, those are all quadrilogies now ;p
But even counting quadrilogies, the only one that fits your proposed rule in my head is Terminator 2.

The only bad next generation film is Nemesis.

I don't know if this is nostalgia talking, but I have warm feelings about TPM. I really like the locales in that movie... less CGI backdrops than the other two prequels.

The prequels have disappointed me before, but after watching the Plinkett reviews the effect was only more amplified. The only exception was Revenge of the Sith, which despite its flaws is still fun overall.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones/

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith/

Uh.. no.

Episode 1 saber scene was what should have been carried through all the movies new and old. Just enough acrobatics to believe each side had spent years training, decent amount of force power exhibited without going overboard, and great fast paced tension and emotion. I don't know what you were watching but it clearly wasn't TPM. The older movies were the drawn out boring fights, and the newer ones were far too over the top. TPM was believable, and fit most perfectly for its time frame (the heyday of the Jedi, Sith at its prime, etc).