Movie sequels that are hard to understand without seing the first film?

Scream 2 references Scream quite a lot and it's kind of important you see the first one to understand the killers (in S2) motivation, although they do explain it.
 
As the action in Back to the Future 2 takes place during the action of the first film , the second film would be far less enjoyable if you had not seen the first one
 
Because they often get shown on tv in a different order.

It's a guarantee that whenever T2 is shown the first one is nowhere to be seen .

Different movies held by different channels cause this problem usually although I've seen Sky show the second of a series on a weekday then later in the week show the first one
 
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers?

Although I havent seen it in a while though, do they do prologue at the beginning, I cant remember...
 
Many 'sequels' are simply re-hashes of the first film(s), so you haven't missed anything relevant to them if you didn't see the ones before, such as - OTTOMH - the Die Hard, Transporter, Alien and Hulk films. The type of sequel where you really need to see the preceeding ones are bona fide trilogies where it's a continuing storyline, such as LOTR, Scream, Godfather and - and I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this yet - Star Wars.
 
i was 9 yrs old when my sister rented Aliens. hadnt seen the original or knew anything about the movies.
it was a little confusing - but i soon understood it - as far as a 9 yr old can. I remember not being able to understand Ripley's dream sequence at the beginning - and thought her almost belly buster was a box coming out of her with Aliens in the box!! (that black thing coming out was almost square shapped, well, it seemed it then).
and also when the Marine goes into the drop ship, he touches some alien goo - i thought he then turned into the alien that attacked the pilot...because he touched the goo!!
it was only after the movie, there was a trailer for Alien! and we all realised there was a first movie!
but i absolutely enjoyed the movie very much. and has remained my favourite movie of all time!
 
I remember watching the Matrix Reloaded without seeing the original and at the end...

when they say "there was only one survivor" and zoom in on Agent Smith's 'real life' counterpart, everyone in the cinema gasped. I turned to my friend and saif brightly:

So who's that then?
 
I think it depenRAB on whether the sequel is a continuation (LOTR, Star Wars, Matrix) or just a different storyline with the same characters (most superhero films, Indiana Jones etc)

The former are difficult to watch without seeing the preceding films but the latter are no problems. I remember as a child seeing Return of the Jedi without seeing Empire Strikes Back and had absolutely no idea why and how the characters got to where they were! But I saw Temple of Doom and Last Crusade before Raiders and had no trouble with not having seen them in release order.
 
I would have thought someone watching the Godfather III would think it such a piece of crap that they would not even consider the first two.
 
Then again you can watch the 1st 3 Indiana Jones out sequence, as Temple of Doom is set Before Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Temple: 1935
Riders: 1936
 
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