Part one should be it's own story. Part 2 should be another one. Part 3 should be a new one. They'll have their connections, of course.
In Mad Max Fury Road, we know enough about the characters without having to speculate about how they are able to do the things they are able to do and that's a planned trilogy. In Jurassic World, Crisp Rat is explained in that movie and that's a planned trilogy.
I think we may be misunderstanding each other about what a "planned trilogy" is.
I generally divide trilogies into four categories:
***Disconnected trilogies (for example, the first three Indiana Jones and Die Hard movies) - I won't really be discussing these here, but it's where the three movies have very little to do with each other besides some characters and settings, weren't planned as a trilogy, and the viewer can survive by watching any of the three in any order.
***Hopeful trilogies - This is when the makers of the first movie have bigger plans for the story, but no clue if they'll ever get to reveal those plans to the public. One major hallmark of "hopeful trilogies" is that part one makes sense on its own, while parts two and three need the other movies to make any damn sense.
The original Star Wars trilogy is one of the best (and one of the few) examples of this. Although there are a couple of dangling threads that could be picked up later if possible, the movie is a self-contained story. Meanwhile, its sequels
need each other movie in the series to make sense.
The new Mad Max movies are part of a "hopeful trilogy," in that it was conceived as three parts, but part one was not a guaranteed success, so it's a self-contained story (although Mad Max films are traditionally self-contained).
***There are then "unplanned trilogies," like Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Matrix. A hallmark of these includes a satisfying and complete first story, followed by sequels that either undo some of what the first movie did (because the writer was stuck in a corner by the story of the first movie) or build shakily on the skeleton that the first film laid down. Another hallmark is the writing and filming of parts two and three being done concurrently, following the unexpected success of the first movie.
Just as with the "hopeful trilogy," the "unplanned trilogy" has a first part that stands on its own--as far as story and characters go--followed by two parts that
need the other films in the series to make sense.
***Finally, there are "planned trilogies," such as this new Star Wars series, the LOTR series, and the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In "planned trilogies," the story is planned out ahead of time, and each film needs the others in the series to make sense, because each movie in the series ends on a cliffhanger of some type. Sometimes this backfires (The Golden Compass film, for one), but typically these things are done because the studio is convinced they have a winner on their hands with a massive story that needs three movies to tell.
So, with Episode VII, you have the first part of a planned trilogy. It needs the following two movies to make complete sense.
To prove my point, let's try a mental exercise:
Take the first part of a planned trilogy (let's stay in the family and say Episode I). Now pretend you show it to somebody who has never heard of Star Wars and knows nothing about anything connected to the story (Vader, the Force, Luke Skywalker, etc). Will they understand what the fuck is going on?
Sure, they'll understand there's some boy who has Midichlorians in him blew up a ship somehow, and that he left his mom behind to live with some old guy for some reason, but none of that will make sense unless you either know about the rest of the series or see the following two movies. The character is barely fleshed out in any individual movie. The series is required for any of it to make complete sense.
Or let's look at part one of LOTR. If the person in question had no idea that this was a trilogy of movies and only saw any one part of the set, he or she would be lost:
- If they only see part one, it ends with the group divided and nowhere near their final destination. Anyone seeing this movie without knowledge of it being part of a planned trilogy would feel absolutely ripped off.
- If they only see part two or part three (again, without knowledge that the other parts exist), the characters are an unknown group of people fighting to go somewhere for some reason to destroy a ring they know nothing about.
Each piece of a "planned trilogy"
needs the other parts to make sense. Which is why I think it's wisest to just let the story wrap before judging it.
But to each their own, I suppose.
