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| - So, your original work was a success. The writer has finished things off with just about all the awesomeness that the story universe can muster. Everything is wrapped up. The universe is saved, the forces of evil are either destroyed or in full retreat, The Hero got the girl, the rightful heir got his throne, et cetera. All in one awesome finale. Well, what better way to capitalize on it than making a Sequel, right? Ways to get out of this vary. Symptoms often include Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome. In video games, this is often accompanied by a Bag of Spilling. Examples of Sequel Reset include:
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| abstract
| - So, your original work was a success. The writer has finished things off with just about all the awesomeness that the story universe can muster. Everything is wrapped up. The universe is saved, the forces of evil are either destroyed or in full retreat, The Hero got the girl, the rightful heir got his throne, et cetera. All in one awesome finale. Well, what better way to capitalize on it than making a Sequel, right? Trouble is, you didn't really have a sequel in mind when you wrote the original story; it's quite self-contained. In fact, everything's been tied up with a nice little ribbon: The story is conclusively over. The heroes look up to the author, er, the sky, and ask So What Do We Do Now?? And the author has no answer. Say hello to the Sequel Reset. The opposite of the Sequel Hook, this is when something (a scene, a line of dialogue, etc) occurs at the beginning of the sequel in order to establish that, as it turns out, the story isn't quite as over as we thought. It's used in order to justify the existence of the sequel and compensate for the lack of a Sequel Hook in the first one; inevitably, between the first movie and the second, something has happened to shake up the status quo that was restored at the end of the first movie in order to provide the sequel with the same (or similar, at least) character motivations / dynamics and plot requirements. The Hero and the Love Interest have broken up. Looks like the Big Bad isn't quite as dead as we thought. Maybe our hero's discovered that Victory Is Boring. Or just when the Hero thought his mundane life was back to normal, the good guys come stampeding out of his past and back into his life; it turns out the world wasn't put to rights after all and they need his help again... When it's done well, it can open up a story that we'd thought was finished for a rewarding second visit. After all, life goes on even for fictional characters, and just because everything looked tied up with a neat little bow at the end of the first installment doesn't mean that the situation might not have changed a little later down the track. Furthermore, it can provide an interesting examination on why the ending of the first movie wasn't quite as open-and-shut as we thought by showing us what would happen if the seemingly incompatible lovers did get together, or what would happen if no one believed the crazy story those people who claimed to save the world told. However, just as the Sequel Hook can come across as being cheesy, clichéd and hokey, the Sequel Reset can sometimes be quite contrived. It's sometimes apparent that the producers aren't going to do anything new, nor enrich the world of the first movie by showing us what happened later down the track; instead, they may just be trying to cash in on something that worked the first time around by offering us more of the same or, perhaps, completely overturning the clear -- and satisfying -- ending of the first piece. It's often an unfortunate sign that Sequelitis is just around the corner, by forcing open an ending that was clearly and satisfyingly shut for no other reason than to provide an excuse for a sequel. If it's particularly grating, then it may fall into Fanon Discontinuity. One way to write yourself into a corner is to leave nothing left for your heroes to do other than fill in a CV and get a job. (Assuming they aren't already the rulers of somewhere.) If you find yourself in the position where you can't plausibly draw up a new villain without the fans screaming Diabolus Ex Machina, you might need to draw up a new universe. Which isn't easy. Ways to get out of this vary.
* Time Skip: Move the story Twenty Minutes Into the Future. Your heroes, their descendents, or some other talented individual will have found something menacing to confront by that time.
* Knight Errant / Expansion Pack World: The heroes have saved one country, but there's a dozen others on the map to save. Get on your bikes/horses and go save some other people.
* Get a new villain: Places to recruit new villains vary. You may need a new Mordor (or a broken Mordor to rebuild). And there's always How to Cheat Death if you want to go Serial Escalation. Symptoms often include Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome. In video games, this is often accompanied by a Bag of Spilling. Examples of Sequel Reset include:
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