By skyforbes This came to mind after a recent rewatch of the Back to the Future trilogy. In my opinion, BttF 2 is by far the weakest film of the three, mostly because it retreads a lot of the same territory as the first film, albeit from a different perspective. I still like the movie, but have fewer positive feelings about it than the other two.
Are there any other trilogies where the second film is demonstrably worse than the first and third? IMO, the second film in most trilogies has historically been the strongest, i.e. Empire Strikes back, The Two Towers, The Dark Knight, Terminator 2, etc.
I feel like it's rare for a sequel to be somewhat lackluster, only to see the third film rebound and knock it out of the park.