The Bourne Trilogy-Best Trilogy of the last 2 decades?

Dman001

Just reading an article on Cracked.com (I know, I know), and someone mentioned that The Bourne Trilogy were the best movies of the decade. While Im not sure if they would be the best films of the decade, it definitly was the best trilogy of the decade. Now in fairness there wasnt many trilogies in the last 10 years but there is stiff competition from the likes of the Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Spiderman but, unlike the Matrix, all 3 of the Bourne films were brilliant. Even in the last 20 years, I still think Bourne triumphs over the likes of the Terminators, Jurassic Park, Blade, Robocop, Mission Impossible, The Mummy etc. What do ye think?

Raging Bob

I love the Bourne series but to say Identity was brilliant is a little bit over the top. It's an interesting start to the trilogy but there's some bizarre scenes in it that I don't have time to get in to. It also feels a little bit flat at times. I will say that Liman perfected the car chase, fantastic scene. But in my opinion, we see some great movies when Greengrass takes over, the latter being the best.

rednik

As a big fan of Robert Ludlum I think it is a great trilogy even if the story is different from the novels. The Bourne Identity was filmed years ago with Richard Chamberlain and was a complete mess. I always hoped it would be remade. Considering there are two directors involved the movies are fantastic with the action scenes filmed in a fantastic way and the series breathed new life in the genre especially for one James Bond. Although Greengrass has stepped away from the fourth I just hope a good director gets the gig and continues in the same vein.

Galvasean

TBH I think the Bourne Identity is crap. The following two are much better IMO.
Alot of trilogies did so well up until the 3rd instalment (Jurassic Park, Terminator). Even Lord of the Rings faded somewhat in the 3rd part. That said, I would still rank LotR as the best recent trilogy (before anyone suggests the 'Vengeance trilogy' I don't really consider them a normal trilogy.
Assuming something awful doesn't happen, we will soon regard Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy as the best.

Basq

Lord Of The Rings for me anyways.. a glorious trilogy IMO.

Eirebear

Galvasean wrote: »

before anyone suggests the 'Vengeance trilogy' I don't really consider them a normal trilogy.
.

Why not? 3 films, made by the same director, with the purpose of exploring certain themes which are applicable to all of the films.

Sounds like a trilogy to me.

EDIT: Just noticed this was the last 2 decades rather than one, so im gonna mention an even less conventional trilogy. The "3 Colours" Trilogy was excellent.

Kiith

Eirebear wrote: »

Why not? 3 films, made by the same director, with the purpose of exploring certain themes which are applicable to all of the films.

Sounds like a trilogy to me.

I'd agree with Galvasean on this. While they are by the same director and explore the same themes, a proper trilogy to me focuses on a character, or group of characters, for the entire trilogy. The Vengance trilogy are three seperate films, rather then a continuation of the same story.

And Lord of the Rings definitely wins.

That_Guy

I'd say LOTR is a better trilogy but they can both be taken as two different genres.

If you're going for action/espionage then yeah I'd say the Bourne Trilogy is definitely worth a shout for being one of the best over the last 20 years.

Fantasy/Sci-Fi goes to LOTR hands down.

Both trilogy's are fantastic in their own respective genres. I've never been so enthralled and left wanting more having viewed both sets of films which is a slight rarity for me.

Though they're a long running series, the last two Bond films were fantastic imo and if they were to continue the story on from QOS like they did with Casino Royale then I'd nearly take those three films as a seperate trilogy to the rest of the Bond films.... depending on whether the next one is any good or not.

icanhearjimi

Has to be The Matrix Trilogy for me

fluke

Both Bourne and LOTR are great trilogies but recent or not I really can't think of many trilogies that are worth calling great in general...obviously the original Star Wars movies are great but I'm forgetting others possibly!!

That_Guy

icanhearjimi wrote: »

Has to be The Matrix Trilogy for me

I personally didn't like the Matrix trilogy. In order for me to like a trilogy, I have to like ALL 3 films.

The majority of trilogies I've watched, the final installment has always been the let down.

Jurassic Park 3 - Hated it
The Matrix Revolutions - Hated it
The Return Of The King - Didn't hate it but I felt that it fell at the last hurdle compared to the previous two in the trilogy.

And actually, Spiderman 2 pissed me off greatly. I thought it was just rubbish.

That's just me though.

senordingdong

Galvasean wrote: »

Assuming something awful doesn't happen, we will soon regard Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy as the best.

Something awful like The Dark Knight?

Raging Bob

How was The Dark Knight awful?

Galvasean

senordingdong wrote: »

Something awful like The Dark Knight?

Oho! Controversial..

Dman001

That_Guy wrote: »

I personally didn't like the Matrix trilogy. In order for me to like a trilogy, I have to like ALL 3 films.

The majority of trilogies I've watched, the final installment has always been the let down.

Jurassic Park 3 - Hated it
The Matrix Revolutions - Hated it
The Return Of The King - Didn't hate it but I felt that it fell at the last hurdle compared to the previous two in the trilogy.

And actually, Spiderman 2 pissed me off greatly. I thought it was just rubbish.

That's just me though.

I thought the Spiderman Trilogy was alright. Now I never read the comics or anything so I dont know how accurate the films were, but I thought they were rather enjoyable.

I really like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight but TDK is very over-rated, but thats for a different thread. I loved Heth Ledgers performance though.

senordingdong

Raging Bob wrote: »

How was The Dark Knight awful?

galvasean wrote:

Oho! Controversial..

Sorry folks, I just thought it was a huge let down.

Raging Bob

You said awful as in, it was **** etc. Can you explain why?

I'm not even a fan of the movie but to say it's awful is just pure hyperbole.

pablomakaveli

senordingdong wrote: »

Sorry folks, I just thought it was a huge let down.

I thought it was one of the best films of the decade. Ledger as the Joker was brilliant but even that aside it was still a brilliant film.

As for the Bourne trilogy im a big fan of that as well. I rewatched the whole trilogy recently and i think each of the three films are although the trilogy got better with each film. I prefer the Bourne films to Bond as i always found Bond to be too much of a smugfest. The Bourne trilogy is fast paced, edge of the seat stuff and has a more realistic take on the world of espionage than the Bond films.

Klingon Hamlet

You know, I'd favour the Cornetto Trilogy if Edgar Wright et al had got their talented rears in gear and made a third film.

Lord of the Rings was a patchy trilogy, great in parts.

Matrix jumped the shark the minute rubbery-CG Neo did "his Superman thing" i.e. fifteen minutes into Reloaded. Madness and monotony ensued.

The Bourne Trilogy were excellent except the shaky-cam was nauseating.

johnny_adidas

if only die hard was made 2 years later i'd probably have the trilogy as my number 1

on a similar note, if the third installment of toy story was been released sooner, it'd be well up there

id have LOTR though as its the only one where i can remember 95% of the trilogy years later

senordingdong

pablomakaveli wrote: »

I thought it was one of the best films of the decade. Ledger as the Joker was brilliant but even that aside it was still a brilliant film.

Sorry lads, this thread ain't about TDK.
Another time.

rednik

I have watched the bourne trilogy several times but I am just wondering who here has actually sat throught the LOTR trilogy more than once. I would not be able to sit through it at all and thats just the theatrical editions.
With regards the Bond movies ( Craig ), the producers have stated this is indeed a trilogy so I am looking forward to the next instalment, they have been very good so far but as I said before Bourne has raised the bar and Bond has to keep up.

Basq

rednik wrote: »

I have watched the bourne trilogy several times but I am just wondering who here has actually sat throught the LOTR trilogy more than once. I would not be able to sit through it at all and thats just the theatrical editions.

I have sat through them numerous times.. and I still appreciate them as much!

When I writing my documentation for my college software project (45 - 50 pages), I watched them over three consecutive nights.

Galvasean

rednik wrote: »

I have watched the bourne trilogy several times but I am just wondering who here has actually sat throught the LOTR trilogy more than once. I would not be able to sit through it at all and thats just the theatrical editions

I've sat through them all numerous times (not all in one go as that would take over ten hours).

Anakin.S

LOTR - I really don't get the movies, the books are excellent but Peter Jackson just made a live action version of the cartoon without the songs with are a vital part of the book.

How he managed oscars for it i'll never know.

I'd agree with Bourne being the best trilogy over the last 20 years. Every other trilogy has a weak link, spiderman 3, X-Men 3, Die Hard 3, Pirates 2, Matrix 3, Oceans 2(12), MI:2

rednik

I have enjoyed watching the LOTR trilogy in the cinema and dvd and will probably buy them when they are released on blu ray in the coming months. The point is waching the bourne movies is far easier than the LOTR trilogy. As someone else mentioned at least 10 hours are involved so it certainly wouldn't be easy even just once, so to watch the lot several times is certainly a dedicated LOTR fan.

Handsome Bob

That_Guy wrote: »

And actually, Spiderman 2 pissed me off greatly. I thought it was just rubbish.

Really? :eek: You sure you don't mean 3?

I agreed with you anyway, I have to enjoy all three films, so I would say that LOTR is the best of the decade. It could have easily been Spider-Man but we all know how that ended up.

F4Fake

I wouldn't say Bourne or LotR deserve the title of best trilogy of the last 2 decades. Both of them seemed pretty unbalanced to me. LotR started off well but then ran out of steam; Bourne was the exact opposite.

I thought The Bourne Identity was a pretty boring and generic, not necessarily a bad movie, but not the grand opening I'd like from a great franchise. It wasn't until Supremacy rolled round that I started to get hooked, and the Ultimatum proved to be the best of the lot.

I loved The Fellowship of the Ring. But, to be frank, I really didn't like Two Towers and Return of the King. I enjoyed the way the story gradually developed in Fellowship, and the "getting to know you" phase of the characters when they first embarked. Maybe it was just a case of getting bored with the characters after the first 3 hours, or maybe I lost interest after 15th battle scene, but I thought it went downhill after the great first installment.

As for the best trilogy of the past two decades, my nomination would be the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Hank_Jones

For me it's between the Three Colours trilogy and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

To be honest I don't really think that there have been many really good trilogies over the past two decades.

humanji

I liked the first Bourne movie, but felt the others were a bit meh. I didn't hate them, they just didn't really do anything for me. But when I try and think of the best trilogy of the last while, I can't really think of anything else to top it. It's not that the Bourne trilogy is brilliant, it's just that the other trilogies all fell flat somewhere.

Oddly enough, a couple of weeks ago I'd probably have said the LOTR trilogy was the best, but I watched it again and it's absolutely pants. There's bits of it that shine, but there's so much hammy acting, terrible direction and, the biggest crime, parts put in to make characters look cool because that's how movie producers think they can "get down with the kids". Also, it's suspiciously homoerotic, which I always thought I was fairly open minded about, but it was a little too unsettling in this. Maybe I'm just not too keen on elf on dwarf action.

Galvasean

F4Fake wrote: »

As for the best trilogy of the past two decades, my nomination would be the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Actually, I'm surprised yours is the first mention of that.

Anakin.S

F4Fake wrote: »

As for the best trilogy of the past two decades, my nomination would be the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

I've not seen them, I enjoyed the remake (The Departed). Is it worth getting them?

What about 'The Colours trilogy' I've never heard of it whats it about?

everdead.ie

Never really liked The Lord of the Rings thought the first one was good but thought the others where a dissapointment in comparison.

I really liked The Pirates Of the Carribean Trilogy but I think there making a Fourth Movie now so thats that one gone So I'd agree with Bourne Trilogy untill they make the next one

That_Guy

LZ5by5 wrote: »

Really? :eek: You sure you don't mean 3?

Ah yes. That's the one.

Raging Bob wrote: »

You said awful as in, it was **** etc. Can you explain why?

I'm not even a fan of the movie but to say it's awful is just pure hyperbole.

senordingdong wrote: »

Sorry folks, I just thought it was a huge let down.

Are people not allowed have opinions anymore?

Raging Bob

Aimed at me?

Decuc500

I'm not sure about the Bourne trilogy. The first one was easily the best. Doug Liman directed with a huge amount of style. I felt the Greengrass movies took that shaky, handheld camera style too far. The second movie was a total mess but the last one was a big improvement.

Sid_Justice

Are Star Wars 1-3 excluded because they're part of 6ology or because they're not rated?

Raging Bob

Decuc500 wrote: »

I'm not sure about the Bourne trilogy. The first one was easily the best. Doug Liman directed with a huge amount of style. I felt the Greengrass movies took that shaky, handheld camera style too far. The second movie was a total mess but the last one was a big improvement.

Can't say that he directed with a huge amount of style. If anything, that's to be said about Greengrass and his take on Jason Bourne. I look at the first film and it could have been directed by any of a number of directors. I look at two and three and I know who directed them. Identity is standard and on looking back on it after all these years, a weak introduction to the series.

Galvasean

Sid_Justice wrote: »

Are Star Wars 1-3 excluded because they're part of 6ology or because they're not rated?

Probably because they are almost universally panned on a critical level.

...whuch is a fancy way of saying, 'they suck'

Ridley

Anakin.S wrote: »

I've not seen them, I enjoyed the remake (The Departed). Is it worth getting them?

Depending on your view of world cinema: YES. I think IF3 would have been the perfect plot for a sequel for Wahlberg's pointless character.

Sleepy

Love the Bourne books and the first film but the second two, while well written and acted were nauseatingly shot. Horrific direction. Shaky cameras do not add realism, they just make it look like you've spent a lot less on the movie than you have in reality. Distinctive is only a compliment if it's not saying that your work is so bad it can be spotted a mile away.

LOTR was never going to be my thing (read about 50 pages of the book before binning it - no command of the English language at all).

TBH, I'm actually struggling to come up with a single excellent trilogy aside from Three Colours (I've not seen Infernal Affairs - have the first part on DVD but haven't sat down to it yet). Even Godfather gets let down by the cash in of number 3.

Raging Bob

Cannot understand the love of Identity at all Baffling!

TheDoc

I think its fair to say the Bourne trilogy is the best of a dodgy, diving bunch.

For me is between the Matrix or Bourne trilogy.

bullvine

Matrix Revolutions was woeful not even in a chessy way, it was terrible. They made the biggest mistake you can make in a trilogy regarding the way Trinity character was dealt with in the second 2 films!

Decuc500

Raging Bob wrote: »

Can't say that he directed with a huge amount of style. If anything, that's to be said about Greengrass and his take on Jason Bourne. I look at the first film and it could have been directed by any of a number of directors. I look at two and three and I know who directed them. Identity is standard and on looking back on it after all these years, a weak introduction to the series.

I think Doug Liman has a distinctive style. You can tell The Bourne Identity is by the same director of Go and Swingers. I doubt he introduced the shaky, handheld style of film making to action blockbusters but when it came out The Bourne Identity didn't look like any other action movie I had seen before. It was an "indie" action movie!

fluke

While each is by no means classic i have to say I really liked the Mission Impossible Trilogy. Sure some elements have been overused at this stage (such as the constant facial disguises) but I find each movie appealing!

There are very few trilogies I can say that of!