Movies/franchises with their own pages:
Individual examples:
- The Back to the Future sequels get into this.
- If you haven't seen the first movie, Back to the Future Part II is easy enough to get into in the first couple of acts (barring the occasional Call-Back to events in the first movie), but the 1955 events in the third act are entirely dependent on the viewer's knowledge of events in the first movie.
- Back to the Future Part III gets snippets of exposition in the first few minutes in the forms of Marty screaming and Doc's letter, but it's a LOT tougher to get into if you aren't familiar with the first two movies. Especially the first movie's climax, which is reworked into Part III's intro.
- The Craft: Legacy: The final scene features the appearance of Nancy Downs as Lily's birth mother. Unless you're at least familiar with The Craft you'll have no idea who this person is and why they're significant.
- Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) has a memorable allusion to "that thing in the building in L.A.", which knowledgeable viewers will recognize as a Continuity Nod to the attempt by Hans Gruber and his gang of thieves to rob the Nakatomi Plaza tower in the original 1988 Die Hard movie. Even though there's a brief flashback to the climax of the 1988 film within the 1995 sequel, it can be difficult for first-time viewers to understand why Simon Gruber (Hans's brother) is so consumed with the desire to exact revenge on John McClane, the series' hero. The 1995 film even has an offscreen conversation between John and his ex-wife Holly, who was a major character in the first Die Hard (and is mentioned again in the fourth movie, Live Free or Die Hard, in 2008) and is the subject of the '95 film's closing punchline, which seems to come out of nowhere and make for a somewhat confused ending if you are new to the franchise.
- Although McClane does briefly explain to Zeus that he dropped Simon's brother off a building not long after The Reveal.
- David Lynch's Dune (1984) is nigh-impossible to comprehend without reading the book, particularly its last forty minutes or so which are an incredibly rushed depiction of two-thirds of the book's length. Especially bad is the scene where Paul decides he needs to ride a sandworm to properly lead his new army, despite the fact that the Fremen ride the worms never having been referenced. In 1984 audiences were even handed playbills before entering the film to explain the plot they were missing. The extended cut DVD release restored several missing scenes and pieces of exposition and is considerably easier to follow.
- The Flash (2023), similar to 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, presumes that audiences are familiar with a majority of the DC Extended Universe as the basis for fully grasping the plot of the film. At a minimum, audiences are expected to have some familiarity with the DCEU versions of Batman (Ben Affleck}, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and (in a post-credit scene) Aquaman (Jason Momoa), who all appear without any real explanation of who they are other than "members of the Justice League". Beyond that, the second and third acts lean into familiarity with Man of Steel, as the finale of that film (now in an Alternate Continuity) serves as the climax of this film. Additionally, the appearance of Michael Keaton as Batman requires the audience to have some familiarity with both Batman (1989) and Batman Returns, the two films from another continuity that precede this film.
- One of the many reasons why The Godfather Part III is polarizing was because of its complete inaccessibility to audience members who had not seen the previous two movies. Wrote Roger Ebert at the time "It is, I suspect, not even possible to understand this film without knowing the first two." However, Ebert still enjoyed the movie and rated it higher than he did The Godfather Part II.
- In what is something of an irony, the producers and executives were a little wary of applying ''Part II" to the second movie partly because they were concerned that people might get the impression they needed to see the first movie in order to understand the second one, which might turn off new audiences. The second movie, however, is generally more accessible, and in general started the trend of Numbered Sequels.
- The Green Knight is already a very cryptic movie, but it can be baffling if you're not decently familiar with the original text, or at least Arthurian Legend in general. Very few characters' names are given, and several characters seem to be conflated, so the casual viewer might have no idea why Gawain's mother - her name in the legends is Morgause, here combined seemingly with Morgan le Fay - is a witch and might want to destroy Camelot via Gawain/Mordred. If that's what's going on.
- The Harry Potter films have had this problem in an unusual way. Not only was it pretty much necessary to watch them in order (which is reasonable enough for a series), it got to the point where the movies would be exceptionally difficult to follow unless the viewer had read the books as well.
- Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Prisoner of Azkaban never says who they are. Then, Harry calls Pettigrew "Wormtail" in the Goblet of Fire movie without explanation. And Sirius is called "Padfoot" in Order of the Phoenix.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 relies heavily on a shard of a magical two-way mirror as a visual and plot device - despite the fact that said mirror had never appeared in the movies before. Sirius had given it to Harry as a gift at the beginning of book 5, and Harry forgets about it because he is worried it is something that could get Sirius into worse trouble. Harry finds it again after Sirius's death and unwraps the mirror - one part of a two-way communication device which Harry could have used to verify Sirius was okay, thus potentially saving Sirius's life. Harry breaks the mirror in frustration and finds the shard as he cleans out his trunk a year and a half later at the beginning of Book 7. Aberforth Dumbledore buys the mirror from Mundungus Fletcher in the sixth book (while Harry watches) and uses it to help Harry out on a couple of occasions but Harry flat out says he didn't even know Aberforth existed in the seventh movie. He'd never officially met him at that point but Harry knows Dumbledore has a brother as early as the fourth book.
- The Fantastic Beasts Prequel film series assumes you've read the books. The first movie is pretty accessible to casual fans because it’s the typical first installment in a franchise that’s there to be an introduction to the characters and setting. The characters are all newbies (although Newt and Tina had been mentioned before), the story takes place over half a century earlier, and it’s set an ocean away from the other installments. There are some elements that are in the books but not the movies like the Nifflers but they're easy enough to understand. The lone original canonical character is only in the movie for about two minutes after being disguised for most of it. However things get less accessible in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald which brings backs Dumbledore (albeit not in a very big role). His backstory and complicated relationship with Grindelwald that were introduced in the last book, which were big victims of Adaptation Explanation Extrication take center stage. The fact that he was responsible for the death of his sister because of this relationship is never actually explained in the movies but he talks about her death to Leta Lestrange in an attempt to empathize with her about accidentally causing her brother drown when when she was a little girl. So someone who hasn't read the books wouldn't fully understand the attempt at empathy. He tells the ministry guys that he and Grindelwald "were closer than brothers" and what happened between the two of them is a clear source of angst but someone who hasn't read the books or isn't familiar with the Word of Gay statement would probably just see them as (literal) blood brothers. The third film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore comes a significant way to correct this, making Dumbledore and Grindelwald's history explicit and having Dumbledore explain the circumstances of Ariana’s death to Newt.
- James Bond had always been a series with very loose continuity between movies. They could all be watched as standalone episodes until the Daniel Craig era. Only Skyfall is an overall independent work, as both Quantum of Solace and No Time to Die have plots very dependent in their direct predecessor (Casino Royale and Spectre, respectively), and Spectre itself picks up stuff from its three previous films.
- To elaborate on Quantum of Solace: the film presumes that the viewer has a very strong understanding of Casino Royale, to such an extent that it barely pauses to explain who or what the titular Quantum organization is. Likewise, it refers to events that happened in the previous film, including Bond's 10-Minute Retirement, former flame Vesper Lynd's actions, Mr. White's importance and Bond's connection to Mathis in vague, unexplained terms. The final scene of the film is a quiet, introspective affair that resolves the two lingering plot threads from the previous film (Vesper's missing boyfriend and Bond's uncertainty over whether to retire from MI6). That may be why Spectre better explained Quantum as a suborganization of the titular Spectre, and gave greater background on their actions, history and influence.
- For Kaamelott: Premier Volet (The Movie of the Kaamelott series), the many characters in the film might be confusing for people who haven't watched the series to get a clear picture of who some of them are and what their role was under King Arthur's reign. Also, there's The Stinger with Méléagant's return. People who haven't seen the series will surely wonder who the hell this guy is.
- The Last Airbender, based off the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, takes most of the key plot points of the series and represents them in a movie format. This trope happens because of the compressed timeframe to tell the story. You never really understand how Aang is trapped in an iceberg, why Katara decides to leave with Aang dragging Sokka along and the nature of why Aang "glows up" in stressful moments is never explained (admittedly, the Avatar State isn't fully explained until the second season, but it happened enough times in the first season to understand its purpose). If you're familiar with the series most everything fits into place (though very poorly, due to plot holes caused by the changes in the story).
- Peter Greenaway's Luperverse movies, The Falls, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Drowning by Numbers and several short films, are a deliberate appeal to this trope. His main character, Tulse Luper, generates so much writing and ancillary material about himself (both in canon, and, via Greenaway, In Real Life as well) that no one can write his definitive biography. Lampshaded in his very first appearance in Vertical Features Remake, where a team of academics utterly fails to recreate a lost film Luper made while relying on vague notes and the memories of his collaborators.
- This is definitely one of the reasons why the second and third chapters of The Matrix Trilogy are so polarizing. It is better to watch all three movies on consecutive nights rather than four years between the first and second movie.
- Mortal Kombat: Annihilation has a huge number of plot holes unless the viewer knows the mythology of the video games. Sub-Zero and Scorpion both die in the first movie, and they're back alive here. What the film doesn't explain is that Sub-Zero is merely a title, and the Sub-Zero from the first film was the brother of the one in the second film. Scorpion is, in fact, undead. Fans of the games, on the other hand, would most likely know all of this.
- The film does have a (throw away) line about being the brother of Sub-Zero, and being that the first movie showed Scorpion removing his mask to show a fire-breathing skull, him coming back to life isn't sharp leap. Watching the second movie and not the first, however, would still count as a lock-out, but that can be said for any time someone watches a sequel without seeing the previous works.
- Rambo IV, the fourth film of Sylvester Stallone's eponymous franchise dating back to 1982, opens with John Rambo working in the Southeast Asian country of Thailand as a trapper of poisonous snakes. It's soon mentioned in the dialogue of the movie that Rambo is an ex-Green Beret who fought in the Vietnam War, but that dialogue skips over the events of the three previous movies (with which longtime viewers should be familiar) during which Rambo returned to the United States and later went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, with no reference point except for a brief montage during which Rambo flashes back to the events of the original First Blood (1982) and imagines himself screaming "Nothing is over!" The naïve viewer will be forgiven for assuming at first that Rambo has remained in Southeast Asia for the past 40 years. This is lampshaded in a conversation he has with one of a group of missionaries who have come to enlist him in a rescue mission.Sarah: Where are you from?
John: Bowie, Arizona.
Sarah: Why'd you leave?
John: I got drafted in 'Nam.
Sarah: And you just stayed?
John: It's complicated. - The M. Night Shyamalan film Split, released in 2017, has a Twist Ending that's only a twist to the viewer if they've seen Unbreakable, a movie of his that came out in 2000. Otherwise, the viewer might not know the significance of David Dunn (Bruce Willis) showing up. The sequel to both, Glass (2019), is even worse in that regard, as it rarely makes a point to reintroduce events from either movie.
- The Star Trek movies (to a large extent) avoided this, save for Star Trek: First Contact (which assumed the viewer had some knowledge of the "Best Of Both Worlds" two-parter and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for Worf's location during the cube battle). However, the latter really isn't that important and only requires a single line by Picard to establish Worf wasn't with the crew anymore, and Lily is an Audience Surrogate who becomes a sounding board for Picard's frustration. Several other examples are peppered throughout the films:
- Data's emotion chip is an interesting example. Star Trek: Generations and First Contact both have Data mulling over whether to use the chip or not. New viewers to these films won't understand much of what Data's talking about unless they've seen the earlier seasons of TNG (specifically the fourth- and fifth-season episodes regarding Data, Lore and Dr. Soong). Not that viewers of the show are much better off, since the end of "Descent Pt. II" had the chip irreparably damaged before it shows up again in Generations, apparently fully-functional and represented by a prop that looks nothing like that used in the series.
- Star Trek (2009): The tie-in comic, Countdown, claimed to be the canonical last appearance for many of the TNG characters, as well as the only way you'll get to find out the backstory for Nero and his ship (which, in turn, references past elements of the franchise, all the way back to V'Ger). In reality, it was never canonical, was largely ignored by other tie-ins, and was eventually overwritten by Star Trek: Picard, the actual canonical last appearance for many of the TNG characters.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan can be a little confusing for viewers not familiar with the episode "Space Seed," which introduced Khan and established his rivalry with Kirk. The movie does give a basic overview of their history, but it's in tiny chunks scattered throughout several different scenes, so a first-time viewer would be excused for not totally grasping why they hate each other.
- Star Wars might be the quintessential example of this. Even on its own terms, the original 1977 film (A New Hope) has a fairly convoluted, confusing plot until Obi-Wan Kenobi shows up about a half-hour or so into the picture to explain everything you need to know, and even then there is much that (necessarily) remains inaccessible to the viewer, as the details only serve as world building and window-dressing for immersion rather than minutiae necessary to understand the story. The iconic character of Boba Fett, who is "officially" introduced in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) but had actually appeared earlier in (now almost impossible-to-find) The Star Wars Holiday Special, is never even named on screen (except for a brief scene in Return of the Jedi, and that is in the middle of a firefight where it's all but impossible to hear anything); therefore, when we meet that character's father, Jango Fett, in Attack of the Clones (2002), we have no way of knowing, outside of the immediate context, why this character and his son are so important, and must rely on the franchise's large amount of supplementary material. In fact, you don't even learn the name of "The Emperor", the entire series' primary antagonist, until The Phantom Menace (1999), with the result that many first-time viewers had no inkling — until it was revealed at the climax — that "Senator Palpatine" is also Darth Sidious, let alone that he would become the head of the Galactic Empire.
- As of 2014, resulting from Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and the edict therein, the lock-out has been broken due to moving nearly every piece of media ever released for Star Wars including the Special Editions into an Alternate Continuity. The Expanded Universe was rebuilt under the Lucasfilm Story Group's lead with new works and information that align with the sequel trilogy, associated works, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the original six films.
- Solo features an example tying with Expanded Universe material that came before it. Audience members who did not watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars (and to a lesser extent Star Wars Rebels) will likely be wondering why Darth Maul is still alive and kicking, or, if they only knew about his survival via word of mouth, why he has any involvement in the criminal underworld near the very end of the movie.
- The Rise of Skywalker starts with Palpatine having revealed his survival by sending a message across the galaxy. Many viewers will have never actually seen said message as it was only played in a Fortnite-exclusive event and may be taken by surprise to see it mentioned in the opening.
- The Two Jakes was a sequel to Chinatown that almost required viewers to know everything from the first film, such as why Katherine Mulray was so dang important. Despite arguably being just as good as the first time (and Directed by Cast Member), it left theaters quickly. It caught on when it was Vindicated by Cable.
- At 2 hours 40 minutes, the theatrical cut of Watchmen is a decent Compressed Adaptation of the original comic book but omits much of the characters' backstories and motivations and several B-plots and background events. The director's cut at 3 hours reinstates some of the missing material. The ultimate cut includes the animated Tales of the Black Freighter comic book within a comic book and takes it to a ludicruous 3 hours 30 minutes. All in all, it's much easier for the viewer to have read the original comic book.
- X-Men Film Series:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have used footnotes to explain the significance of its story elements. Since the Weapon X scene was so brief, it could have said "To learn more, please read Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith." One benefit is that you get to spend more time with your non-comic-savvy friends explaining the plot. Whether they'll care or not is another story...
- Very few would argue that X-Men: Days of Future Past strikes with full impact if one has skipped some or all of the other X-Men films. At the very least X-Men: The Last Stand which explains Logan spazzing out over the random redhead (a very much alive Jean Grey) at the end and X-Men: First Class (which explains... pretty much everything else).
