Sequels already have a reputation for creative bankruptcy. They continue the stories purely for profit, often leading to uninspired plotting and character assassination. That’s what happens when you create something out of obligation instead of passion. However, some examples reach new heights of laziness.

Certain sequels are shameless retreads of their predecessors. Sure, they might swap the names or upscale the set pieces, but the narratives are eerily familiar. Such recycled structures usually result in diminishing returns, sending a clear message that the filmmakers are bereft of ideas. This, in turn, prevents the series from growing. Granted, a few examples admittedly turn out well, but they pale in comparison to the disappointments. Originality is just too much to ask.

Related: 10 Things Famous Filmmakers Regret About Their Classic Movies

10 Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Fans lament the Die Hard series for turning a normal protagonist into a glorified superhero. The original 1988 film sees disgruntled cop John McClane (Bruse Willis) visit his wife during Christmas. Unbeknownst to either of them, a band of terrorists seizes their building and takes hostages. McClane must then sneak through the complex, fighting off crippling injuries to stop the bad guys and save the day. Little did he know that this would become a regular occurrence.

Die Hard 2 once again takes place during the holidays. While trying to pick up his traveling wife, McClane witnesses the airport being taken over by another gang of thugs. The hero narrowly avoids the villains and begins gradually picking them off. Like last time, he uses stealthy ingenuity to overcome impossible odds. The ordeal cements the series’ Christmas reputation, but it also makes McClane less relatable, which completely misses the point.^[1]

9 The Hangover Part II (2011)

The appeal of The Hangover (2009) is how unexpected it is, but that novelty wears off on repeat. The movie centers on three guys who come together for their friend’s wedding. After drinking a little too much at the bachelor party, they wake up with no memory of the previous night and no idea where the groom is. They frantically retrace their steps to find him, but they also learn just how insane they were while under the influence. You’d think they’d learn their lesson, but no.

The Hangover Part II takes the three idiots to another crazy bachelor party. They inexplicably black out for a second time and wake up in Bangkok. Only by piecing together the preceding evening can they hope to find their missing friend and make it to the wedding. The journey either recycles the same gags or replaces them with more outrageous ones. Suffice it to say, this series should sober up.^[2]

8 Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)

Christmas seems to be a common factor in recycled sequels. Home Alone (1990) centers on young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin). Angry with his huge family, he gets his wish when they accidentally leave him behind during a vacation. He now has the whole house to himself. Although that’s fun for a while, he soon grows to miss his annoying family. Amid that loneliness, he must thwart a pair of bumbling bandits trying to plunder his home. The resulting film is a bizarre mix of wholesome joy and brutal slapstick. The same goes for the follow-up.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York looks different on the surface, but it’s just a new paint job. Although this oversized family embarks on a Christmas vacation together, Kevin boards the wrong flight and winds up in New York City. His dad’s credit card provides some temporary enjoyment at a ritzy hotel, but it’s not enough to stave off the inevitable sense of isolation. Compounding the problems are the same two crooks whom Kevin must outwit with another house of pranks. Given these incidents, the parents need to keep this kid on a leash.^[3]

7 The Incredibles 2 (2018)

People laud The Incredibles (2004) for its unique take on superheroes. The film presents a world where these powerful do-gooders are outlawed due to their immense damage. Mr. Incredible, now a disillusioned family man, stumbles on a chance to recapture his former glory when a mysterious organization requests his help. He embarks on several secret missions for these shadowy individuals, unaware that their true goal is to eliminate supers entirely. They’re not the last ones to attempt such a purge.

The Incredibles 2 opens by reinforcing the superhero ban, leaving the family without purpose. One day, a mysterious company contacts them with a proposal: send one of them out as an active agent and use the positive PR to make supers legal again. This time, though, the one in the field is Mr. Incredible’s wife, Elastigirl. She also loves reliving past thrills, but that fun is cut short when the company reveals its true colors. The CEO’s sister wants to forever tarnish superheroes’ image so that they’ll be permanently outlawed. Illogic aside, the plot is just a gender-flipped version of its predecessor.^[4]

6 Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Mary Poppins (1964) introduces a magical nanny in charge of two neglected children. With the help of a chipper chimney sweep, she takes them on a whimsical journey of discovery. The party traverses both 1910s London and a fabulous wonderland of 2D animation, complementing the quirky scenarios with a slew of songs. Along the way, Mary (Julie Andrews) brings the children closer to their parents with the calm confidence of an old hat.

The belated sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, makes her miracles a regular occurrence. This follow-up sees the kids from the first film have children of their own. The mystic nanny reappears to heal their strife through song. As expected, the process involves exploring the period setting through both live-action dance numbers and animated romps. The group even has a cockney escort, albeit a lamplighter instead of a chimney sweep. The creators go through all the familiar beats, musical or otherwise. Think of a popular song getting an inferior cover, and you have this film.^[5]

5 Escape from L.A. (1996)

Way to ruin a good idea! Escape from New York (1981) is a dystopian tale where the major city stands abandoned, at least by the law-abiding populace. The sprawling metropolis now functions as an oversized prison for the world’s worst criminals. That becomes a problem when an abduction strands the U.S. president in this dangerous den. The rescue operation falls to a convicted soldier named Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). If he saves the president from the hellish jail and the psychos within, then he receives a pardon. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but the sequel nixes that notion.

Escape from L.A. separates Los Angeles from the rest of the country. After a series of tyrannical laws by the president, the place becomes a convenient storage area for crooks and anyone unwilling to support the new regime. Snake Plissken is back on the unlawful roster, but he gets another chance for freedom by infiltrating the city and retrieving a stolen piece of tech. As if the premise wasn’t predictable enough, this tool is in the hands of the president’s daughter. Although the specifics are sillier, both the job and the reward are the same.^[6]

4 Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

In trying to revitalize Star Wars, Disney hearkens back to what fans love. The 1977 classic—retroactively titled Star Wars: A New Hope—introduces a vast galaxy oppressed by an evil Empire. Plucky farm boy Luke Skywalker stumbles into the conflict when he receives a mysterious droid with plans to the villains’ devastating new weapon. Luke must get this bot to the Rebels so that they can destroy their enemies’ terrible tool. Along the way, an aged mentor teaches Skywalker his lineage as a peacekeeping Jedi. The whole ordeal is the classic hero’s journey, but that doesn’t mean Disney has to copy it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes the galaxy forward in time. Despite the Rebels’ victory in the original trilogy, the Imperial remnants regain control thanks to a planet-sized weapon capable of destroying solar systems. An unassuming scavenger named Rey proves to be the heroes’ best hope for success, as she rescues the very droid with the weapon’s schematics. With those plans in tow, the Rebels can scrap the bad guys’ new toy. All the while, Rey gets her own mentor, who opens her eyes to the wider world of the Jedi and the Force. The creators clearly respect the source material, but maybe a little too much.^[7]

3 Desperado (1995)

Humble beginnings breed a bombastic follow-up. El Mariachi (1992) is a low-budget gem about an unlucky guitar player. A misunderstanding makes this musician a target for drug dealers. Inadvertently armed with a guitar case full of guns, the hero must quickly learn to kill or be killed. He finds unlikely love along the way, but both she and his livelihood fall victim to his pursuers. The conflict culminates in an explosive shootout at the villains’ fancy villa. Writer-director Robert Rodriguez pulls off the action flick with a shoestring budget, and its success put him on the map.

He later used that stardom to craft Desperado. This sequel continues the guitarist’s crusade as he pursues the man in charge of the criminal enterprise. While the crooks try to kill the singer, he swiftly mows them down with his newly acquired arsenal. His private war eventually lets him find love again, soothing his pain. However, that doesn’t stop him from confronting his quarry at another high-end villa. The entire scenario is familiar yet fresh, thanks to Rodriguez upping the blockbuster ante and refining his skills. Plenty of directors remake their own work, but rarely as a sequel.^[8]

2 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

How ironic that a time-traveling franchise recycles its storylines. James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) is a tense chase revolving around Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Her son, John, will eventually lead humanity to victory in a cataclysmic war with intelligent machines. To avert their loss, the malevolent mechs send a cyborg assassin back in time to wipe Sarah from history. Countering that threat is a human soldier sent to protect the unsuspecting woman. The premise paves the way for a harrowing action flick where the human heroes outrun an unstoppable adversary. Sadly, good ideas breed copycats, and many examples are close to home.

Most of the Terminator series reuses the first film’s setup. It starts when Cameron essentially remakes his classic as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. True, the killer is a more advanced machine, and the protector is a reprogrammed robot. However, the plot itself proceeds in much the same manner, complete with both futuristic visitors dying at the end. The other sequels also fit that mold, tweaking certain aspects while maintaining the narrative foundation. The only exceptions are Terminator Salvation and The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The rest might as well be part of a time loop. Speaking of James Cameron…^[9]

1 Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Avatar (2009) is an alien story with earthly themes. As humanity scours the universe for resources, the explorers come upon Pandora, a planet rich in precious minerals. Of course, the forest-dwelling natives don’t want their sacred environment pillaged for profit. Enter Jake Sully, a soldier recruited to occupy his brother’s alien avatar and convince the inhabitants to stand down. The plan has the opposite effect, though, as Jake soon feels more at home with these extraterrestrial felines, ultimately aiding them against the human invaders. The experience is essentially an overproduced knockoff of Dances with Wolves, but the sequel is somehow more blatant with its copycat antics.

Avatar: The Way of Water shifts its setting while keeping the plot. The humans return to Pandora in a second attempt to exploit its resources. They repeat their prior strategy to undermine the natives through avatar infiltrators. However, Jake and his family head them off yet again, leading to another destructive battle between the natural world and the imperialistic colonizers. Aside from the larger cast, the only major difference is the focus on underwater natives rather than woodland ones. If this movie proves anything, it’s that James Cameron loves repackaging his work as sequels.^[10]

They say that beauty is pain, but some fashion trends are so horrifying that they’re actually painful for everyone who sees them. Strange moments in history have created some pretty strange fashions over the years, looks that (hopefully) will never be repeated or ever be seen again now that their time to be trendy has ended. Fashion may be cyclical, but some looks should never be dusted off.

You might have had the experience of stifling a giggle upon seeing what your parents were wearing in old photos, but those old clothes have nothing on the entries in this list. Look back at history’s most depressing fashion trends, and vow here and now never to wear a flour sack—no matter how many people are doing it!

10 Flour Sacking

What’s more depressing than a trend born of the Great Depression? In an era where nothing in America was wasted, flour sacks became the go-to dress material for women everywhere.^[1] The height of the trend came in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when rural fashion rose to its heyday. Country women who could sew neatly and quickly became the fashionistas of their era and dominated the national sewing competitions that sprung up across the US.

Thriftiness was in fashion, and the fashion trend known as flour sacking caught on everywhere. Women who were really adept at flour sack dresses even managed to earn extra money by selling their dresses to others. Companies like the National Cotton Council and the Textile Bag Manufacturers Association sponsored contests where women could show off their flour sack creations, which gave flour sack dresses their own sort of fashion clout.

By the 1940s, savvy sack makers were catering to the trend by producing bags in brighter colors and with more intricate patterns, hoping their products would be favored because of the prettier packaging. Large sacks of feed and flour were particularly desirable, as they provided much material. So when life gives you flour sacks . . . make a dress?

9 The TB look

Fashion has seen many strange trends in history, but one of the most questionable is the popular TB look. It was all the rage during Victorian days to mimic the effects of the disease, which made people look very pale and skinny in its final phases (just before they died).^[2] The look was partially inspired by popular literature of the day, particularly tragic tales like La Dame aux Camelias.

Because tuberculosis was rampant and not just the stuff of literary fancy, the TB look became a viable—and desirable—fashion trend. The look was popular for decades, reaching its height from 1780 to 1850. The thin, pale look brought on by the disease already fit in with beauty ideals among the upper classes. But this is where fashion sense and common sense are directly at odds with each other because for generations, women living in the Victorian era starved themselves and avoided sunlight so that they could look more like they were wasting away from tuberculosis. How attractive.

8 Hobble Skirts

In what now seems impossible, the hobble skirt was so popular that no one knows who really invented it because everyone wanted to take credit for it. It was the 1910s, and women were ready to express their fashion freedom by getting rid of the trends that shackled them in the past.^[3] Gone were the layers of petticoats, the big hoops, and the extra fabric. Instead, women started lashing their ankles together.

As soon as the skirt made its way from Paris to the US, it became the stuff of fashion scandal. Cartoonists drew caricatures of women attempting to walk in the restrictive skirts, and The New York Times wrote a giant article about the impact to the textile industry because so many petticoats would be sacrificed to the new trend. The story called the skirts “an ungraceful and immodest freak of fashion” and asked readers to imagine 10,000 families starving as a result.

But the trend just would not go away. Soon, so many women were wearing hobble skirts that streetcars and trains had to lower their entrance steps so that the ladies could still successfully climb aboard with their steps restricted. The hobble skirt trend may have continued to flourish, in fact, if World War I hadn’t changed everything for fashion the world over. New restrictions on fabric and a scarcity of manpower in Paris upset the fashion industry and put an end to the days of the hobble skirt. Happily, women chose not to go back to their petticoats just the same.

7 Scheele’s Green

If beauty is pain, then Scheele’s green is the most beautiful color ever.^[4] Karl Scheele was a chemist in Sweden when he created the pigment in the 1770s. The pretty green hue he found was cheap to make and easy to use in all sorts of items, from clothing to wallpaper. And that’s really too bad, since Scheele’s green was made with arsenic. Oops.

The gorgeous green was used in ball gowns and curtains, pretty much any home fabric, and was so commonplace that it surrounded none other than Napoleon in his final days. In fact, the arsenic-infused pigment may have contributed to his death. Since Scheele’s green was a hot color in Victorian Britain and elsewhere in Europe, he certainly wasn’t the shade’s only victim.

Scheele’s green was used in fashion for about 100 years, a century of death, before another chemist decided to take a good look at the pigment and discovered its true nature.

6 Bird Masks

Bird masks were part fashion trend, part professional necessity. The bird masks were first worn during the 17th century as a defense against the plague, but they inspired centuries of costume fashion and linger to this day as a popular masquerade choice.

The plague was deadly; it had decimated around one-third of Europe’s total population back in the 14th century, and it had periodically reared its ugly head since. Doctors roamed the streets and went into villages, tending to the afflicted. But to get the job done, they needed these masks.

The beaks on the masks weren’t just fashionable; they were functional.^[5] The masks were stuffed with fragrant flowers and herbs and worn directly over the nose. This kept the doctors from smelling the scents of death and decay as they attempted to haul away the dead bodies. The masks were worn due to the miasma theory, which held that disease was transmitted by poisonous, foul-smelling gas in the air, which was produced by decay.

5 Crinolines

It’s a must-have for every movie set in the latter half of the 1800s, and it featured so much in Gone With the Wind that it should have been given starring credit. It’s the crinoline, one of fashion’s deadliest and dumbest trends of all time. Made to give women’s skirts a big bell shape, crinolines, stiff petticoats that sometimes even had frames, literally killed thousands of people during their time in the fashion spotlight.

At their height in the 1850s and 1860s, crinolines made skirts too big and too puffy. That made them dangerous. In those two decades alone, an estimated 3,000 women in England died due to fires caused by crinolines.^[6] Big skirts and candles don’t mix well; nor do they make it easy for people to quickly escape a suddenly burning building. Some women simply ignited as a result of standing too close to the fireplace, while others died in massive events.

The most infamous crinoline fire occurred in 1863 at the Church of the Company of Jesus in Santiago, Chile. As many as 3,000 people died due to the amount of flammable crinolines in the room. In 1864, it was estimated that almost 40,000 women the world over had died due to crinoline-related fires since 1850.

4 Bullet Bras

An anomaly that the world hopes will stay confined to the late 1940s and 1950s, bullet bras were everywhere for a few years. The sharply pointed bras were worn by all the well-dressed women, and some designs were truly dangerous enough to put out an eye. The bullet bra became the must-have accessory for the classic pinup girls of the era.

More properly known as the Chansonette bra, the bullet bra appeared in Frederick’s of Hollywood and soon became a fashion icon.^[7] Part of the bra’s popularity was due to World War II and the nylon fabric restrictions it created; spiral stitching and different fabrics made bras stiffer and pointier.

The bullet bra faded into obscurity in the late 1950s with the rise of the softer, more gender-neutral fashions of the 1960s, though it did enjoy a resurgence in popularity thanks to Madonna’s 1990 “Blonde Ambition” look.

3 Armadillo Shoes

Though they haven’t been around long enough to really be historic, as they were designed by Alexander McQueen in 2010, armadillo shoes will surely go down as one of the worst of the worst. Everyone hopes these shoes will stay in the annals of fashion history, where they belong, never to be seen on a runway or at an award show again.

The first line of armadillo shoes were carved out of wood, which means they’re probably just as uncomfortable as they appear. The shoes were famously worn by Lady Gaga, who is notorious for bizarre fashion choices, and they sold for around $3,900 to $10,000 per pair.^[8] Only a relative few were ever produced—and only for extremely special clients, such as Gaga herself. Though Gaga made them work, one Vogue fashion blogger admitted they are impossible to walk in. No surprise there.

2 Zibellinos

Also known as tippets and flea furs, zibellinos were significant in fashion and worn only by the very wealthiest. If you were a high-ranking noble or member of a royal family, you wouldn’t go anywhere without his must-have accessory that was truly one of the most awful things ever.

Basically, a zibellino is the pelt of a marten or sable . . . with the head still attached.^[9] It’s worn simply draped over one arm, because that’s exactly where you want to hang your pelt. Sometimes, the heads were encrusted with gold and jewels.

It wasn’t until the end of the 16th century that faux versions were created to replace the actual animal remains.

1 Black Teeth

Today’s fashion is all about having white teeth, and you can’t watch TV or open a magazine without seeing an ad for whitener. But if you lived in Japan in the past, you’d need black teeth to be totally in fashion. Black teeth were a symbol of wealth and sexual prowess, particularly for women in Japanese society, for years.^[10] To get the look, they drank black dye mixed with cinnamon and spices for taste. The practice, called ohaguro, was outlawed in 1870, and the white teeth trend caught on after the Japanese empress showed off her own non-blackened smile in public.

But as it turns out, black teeth were better teeth, health-wise, anyway. The dye mixture used to created the blackened teeth look actually protected them from decay because it had a lacquer-like effect on the enamel. The mixture even warded off certain bacteria to promote better overall health. Maybe this is one trend that will make a comeback?

KC Morgan is a professional freelance writer. She has written thousands of articles, on every topic from history to food hacks. Whether KC is explaining how to complete a DIY project or exploring the world’s mysteries, she’s writing about something every single day.