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The bookstore is a fair point, but I also won't be shocked if that's literally the only reference to Part II.
So many of the reviews have made mention of how "the movie essentially asks you to pretend Part II didn't happen" that I have to think that was a deliberate choice. Most of them don't say, "There's little mention of Part II but it might've happened," they say, "The movie basically acts like it didn't happen and asks you to do the same."
That's a subtle but important distinction.
And even if the plot of Part II was only tangentially connected to the whole Shandor business that the first movie dealt with and this one revisits, they still could very easily have finagled something to make it relevant. Various video games and comic books since then have done exactly that; it's my thinking that basically, it just would have been too hard so they didn't bother. "Just easier to ignore Part II."
I'unno, not like a deal-breaking thing or anything it's just a Present-Day trend in movies that I just plain hate, the whole "Sequels that completely ignore huge chunks of a franchise's lore because writers don't wanna write around it" trend. I mean, sometimes it's necessary. I think "Superman Returns" was the very first time this had ever happened - someone feel free to correct me - and it was necessary if they wanted to keep the movies in that universe, since III and IV were awful. Little did we know that by opening that door just a crack, it would become Standard Operating Procedure for pretty much every series going forward. Especially because when "Superman Returns" did it, that whole idea of "How can you ask us to just ignore movies we all clearly watched?" was widely mocked. Now it happens in movies and even TV all the time. Like literally always. To the point where it's just kind of aggravating.
I'm at the point now where whenever I watch a movie anymore, I'm like "Yeah, in 10-20 years they're gonna do another one and ask me to pretend I never saw this one." Kinda over it. Sometimes it's necessary but I'd argue this wasn't one of those times. Chickbusters, yeah, ignore that. Bad movie, and also not in the same universe as this one or the originals anyway. But Ghostbusters II? Eh, that shouldn't be so radioactive.
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