High rated movies are good. They're dragging millions of people to the cinemas, offer thousands of merchandise articles and ... are a good start for a second movie - which of course will be more poromoted than the first one and will be more expensive and have more action and more merchandise and more this and that. When every one is in the right mood - there will be part 3! Mostly it is now when the merchandise becomes ridiculous. The DVDs will have there 2nd or 3rd release with "never shown scenes" and "Now will all ever cutted scenes" and maybe a commentary track from every actor for the whole movie.

And so on and so on.

For example: Lord of the Rings
Part one: absolute brilliant!
Part two: very good but not as brilliant as the first one.
Part three: when will it end.... please. (still don't have it on DVD and I guess I'll never have)

For example: Harry Potter
Part one: pure magic, I so love it!
Part two: uh..ok, a bit different but good. Still good.
Part three: now that's a turning - nice, really. (In fact I liked it more than part 2)
Part four: ... what? skip it. This was a big big BIG fail.
Part five: *yawn* Hope you don't mind when I don't spend the money for cinema but wait for DVD.
Part six: Do I really want to watch it? Uh...

For example: Star Wars
Episode 4: LEGEND!
Episode 5: brilliant but a bit more serious
Episode 6: What the heck was the meaning of the Ewoks? To make the movie pg-rated for kids?
Episode 1: Oh please... skip it. Little boy rescues the world.
Episode 2: No. no. no. no.
Episode 3: The worst Star Wars movie ever. To turn one of the best movie villains ever into an
emo freak and making him so unbelievable. No.
Not to forget the Ewok-Spin off movies. W. T. F.

BUT!
Sometimes, really very seldom, it happens that later movies are much better than the older ones. Not because of all the electrical gadgets and the newest CG effects, but because of the actors and how the characters are played.

For example: Batman
The old movies are absolute brilliant without a doubt. But they are still comic movies.
Batman 1 and 2: I so love them!
Batman 3 (with Robin): Ok... changing styles, got sidekick, interesting. But missing something, the first movies had. Didn't liked it that much.
Batman 4: ... never saw it and never felt like I had to
Batman 5 aka Batman begins: Oh yes! This one is really great! A really convincing journey into Batmans mind.
Batman 6 aka Dark Knight: I don't think the big hipe about the movie is right, but I have to say that first half of the movie is the best thing I ever saw of a Batman movie (I mean the part before Mr. Wayne gets emo.) Why? Because it's completely off a comic world. It's feeling real, what also scares a bit. And the joker - yes. This is a really dangerous insane guy I will never ever meet in the street, no matter if day or night.

And last but not least: Star Trek
The newest Star Trek is the first time ever that I think the latest movie of a series is the best one! It made it right into my personal top 5 and not because I'm a fan of Star Trek (what I'm not, not that much at least ) but for a brilliant movie with very convicing characters, great character play, interesting story which doesn't force you to know the whole Star Trek classic universe. When I first saw the trailer about half an year ago I felt like "OMG, are they crazy to get those kids for a new Star Trek movie?". After I saw it I had to change my mind to "WOW! Breathtaking! This was the best thing ever!"

So sometimes, the 11th movie is the best one.