Caught this on TV last night & went with it for a bit since I haven't seen it in years and thought I'd revisit with it. After only a few minutes I remembered why I hadn't wasted my time with it. It was so incredibly stupid that I was irritated and offended. The first two are classics but just like everything else, Hollywood had to run it into the ground to turn gold into garbage.
share"The first two are classics but just like everything else, Hollywood had to run it into the ground to turn gold into garbage."
This was the second of the first two.
This was the second one. It was thrown together quickly to capitalize on the success of the first one. Thankfully, they got the third one right.
shareI dunno why but many ppl DO seem to think this one is the 3rd movie of the series and that Christmas Vacation is the second one.
Create a society in which you would like to live, not knowing what you're going to come into it as.
Hmm...Crapass =)It's like four more years of only two bathrooms to choose from, and then meeting his beautiful wife.
shareNone of the sequels are very good. I'd actually rate Vegas Vacation as the second best. Euro Vacation was the worst.
I'll take Punctuality
I think I actually might agree with your ranking there. I found Christmas Vacation very disappointing after hearing so much love for it. :/
share"I'd actually rate Vegas Vacation as the second best"
It's true that the only good Vacation movie is the first, and the original. European Vacation is awful, unfunny, soulless trash, but being a 1985 movie, it still has some small charm - and the 'Major' from 'Fawlty Towers', plus of course the famous Monty Python man.
If you just skip the whiny parts, it's not a -complete- travesty of a movie, though it's still pretty close.
I never liked that Christmas thing - seems like they were repeating the original jokes a lot, and adding a lot of bickering and some unfunny things, plus disgusting stuff with Eddie. That worked so much better in the original movie.
I guess some of the Christmas thing can be watchable sometimes, but as I never experienced a horrible 'extended family gathering' like that, it just leaves me cold (no pun intended), and most of the characters are just such tedious jerks, that it's just repulsive and boring to watch.
As far as Vegas Vaction is considered, ... as far as I remember it, it seems to be just an 'unnecessary movie' type of 'meh'. Nothing memorable, nothing that awful. I remember it flows kinda smoothly, and has some almost interesting points to it, and then it ends on a happy note. There's never any conflict, or sense of 'going anywhere', or any 'point to the story'.
Things just 'almost happen' and then it ends. It's like lukewarm water - you wouldn't want to drink it, but if you are really thirsty, you can.
I don't know how else to put it.. Vegas Vacation is not good or bad, it just 'is'.
.. the original Vacation is just so much above everything else. Everything in it works, and every scene is interesting. Nothing is boring, plus it's really funny, and the quirky characters really work.
The only few gripes about it that I have, are that 'Aunt Edna' is quite awful thing to watch and listen, and the 'dragged dog scene' is horrible to think about (I get shivers) - and the 'video game scene' would never work in real world (I wish!), because that's -not- how game consoles or computers work.
Also, pixels can't be turned around even in the modern times..
Vacation and Fletch are certain Chevy Chase's best work, with the best eighties atmosphere.
The reason why I think European Vacation is so bad and is the black sheep of the original 4 is that it doesn't have an arc. The plot arc of the other films is Clark trying to bond with his family through a vacation or a family Christmas. Bad things happen to them, they go through some rough patches, but despite it all, they make it out alright and Clark achieves his goal. European Vacation didn't have that. The Griswolds won a vacation, they go from one "comic" set piece to another with no story, no plot, just: "okay, the Griswolds are in France now. People there are sure snobby and rude, aren't they? Now, it's off to Italy where...um... Ellen gets kidnapped for no reason." Vacation, Christmas Vacation and even Vegas Vacation had a story and had a plot. European Vacation does not.
Good, valid points.
I would add that Clark doesn't have a DETERMINED PASSION that borders on lunatic insanity in this one. There's no 'fantasy woman', there's no 'berserker-breakdown of cursing and scary yelling', there's no proper conflict, there's no heart.
In the first movie, you feel sympathy for Clark, he's relatable. He's flawed, and he has bad luck, but he means well and he tries to give his family a great experience, but his passionate determination blinds him from how much he's (unintentionally) hurting the very family he's trying to delight.
The first movie also flows, it goes FORWARD constantly, this movie doesn't. Interestingly, this movie does change places a lot, without giving a feeling of going forward, if that makes any sense. The first movie has a beginning, middle and end, it has a proper GOAL, a destination to go towards.
Here, there's just 'random stuff in Europe', without a destination to reach. When you reach the destination, you satisfy something. This movie has no destination, so there's no satisfaction, every different place is just an excuse for jokes, but those jokes aren't funny, even when they happen.
You're right about the difference between 'a won vacation' and 'self-created vacation' - Clark just goes along with the 'won vacation' instead of trying to get somewhere he has decided for himself.
This movie is a peffect example of taking a 'winning formula' and 'all the right ingredients', and then wasting it, mixing it wrong, and not understanding what made the previous thing so great, and thus just thinking it's the actors and the 'vacation' premise, when in fact, it was so much more.
It's interesting to me that a movie made in the middle of the most glorious decade can be this bad and feel this awful to watch.
This is the second one.
shareSo, Vacation and European Vacation are classics, yet you hate it? Are you a contradicting troll?
http://www.youtube.com/user/pumpkinman4ever?feature=mhum
First of all, no one is a 'troll', the term is 'trolling', which is a form of fishing. The similarity to the name of a mythical creature is pure coincidence.
In any case, they were just mistaking National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to be the second movie, although it obviously isn't. I guess the reason why people think that is because it is basically the order of the movies in how good they are.
In that way, they're actually correct, NLCV IS the second one when you put them in order that way.
No one said they were talking about CHRONOLOGICAL 'first two', you know. They could've been talking about the order of 'goodness'.
Even though this post is too old for a reply, I have to say this film is really not as bad as people claim it to be. Vegas Vacation is perhaps the worst one of the franchise. This one was pretty funny.
I really like the scene when Clark hits the guy that's riding a bicylce and he acts like it's no big deal. lol.
And the scene with Clark getting into a fight with the German men. LOL!!
And the part when that guy steals their camera. haha...
There is some good stuff in this one. EV has some memorable scenes but the first one will always be the best. The issue with this one was it had a very lackluster pair that played Rusty and Audrey. Nothing against, Dana Hill and Jason Lively but they just weren't as good as A.M. Hall and Dana Barron and it didn't have cousin Eddie either. Even though Eddie was overused in Vegas V, he is still a good character for the Vacation films. It almost doesn't feel like a Vacation film without him.
That being said, they still managed to make a pretty funny movie and I would rank it number 3 on the list.
This is the correct order... imo at least...
1. Vacation
2. Christmas
3. European
4. Vegas
The first one was the only one worth my time.
share