Shouting fire in a pre-Budget theatre.

Today Greg Combet release a report by the CSIRO into the Home Insulation Program (HIP).

Obviously it shows that the whole thing was bungled and was “a mess”… err what’s that? It doesn’t? Oh.

In what will come as no surprise to anyone who read Possum’s brilliant post last year on the topic – the home insulation scheme did not cause houses to start exploding in greater numbers than before. In fact, once all is said and done and the final figures are in place, it will be shown that there has been a decrease in the numbers of fires per homes with insulation.

I have it on good authority (well Twitter) that Possum is writing a response the CSIRO report, so I shall leave the heavy number crunching to him, but here’s a nice summation of the CSIRO report on the fire risks:

The work of the CSIRO confirms that fire incidents linked to the installation of insulation occurred prior to the commencement of the HIP.

The CSIRO has found that, prior to the commencement of the HIP, for every 100,000 households with insulation in place for twelve months or more, around 2.4 fire incidents occur per year¹.

The CSIRO has found that for every 100,000 households installed under the HIP where the insulation has been in place for twelve months or more around 2.5 fire incidents would currently be expected to occur per year².

In other words, as at 31 March 2011, the level of risk for households with insulation installed under the HIP is now effectively no different to the level of fire incident risk that existed before the program was implemented.

The CSIRO report further indicates that the fire incident rate for households with insulation installed under the Home Insulation Safety Program is continuing to decline. In fact once the 150,000 inspections are complete it will reduce the residual risk (comparable to the fire callout rate) to an estimated 2.2 per 100,000 per year³.

So it was 2.4 fires per 100,000 households with insulation prior to the scheme. Now it is 2.5 fires per 100,000 (Garrett really needed to be slaughtered because of a 0.1 rise per 100,000?) but that as time goes one the CSIRO expects the number to fall to 2.2 fires per 100,000.

Anyone who slammed the program and demanded Garrett’s head need to have a damn good hard look at themselves – including the utter fools who wrote idiotic headlines like

Who do you blame when the roofs are burning

Insulation in houses is a good thing – it’s actually a disgrace that there were over a million houses that didn’t have insulation! But since this program, insulation, due to idiotic reporting in the media has almost become something to be embarrassed about saying you are putting in your roof – as though it is something you should be scared about doing!

The problem is the media went in hard without waiting for the full facts to emerge (or indeed worrying about any corporate responsibility by those who were actually installing the batts – remember the stupid “Garrett would be charged for industrial manslaughter” bullshit from Abbott?).

There is a line in the report that explains this rather nicely:

The rate [of fires] now appears to fall from an initially high rate of about 50 per 100,000 per year down to a rate which is in the region of 1-3 per 100,000. For example, the last 6 months has 9 fire callouts and converts to a rate of 1.63 per 100,000. However if one extra month is taken (July 2010), the number of fire callouts increases to 16 and the average rate through the 7 months is 2.48…. The 6 month value is likely to be closer to the current rate than the 7 month value, since the 7 month summary does not intersect the confidence band for July 2010, but the reality is that the summary figure is based on small number and would change markedly if there were even a few fire callouts in the next month or if some fire callouts were identified that had already happened but not made there way to the database.

Woah. Talk about nerdy statistic speak!

But what it in effect explains is that if you are looking a a short period you will get figures which are distorted. The early period rate of 50 per 100,000 sounds horrific, however it is due to the high number of initial instillations, but it is no more “accurate” than if I were to say “Wow, the HIP has actually caused the incidence of fires to be reduced to 1.63 per 100,000”. Because in doing so I would be guilty of only looking at 6 months, not the entire scheme.

The entire scheme has (by current data) a rate of 2.5 fires per 100,000 per year (or 0.0025% of households). Prior to the HIP it was 2.4 per 100,000 (or 0.0024% of households). Now you might say any increase is too much – but the thing is, as stated above – the CSIRO expects that once they have all the data that the incidence will drop to 2.2 per 100,000.

Terrible. Sackings all round.

Unfortunately Greg Combet while delivering the report adopted the posture of Mister Very Contrite. The reason for this is the ALP’s own fault. Last year Kevin Rudd instead of defending the program and Garrett went on the 7:30 Report and said:

Well, let's not try and sugar-coat this, Kerry, and I don't begin to for one minute. This program has created real problems on the ground; it has resulted in a lot of difficulty for a lot of people. As Prime Minister of the country I accept responsibility for that. My job now is to fix it up.

Julia Gillard since she has became PM has not really done anything to rectify the narrative (set in stone as it was I guess):

“This is a mess, I acknowledge that,” Ms Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister, told Channel 9’s Today Show. “This was a scheme started with good intentions. The shonks got in and it turned into a mess.”

No it wasn’t a mess. And actually if it had been handled differently 12 months ago, it would be a scheme that the ALP should now be using to slap down the Liberal Party. Instead it cowered and (in the words of Bruno Gianelli) said “Don’t hurt me”.

The media response to the report?

Home insulation program: nearly a quarter of homes fail building code standards

Insulated homes did not meet building codes

What is this talk of building code standards? Here’s the report:

Note that nice bold bit – not the same as fire risk. Also note that it is all about conforming with the guidelines of the program.

Unfortunately the CSIRO has no comparable stats with houses pre the HIP. But given the old wiring in many houses, and the way in which insulation was installed in the past (ie with no national standards, and often just done DIY) I seriously doubt it would be lower.

But hey, of course last year we were all worried about building codes; we weren’t at all focussed on fires. So I guess it is only right that the media put the reduced fire risk stat half way down the page…

***

Today Wayne Swan gave a speech in which he was at great pains to tell us how tough the budget will be. This isn’t much of a surprise – Peter Martin (not a bloke too wrapped up in bulldust) reported the other day:

“But it also applies to Australia’s May budget in which Wayne Swan will wear the consequences of some of the successes he had been praying for.

Obscured by talk about the soaring dollar and the hole it is said to be punching in budget revenues is a more complex chain of events, harder to explain in public, but nevertheless painful.

The forecasts for the last May budget were based on the technical assumption the Aussie could stay at around 90 US cents for years to come.

After the Aussie sailed through 100 US cents in October, the November budget update used an assumption of around 98.5 for years to come.

This week the Aussie marched north of 105 and leading economists such as Shane Oliver of AMP were talking about 110 by years end with it staying that high until the next global economic collapse.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said this week the high dollar was “weighing heavily on government revenues”. A leaked Treasury document briefing identified the high dollar as one of the reasons non-mining revenues had all but stopped growing.”

So the Aussie dollar is kicking around the non-mining sector a fair bit. But it is also affecting mining – and not in a way that will help the budget (but will help the economy):

“Miners are responding to the higher iron ore and coal prices driving the dollar in exactly the way we would want them to. They are bringing forward plans to expand and develop new mines.

The latest capital investment intentions survey show an increase in investment plans this financial year of 24 per cent and an increase next financial year of 38 per cent. It’s exactly what Wayne Swan would want. It’ll help set up budget revenue for years to come.

But it’ll cost the budget bid-time in the year ahead. As mining companies invest they write off profits for tax purposes meaning that for at least the next year (the ABS hasn’t surveyed investment intentions beyond then) not only will the non-mining corporate tax take be flat, but tax from the big miners will be weak as well.”

So we have this interesting position where the economy is fine, but the budget is not so fine (or perhaps more actually not as fine).

Swan today said:

“I'm very conscious that the story of our fourth Budget is a very difficult one to tell. It combines short-term weakness, medium-term strength, and boom conditions without the boom revenues.

We can't and shouldn't buy support for this Budget, like our predecessors did. There won't be rivers of gold like they wasted. So don't expect to see billions and billions in pro-cyclical policy measures that will compound the inflationary pressure of this boom like they compounded the inflationary pressures of the last one.

That doesn't mean we're not conscious of cost of living pressures – we certainly are. We know that for communities that are feeling these pressures acutely, talk of a boom seems divorced from their reality. We know that despite the gathering pace of this investment boom the benefits have not reached all Australians in our patchwork economy, and so many people are still feeling the pinch.

That's why we delivered three rounds of tax cuts and an historic increase in the base rate of the pension. It's also why we're going to deliver important policies to ease these pressures – like extending the Education Tax Refund, giving more money to parents of teenagers and disabled kids, introducing the work bonus for seniors, and the like.”

All nice and fuzzy – disabled kids, parents of teenagers (God bless ‘em), seniors, “the like”…. Then this bit (after some words about the emotion of doing a budget – which I am sure are true – it would be a absolute shitty thing being on the Expenditure Review Committee – most of the time you would be saying no to things you would love to say yes to (John Howard was useless at saying no, so too Bob Hawke – especially if it involved sport!)

“On a personal level, it certainly isn't easy making difficult saves. I am in politics because, as a young man, I came to believe that for some in our society, life can be cruel and unfair. I believed then – and I believe now – that there are people who need a bit of compassion, a helping hand from the rest of us. I also believe that it's important to reward the hard-working Australians that are so fundamental to our nation's prosperity. But what I've learned is that without getting the broader economic settings right, without a strong, sustainable economy, none of this is possible.

So we'll be doing things in this Budget that won't be popular, but they'll be the right thing to do. They'll be consistent with our Labor values, driven by the recognition that leaving this task to future generations will mean even more pain for those doing it toughest in our community.”

Now there has been a fair bit of talk around the traps of what exactly are “Labor values”. The budget I guess will gives us some insight to what Gillard and Swan at the very least think are those values. (No doubt the rest of us will just argue whether they are right or wrong).

Either way, you have to say Swan and Gillard have both done the selling of this budget very well. It sounds like it’ll be a shocker (or at least sounds like they want us to think it will be a shocker). Will it? Call back in three week’s time.

Strike me sovereign! $43 billion? That’s capital!

Here was John Howard back in 2007 – you remember, that glorious period before the unions took over and killed our economy:

On the subject of mining, there is a risk to the strength of the mining industry in Australia. There is a real risk, and I reminded the people of Western Australia of this when I spoke on Western Australian radio. I pointed out that the real risk to the mining boom is Labor’s industrial relations policy. The real risk to the mining boom is the abolition of AWAs. The real risk to the mining boom is to bring back the supremacy of collective bargaining across all the mining operations of this country. The real risk to the mining industry is that this country, once again, if a Labor government were to be elected, would be burdened with an industrial relations policy not serving the interests of the mining industry, not serving the interests of workers in the mining industry, not serving the interests of the future prosperity of our nation but rather serving the interests of union power.

Here was Tony Abbott last year in Parliament talking about the horrors of the mining tax:

… and now the government is targeting the most productive industry in our country with a penalty tax almost guaranteed to kill the mining boom stone dead….

and again last year:

What the new Prime Minister wants to do, just as surely as her predecessor, is to increase the rate of tax on mining from about the international average to the highest in the world. She wants to increase the rate of tax on mining from about 40 per cent to about 57 per cent. Sure, there will be plenty of words, there will be plenty of fiddles, but at heart it is the same great big new tax. It is the same dagger aimed at the heart of our prosperity. It is the same fundamental misunderstanding of what makes this country and this economy work.

and again:

There would have been no mining tax. And still, if we have our way, there will be no mining tax, because it is a dagger aimed at the heart of the Australian economy. No responsible economic manager would ever put the most important sector of our economy at risk the way this government is doing.

Here was Andrew Robb on the mining Tax:

I had a call from a friend of mine a few days ago. The friend runs some significant mines in countries in Asia, countries that have some political risk. This friend of mine rang the other day and said he is no longer being asked about political risk in Asia. He said the sovereign risk which has always dogged his attempts to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in these Asian countries is now similarly enjoyed by Australia. Australia is now the laughing stock of sharemarkets around the world

Here was Tony Abbott talking to Alan Jones last year:

TONY ABBOTT:

You make a bigger profit, you pay more tax. You mine more product, you pay higher royalties. That’s just the way it works, so the country was doing very well out of mining but then you put the highest tax in the world on mining or you propose to do that and inevitable investment dries up, jobs dry up…

ALAN JONES:

It’s a capital strike.

TONY ABBOTT:

…and we’ve just had the release of the international rankings of different countries as safe places to do mining business and thanks to the mere proposal for a mining tax Alan, Australia has dropped 13 places in those rankings in a single year. We now rank behind Argentina, Ghana, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana. This is crazy stuff. This is what the Government has done, it has trashed Australia’s international reputation.

Here is Abbott talking about the carbon tax:

First of all, you cannot trust this government to protect the mining industry, which is still under deadly threat.

Today there was a little announcement from BHP:

BHP Billiton plans to defy uncertainty over a carbon price and the imposition of a mining tax to pursue a $48 billion expansion of its iron ore operations - one of the biggest resources projects in the nation's history.

The expansion of the mining monolith's Pilbara iron ore mines, ports and railways in Western Australia is flagged in federal and state approval applications and comes as the company today prepares to resume delicate talks with the government on Labor's plan to price carbon.

Forty eight billion dollars. Someone needs to tell Tony that the dagger seems to be missing its target.

Here was Abbott’s reaction to the news:

I think they're [BHP] assuming that either this Government or the independents or a new Government would alter this tax, or hopefully rescind it."

Well now. Really, Tony?

As a shareholder of BHP if my board is making investment decision of the order of $43 billion on the basis of a hunch about what they hope the Government might do, then not only do I want to know, I want them sacked for gross incompetence.

Let’s be clear. The repeal of AWA didn’t kill the mining industry; the Mining Resources Rent Tax won’t kill the mining industry; the carbon price won’t kill the mining industry.

Any company worth its salt (or coal or iron ore) would already be factoring in the carbon tax and MRRT – and so to are investors. Why? Because when you are making billion dollar decision you don’t hope for the best – you conservatively factor in the likely risks and costs and then you make your decision. Mining exploration and business is risky enough without taking a $43b gamble that maybe the government will change its mind.

Will there be job losses from the carbon tax? Yes. certainly there will be. The Government is going to have to confront this. Those who suggest it’ll be sunshine and flowers for all are being disingenuous at best, out right lying at worst. But those who suggest a carbon tax should not be implemented if there is one job lost? Please. If we had that attitude, we’d still be using typing pools.

A price on carbon is an economic  reform. And like every reform to the economy in the past, people will lose their jobs. The Government needs to be saying more than just “retraining”, it will need actual solid programs and assistance in place to help those who will lose their jobs.

It won’t be enough for some, but it is something the Government needs to really start addressing now.  If they don;t how the hell can they expect people in affected industries to feel like the Government gives a damn?

But while there will be some job losses, the next time you hear someone talk about a capital strike, or how Australia is a risky place to invest, or that an entire town in South Australia will be wiped off the map, tell them to calm down and ask them about the $43b? And ask them about those who are investing in BHP?  Because look at its share price in the last 6 months – a six months in which the carbon tax has been proposed and the MRRT continues to be on the table.

From around $41.50 a share in October it now sits at around $47 a share (a 13 per cent increase). At that kind of return, I just hope Peter Dutton has held onto his shares.

Time to go and eat worms?

A quick post tonight (family stuff got in the way of my usual night’s schedule, and also I want to relax and watch Paper Giants!)
Today’s Nielsen Polls has the ALP behind 44-56 (have been told if they did half percentages it would’ve been 44.5 – 55.5).
On tonight’s 7:30 Report Chris Uhlmann pointed out the Government has a few fights on its hands. He’s right. But his list was a little light. Here are the fights the ALP has

• Those who are against the Carbon Tax:
  • The miners
  • The manufacturers
  • The AWU and AMWU
  • Woolies and Coles and etc
  • Right-wing think tanks who for some reason don’t think the market is the best way to fix something
  • Those who think climate change can be solved by someone else
  • Those who think climate change is best solved by paying polluters to be nice
  • Those who are old and listen to Ray Hadley and know they’ll be long dead before their grand kids have to live with the effects,.
  • Those who say – hey I’ve got fluoro lights, what more do you want?
• Those who are against the mining tax:
  • The miners
  • Anyone who has anything to do with the miners
  • Right-wing think tanks who will say the world will come to an end if the mining tax will come into being
• Those who are against the pokies restrictions:
  • The clubs
  • Woolies (because they own a shirt load of clubs)
  • Australians (well it’d be un-Asutralin not to)
• Those who are against the tobacco packaging laws:
  • Tobacco companies
  • Woolies and Coles (haven’t really seen this yet, but who do you think sells the most cigarettes?)
  • Right-wing think tanks who will say that the Govt mandating packaging is acquiring IP even though the Govt already mandates packaging. 
• Those who think the Govt is about to hurt everyone on welfare:
  • People on welfare
  • People not on welfare but who think a Labor Govt should actually show some bloody compassion.
  • People who don’t really give a damn about people on welfare but who just want the Govt to act like what they think a Labor Govt should act like, so they can hate them for being that.
• Those who think the Govt is stuffing up the asylum seeker issue:
  • The Liberal Party
  • The Greens
  • Anyone who supports neither of the above but thinks the ALP should show some bloody compassion
  • The few One Nation supporters people bussed in to protest the ALP actually showing some bloody compassion by placing asylum seekers in decent facilities in the Adelaide hills.
• Those who think the Govt should not worry about getting back into surplus:
  • Those who think deficits are fine because the economy is slowing
  • Those who think the deficit is because the Govt wasted the surplus to begin with
  • Those who think inflation is a thing that the RBA can take care of
  • Those who don’t care at all about any of this but when they hear the word budget they swear and hate whoever is in power.
• Those who think the Govt has a problem with middle-class welfare:
  • Those who want middle-class welfare slashed to pay for everything they want
  • Those who are in the middle-class and think cut my payments and you will be dead to me
  • Those who are in the middle-class and think middle-class welfare is bad, but just don’t touch child care rebate, which happens to be the only bit of middle class welfare being talked about.
• Those who still think the BER was a waste:
  • People who aren’t real good at maths.
  • People who say, “But if the surplus worked why is the US is at 10 per cent unemployment?”.
• Those who are against the NBN:
  • People who think the country is a thing where you have your hobby farm
  • People who think the laws of physics have a left wing bias
  • People who think the Telstra will do it (despite it having shown zero desire in the past)
• Those who think the Govt has a problem with the gay marriage issue:
  • People who are gay
  • People who are not gay but think an ALP Govt should show some bloody compassion.
• Those who actually can’t think of any specific policy they don’t like they just don’t like the vibe":
  • Those who think Julia Gillard should cry
  • Those who think Julia Gillard should not cry
  • Those who think Julia Gillard fakes it when she cries
  • Those who think she needs to do something about her wardrobe
  • Those who think she needs to do something about the voice
  • Those who think she lacks gravitas
  • Those who think she is wooden except when in parliament
  • Those who think she should not be so attacking in parliament
  • Those who think “JuLIAR” qualifies as intelligent debate
  • Those who think she is a communist
  • Those who think she is more right wing than John Howard
  • Those who liked her once but don’t now
  • Those who never liked her and still don’t
  • Those who think politics is stupid and since everyone else seems to be not like her or Tony Abbott they might as well do the same.

So all in all, fun times ahead.
Happy Days.

Friday Night Relaxer: The Best Trilogies of All-time

Ahhh “trilogy”. Is there any phrase more likely to gladden the heart of a movie fan? That knowledge that a good first film has not totally been ruined by a sequel and thus the studio has consented to make one more film in the hope of eking a bit more cash.

Back in January when I did a list of the best Pixar films of all time I said of Toy Story 3 – “it is without doubt the greatest 3rd film in a trilogy ever”. After boldy making such a statement I knew I would not be able to leave it rest. I also started thinking about what is the best trilogy of all time – a much tougher question given you have to weigh the merit of all three films – such a quandary becomes most stark when you encounter The Godfather trilogy.

Screenwriter William Goldman once said that all sequels are whore’s movies – meaning they are only ever made for money. That is true to an extent – after all there’s a reason George Lucas hasn’t explored the “Willow” galaxy to the extent he has the Indiana Jones or Star Wars worlds.  Sometimes though – such as with Mad Max 2, a sequel can be an improvement (perhaps) on the original because the first was on the cheap and the second allows the filmmakers to do everything he or she wants. Sometimes though this extra money can lead to Mad Max 3.

But while this year there are more sequels being released than ever before (Box Office Mojo has it at 27 this year compared to 19 last year), we need not get too snooty about sequels – after all Shakespeare had no concerns churning out Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, and also Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Antony and Cleopatra is a virtual sequel to Julius Caesar. A good sequel can still be a good film.

The first problem in deciding to examine the best trilogies and best third films etc, is to remember them all. This was proving to be a fairly annoying enterprise, until I remembered the good folk at Box Office Mojo have a page for “franchises’. Now I have been very liberal with my use of the phrase “trilogy”. I haven’t included the Harry Potter films because the story obviously did not end with Number 3, but I have included Twilight and Narnia series because this far they only have three (the next Twilight film comes out in November – incidentally up against Happy Feet 2). Similarly I’ve kept in Star Trek even though there are many of them, mostly because I feel the first three do feel like a nice story arc. Ditto the first three Alien films, but the Halloween, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and James Bond series are not.

Other series where the fourth film has come a long way after the third – Indiana Jones, Die Hard – are in. I try my best to forget there even is such a thing as the fourth Indiana Jones film, so that works out well. The Rocky first three are in as well, because with the end of the third a nice circle had been completed, and if it were not for the fact that Rocky needed to win the Cold War for us (and I think I speak for all of us when I say, I am glad he did) the series probably would have ended there.

Other were tricky – the Hannibal Lector films, for example. Not really a trilogy, but I thought bugger it, and so put in the first three with Anthony Hopkins. Other films like the Sergio Leone “Dollars Trilogy” of spaghetti westerns are not strictly a trilogy, but I love them, so they’re in. There was a Jaws 4? Oh dear yes. So horrible, so let’s pretend there wasn’t and call it a trilogy.

All in all I came up with 61 trilogy series.

The way to judge them? Well I could do it myself, but you may be shocked to know I have not seen all of the Blade films, nor all of The Santa Clause films. So instead I have left it up to the Rotten Tomatoes scores. Sure Rotten Tomatoes is not perfect, and in some way I prefer Metacritic – but both have their faults – Metacritic for example gives Superman II a score of 99. And I doubt anyone, even director Richard Donner, would give it that high a mark. I also could have used the imdb scores. But I feel they are too compressed, and also too fanboy-centric. So Rotten Tomatoes it is. I must acknowledge there is a bias towards older films – mostly because there are fewer critics from which to gain an average score, and also because generally only good older films get reviewed. 

But hey, let’s not get too precious about it.

Before we get to the good ones let’s dispel a few myths. As a rule the second film is not the best film of a trilogy, even if The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the Star Wars trilogy and Mad Max 2 is the best of the Mad Max film, or even if Aliens is the best of the Alien films. Far and away the best film of the trilogy is usually the first. Out of the 61 films the first film had the best Rotten Tomatoes score of the series 49 times. The worst film? The last – that happened 34 times.

Only in five trilogies was the “worst” film the first one – Jackass, The Phantom Menace, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Mighty Ducks and Step Up

Ok now, let’s have a look at the Rotten Tomato scores of the Top 10 worst first film of a trilogy – ones that obviously did not generate sequels due to artistic merit but lots of cash:

Trilogy	First
Mighty Ducks	12
Step Up	20
Big Momma	30
Underworld	31
Porky's	32
Home Alone	43
Jackass	49
Twilight	50
Blade	55
Free Willy	55

The Mighty Ducks scored 12 on Rotten Tomatoes, but $50m box office in the US for a $10m budget means give more – especially when they don’t get any more expensive to make. But as you can see even the 10th worst gets a 55 score, which isn’t horrible.

The biggest differential in quality is also interesting. How many times has an excellent first film been destroyed by the sequels (yes, The Matrix, I’m looking at you)? Here are the top 10 series with the biggest differences in quality from best to worst:

Trilogy	High	Low	Difference
House Party	95	0	95
Alien	100	10	90
Jaws	100	13	87
Hannibal	96	15	81
Major League	85	5	80
Crocodile Dundee	88	11	77
Meet the Parents	84	9	75
Beverly Hills Cop	84	10	74
Superman	94	24	70
The Santa Clause	80	15	65

Yep – House Party the first got a 95 score (no I haven’t seen it either) But by number three it was scoring zero. Alien III did not quite live up to the brilliance of Aliens, and neither did Hannibal ever look like winning the Oscars that The Silence of the Lambs won.

Of course having little difference in quality of the three films is no guarantee of greatness. For example the difference in Rotten Tomatoes score of the first three American Pie films is only 7, but I doubt given the high is 59 and the low is 52, that will have you rushing to buy the box set.

But enough time now to unveil the Top 10 best third film of a trilogy of all time:

Trilogy	Third
Three Colors: Red	100
Toy Story 3	99
The Good the Bad and the Ugly	97
The Return of the King	94
The Bourne Ultimatum	93
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	89
Mad Max III	81
The Revenge of the Sith	80
Clear and Present Danger	78
The Return of the Jedi	78

As you can see, we are not talking the greatest films of all-time. By and large, when filmmakers get to the end of the trilogy they are really struggling to sustain any narrative. The first does because the Three Colors films were conceived as parts of a whole. The Good the Bad and the Ugly, as I say is a bit of a cheat, and The Return of the King is really just the end of the whole big long film that happened to be split into three parts. That Toy Story 3, a film not even conceived of when the first Toy Story was made achieves such excellence is a pretty major achievement (and also shows I wasn’t too far off!).

For your amusement, here are the best 2nd films in a trilogy:

Trilogy	Second
Toy Story 2	100
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior	100
Aliens	100
Evil Dead II	98
Terminator II	98
The Godfather Part II	98
The Empire Strikes Back	97
The Two Towers	96
Spiderman II	93
For a Few Dollars More	92

Again Toy Story is at the top (given a pretty good indication of which finishes top overall! What you also see here is that the quality of the best second films is a long way above that of the best third films. I have never seen Evil Dead II, but have all the rest, and apart from Toy Story 2 and For a Few Dollars More, these are my favourite films in each of the series (though I may reconsider on The Godfather Part II).

But enough. Let us see the Top 20 all time best trilogies (all 61 seemed a bit of a stretch!)

	Trilogy	Average
1	Toy Story	99.7
2	Colours Trilogy	96.7
3	The Dollars Trilogy	95.3
4	The Lord of the Rings	94
5	Mad Max	92
6	Star Wars Original	89.7
7	Evil Dead	89.7
8	Indiana Jones	89.3
9	Terminator	89.3
10	The Godfather	88.7
11	Star Trek	86.3
12	Jason Bourne	85.7
13	Jack Ryan	82.7
14	Spiderman	81.7
15	Alien	78.7
16	Back to the Future	78
17	Lethal Weapon	76
18	X-Men	75.7
19	Rocky	74.7
20	El Mariachi	73.7

Toy Story just nabs it over Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors Blue, White and Red. Evil Dead gets in there for horror fans, and even the execrable mess that is The Godfather Part III isn’t enough to keep that series out of the Top 10.

My Top 10? Here you go:

	Trilogy
1	Toy Story
2	The Lord of the Rings
3	The Dollars Trilogy
4	Star Wars Originals
5	Jason Bourne
6	The Godfather
7	Indiana Jones
8	Terminator
9	X-Men
10	Alien

I must admit I made that selection very quickly. The first two Godfather films are so good I am prepared to go through the third. And why no Three Colors trilogy? Well because I… ummm… haven’t seen them.

And with that I shall duck out of the way from all the scorn from film fans everywhere!!

Have a great weekend