My Hate Affair with Excessive Sequels

Most normal stories follow the traditional pattern of a beginning middle and end. There are some that constitute sequels that continue a story about fairly interesting characters. Really its not sequels that are the problem, there have been several great ones like with Kill Bill or Spiderman. Trilogies even have their place in my movie heart. There is something really interesting about them, I mean if the storylines keep my interest kudos to the production team. I love the From Dusk til Dawn trilogy and the Indianna Jones one as well.
The problem is rooted in greed, a once hit movie being overplayed for the sake of gold at the box office. It's the ever not classy fourth installments of movies! However I am not saying all are absolutely terrible because in pop culture that can not be said for anything. Call it a golden rule! I did happen to like the fourth Die Hard film, based on the fact that Bruce Willis still has the tough funny edges. Shrek does not. As a matter of fact that was my inspiration for this post. I remain a firm believer that the third shrek was a yuk-fest, which bored me to tears. While I also read up on upcoming movies, my advice to Sam Raimi or whoever may be directing the spiderman 4 movie, should drop the project and make something else.
Pretty much the only movies that should go above three films are movies based on books, like Harry Potter. The Goblet of Fire (the fourth installment) remains one of my favorites. Though a young powerful wizzard IS NOT a big green ogre. Someone tell Mike Meyers that while the paycheck may be extremely sweet (over 100,000$ a minute!?) the lack of storyline may produce the worst grossing shrek film yet. Do they have no dignity? This is what i wonder. The big green ogre hasnt been funny since the first and second movie.
Do not even get me started on the utter fail of a movie indianna jones four. Sure Bruce Willis was a tad old in the fourth die hard but it was nothing compared to Harrison Ford. That man (60 years old) has seen some better times and needs to retire the action routine. The effects were decent until the wtf moments at the ends of the movie. Aliens?! To this day that remains un explainable to me. I just could not comprehend the story line along with the oldness of Harrison Ford. They may be in talks for a fifth......someone shoot me......right now.