Into Lightness: Star Trek Into Darkness aside, here are six sequels that bucked the 'Go darker!' route.

With the first glimpse of Star Trek Into Darkness, most of the discussion centered around how the second Star Trek 2.0 picture seemed to be channeling Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight to an almost embarrassing degree. But to be fair, a trailer is a piece of marketing seemingly separate from the film itself.  And moreover, even if the new Star Trek  does end up going along the lines of 'lone agent of chaos upends the simple morality of Star Trek and makes Kirk/Spock question their ideals while causing destruction and killing off a major character or two', I would argue it's less about overtly ripping off The Dark Knight and more about simply following the sequel playbook.  In short, most sequels go darker, a trend that goes back to at least The Godfather part II.  And most sequels question the somewhat simplistic morality of the first film, as seen in the likes of The Matrix Revolutions and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.  But rather than dissect the sequel template (because I already kinda did that), I'd like to point out a handful of genre sequels that bucked that trend.  In short, these five sequels went the other direction, going in a comparatively lighter direction than their predecessors.  To wit...