With Tron: Legacy about to be released, I’ve been thinking about other long-term sequels, movies that are release a decade or more after the original. Let me clarify that for me this excludes remakes or re-imaginings such as Tim Burrton’s Planet of Apes, but those that are actual additions to the continuity and preferably also have the original characters via the original actors. For example, Tron: Legacy has Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges reprising both their respective real world characters of Alan Bradley and Kevin Flynn as well as their program characters respectively Tron and Clu.
One of the earliest long-term sequels I can remember is 1983’s Psycho II, sequel to one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous movies released almost twenty years after the original. In fact, that was the tag line: “It's 22 years later and Norman Bates is coming home.” This starred the original actor, Anthony Perkins, and he would also star in a later sequel in 1986 and a prequel in 1990.
Another long-term sequel about this time is 2010, sequel of Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey. This was also an adaptation of the book 2010 which, of course, itself was also the sequel to the book 2001, both of which written by the same person, Arthur C. Clarke. (Clarke also wrote two more sequels, 2061 and 3001, but so far there have been no plans to make these movies.) The character Heywood Floyd is in both movies, but is played by different actors, William Sylvester in the original and Roy Scheider in the sequel. On the other hand, Keir Dullea played the character Dave Bowman in both movies and Douglas Rain also did the voice for HAL 9000 in both movies.

Off hand I can’t think of too many other long-term sequels in the 80’s or 90’s, but here have been quite a few in the second half of the past decade. There was the fourth Indiana Jones movie, the fourth Rambo, and the final Rocky movie. One particular note of Rocky Balboa was the actor’s age was incorporated into the plot with the character’s age.
The long-term sequel trend contrasts with the Star Wars prequels. While generally these involved totally new characters played totally new actors (with the exception of Ewan McGregor playing a younger Alec Guinness), most of actors reprising their roles, namely Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, Peter Mayhew, and Anthony Daniels, were primarily voice roles; in any case, their older features were never shown. The only reprising actor to actually do an on screen performance with his face totally visible was Ian McDiarmid reprising the role as Palpatine aka the Emperor. Fortunately, the actor’s older features was already compromised in the earlier movie Return of the Jedi, when the younger actor was given extreme makeup to give a deformed look so that the while older actor looked as a younger (as well as less deformed) character. He also played the role in the DVD version of The Empire Strikes Back
Anyone else know of any other long-term sequels I might have missed?


in other forums I was reminded of the franchises for:
Terminator
Toy Story
Die Hard
Wall Street
as well as
1939 - The Wizard of Oz
1985 - Return to Oz
1961 - Hustler
1986 - The Color of Money
1974 - Chinatown
1990 - The Two Jakes
1974 - The Godfather Part II
1990 - The Godfather Part III
1977 - The Rescuers
1990 - The Rescuers Down Under
1981 - Escape from New York
1996 - Escape from L.A.
1976 - Carrie
1999 - The Rage: Carrie 2
For a couple others not in the 80s or 90s:
1991 - Silence of the Lambs
2001 - Hannibal
1941 - The Maltese Falcon
1975 - The Black Bird