When I first began thinking about the worst sequel ever made, my mind actually instantly jumped to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That movie was bad from head to toe for a litany of reasons that I was going to expand upon, but it’s not a bad sequel in the way Phantom Menace is a bad sequel. Origins might be a bad movie, but it takes something more to be a bad sequel. A bad sequel destroys and reframes the entire series, it isn’t just a bad movie, it makes the previous films less. No other film in history has done this as well as The Phantom Menace, and it’ll be hard for any movie in the future to pull off that much nostalgic destruction ever again.
What is a sequel, though? It’s not just a movie that comes chronologically after another film. A sequel is a movie that may have the same numbering, themes, and possibly cast from a preestablished movie, but doesn’t always include all of these things. It can’t be a reboot, but it could be a prequel. The key to a sequel being a sequel is that it is canonically or thematically connected without starting the storyline or cinematic universe over unless that reset is within the canon of the series (e.g. Star Trek‘s reboot could also be considered a sequel). Mad Max: Fury Road is a sequel, but Batman Begins is not.
Source: Destructoid Phantom Menace is easily the worst sequel ever made