SecondWindGroup
patreon
[COLUMN] The Problem With Prequels | by Darren Mooney
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 14:13:55 +0000 UTC
In May 1984, Vincent Canby was reviewing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for The New York Times. The movie occupied a strange place in the continuity of the larger franchise. Although it was the second film to be released in the Indiana Jones series, it was not a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indeed, the events of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were set before those of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Looking for a term to describe this sort of follow-up, Canby landed on “pre-sequel.”
Modern audiences would recognize Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a prequel. However, that term had not entered the popular consciousness by 1984. The word went mainstream following the release of The Phantom Menace in May 1999, which critic Peter Bradshaw described as “the biggest and most prestigious prequel in commercial cinema history.” This had a huge impact on the industry, with The Guardian declaring in November 2000 that “prequels are the new sequels.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word in print was in Publisher’s Weekly during the 1920s. Christopher Tolkien claims his father conjured “the highly uncharacteristic word” to describe the relationship between The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Still, its popularity is a modern invention. Google’s ngram search shows an increase in the use of the term since the 1970s, but with a particularly dramatic increase during the early 2010s.
Indeed, modern popular culture is lousy with prequels. Virtually every major modern blockbuster franchise has invested heavily in prequel movies and series. The Fast and Furious franchise followed Tokyo Drift with three movies that were subsequently revealed to be prequels. The two Transformers films following The Last Knight were both prequels to the series. Even the Die Hard franchise has a long-gestating prequel intended to showcase the “origin story” of John McClane (Bruce Willis).
Fox’s X-Men trilogy begat a series of X-Men prequel movies beginning with First Class and a separate prequel focused on the character of Logan (Hugh Jackman), X-Men: Origins – Wolverine. Every Alien movie since the release of Alien Resurrection in 1997 has been set earlier in the franchise timeline. Game of Thrones spawned House of the Dragon. Even decades-old properties weren’t safe. 35 years after The Dark Crystal was released, it received a prequel streaming series, Age of Resistance.
To a certain extent, this emphasis on prequels is perhaps an inevitable result of the larger emphasis on franchises. After all, the term “franchise reboot” has become similarly ubiquitous, which is effectively a prequel or a remake freed from the boundaries of existing continuity and lore. In May 2005, the term “reboot” was still so novel in the context of filmmaking that David S. Goyer had to explain the term to The Los Angeles Times when employing it in discussions of Batman Begins.
However, what is so interesting about the concept of a prequel – particularly in modern pop culture – is the extent to which it has become the default mode of franchising for a certain kind of intellectual property. There is a certain kind of franchise that is particularly drawn to the idea of a prequel. These franchises tend to be science-fiction or fantasy stories that are epic in scope and have reached a critical mass of continuity.
Star Wars might be the most obvious example. By volume, there has been significantly more Star Wars film and television media produced in the past five years than in the previous forty. However, since the release of The Rise of Skywalker in December 2019, all of that media has looked backwards, inserted into various gaps in pre-existing continuity. The next theatrical Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, will take place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Of course, there are plans for a new movie focusing on Rey (Daisy Ridley) in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker, but that project seems to be very slow in getting off the ground. In May 2024, Ridley assured an interviewer that while she had yet to see a script, it was promised to arrive “soon.” Meanwhile, the more recent Star Wars television show was The Acolyte, set about a century before The Phantom Menace and ending on a tease of Darth Plagueis the Wise.
Recently, both Amazon and Warner Bros. have turned The Lord of the Rings into a franchise. Amazon released The Rings of Power, the most expensive television show ever made, set five millennia before The Lord of the Rings. Later this year, Warner Bros. will release The War of the Rohirrim, set 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. Andy Serkis is also directing The Hunt for Gollum for the studio, a two-part story set between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies.
Then there is the Star Trek franchise. When Gene Roddenberry revived the Star Trek franchise for television in 1987, he made sure that The Next Generation jumped roughly one century into the future of the fictional universe. He did this to ensure that the production team working on the show would have the creative freedom to make the Star Trek universe their own, to reimagine existing species and alliances and introduce their own fresh ideas.
The Next Generation spawned two spin-offs: Deep Space Nine and Voyager. When it ended in 2001, the final episode of Voyager offered glimpses of the future year 2404. This seems to exist as a hard boundary on the Star Trek timeline. Producer Rick Berman followed Voyager with Enterprise, a prequel series. This was followed by a trilogy of reboot movies, loosely reimagining the characters from the original Star Trek.
Of the five Star Trek series native to streaming – Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds and Prodigy – only Discovery has pushed itself further into the future than the final episode of Voyager. Even then, Discovery premiered as a prequel to the original Star Trek show, depicting the Klingon War that served as the back story to “Errand of Mercy”, an episode of television that aired in March 1967. Strange New Worlds is an entire show spinning out of an unaired pilot from 1964.
To be clear, prequels are not inherently bad. Better Call Saul was a prequel series to Breaking Bad that managed to extract genuine pathos and tragedy from the audience’s foreknowledge of the ending. Better Call Saul can make a credible claim to being one of the best television dramas in recent years. Andor is handily the best Star Wars media in the past six years or so, and it is a prequel to Rogue One, itself a prequel to the original Star Wars.
However, allowing for these exceptions, it is very hard to mine dramatic stakes and suspense within the confines of a prequel, when the audience already knows the outcome. More than that, there’s also the simple fact that most stories start where they are supposed to start. Anything before that point is, by its nature, superfluous and unimportant to the original narrative. Otherwise, those threads would have been part of the story that was told the first time around.
The structure of a prequel tends to deny resolution, closure or satisfaction. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness, Ewan McGregor) is supposed to be at his lowest ebb at the start of Star Wars, so there’s no way for the prequel streaming series Obi-Wan Kenobi to offer the “hopeful, uplifting” ending that Disney clearly wanted. Any dramatically satisfying conclusion to Obi-Wan Kenobi would force fans to watch their hero fail spectacularly and retreat into disillusionment so he could succeed in Star Wars. The Rings of Power is a show about watching characters fail to kill Sauron (Charlie Vickers).
Of course, it is also worth acknowledging that nostalgia was always a factor in pop culture; such nostalgia moves in cycles. However, the expression of that nostalgia has shifted in recent years. In the past, nostalgia for bygone eras tended to manifest in stories set during those eras. During the 1990s, nostalgia for the 1950s found expression through stories either set during or evoking the pop culture of that period, rather than through the literal resurrection of 1950s pop culture.
As such, it is strange that the prequel has become such a prominent mode of extending existing franchises. To be fair, there are plausible explanations for this. J.R.R. Tolkien gave The Lord of the Rings a pretty definitive ending, so there’s not really much room for stories to be told past that point. Then again, the counterpoint to that argument would be that maybe not everything needs to be a mass media franchise, and it’s okay for some stories to be finite.
In a broader sense, this modern preoccupation with prequels might acknowledge the limits of the franchise age. Prequels might be more palatable than sequels to some studios because a prequel has the luxury of leaving the original ending intact. After all, any sequel to a beloved work requires upsetting or undermining the promise of “happily ever after”, reintroducing conflicts and the threat of failure into the lives of beloved and existing characters. Prequels sidestep that potential issue.
This would be a cynical and cowardly approach to storytelling, but it fits in the broader context of contemporary pop culture. In many cases, modern fandom demonstrates a reluctance to move past iconic and beloved characters, and so prequels offer the promise of more content featuring those beloved characters at their most iconic. Digital technology makes it easier than ever to conjure a simulacrum of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) as he was nearly half a century ago.
Recognition becomes an end unto itself. Jon Favreau has boasted that his script for The Mandalorian and Grogu “rewards people who have been with the [franchise] since the beginning.” NBCUniversal Content Chief Donna Langley recently talked about the importance of “familiar surprise”, the need to lure audiences to media through brand recognition while offering something vaguely new. Increasingly, it seems like “familiar” trumps “surprise.”
In this sense, these mega-franchises have become a sort of cultural Neverland. This was perhaps inevitable. Certain kinds of fans are prone to insist that intrusion of modernity into their beloved franchises has “ruined their childhood.” Peter Graham famously argued that the golden age of science-fiction is “twelve.” It can often seem like fans don’t want continuations of the stories that they loved when they were twelve, they simply want the experience of being twelve again.
This is why some fans insist with a straight face that Star Wars was “never political”, even though it was always political. These fans don’t want to revisit Star Wars as it existed when they were kids, they want to recreate the experience of watching Star Wars as children. Ultimately, these fans wish to be unburdened of their own knowledge of context. It’s an understandable impulse, especially in these complicated and chaotic times, but it is not within the power of media to do that.
That said, these franchises can certainly try. Recent family movies like Greta Gerwig’s Barbie or John Krasinski’s IF are consciously stories about how adults don’t ever have to give up what they loved as children. In Barbie, the movie’s central twist is that Barbie (Margot Robbie) doesn’t belong to teenage Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), but to her 40-something mother Gloria (America Ferrera). In IF, Bea (Cailey Fleming) helped reconnect forgotten imaginary friends with their now-adult play pals.
Looking at the state of modern pop culture, it’s hard not to remember the old proverb that it’s impossible to step in the same river twice. Modern pop culture seems to insist that it can, even if it has to dam the river and let the water go stagnant.
Comments
Tim Wilson
I had no clue that Tolkien coined “Prequel”. That’s a fun irony. I think that plain and simple it’s just risk aversion. People will see a film set in a world they’ve seen before but (especially in quite self contained stories) there’s nothing to go forward to. For example, one of my favourite films I’ve seen recently is “Everything Everywhere All At Once”. Definitive, unambiguous ending. Nowhere to go. However, ill-advised though it may be, there is technically a prequel you could do of the first alternate Evelyn. It is more possible. It is stupid, but possible. Personally nothing turns me off faster than a generic prequel. It can be done well, Saw X was a wonderful, if slightly stealth, prequel but even then it had the issue of certain character motivations being different than they were in Saw 1 because of the decades of character development since then, and general changing attitudes and writers. The Netflix “Witcher” animated prequel was good, because it dealt with an event frequently referenced and so it was effective world building but also utterly superfluous; you don’t need to see it to enjoy the rest. It could easily have been a flashback episode of the show, so it fit, rather than trying to shoe-horn more events and plot into whatever already existed. But we might as well be 10 minutes ago for all the sense and notice the big studios will take of artistic merits of prequels…
Tim Wilson
Well that’s a stark and unpleasant reminder of the state of media. Thanks Darren :D
Darren Mooney
I think, as the piece notes, there's a reluctance in Hollywood to embrace a "downer" ending. As weird as this is to type, I think it would be harder to make "The Empire Strikes Back" after you'd made "Return of the Jedi."
Darren Mooney
Oh, I'm an old fogey too! And I want new things.
Darren Mooney
Now, that hasn't been confirmed, but Ian McKellen let that slip while promoting "The Critic." So maybe he was misinformed.
Darren Mooney
Oh, "First Class" is my favourite of the "X-Men" movies, allowing for "Logan." A masterpiece.
Darren Mooney
"Start in the middle" (which is distinct from "in media res") is just an extension of the basic storytelling philosophy which is "start your story at the latest possible moment." It's good advice even in terms of scene construction, narratively, because it understands the audience doesn't need any of the stuff that came before to enjoy the story.
Darren Mooney
To be fair, the piece, I think, offers a fairly clear account of the rise of franchises, where they were always around, but they weren't as dominant in even, say, the 1990s as they were in the 2000s. While by no means new words, "Prequel" and "Reboot" both surge in use after 2000. If you look at, say, the top ten films at the domestic box office in 1990, you have: Ghost, Pretty Woman, Home Alone, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Hunt for Red October, Total Recall, Die Hard 2, Driving Miss Daisy, Dick Tracy, Back to the Future Part III. That's two sequels, sure, but in franchises that are still young at that point - within the past half-decade. Two comic book/strips adaptations. But still a wide variety of genres and adaptations: a melodrama, a rom-com, a family comedy, a thriller, a science-fiction adventure, some awards fare and even an honest-to-goodness western comedy. In contrast, this year's top ten so far is: Inside Out 2, Deadpool 3, Despicable Me 4, Dune: Part Two, Twisters, Godzilla x Kong, Kung Fu Panda 4, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, It Ends With Us. That's nine sequels out of ten films, many of which belong to franchises that are about a decade old or even older.
Darren Mooney
Cheers! Very fair. Corrected!
Bryan Cybershaman(X) Logie
"It can often seem like fans don’t want continuations of the stories that they loved when they were twelve, they simply want the experience of being twelve again." Chef's kiss. 👩🍳💋😉 I'm 55yo, btw. 😉 I do NOT want the same stories shown over and over again. I know there is this supposed argument about how "there are no new stories to tell." However, I think that is an overly simplistic and simple-minded reductive argument. Are there general THEMES that appear from time to time? Why, sure! But there are always subtle variations that are the "meat" on the "bones" of stories. Variations which can turn an ardvark into a snapping velociraptor, so to speak. For example, sure! There have been people stabbing each other in the back since there were "stabby things" handy to do so. And even before then! ("Trog! Come for moment! Near this cliff. Yes. It's OK. We will look on the land..." 😉) But it's the WHY and HOW of things that make things INTERESTING. WHY did Trog's buddy (presumably!) push him off of the cliff? (Note: I didn't actually SAY it happened! 😉) Was it for LOVE of an unrequited or jilted nature? Maybe Grog (the accused "pusher") actually LIKED Trog. Or maybe there was a power struggle and while they were actually known to be FRIENDS...well, then...... Do you SEE now? 😉 Don't you want to experience that early-human story??? I sure do. Come on, Hollywood! Anyway... End rant. 😉😎🤘☮️❤️
Bryan Cybershaman(X) Logie
No. Oh, no. They are stretching out a few paragraphs in Lord of the Rings into TWO PARTS??? Ugh. I don't care who's involved, I think the exhausting Hobbit trilogy should make it clear that it won't be a big hit. It just saddens me that studios won't do anything new and are just bombarding us with variations on what has already come before. How boring is that? Don't the numerous recent failures hint enough? I guess that doesn't fit the "line must go up" mindset of "bleed what we have until it's more than dry." Ugh. I feel bad for young/future generations. No wonder they would rather look at their phones than being enraptured by a story unfolding on the big (or little) screen. 😕
James
Great article. As I was reading it, I couldn't help but reflect on how good the first two X-Men prequels were, and how they were willing to take the X-Men concept to a radically different place and craft meaningful dramatic stakes. First Class is a masterclass in prequel-writing. Despite the fact that the conflict between Xavier and Magneto is firmly established in the original trilogy, the most dramatic and impactful scene in First Class is the famous "coin scene", which uses visual filmmaking to tie the villain's death to the breaking of Xavier and Magneto's united mission. And the later scene where Magneto curves the bullet into Xavier's hip that paralyses his legs got gasps from every person I watched it with. PS: Also shout-out to Magneto's theme. It's a fantastic escalating piece of music that adds so much to the tension of the film.
Ben Repton
But aren't prequels just the natural deep mining of IP that "started from the middle"? A lot of the largest IPs (Star wars, lord of the rings etc) deliberately started in the middle of the action (google start in the middle). Isn't this the main reason why they are so open to prequels?
Mike English
I think that, in their search for easy franchise expansion, the industry has done sequels badly and to death. So instead they want to grab onto something that was "mysterious" and then put it on the screen, which doubles down on the problem presented by prequels to begin with. However harrowing an event sounds, we know not only that the characters from the original material survive but we know they succeed. Like being told at the start of a heist movie that the heist will succeed. We also know that much of the surrounding cast is likely not to live, or to otherwise be rendered unimportant in the future to come. It would be far more interesting, I think, for a character to be known to have a great failure in their past and to then explore the circumstances around that. Which is where the prequels really fumble the ball. They take the story we wanted to hear--how Anakin becomes Darth Vader--and it's really just the back half of the third film in a trilogy.
Amar
"The Fast and Furious franchise followed Tokyo Drift with three movies that were subsequently revealed to be sequels." -- should be: revealed to be prequels?
Jeremiah Maxel
Were franchise wars ever not a thing? Since I've been alive, they've always been fighting each other.
