Poll: Prequels; Can they be good?

[saintdane05]

Legend of Drizzt. Fun fact: THe first three books written were not about Drizzt. He was only a supporting character. He only got so popular because people requessted lots of stuff about him, and RA Salvatore wrote a prequel trilogy.

Legend of Drizzt: Book 1: Homeland is one of the greatest books I have ever read.

 

[Olas]

Isn't the Metroid Prime series technically a prequel to Super Metroid?

Not sure if it counts as a prequel, due to it not being the first in the series.
That would be Metroid Zero Mission, but it is set before the older Super Metroid.

And metroid Prime is awesome.

An inbetweenquel?


I like how that sounds, has a good ring to it.

Super Mario World 2: Yashi's Island

Arguably the best Mario game ever is a prequel.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

MGS3
/thread

 

[Goofguy]

I assume you were watching Sessler's discussion on prequels over at Rev3Games? The whole time he was talking, all I could think of was Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's an amazing follow up to the original Deus Ex (nope, refuse to acknowledge Invisible War) and really sets it up well as a prequel.

 

[Phlakes]

No. There is no way a prequel can ever be good. There are absolutely no circumstances under which that could happen. It's completely, unconditionally certain. It has never happened in all of history and never will.

[sub][sub][sub][sub]Why do you even need to ask?[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

No, prequels are always inherently bad.

-_-

Of course they can be good. DE:HR, as mentioned, and a lot of Metal Gear Solids come to mind. The main reason I think prequels have a hard time being good is that people have already established their views and interpretations of things in the original, and defining the backstory in greater detail is more likely to clash with those interpretations than a sequel. For example, character motivations.

 

[00slash00]

metal gear solid 3. i believe this thread is over now

 

[Silvanus]

And Neil is working on Sandman prequel, so it can't suck at least.

He... he is?! I was unaware of this, despite following the damn guy on whatever social networks I can.

This makes me inordinately happy.



OT: I actually find the concept of prequels to be a very satisfying one; gives things a sense of inevitability and nostalgia. Can anyone pass judgement on Skyward Sword here?

 

[The_Echo]

Birth by Sleep was the best handheld Kingdom Hearts game and one I'd put up with 1 and 2

Spoiler

Look at what you have done! You made her cry! Go back to your corner.

From a gameplay perspective, 358/2 Days is easily the worst handheld game in the series. Even worse than Chain of Memories.

 

[JediMB]

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Awesome despite being both a prequel and a movie license adaptation.

I also want to mention Dead Space: Extraction, which was an excellent on-rails shooter.

 

[Da Orky Man]

The usual problem I find with prequels is that they were never planned for, so its more awkward to fit them into an ongoing story without retconning every other event comic style. Sequels tend to be easier simply because our brains are built to think of time as moving forwards, as a brain well uited to time travel is rarely a good evolutionary advantage against sabre-toothed (teethed?) tigers.

 

[DrNick]

It at least partly depends on what definition of "prequel" you're using. The least restrictive definition would include things like KOTOR, which has nothing in common with Star Wars except a shared universe, largely because of the massive distance in time between the two stories. In the most restrictive definition, I would argue that a prequel is only a prequel if it involves either the same characters or the same overarching story as the original. The same logic would apply to sequels. So by that definition, Star Trek III is a sequel to Star Trek II, but Generations is a sequel to neither - it's just another story set in the Star Trek universe.

If you're using that restrictive definition, I think it becomes much harder to make a "good" prequel, if only because the original story has been told. So unless there were plot-significant unanswered questions, it's hard to see what can be gained from a prequel.

Example: The last Star Wars VHS tapes to be released before the (first) special edition came out featured an interview with George Lucas, in which he argued that the "real" story of the original trilogy was the story of "the redemption of Anakin Skywalker," which is why he "had" to make the prequels. But he was wrong - Star Wars was Luke's story, not Vader's. It would be like if Bram Stoker has written a prequel to Dracula that focused on how Dracula started out as a angelic little rascal and eventually became a vampire. And then watched the Death Star being built for some reason.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I thought Prometheus was a decent movie, for a prequel, if only lacking in horror.

Prometheus also severely lacked in honour, respect and coherence.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

Fate/Zero would be a fairly good anime example, I'd have thought. Admittedly I haven't seen much of the original, but taken on it's own merits it certainly holds up pretty well.

Main Character of Fate/Zero:

Main Character of Fate/stay night:

Game, set, and match. Fate/Zero is widely regarded as superior to Fate/stay night...except perhaps by the people who have played the F/SN visual novel, however such so-called "people" are believed to actually be a human subspecies with genetic similarities to the PC Master Race, and their thought processes do not match ours, so communication with them is impossible.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I thought Prometheus was a decent movie, for a prequel, if only lacking in horror.

Prometheus also severely lacked in honour, respect and coherence.

I think the joke was lost on me? Honour and respect?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I thought Prometheus was a decent movie, for a prequel, if only lacking in horror.

Prometheus also severely lacked in honour, respect and coherence.

I think the joke was lost on me? Honour and respect?

Not a joke.

Alien was a rather unique and well made movie, shocking and inspiring people and invading our dreams since 1979.

There were other movies like this. There were sequels, you are certainly aware of them.

Alien is the source material. Somebody, somewhere, eventually came to brainstorm on the premise and came up with Predator. It was a different movie, starring different actors, introducing us to a different alien that was dubbed 'predator' and designed to be similar, yet very different.

Most of the sequels, prequels and spin-offs we've been served in the last, say, thirty years suck donkey ass. They do not respect the work of art, and the hard work involved in making the original movies happen. They do not understand, nor care to understand, nor care to deliver anything worthwhile. They do not respect neither the source material, nor do they respect the viewer.

If someone unlucky enough gets to see, say, AVP2 first, and only later discovers that there was a movie called Alien thirty-four years ago, he or she might not be allowed to think for themselves. They've already been served some rather ludicrous, made-up answers by cheap people making crap movies. They might not get 'it', whatever 'it' might have been had they not been previously introduced to the light entertainment teenie horror I Know What You Did Last Screaming Final Destination Aliens vs Bollocks crap rendition.

You can still laugh if you want to. Doesn't help, though.

To me, Prometheus is not a pile of crap. It has some neat effects and visuals. But I cannot ignore the fact that it totally and utterly shits on Alien and everything worthwhile we could have watched instead. It's a complete waste of... everything. It's a missed opportunity and a major letdown for me, that I know for certain.

 

[Something Amyss]

X-men 1st Class

Wasn't that more a reboot? Isn't the sequel treating the prior movies as a parallel universe or something?

Prequels don't work if they just sit down and explain every little thing that happened in the game.

Or introduce the entire cast because they feel obliged to be there.

I swear to God I thought Lucas was going to introduce every bit character from Episodes IV-VI.

Anyway, I'd say that they walk a tighter line due to the constraints of the narrative, but sure, they can be good. I think what kills them is the cash-in mentality that applies to them. Which, of course, isn't so different from sequels. It's just that we have a larger body of sequels that don't suck. And even then, sequels have had a bad name through my entire lifetime.

Aliens was going to suck. The movie that became THE movie in most fans of the franchise's minds. Yeah.

 

[Something Amyss]

So by that definition, Star Trek III is a sequel to Star Trek II, but Generations is a sequel to neither - it's just another story set in the Star Trek universe.

I would call that a fair definition for that exact reason.

 

[sXeth]

The general issue with prequels is that they fall readily into the trap of simply becoming a very boring presentation o bullet points covering the history of the original like some sort of powerpoint presentation lecture class.

To take Prometheus, it could've been fairly subtle and focused on the Engineers/Jockeys, but instead spent half its time setting up the Xenomorph scene and running around with the ultimately irrelevant Weyland subplot in an effort to more heavily connect it into Alien.

In another example, the Star wars prequels were basically a gigantic overdrawn effort to explain why Luke's father (referenced only vaguely as a prominent good guy in A New Hope) somehow turned into the champion of ebol. Lucas character writing inadequacies aside, the story was basically shot around clicking off events to turn Universe A into Universe B without really showing much concern for whether these events made a good story to present. Then they went out of their way to throw in more easter eggs like having Anakin build C-3po, and introducing R2 and so on.

 

[fezgod]

Prequels don't work if they just sit down and explain every little thing that happened in the game.

Or introduce the entire cast because they feel obliged to be there.

I swear to God I thought Lucas was going to introduce every bit character from Episodes IV-VI.

Anyway, I'd say that they walk a tighter line due to the constraints of the narrative, but sure, they can be good. I think what kills them is the cash-in mentality that applies to them. Which, of course, isn't so different from sequels. It's just that we have a larger body of sequels that don't suck. And even then, sequels have had a bad name through my entire lifetime.

Your post actually makes me feel a bit worried for the Star Wars sequels, since pretty much the entire cast of the original trilogy is going to appear in them. If we saw Luke, Leia and Han Solo in a small, almost cameo role, than their use wouldn't seem like a huge fanwank. But since subtlety is something that has long left the Star Wars franchise, you can be sure that they're going to make the characters do they same thing they've been doing in every movie - reuse the same quotes, have out of place nods to the original trilogy, etc.

The "cash-in mentality" is completely right, while some movies/games are capable of having sequels (especially if they have a larger, overarching plotline), few games/movies warrant prequels, because it is uninteresting for us to sit down and learn every little thing about the plot of the previous games.

Take God of War: Ascension, for instance, it was clearly made as a cash-in because the developers wanted a new God of War game, but didn't want to make the narrative risk of continuing the plotline (this may be the reason why a new Batman game is going to be a prequel, not a sequel to Arkham City). The plotline for Ascension doesn't reveal anything that we haven't been able to figure out on our own - so its plot serves no purpose: it doesn't expand our knowledge or increase character characterization.
But at least video game prequels often retain the gameplay of their franchise, which means playing them is usually just as enjoyable as playing the original. But movie prequels are almost always shit.