Poll: Prequels; Can they be good?

[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.

 

[Zantos]

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

Prometheus also severely lacked in honour, respect and coherence.

This is the greatest thing anyone has ever said about Prometheus. Pure gold.

OT: Of course prequels can be good, just so long as they respect the material. Anyone giving it a 'Nope, cut that, that's shit, that's going against my idea, that's terrible' should have their rights to make the sequel forcibly removed. Similarly anyone too fanboyish to see where improvements can be made which compliment the original or to see where they can add their own little bit that makes it unique, they shouldn't be allowed.

A good prequel should support what comes later, in the same way a sequel shouldn't kick pre-established ideas. Like most things in life, as long as you don't fuck it up it'll probably be fine.

 

[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?

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.

I think it would've made a better movie if it hadn't been weighed down by its responsibilities as a prequel. It's all the more disappointing that the connection between it and Alien is kinda tacked on.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

Well, as for Star Wars, Lucas is no longer at the helm. This could mean better things or worse ones, but at least there's a chance to cling to.

GoW makes me wonder where they're going next, because I don't think they have the capacity to stop making GoW games. Yet, as you say, there was no need for another GoW game except for a new paycheck. Kratos really doesn't need character development, as he's barely a character. Granted, most of the fun of GoW had little to do with character, anyway.

I'm curious about the Batman one, though. There doesn't seem to be much you can do to go beyond Arkham City, but at least with Batman, there's a lot of potential stories. So the question becomes: legit game, or cheap cash-in? Without Rocksteady at the helm, I'm betting the latter.

Ah well.

 

[Captain Sunshine]

I think this has already been answered tenfold, but I just wanna add one thing I think prequels (in games) tend to be really hit and miss on: References to the original game. I have yet to find one that has the perfect balance of subtle nods or story pieces that will eventually be solved in the original. It's either played for a lot of comedic cheese (TIME PARADOX) or just way over-the-top. In the over-the-top case, I mean that either they were just looking for the faintest dangling thread to tie it to, or they sound like they're completely in love with the original (KH: BBS any time you came across Sora, Kairi or Riku in child form it was a bit gratuitous).


Crisis Core had some excellent tie-ins but just had too many of them, it started feeling like a reference checklist after awhile.

Spoiler

Like Aerith's bow being from Zack, or naming 7th Heaven. Really nice touches that I loved as a fan on their own, but they mounted pretty quickly by the end of the game until it felt like Zack was single-handedly responsible for writing the original FFVII. It was all wonderfully cheesey, but not to my taste after awhile.

Loved the game though.

This isn't really a solid argument at all because I picked 3 games with notoriously ridiculous plotlines with lots of cheese, but just something to point out for discussion.

Captcha: mumbo jumbo. lol.

 

[fezgod]

I'm curious about the Batman one, though. There doesn't seem to be much you can do to go beyond Arkham City, but at least with Batman, there's a lot of potential stories. So the question becomes: legit game, or cheap cash-in? Without Rocksteady at the helm, I'm betting the latter.

Ah well.

Well Arkham City does have a lot of potential for a sequel, since we have hints that some sort of cataclysm is going to destroy Gotham and villains like Scarecrow have been teased for coming back in a sequel. But since they're going to delay that plotline until the 4th game, as the next one is going to a "silver age prequel" (link below) that's designed to also introduce the Justice League - I feel as though, plotwise, we're going to be retreading the same old ground that's been covered before, rather than make serious risks with the gameplay or plot-line.

Personally, I think they're making the game a prequel so they don't have to deal with the fact that

Spoiler

the Joker is dead, which is a shame because they could use a Joker-less game to flesh out some of Batman's other villains.

The sad part is that I'm probably going to buy the game regardless, thus enabling videogame companies to continue releasing prequels.