Talk:Prequel

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"The Silmarillion contains prequels for The Lord of the Rings. " - not really. While The Silmarillion was published long after LotR, it was being developed by Tolkien long before he even made up hobbits. Ausir 23:32, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

All kudos to whoever decided to leave it in with a footnote. Koro Neil (talk) 14:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The Star Wars example is bad. Star Wars Episode I is a prequel to Attack of the Clones.

A prequel is not "something that has a sequel". A prequel is a story that is set before the main story but is written after it. Thus SW I (1999, according to the article) cannot be a prequel to SW II (2002). Alensha 19:59, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Did Epidsode 1 really popularize the term? I recall using it before the movie came out.

Well, as the article says, the term has existed since the 70s, but was popularised by the Star Wars prequels. Of course, how you define, let alone measure, the "popularity" of a word is highly debatable, but it's probably true that it has brought the word more currency than at some points. I would suggest that it is just one resurgence of a word that crops up from time to time, and therefore question the worthiness of that statement in the article, but I guess it's more or less true. - IMSoP 22:45, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Movies

What about Batman: Begins?

Is Batman Begins really a prequel? Isn't it more of a retcon of the previous Batman origin stories? (Of course, Smallville is also a retcon of the Superman origin story.) Clampton 13:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Batman Begins is a sort of "reinstallment" of the Batman series, similar to how Casino Royal (2006) is planned to start the Bond series all over again, thus, not a prequel.

[edit] Written first? published first?

Can anyone provide evidence that something is a prequel if it tells the backstory to anything composed earlier, rather than to anything published earlier? It is a very fixed convention is all the arts to relate them to one another in terms of their dates of publication--that is, the dates at which their creators deemed them complete enough for release to the public.

This talk of the Ring Operas all being prequels, rather than sequels to one another, is vaguely absurd: it's like someone forcefully trying to stick this bit of informal neologism wherever they can find a place for it. If I am not mistaken, Wagner's composition of the libretto went in one direction, and his composition of the music in the other. But even if that wasn't the case, it no doubt was with many other books.

If we define a prequel as "set before but published after", then there are fixed, public criteria for judging whether something is a prequel. If we insist on defining it in terms of the order the work was written, then (a) it will sometimes be undefined, since many authors move back and forth between composing different parts of different things, and (b) judging it will in any case require delving into biographies, personal notes, and other facts of which there might be no existing records. Fianlly, (c) This divorced the concept from the purpose it is normally meant to serve. The point in calling something a prequel is to indicate that it has a kind of secondary status--that it is seen as elaborating on a previously-known story. The point of interest, then, is whether the audience is already familiar with the original--that is, whether it has already been publicshed, rather than whether it has (merely) already been written.

This is of course a problem with neologisms: it takes a long time for their usage to be fixed enough for thme to have strict definitions. This despite the fact that the article as it currently stands talks about the "strict definition" of prequel, meaning of course just the one given at the top of the page.

So, two issues: (1) There is little or no evidence that prequel is defined in terms of date of composition rather than date of publication. (2) There are reasons why the latter makes a better--more useful--definition.

Captain Wacky 01:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


I think the real usage of the word is based upon the intended order of the works. For novels, that would be the order in which the books are expected to be read. This will almost always be the order of composition, but even more importantly it will be the order of publication. If the works are published in a certain order then they are sure to be viewed in that order, so that must be the intended order (with the unlikely exception of a publisher who dislikes prequels and publishes the works not in the order chosen by the artist).
Not necessarily. Consider an author whose first works in a series are rejected, but later ones are accepted for publication -- perhaps after the author has honed their art. Once they get to be a known author or even a Big Name, the publisher is eager to put out anything they wrote, including the earlier works, which precede the later ones in authorship and continuity but follow them in order of publication. -- Thnidu (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Being a prequel or not is an artistic choice, not a matter of fact. All we get to judge on that issue is what the artist gives us. The order in which the works are published is a huge clue, but it is not definitive because the publisher could possibly release the works out-of-order.
Similarly, the artist could create work B, and then much later create work A, where A seems to be a prequel to B, but the artist can merely say that the works were created out-of-order and B is actually a sequel to A. Even though B was created and published first, the artists wants us to read A before B, therefore A is not a prequel.
I think this article gets a bit confused about Ring Operas when it says that they "were written in reverse order, making each opera a prequel to the following one." Usually a prequel follows the work to which it is a prequel. If the operas were written in reverse order, then surely each one is a prequel to the preceding one, not to the following one. I would make that edit myself, but I know almost nothing about those operas. Lilwik 10:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Thomas Harris Novels

Similar to Captain Wacky's comment above, the Thomas Harris novels were written & published in proper cronological order regarding "the Hannibal Lecter storyline": Red Dragon (1981), The Silence of the Lambs (1988), and Hannibal (1999). However, being that the film adaptions of each novel were made in a different order, this doesn't technically qualify the Red Dragon film adaption as a prequel when compared to the others.

However, his forthcoming novel, Behind the Mask (2006) -- which details Hannibal Lecter's genesis & is set before Red Dragon -- would properly qualify as a prequel.

killer ninjas 00:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grand Theft Auto

Isn't "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" other prequels to "Grand Theft Auto III"? Vice City and San Andreas take place in the same "universe" but in the 1980's and 1990's, respectivly, while III takes place in 2001.

[edit] Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Island 2

Are these video games considered prequels to the Super Mario Bros. series (1, Lost Levels, 2, 3, World)?

[edit] Editorializing

Removed the paragraph beginning "Prequels can be viewed as both positive and negative...". Leaving aside the fact that anything can be viewed as both positive and negative or the fact that the justification for seing prequels as a "positive" was unclear to the point of nonsense, none of the material presented had anything to do with the concept of prequels, or applied generally. Such comments, assuming they were given any attribution, belong on pages about the respective works.

[edit] More editorializing

I removed this:

The word is a portmanteau formed from pre-, meaning before, and sequel, a work which takes place after a previous one. While the word is an etymological aberration ('sequel' derives from 'sequence' - latin:sequor - there is no such thing as a "prequor") its meaning is easily grasped and it has passed into common usage. The correct term should be protosequel, as adopted in other languages, like the Spanish "protosecuela".

Unsourced and in such prescriptive terms, it is hardly encyclopedic. I strongly suspect whoever wrote this made it up: it's certainly nowhere else on the interweb. Morwen - Talk 14:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


As far as I see, you are removing it for no reason. It is totally accurate and fundamented. Check the Wikipedia in Spanish and you'll find similar reasons and documentation. If required, Latin dictionaries may be quoted, but I revert to the original because it represents the only academic explanation in the whole article. Trencacloscas 03:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


Is the OED good enough for you? (That's the Oxford English Dictionary.) They say:

sequel, n. [< PRE- prefix + -quel (in SEQUEL n.).]

-- Thnidu (talk) 22:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wagner

"The idea of a prequel is not new. The libretti for the four operas of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle -- Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung -- were written in reverse order, making each opera a prequel to the preceding one." I changed the word from "subsequent" to "preceding". I believe what's being said is that Rheingold was written earliest, Walkure was written second but is a prequel to Rheingold, Siegfried was written third but is a prequel to Walkure, and Gotterdammerung was written fourth but is a prequel to Siegfried. If someone with more complete Wagnerian experience than I (like, anyone) can indicate differently, please do re-write the paragraph -- I was trying to make it make sense according to what I thought was being indicated about the prequel status. Accounting4Taste 20:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I am no expect, I cannot see that they are prequels. -- Beardo 05:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Aha - no, Gotterdammerung was written first, Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen:_Composition_of_the_text: "It is interesting to note that whereas the prose draft of Das Rheingold was written before that of Die Walküre, the verse draft of Die Walküre preceded that of Das Rheingold. So while there is some truth to the oft-quoted remark that the Ring cycle was conceived backwards, it is not completely accurate." And the final scene of the cycle was written last. And they were performed in the right order. -- Beardo 06:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
And - Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen#Composition_of_the_music - "In November 1853, Wagner began the composition draft of Das Rheingold. Unlike the verses, which were written as it were in reverse order, the music would be composed in the same order as the narrative." -- Beardo 06:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nightcomers

Where does IMDB say that it was the first prequel ? All I see is a comment about "kind of prequel". ANd it wasn't based on any book. -- Beardo 05:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Literature???

Is it valid to put Literature into this article. Since the concept of prequel is just a modern snob gimmick, what's the point in mentioning Jane Eyre and other classics??? This spurious term is never attached to literature. Trencacloscas 19:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Snob? So writing isn't literature unless the author's been dead for a hundred years or more? IMHO, that's the only snobbishness here. If Shakespeare had written Henry IV part 2 before Henry IV part 1, we'd be perfectly justified in calling part 1 a prequel. --Thnidu (talk) 22:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What about facts???? Any references about the term used in literature? Trencacloscas (talk) 02:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alien vs Predator

I'm going to remove the Predator movies from the list, as they are set in the late 80s and 1997, well before when AvP and AvP:R are said to take place 131.104.252.201 (talk) 14:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prequel listings

Is the listing of all prequels really necessary? Wikipedia ain't just a dump of indiscriminate and trivial facts. WP:NOT#INFO, WP:TRIVIA seem appropriate to cite here. Ong elvin (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I'm unsure why this film is listed as being a prequel to "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For A Few Dollars More". Although they are commonly called Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Western Trilogy, Eastwood plays a different character in each film and the films aren't themselves specifically related. Halfabeet (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)