prequel

A prequel is a literary, dramatic, or filmic work whose story precedes that of a previous work,^[1][2] by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative.^[3] If Y is a prequel to X, then Y's storyline precedes X's, yet Y is released at a later date than X. Therefore, a prequel is a work that forms part of a back-story to the preceding work. Like sequels, prequels may or may not concern the same plot as the work from which they are derived. Often, they explain the background which led to the events in the original, but sometimes the connections are not as explicit. Sometimes, prequels play on the fact that the audience knows what will happen next, using deliberate references to create dramatic irony. The term is a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- (from Latin prae, "before") and -quel as in sequel (a supplementing work, especially one with a setting later than its predecessor's, from the Latin sequela, that which follows).^[1][2]

History

Though the word "prequel" is of recent origin, works fitting this concept existed long before. The Cypria, presupposing hearers' acquaintance with the events of the Homeric epic, confined itself to what preceded the Iliad, and thus formed a kind of introduction. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word "prequel" first appeared in print in 1958 in an article by Anthony Boucher in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, used to describe James Blish's novel They Shall Have Stars. The term came into general usage in the 1970s and 80s.^[2]

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) may have inaugurated the term "prequel" into the mainstream.^[4] The term has since been popularized by the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005).^{[5][unreliable source?]}

Usage

Rather than being a concept distinct from that of a sequel, a prequel still adheres to the general principle of serialization, defined only by its internal chronology and publication order. For example, the Star Wars episodes were released in the order IV-VI followed by I-III; Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) is a prequel to Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) but, under the dictionary definition, is only a predecessor rather than a prequel of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) due to release order.

Sometimes "prequel" describes followups where it is not always possible to apply a label defined solely in terms of intertextuality.^[6] In the case of The Godfather Part II, the narrative combines elements of a prequel with those of a more generalized sequel by having two intercut narrative strands, one continuing from the first film (the mafia family story under the leadership of Michael Corleone), and one, completely separate, detailing events that precede it (the story of his father Vito Corleone in his youth). In this sense the film can be regarded as a "prequel and a sequel" (i.e., both a prior and a continuing story), and is often referred to in this manner.^[6] Star Trek (2009) has also been referred to as a "prequel",^[7] although the film has a narrative much more complex than that of a typical prequel, sharing traits with that of a sequel and a remake too. In the film an elderly Spock enters a parallel universe at an earlier point in the timeline, which results in him encountering his younger counterpart along with the other younger incarnations of the crew of the Enterprise. Besides depicting an early adventure of the crew, it still operates as a sequel by depicting a later adventure of the Spock character, and by altering the history of the characters it also partially remakes the original series. Due to these conflicting factors, it has been argued that the film is not a prequel to the series, but in fact a parallel development to it.^[8]

Similarly, in the original Planet of the Apes series, even though the latter three films depict events chronologically prior to those of the first film, the narrative itself is continuous. The latter installments (Escape,^[9] Conquest,^[10][11] and Battle^[12]) are sometimes called "prequels" in a broad sense of the word, and they are also sequels defined both broadly (as later installments) and narrowly (as continuation of the previously established storyline).^[1]

In recent times the term "prequel" has also been applied to origin-story reboots, such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Batman Begins, and Casino Royale.^[13][14] The creators of both Batman Begins and Rise of the Planet of the Apes also stated their intent to dispense with the continuity of the previous films so they would exist as separate pieces of work, with Christopher Nolan—director of Batman Begins—explicitly stating he does not consider it a prequel.^[14][15] Here, "prequel" denotes status as a "franchise-renewing original" that depicts events earlier in the (internally inconsistent) narrative cycle than those of a previous installment.^[14] Some reviewers require that a prequel must lead up to the beginning of its original work,^[3] which is inconsistent with works that dispense with the narrative of previous work and are not significantly within the same continuity.

List of prequels

Literature

Plays

Films

Television series

Comics

Computer and video games

Manga and anime

Cross-media

See also

Look up prequel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Sequel
• Back-story
• Retcon
• Film series
• Reboot

References