Prequels are bad. Stop making them. (article)

[spiderfan1985]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I really enjoy Prometheus and Alien Covenant, but I'll be the first to say that they're rather non-essential.

What I love about Ridley Scott's Alien is that, in the vein of the old H.P. Lovecraft horror stories, it showed us a horrifying entity that was just a small glimpse of the unknown terrors out there in the universe. Any expansion on that concept is non-essential in my eyes. Fun, yes, but non-essential.


I think that Casino Royale (2006) really steals the show as far as "prequel" films go, although I would not necessarily consider it a prequel in the strictest sense.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes/Dawn of the Planet of the Apes/War of the Planet of the Apes movies are awesome, but even those movies come across to me almost as "fan fiction" tied to the original movies.
(Of course, along those lines, I suppose that we could call Escape from the Planet of the Apes and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes "prequel films", although they follow a time travel chronology that happened after the events of the original film, so to speak.)


Of course, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a classic, although I've never particularly thought of it as prequel to the first film.

Rise, Dawn, and War are not really meant to be prequels to the original Charlton Heston film because the origin of the apes is completely different from what was told in that film. They homage the original, but they are meant to be a standalone trilogy with their own story.

[Arawn]

Also, they appropriate character names from the original series, presumably as nods to the originals, for different characters: "Dodge Landon", a combination of the names of Heston's fellow astronauts, and a character named Nova who shows up roughly two thousand years earlier than the Nova in the originals.

[spiderfan1985]

Originally Posted by Arawn

Also, they appropriate character names from the original series, presumably as nods to the originals, for different characters: "Dodge Landon", a combination of the names of Heston's fellow astronauts, and a character named Nova who shows up roughly two thousand years earlier than the Nova in the originals.

Exactly. Well placed nods that tip the hat to the original, but in the end they blaze their own trail.

[octagon]

I wonder what this Epstein guy was doing before he wrote this article.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by spiderfan1985

Exactly. Well placed nods that tip the hat to the original, but in the end they blaze their own trail.

But Rise of the Planet of the Apes specifically mentions the Icarus space mission from the original film (and Escape from the Planet of the Apes), initially in news coverage and later via a newspaper headline about it being lost in space. So it can equally be seen as a direct prequel offering an alternate explanation to how the Apes gained dominance. Similarly the plague that is mentioned in the newtrilogy ties in with the plague that killed off all the domestic animals that's mentioned in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by Aclea

So it can equally be seen as a direct prequel offering an alternate explanation to how the Apes gained dominance.

That doesn't make sense. How can it be a direct prequel with a different ape origin?