Poll: Prequels; Can they be good?

[kailus13]

I dislike prequels because they have the tendency to buttfuck the already established canon. For example there's an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars where Anakin and a team of others try and infiltrate a prison for Jedi by freezing themselves in carbonite which suddenly throws Vader's actions in Empire Strikes Back into question. Why would he need to test the process on Han if he already knew it'd work?

Stress induced, very specific amnesia? Could be where he got the idea. Or it could just be stupid unthinking writers.

Given that Metal Gear Solid 3 is easily the best game in the series, yes prequels can be good. Just as long as the don't destroy the canon of the series (see above).

 

[acillies45]

They can be, but usually aren't.

The issue with most prequels is that they focus too much on saying 'Hey look at what's going to happen! You know what this is going to do right? OOOH, boy oh boy! Look a person from the other movie! OOOH a shot you see in that one too!'

Pretty much they focus to much on the fact that the other story comes after and not enough on their own story.

The Hobbit (book) is a good example of a prequel. It doesn't need you to have read Lord of the Rings and vice versa. It's its own (well done) story.

While the Star Wars prequels were basically all pointing toward the original trilogy the entire time and seemed so focused on that that they forgot that they needed their own story, so what came out was a sub-par story with sub-par characters.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I dislike prequels because they have the tendency to buttfuck the already established canon. For example there's an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars where Anakin and a team of others try and infiltrate a prison for Jedi by freezing themselves in carbonite which suddenly throws Vader's actions in Empire Strikes Back into question. Why would he need to test the process on Han if he already knew it'd work?

Stress induced, very specific amnesia? Could be where he got the idea. Or it could just be stupid unthinking writers.

Given that Metal Gear Solid 3 is easily the best game in the series, yes prequels can be good. Just as long as the don't destroy the canon of the series (see above).

Regardless, I'm thinking it's stupid unthinking writers. You'd think most writers would hate writing prequels, but I'm guessing from my example than many just don't care and do whatever they want anyway.

 

[Playful Pony]

Obviously. Movie tie-in games can be good to, but I guess the key word is CAN. Why they generally seem to be poor may be a more interesting discussion =p.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (GBA 2003) is technically the prequel to Fire emblem: sword of seals (GBA 2002 JP-only). It's better because it polishes a lot of the shit of off SoS, which was a pretty mediocre game.

 

[King Billi]

Of course prequels can be good, several examples of which have already been mentioned.

They're stories like any other.

The Hobbit (book) is a good example of a prequel. It doesn't need you to have read Lord of the Rings and vice versa. It's its own (well done) story.

The Hobbit was written several years before the Lord of the Rings which actually makes it The Hobbit's sequel. Prequels are generally written afterwards aren't they?

 

[DRTJR]

I'm shocked that nobody mentioned Fire Emblem: rekka no ken which is a prequel that introduced Fire Emblem to the west.

EDIT: somebody Has mentioned it yay! I dare say that the videogame industry has a vast number of good prequels as apposed to other forms of media.

 

[Froken Keke]

Prequels are generally written afterwards aren't they?

Yeah, that's sort of the definition. You don't call A New Hope a prequel because The Empire Strikes Back exists.

 

[scorptatious]

Uh Metal Gear Soli...

Also Metal Gear Solid 3.

Darn.

But yeah, I'd say that's a pretty darn good example of a prequel being good.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Is this a question? Of course prequels can be good. We've already got proof of that (Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, Peace Walker, Deus Ex: HR, Halo Reach, etc.). The only reason "Prequel" has a big negative connotation is because of a major turn-of-the-century failure in science-fiction film-making.

 

[King Aragorn]

Yes, defiantly. MGS Big Boss series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, First Class are all examples of such. Prequels can fill in holes, expand the universe, or flesh out things we know of.

 

[vasiD]

It all depends.

Were the original writer/s working on it?
Was it made by the same team?
If either is no then was the new team genuinely attempting to capture the feeling of the originals and/or working with the original team/creator to ensure that it felt authentic?

If the answer is no to all of these, it's likely to be shit, if even one is yes then it has the same odds of sucking as any sequel (in fact this simple questionnaire can be applied to sequels as well).

 

[acillies45]

Of course prequels can be good, several examples of which have already been mentioned.

They're stories like any other.

The Hobbit (book) is a good example of a prequel. It doesn't need you to have read Lord of the Rings and vice versa. It's its own (well done) story.

The Hobbit was written several years before the Lord of the Rings which actually makes it The Hobbit's sequel. Prequels are generally written afterwards aren't they?

Technically speaking, yes. The Hobbit was written I think a decade before LoTR. BUT, it's more or less a completely different story. There's minimal mention of things that occur in LoTR, and when they are, they're not pointed at as foreshadowing for LoTR, but just as elements in The Hobbit. I use this as an example as what a prequel should look like, because it doesn't matter that nothing in the LoTR is mentioned, the story stands on its own. Is it a prequel in the sense that Star Wars I-III are prequels, not exactly. But The Hobbit was done right.

Is it harder to make a prequel for a series that already exists? Yes. But that shouldn't mean it is done poorly. I personally don't like most prequels because they focus too much on what is to come, instead of what is currently happening in the story.

 

[Mrkillhappy]

Of course just look at MGS3, Devil May Cry 3 and Deus ex Human Revolution all of which are considered good. Though if a prequel is done wrong it can be catastrophic.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Any other examples of good prequels or comments?

Well.

Metal Gear Solid 3
Resident Evil 0
Metroid Prime (is set between Metroid and Metroid 2, so interquel?)
Halo: Reach
Halo ODST

For films, Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom.

There are always far more factors at play than whether the next one is set before or after it's predecessor, although prequels often suffer from a lack of tension when you know before hand that certain characters are doomed, whilst others are invulnerable on account of their presence or lack of in the preceding title.

 

[themyrmidon]

Fire Emblem is (to me) superior to it's Japan-only source game.

(Blazing Sword > Sword of Seals)

 

[vid87]

If it hasn't been mentioned already, doesn't KOTOR take place hundreds of years before the mains Star Wars timeline?