Moeskido

star wars.

really, the budget and technological advances are to blame, letting lucas do whatever idiotic thing he wanted to do in the prequels. when the original trilogy was made, those factors served as a kind of filter -- with limited budget and technology, you don't bother with the really stupid stuff, and scenes that are unimportant and require sfx are left on the cutting room floor. a good example is the han/jabba scene ep4. it's better NOT being in the movie. we're left with a bigger build up to actually seeing jabba, and it doesn't quite demean the plot in the same way. as it turns out, george lucas is just a terrible filmmaker who happens to have made an epic accidentally, after all the crap was editting out by budget, technology difficulties, and other directors. let's not forget that of the OT, the only one george himself directed is the least favourite among fans.

but... here's the kicker. were did that budget come from? star wars royalties and the star wars brand. and where did the technology come from? ILM... which started with star wars. if he'd had the same budget and special effects for the OT, it woulda sucked too.

of course, there's just bad writing, too. the fact that darth vader was luke skywalker's father was NEVER in the original concept. it got tossed in because it seemed to make sense in oedipal sort of way. this paints any future writers for the earlier stories into a corner. how do you tell anakin's story without blowing the surprise? you can't.

arachnophilia

actually, i think he was one of the few things i DID like about that movie. it was him, "the line must be drawn HERE!", and "resistence is futile" from data, with the emphasis on the other syllable.

arachnophilia

gottacook

Slatz_Grobnik

Just off the top of my head, I can think of C.J. Cherryh, some of whose "prequel"-ish novels filling in the early years of her Alliance-Union universe are among her best. And while I hated Asimov's late Foundation sequels, I though the prequel Prelude to Foundation was pretty good.

There were loads of reasons the SW prequels sucked, but at its core it was the same reason that the Matrix sequels sucked, which was that the creator(s) went off the rails. And I could write at astounding length about everything that was wrong with Enterprise, and almost none of it would be in anyway related to its prequel status.

inconstant_reader

A good story is a good story. We don't read sci-fi for an ending that looks to the future. That's like saying biographies or historical accounts are pointless because we know how they end.

Bad content. Bad premise. Bad reasoning. Like most articles with a list involved.

medeasin

Yeah. I'll believe that when I see it.

Anyway. A major reason why Phantom Menace, etc was so bad is that it couldn't compete with everything in out imagination. Since you get dropped in the middle of the story, it was easy to make up the earlier history in your head. What I saw on the screen wasn't near as cool as what I had been imagining for fifteen years.

Another problem with prequels: the "past" always looks better than the "future." ST: Enterprise has better looking gadgets and uniforms and stuff than the original series. Yeah, it's because the original series was made in the sixties, but it's still a disconnect. (DS9 did a good job with acknowledging all that stuff in the "Trials and Tribbleations" episode, so I know the franchise could have done it if they had wanted to.)

edosan

Time-line manipulations belong IN the story, not outside of it. I'm calling baloney.

Auld_Lang_Ziety

Squatch363

Jeff-Minor

scd

Jeff-Minor

I think it's horrible that most of the writing for Trek or Star Wars is so horrible with regard to logic. I was watching Trek First Cotact the other day, and as much as I love the Borg I just couldn't help saying, "All those millions of assimilated beings and their technology, and yet the Borg don't pay attention to you when you walk by them in a "non-threatening" manner? What? Didn't the Borg ever assimilate a motion detector? Didn't the Borg learn that humans can blow things up while looking like innocent? I hate bad logic in sf! The writers are such plot-driven retards for the most part.

Jeff-Minor

Prequels are anti-creativity: No they're not…I'm not sure about the plot to the new Star Trek movie but I heard it might deal with the Earth-Romulan War. All we know about that war was that it was fought between Romulus and the Alliance Archer put together; they used nuclear weapons; a treaty was signed via subspace communication which created the Neutral Zone. Basically all Trek did was give out the title…it still takes creativity to write the book.

And there are a lot of stories that simply aren't told at all. The Lost Era trek novels are some of my favorite. There is also the point that placing a story in an already established universe eliminates the need to focus on the back story and lets the writer get to the juicy parts.

Prequels are anti-futurist: Most sci-fi prequels still take place in the future. And I would argue that prequels are important for the viewer to understand HOW the future came to be, understanding the decisions made and why they were.

Prequels are anti-heroic: If that's the case then why even make war movies? We all knew Leonidas was going to die in 300…so what? Was he somehow LESS then heroic because of it?

Prequels are all about trivia: So what's wrong with catering to the fans? Trivia also makes the story all the more believable to the viewers which is crucial for success.

Prequels are small and personal. Uh, so what? Star Trek has always been about the people, individuals and how they interact with technology and future situations. The best thing about TOS isn't the Enterprise, it's the interaction between the main characters. If anything, a prequel boils it down to the essentials.

BTW: This is my first post here!

KosstAmojan

The worst thing about his prequels is that they undermined and contradicted the original movies so egregiously. It takes 20 years to build the first Death Star but only a few to build a double-sized replacement? Darth Vader tracks the stolen Death Star plans to his own home planet and doesn't think twice about this coincidence?

Why does a galaxy full of cheap, abundant and obedient robots need slaves? Slaves with their OWN robot servants? What kind of society elects monarchs, and then picks 16 year old girls for the job? If it were a purely symbolic post, I could see it, but this fledgling is supposed to hold her own in the Senate, and she's no Bene Gesserit prodigy, either. Just imagine if Padme were an orphan, thrust into the monarchy before her time, but so grateful to have her dear uncle Palpatine to guide her? Lucas had the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy here, and he pissed it all away.

SeeingI

I think part of the problem with the SW/ST prequels has been that the creators have a hard time deciding who their audience is. Do they want to bring in new viewers, or do they assume that their audience are fans of the original? As soon as the balance goes too far one way or the other they are doomed (this is true with spin offs and movies-from-tv-shows, Serenity comes to mind).

I think that Enterprise was a better idea then Young Kirk, just like I think KOTOR was a better prequel then Episodes 1-3. With enough distance between your prequel and the original you have a lot more freedom creatively.

When I heard there was a new Trek I was hoping for a sequel taking place as far after Voyager as TNG was from the original. I was hoping for SUPER SCIENCE, and transport buffers used to store every day items (deployable buildings even). I wanted to see people using the transporter system to break themselves down and rebuild themselves for whatever mission was coming up (man, 4 arms and the ability to breath methane would be handy on this planet). But no, we get Young Kirk.

Does anyone remember the Young Indiana Jone Chronicles? Man, that show was balls.

ElijahDProphet

Jeff-Minor

There are lots of examples in genre fiction where prequels have worked well. I was particularly impressed as an impressionable teenage spec fic reader with Isaac Asimov's second Foundation trilogy. In those three prequels Asimov manages the quite substantial task of unifying his foundation novels with his robots and empire novels. This required a lot of creativity but he pulled it off quite well in my mind. They were also big stories that were at the same time small and personal - connecting two of Asimov's most memorable characters.

Novels face all sorts of constraints. Plot constraints caused by something being a prequel are just some. It's these constraints that drive good authors to tell better stories.

[roberthoge.livejournal.com]

RobertHoge

There's a whole generation of fans who now actually believe there is storytelling value to be found in "meanwhile, on the other side of the room" stories, which do nothing but fill in gaps with as much clicheed dialog as an overpriced paperback can hold.

@wildness: Rick Berman may have overseen the gradual dilution of Trek into the pablum it became, but Ira Stephen Behr's DS9 gave the franchise the first signs of originality it had seen since TNG's third season. He raised the stakes, told better stories, and purist fans are still whining about it.

Moeskido

okeribok

Star Wars and Star Trek prequels were bad because the movies were bad, not because of the general timestamps on the setting.

Balius

E0157H7

Same for Enterprise...up until season 4 I felt I was watching a show that had nearly nothing to do with Star Trek...they could have called it Quantum Trek and it would have made more sense. But I do tend to agree that going backwards is never the best idea.

That being said, in terms of other mediums I found some great entertainment in some forms of prequels such as the SW:Knights of the Old Republic prequels for example and I am looking forward to the narrative of Halo Wars.

Cantonkid

So then, why mask an argument against Big Sci-Fi Franchises, rather than against a form that we all agree can be used for good or ill?

(Actually, there's a question there as to when "huge" is triggered, and whether the issue is more about the medium than the fan base).

I mean, really, how many iterations did Star Trek have before it tried a prequel, partially hoping, I think, to clean out the drek of the painted in corner? And Star Wars begged for the prequels, partially because it starts off in media res and partially because the ending of Jedi is tight, and leads to arguably worse material than the prequels for volume and tone.

Yes, you know where the prequel is going. But that can make for a better roller coaster than a narrative when you don't if the writer is willing to risk preconceptions. In the era where writers perceive the need to constantly play to the convention floor, we end up with the above soulless wank-fests.

Slatz_Grobnik

I agree with this whole heartedly, regarding the Star Trek universe anyway. Enterprise was a terrible idea, IMO, when they could've done more interesting stories. Hell, set the next Star Trek series in the Mirror Universe for all I care, but just don't go backwards.

Szin

If Lucas were to pass to torch, then maybe there should be more, but Lucas has proven himself a hack and a one-trick pony (okay two - there was American Graffiti) and I for one could not bear one more nano-second of his lack of creativity. But, since his Ego would never allow him to turn the control to someone else again (The Empire Strikes Back being far more superior than anything he did personally, he couldn't handle it again), this is another topic dead to me.

wildness

But beyond this, let's call for a complete reboot of the Star Trek universe. I walked away from Star Trek: Enterprise in season one for being pointless as prequals are; recently I caught some episodes from season four and am completely confused - how can all of this time travel war stuff have happened in the same universe? It makes no sense.

But beyond the bad prequal series, Deep Space Nine completely wrecked the universe. The war against the Dominion??? What a stupid exercise in pointless destruction of the Star Trek Universe.

Rick Berman has single-handedly wrecked this once great universe. The Next Generation was a great leap forward in the universe timeline. But, beyond it, we have seen a complete lack of creativity with Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and ESPECIALLY Enterprise.

So I call for all fans to rise up and call for one of two things (both include the complete banishment of Berman from the process): OPTION 1 - We need another leap forward beyond the Next Generation series that does NOT include DS9 or Voyager or the time travel shenanigans of Enterprise; a leap forward as grand as TNG was to the original series; OR OPTION 2 - Abrams' new movie needs to be a reboot of the whole universe just like Batman Returns was a reboot to the Batman franchise.

Without one of these options, I will consider the topid dead to me.

wildness

But then again, that might just have been an affinity for a certain engineer..... :)

tristansluthien

taxbaby

For some reason? How about pure economics?

The fees requires to pay Shatner, Nimoy, et al are enormous. By shooting a prequel, they can hire (relative) unknowns and reduce the production budget all the the while taking advantage of rampant fanboy-ism.

Similarly with the Star Wars prequel: a sequel would have been economically untenable, and with stars aging difficult.

Frankly, it's astonishing that they're making a *fourth* Indian Jones w/ Harrison Ford. If it's not a block buster of legendary proportions, it will be deemed an economic failure. (Even the dizzying prospect of Cate Blanchett in leather is dragged down by the misery that is Shia Lebouf.)

One story I'd like to see a sequel to would be Serenity, which is a universe that needs to STOP with the prequel-ing already for different reasons: get over it folks, Wash is gone from the world. It was a great development and the world should move on rather than keep living in the past...

darcymcgee

The Star Wars prequels happened to suck because of the acting and the dialog, not because we already knew what happened to Darth Vader. That's one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. It wreaks of the odious NO SPOILERS culture. As if simply knowing the framework of plot points and connecting the dots is the reason we watch films. It's supposed to be about seeing how the decisions that characters make over time bring about change, and watching things develop.

To use a cliche, it's not the destination, it's the journey.

lukeoneil47

taxbaby

taxbaby

Charlie Jane Anders

Westender

Do we stick with sci-fi here or can we delve into fantasy, too? The fact that "The Hobbit" is being made now makes it a "prequel" to the LOTR movies (even though the source material for it was written first, the movie will still be viewed as a prequel).

Again, I think with good writing and direction, the Star Wars prequels could have been spectacular. Just because you know the outcome of the story, does that mean there is nothing good about filling in the details, motivations, etc? The journey is what's important.

This coming from the guy who wouldn't see Titanic because I knew the boat was going to sink...

AZTriGuy

Jar Jar's "Where My Heart Will Take Me"
It's been a sad road, getting from there to here, Ani.
It's been a long time, but my massah time is finally near.
And I can feel the stupid in the wind right now. Nothing in my way.
And da fans wanna smack me round some more, da fans wanna smack me round.

Cause I'm da blight on the Force.
I'm going where my stereotype will take me.
I'm ugly to see. I can annoy anything.
I'm the byproduct of bad writing. And everyone wants to fry or stomp me.
I can kill Star Wars. I'm the blight, blight on the Force.

It's been a long time. Trying to find an escape.
Been through the silliness. Now they want me to go away.
And they want that my ass be killed at last. I have tainted the Force.
And da fans wanna smack me round some more, da fans wanna smack me round.

Cause I'm da blight on the Force.
I'm going where my stereotype will take me.
I'm ugly to see. I can annoy anything.
I'm the byproduct of bad writing. And everyone wants to fry or stomp me.
I can kill Star Wars. I'm the blight, blight on the Force.

ManchuCandidate

aspiringexpatriate

You know, a prequel to Alien might be good. I mean, a prequel that isn't Alien vs Predator.

aspiringexpatriate

But I've heard some pretty fucked-up shit about kale.

Moff

taxbaby

Final - should have been the first Black President.

Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders

taxbaby

aspiringexpatriate

Charlie Jane Anders

taxbaby

taxbaby

... I'm actually serious. Of course, they are only in the top ten. I think around... six-ish. Number three would be (bad) fan-fiction. Number one, definitely remakes. Definitely. Second would be rushed video-game tie-ins.

Ghede

Kirk: Alright men, this is a dangerous mission. And it's likely one of us will be killed. The landing party will consist of myself, Mr Spock, Doctor McCoy, and Ensign Ricky.
Ensign Ricky: Ahh crap

sir_eccles

Ms Pointy

Does this mean that 'the hobbit' is already doomed?

It is, after all, a prequel.

Dalboy

aspiringexpatriate

And knowing the ending actually makes writing a compelling story more difficult, not easier. It's the prime example of writing yourself into a hole with no way out. Cause that's what air ducts are for.

That said, most of those you've mentioned are crap movies.

Also, I disagree with the idea that you can 'change' history in time travel. Cause, like, if you go back, you've already been there and done what you do.

Oh, and Rome was a wonderful story even though we knew what happened to the big characters in the end.

aspiringexpatriate

Your plan might be crazy enough to work.

Ms Pointy

taxbaby

taxbaby

Ms Pointy

Ms Pointy

@Charlie Jane Anders: ST:FC wasn't fan service, at least for this fan; I kept grumbling "but Zephram Cochrane was born on Alpha Centauri, not Earth, we'd already gotten that far without warp! also, he didn't look or act anything like that!"

Evil Tortie's Mom

taxbaby

Saying that prequels are a bad idea just because they're prequels is like condemning World War II movies because we know that Hitler lost. Or arguing that there is no compelling drama in ancient Rome because we all know that Rome eventually fell.

How stupid is that?

No, the problem with prequels-- or, in this case, the only prequels that anyone ever talks about (Star Wars and Star Trek)-- is that they simply aren't creative or imaginative enough. They *do* succumb to excessive trivia and fan-service, and that's a shame. There is, what, 300 years between the present day and the Star Trek universe, right? You're telling me that there were NO compelling tales to be told in the birth of the Federation? No "future history" that can not only be exciting and entertaining, but also illuminating for what came later?

Again, stupid. Blame the writers, not the premise.

Daveinva

taxbaby

Mister Adequate

Grrsn Dn

I guess the lesson from that one is to give your prequel room to breathe, we know that Anakin is doomed to become Darth Vader, but you get the freedom to choose if Darth Revan will be redeemed or go back to the dark side.

eviladrian

@Charlie Jane Anders: Tell that to the masseuse who just left my apartment. (She loved my Axe body spray, by the way.)

Moff

AZTriGuy

Now, as the prequels came out, there were a lot of reasons why they weren't done well. Poor directing, great actors delivering some of the worst written dialog in history (come on, other than Hayden, the other actors are all well respected and do very well - Ewan, Natalie, Sam Jackson, Ian McdDirmid, Jimmy Smit...oh, nevermind...). My point is, while they could have been made so much better, I think that going back in time to see why characters made the choices that they did just adds another layer to the overall mythology. I don't think that it's saying there's no point in going forward, or anti-futurist, you can always continue again. One example is the Indiana Jones series. The second was actually a prequel to the first, though it didn't really build on the story of the first. Then they jumped back to later for the third one.

And, yes, prequels generally are more personal, because you are dealing with individual stories of why someone made a certain choice later in their life. Not necessarily a bad thing, just needs to be written well. The Star Wars prequels could have really been epic if they had a decent writing team (without Lucas) and a solid director (like Kirshner). But, they were poorly written and directed, and we get that slop.

Full of worthless trivia? Oh, yeah. The Star Wars prequels were filled with that. I agree 100% with that, much of it was in there simply for the sake of having trivia and Easter Eggs and not for real advancement of the story.

AZTriGuy

Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders

taxbaby

Is the Godfather II exempted because it's drama rather than scifi, or because it includes events both before AND after the first film?

And yeah, just because the Star Wars film series starts with Episode IV, that doesn't make KOTOR or KOTOR 2 any less cool.

I think of a plot timeline as being just that. In a story, these things are happening, happened and will happen. To elaborate on the origins of characters in one point on the timeline by going back to their origins can alter the tone of the story and add richness and depth to all of its components.

Was meeting Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact a bad idea because the time it took place in was set before TOS?

s0crates82

olliverkirby