The Problems with Prequels...

[fireproof78]

I think when you do a prequel you're facing pretty much the same kind of challenges as when you do a sequel.

I think it faces an additional challenge of potentially contradicting people's expectations of what the back story to the original work was. Sequels get a bit of a pass, some times, because they are usually delving in to new information, not shedding light on previously mentioned history.

 

[locutus101]

I think it faces an additional challenge of potentially contradicting people's expectations of what the back story to the original work was. Sequels get a bit of a pass, some times, because they are usually delving in to new information, not shedding light on previously mentioned history.

True, but on the other hand a prequel is supposed to tread on well-trodden ground while a sequel has to come up with new inventions, new aliens, new designs.

 

[OpenMaw]

True, but on the other hand a prequel is supposed to tread on well-trodden ground while a sequel has to come up with new inventions, new aliens, new designs.

Both have their potential for disaster.

Just look at the friggin' Ferengi. My Gods..! They were supposed to be the Klingons of TNG. Ah-hahahha! Ahahahaha! ...No. I'm shocked, with how embarrassingly bad their first appearance was that they ever showed up again. It wasn't until DS9 that they found any real dignity at all thanks to the layered character of Quark.

 

[locutus101]

Both have their potential for disaster.

Just look at the friggin' Ferengi. My Gods..! They were supposed to be the Klingons of TNG. Ah-hahahha! Ahahahaha! ...No. I'm shocked, with how embarrassingly bad their first appearance was that they ever showed up again. It wasn't until DS9 that they found any real dignity at all thanks to the layered character of Quark.

I am just glad that after that first episode the Ferengi stopped jumping around like a bunch of crazed monkeys. It was annoying the hell out of me.

 

[eyeresist]

Just look at the friggin' Ferengi. My Gods..! They were supposed to be the Klingons of TNG. Ah-hahahha! Ahahahaha! ...No. I'm shocked, with how embarrassingly bad their first appearance was that they ever showed up again. It wasn't until DS9 that they found any real dignity at all thanks to the layered character of Quark.

I remember that for a long time after their first appearance I called them as Space Jews, due to the way they seemed based on anti-semitic stereotypes..

 

[locutus101]

I remember that for a long time after their first appearance I called them as Space Jews, due to the way they seemed based on anti-semitic stereotypes..

To me they're are more like capitalist stereotypes.

As Data would say: The caveat emptor* type of people.

*Let the buyer beware.

 

[Terok Nor]

The real problem with prequels is that a lot of people including myself hate them. I've yet to see a really great prequel to anything. I just don't care about going backwards unless it's a flashback or time travel. It's a personal preference based on my lack of enjoyment of prequels to date. Hopefully Discovery proves to me that prequels can be enjoyable. Enteprise sure didn't.

 

[locutus101]

The real problem with prequels is that a lot of people including myself hate them. I've yet to see a really great prequel to anything. I just don't care about going backwards unless it's a flashback or time travel. It's a personal preference based on my lack of enjoyment of prequels to date. Hopefully Discovery proves to me that prequels can be enjoyable. Enteprise sure didn't.

Well, discovery is not exactly a prequel. It's more like a midquel. Something that's neither a prequel nor a sequel...

 

[Terok Nor]

Well, discovery is not exactly a prequel. It's more like a midquel. Something that's neither a prequel nor a sequel...

TOS was the first show. Anything set before that is a prequel in my opinion. It's like saying Episode II and III of Star Wars aren't prequels to the original movie.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

The real problem with prequels is that a lot of people including myself hate them. I've yet to see a really great prequel to anything. I just don't care about going backwards unless it's a flashback or time travel. It's a personal preference based on my lack of enjoyment of prequels to date. Hopefully Discovery proves to me that prequels can be enjoyable. Enteprise sure didn't.

Back to the Future 3 was pretty fun. Also, X-Men First Class is easily the 3rd best film in the franchise. Lots of people seem to love the Godfather part II (I never cared for the trilogy as a whole, though).

On TV, there's Star Wars - Clone Wars which I haven't seen, but seems to have a stellar reputation.

It's true that it's not very easy to come up with many examples, but there is some cause for hope.

 

[locutus101]

TOS was the first show. Anything set before that is a prequel in my opinion. It's like saying Episode II and III of Star Wars aren't prequels to the original movie.

But under that logic anything between TOS and TNG would be called a sequel.

 

[Terok Nor]

But under that logic anything between TOS and TNG would be called a sequel.

I agree. I'd prefer a sequel set after the TOS movies. There are 80 years to play around with before TNG comes into it. Ideally I'd like the show set long after Nemesis but I think it'll be a long wait, if ever, to see a show set after Nemesis. The last 3 attempts at Star Trek have delved into the past of the franchise rather than moving forward.

 

[T'Arwen]

I get that hundred and thousand of years is a long time. But in Shakespeare's time and ancient Greece, plays always revisited old stories. They didn't go back in time in the strict sense but people knew who would die, etc, etc. Prequels would have fit right into the time period. How and why did expectations change so much?

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I don't necessarily think endgame "will the Federation crumble" possibilities are the sole or most interesting way to generate tension or suspense. It doesn't matter to me that we know a bunch of other ships come after the Discovery -- I care about what happens to the Discovery and the new civilizations and species they'll encounter.

Long story short, to me, it's the characters and the stories that make Star Trek great. The setting doesn't matter if you get me invested in the characters and a compelling story. You can achieve those with any setting.

 

[Nyotarules]

There was a film maker who made a fortune on plots where folks knew the outcome... His name was Walt Disney

 

[Albinator]

Too many people here are far too focused on the problems or virtues of the continuity concerns of a prequel, and are not considering the STORYTELLING portion.

For those wondering why new Trek keeps going back to the past, the article below sums it up quite clearly, if not succinctly: science fiction isn't supposed to be about imagining the future, it's about imagine a future that reflects our present.

It's the same reason why producers chose to create the Cardassian/Bajor storyline to set DS9 in, and why they put Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. It's why they created the Dominion War, and Trek fandom was pretty split on that one, many feeling it "betrayed Gene's vision."

Because the universe of Trek post-Picard (specifically the Federation and Earth) had become too peaceful and happy to be of any real interest to today's audiences and became hard to be the sparkplug for the kinds of dramatic conflicts and social commentary that Trek is best at.

They'd pulled it off OK in TNG, but could only keep it up for so long before the stories all started to feel the same: crew lands on a planet with a 20th century problem that the Federation had already solved, and the characters used their history books to impart a lesson on this culture-- "we don't have this problem anymore on Earth because we realized X,Y,Z. Problem solved." It got old and stale to tell that same basic story over and over again. And then again and again and again.

It's also why they went with Enterprise, a prequel set in the more turbulent pre-Kirk days, and why they're doing so again with Discovery. During these periods humanity is still figuring itself out and hasn't solved all of it's problems yet. There is still internal conflict among humans, there's still war, racism, political struggle, and loads of other issues we struggle with in the real world.

Eventually they'll have to explore the era post Nemesis, and will have to figure out how deconstruct the Trek concept. Maybe next series...

http://arstechnica.com/staff/2016/08/why-does-the-star-trek-franchise-keep-returning-to-its-origins/

 

[BillJ]

The Andorians couldn't have discovered both the transporters and the site to site transporters in so short a time.

Why? Why couldn't they have figured things out more quickly than humans? Why couldn't site-to-site transport be based on what they developed?

 

[T'Arwen]

Why? Why couldn't they have figured things out more quickly than humans? Why couldn't site-to-site transport be based on what they developed?

Even on Earth, different countries don't adapt or figure out new technology at the same pace. Why is it so hard for some to imagine it can happen for different species?

 

[Degra1]

By their very nature prequels have a built in expectation of playing into the big picture of what's to come and bringing in earlier versions of familiar characters-there's already talk of Amanda Grayson. Whereas a sequel can be it's own smaller thing than something that needs to cross every t and sit every i of what's to come

To its benefit TNG rarely referenced anything to TOS. It just has the minimum trappings of TRek and could set out into a wide out space of storytelling potential without getting bogged down in Trek minutae the way ENT did in season 4.

I was seriously hoping the next series could be that way again where it could just tell fun entertaining standalones with the occasional big two or three part arc here and there

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

The real problem with prequels is that a lot of people including myself hate them. I've yet to see a really great prequel to anything. I just don't care about going backwards unless it's a flashback or time travel. It's a personal preference based on my lack of enjoyment of prequels to date. Hopefully Discovery proves to me that prequels can be enjoyable. Enteprise sure didn't.

The Godfather: Part II (1974)
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Batman Begins (2005)
Casino Royale (2006)
X-Men: First Class (2011) and/or X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

If these don't convince you, nothing will.

(Cue the meaningless "X is not a true prequel because…" arguments.)