Prequel. What is this term?

Getting a good profit often generates a thirst for even greater profits. Perhaps, from an irrepressible thrust to enrichment, a sequel was born, and then a prequel.

Popular about what a sequel is

The sequel is considered to be the oldest trick of the author, who by all means intends to develop the commercial success of the already created work. Simply put, this is a continuation of the previously published history. As early as the beginning of the 18th century, Daniel Defoe, inspired by the royalties from the novel "Robinson Crusoe", wrote the book "Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe", which, however, did not bring the writer any significant profits or fame. But it was one of the first sequels in the history of art. Example Defoe will pick up many writers, and later - filmmakers and creators of computer games.

The sequel to the cinema has long been expected, and therefore, a common place: The Godfather and Terminator, Rambo and Rocky, Batman and Spider-Man, X-Men and The Matrix etc. The sequel is usually weaker than the "source" (this is proved by Daniel Defoe), but the producers and producers know that the people will go to the cinemas in friendly rows, although they foresee possible disappointment.

Prequel - what kind of fruit is this?

Imagine a film, the plot of which completely exhausted itself before the final credits. Suppose, the main character irretrievably goes out of life, on the mountain of the spectators who are scattered. But, for the joy of the creators of the film, their child becomes very popular and brings decent profits. What do cinematographers do in this case? That's right - they remove the prequel. That this is the younger brother of the sequel - only those who are dedicated to the sacrament of cinema know. This is the name of movies (books, computer games), the time of action of which precedes the events described in the previously created work. The author is no longer interested in the future of his heroes (for example, the gold vein there is already exhausted to the end, or all the characters have already died, or the actors are hopelessly old) and he is dragging the already lured spectator with the prehistory of his favorite heroes. It often happens that she appears in a completely different genre policy. Looks at her audience with amazement: prequel - what kind of genre? To understand it while it is difficult.

Prequel. Start

Explain what a prequel to the film will help an illustrative example. One of the first successful cinematographic experiments in this area is the second part of the adventures of Indiana Jones ("Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", 1984) - this was a prequel to the movie "Indiana Jones: In Search of the Lost Ark" (1981). But Steven Spielberg, apparently, did not even suspect what a prequel was: this word, although it appeared for the first time in the academic Oxford Dictionary as early as 1958, was not yet widely used. The word "prequel" was released by none other than George Lucas, when in the mid-nineties he began work on a new trilogy of the famous "Star Wars". It remains to be surprised at the creative and commercial foresight of Lucas, who started the first trilogy right after the fourth episode. The director, who promised Star Wars fans to return to the story of Luke Skywalker 20 years after the release of the first film, fulfilled his promise, and in 1999 the first episode of the new Star Wars trilogy, the blockbuster "The Hidden Menace", appeared on the screens. Then everyone learned about the term "prequel", what kind of innovation is this.

Most popular prequels to movies

The experience of George Lucas opened up new creative and commercial perspectives for filmmakers. The most famous prequels were looked, perhaps, by all movie lovers: "Red Dragon" - a prequel to the "Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal"; "Cube Zero" - prequel to the budget, but the famous "Cuba"; "Batman: The Beginning" - a prequel to the saga of Batman; "X-Men: First Class" - a prequel to the trilogy about X-Men; The movie "Death Race-2", despite the title, more suitable for the sequel, is a prequel to the movie "The Death Race." Prologue, fresh interpretation, a new vision of the source - what does this give us as spectators? Sometimes only disappointment and regret about the time spent.

Today's schoolchildren and students-philologists in the literature Olympiads very often perform creative tasks on the topic: "Write a sequel (prequel) to such and such a work." These concepts have already firmly entered our lives, and today it is difficult to find a person who has not heard about what a sequel and prequel is.