Can a Prequel EVER be a Good Film?

Laugh it up furball. :P Take Chewbaka for example. He's just a dog combined with a human, and he's far from the first example of that. He looks distinct as an original combination of several ideas mixed together, and I can't think of any other character before him that looks very similar to him. But there's no individual original idea in there. He doesn't have any characteristic that we haven't already seen before. So if you want to laugh, at least try naming one.

Chewie isn't laughing at you, he's laughing with you.

I'd need to be laughing for that to be the case.

Well, at least one of us is!

Okay, you gave me a chuckle.

My contribution feels irrelevant before it begins, because I was thinking about sequels vs prequels before objectivity vs subjectivity, but, well, I take issue with the premise.

You can perfectly well have a prequel which explores the backstory to whatever the existing IP might be but features none of the same characters, and only makes tenuous connections to whatever the IP ends up being. A good example is House of the Dragon — I much prefer it to GoT for various reasons, and my enjoyment of it and investment in the narrative is in no way predicated on my feelings about GoT. There is the occasional thematic link , but really, that’s more of an overarching narrative theme. As I was putting the above statement in spoiler brackets, it occurred to me that perhaps the crux of the issue is about spoilers. I have a very lax position on spoilers — I read a lot about film and almost always know plot elements of the thing before I watch something. I discuss stuff I haven’t seen with people irl all the time. It has never, to date, dampened my enjoyment. In any case, House of the Dragon would be equally, if not more enjoyable, if one hadn’t seen GoT. That prior IP and knowledge of the GoT world is entirely unnecessary.

I feel the opposite is more often the case — once something begets a few sequels, it sometimes feels like it can never again be detangled from them and seen as an isolated piece. This applies to Star Wars and has always bothered/disappointed me. I love Casino Royale (both versions, but for the purposes of this discussion, the reboot), and I feel, if anything, the sequels do a good job of communicating how special Vesper was to Bond, being as they are direct, chronological sequels, unlike most pre-Craig Bond movies. But I vividly remember how I perceived Casino Royale prior to the sequels being made, and it was a ‘cleaner’, more enjoyable experience, unmarred by any further mythology. I haven’t seen Casino Royale in over a decade, and whenever I consider rewatching it, I see plot points from the sequels in my mind and know I’ll never enjoy it again in that ‘clean’ way.

I don’t think that problem exists for prequels. There is something to be said for never perceiving an IP moment in the same way after seeing a prequel, as with a certain brand of time travel films where once you know . But the same can be said about any rewatch; that the plot developments don’t land the same way.

I never disliked a film because it’s a prequel. I love Red Dragon and feel it has far more emotional depth and resonance than Silence of the Lambs (which I also really like). I used to like X Men: First Class back in the day, and I still think there’s something there. It explores a relationship and does so in a mature way, compared to what we see atm in superhero land. It remains to this day the only superhero film I like. The continuity errors don’t bother me in this case, because the surrounding IP is all-encompassing and it doesn’t seem fair/possible to tailor one film to all the itty-bitty things in every other X-Men film. I do occasionally notice continuity errors when it’s a single prequel film in a franchise of two: I really liked Orphan: First Kill and much preferred it to the original Orphan, but I cannot for the life of me comprehend why they couldn’t be consistent with the family’s last name ( But that feels like a ‘not enough care taken’ issue, not a prequel issue per se.

I don’t see prequels being ‘spoilt’ for the audience by default as an issue. If you watch enough movies, I feel like you tend to know where things are going/how a plot/relationship/storyline will likely develop in any case. I agree with the point made in the beginning of the thread though that prequels trying to earn their endings through random reveals (‘Oh, so that’s how that axe got stuck in that shed door! We’ve been dying to know) are irritating and unnecessary. I’d rather a thematic prequel where everything happens in the same universe, world-building-wise, but there’s little direct connection with the better known IP/existing film. I don’t consider Kill Bill: Vol 2 a ‘proper’ prequel — they were filmed in one go and very much conceived of as a single narrative; Tarantino considers them one film. I suppose The Godfather: Part 2 is a prequel, technically, and I prefer it to Part 1. But like I said, I don’t watch the beginning of Part 2 thinking, ‘Ooh, so that’s how it all began, that’s how they got to where they are.’ It just doesn’t occur to me to think like this.

On the topic of subjectivity, I’m with @Zotis on this:

This is how I feel, heh, about objectivity, which… I suppose is a subjective viewpoint of mine. There are a great many ‘objectively great’ films that I don’t connect with/enjoy at all, but I do recognise their technical excellence and the skill that went into making them.

I do think one’s perception of what’s good or ‘great’ changes with age, as life experience builds up and whatnot. My taste is not static; I come to enjoy things I previously disliked every year in one way or another. However, I also think some basic aspects of one’s taste and preferences when it comes to art are personality-dependent and so unlikely to change unless one goes through something drastic in life. This means, to me, that ‘quality’ itself may be objective, but one’s ability to connect with this and process, appreciate it changes with age/life experience, etc, and yes, the more one experiences art on a daily basis.

I do think there’s something to trying to experience art objectively inasmuch as possible, on a technical level. I think quite a few people, whether here or people less ‘obsessed’ with movies than we are (shorthand alert), would relate to the sentiment of really liking Harry Potter films, Hunger Games films, or whatever it might be, as a child/young person, and then discovering Bergman and Buñuel and Kurosawa and realising that, well, much as Harry Potter movies were enjoyable, Buñuel and Kurosawa offer something deeper, more primal, that speaks on a far more stunning level to the human experience. This does mean, to me, in some sense, that having seen a lot of movies, one becomes more discerning, gets a better sense of what’s possible and realises that if a Kurosawa is possible, then maybe some of the previously beloved films are not that impressive.

EDIT:

Reading the Telegraph’s ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ review, and I guess this POV is more common than I’d previously realised:

I can see where that’s coming from, to a degree, but it seems kind of late in the day to complain about this (after a TV show about young Loki post his in-universe death, and whatnot).

I guess for me it just isn’t an issue. That ‘nothing here actually matters’ if there’s a sequel feels like a baffling sort of take that non-cinephiles tend to have, as in, ‘Why read Romeo and Juliet if they both die in the end?’ (And I say that as someone who does largely prefer that characters don’t die in the end, because that’s boring).

So you agree that the only basis for comparison is an "established principle"? If so, how are they established, and who decides they are established?

You agree that if you choose a standard based on "your own opinion or feelings" it is subjective. But then you say it can be objective if it's based on "established principles." But how do you choose those established principles? You have to ask the exact same question of the term "established principles" as you do "standard based on your own opinion or feelings." If you keep asking "says who?" long enough, at the very bottom, you will find an axiom. Saying you can escape the trap of subjectivity with "established principles" is just swapping one term for another and then deciding not to interrogate the new one as much as the old one.

This is tautological. The discussion is about a concept; nothing is achieved by saying "I define the word in such a way that it means the thing I'm arguing, so how could it be otherwise?"

Except it inevitably will. And worse, the person who has convinced themselves they're not influenced by it is almost certainly more influenced by it than someone who admits as much and tries to account for it. The closest we can get to objectivity is admitting we can't achieve it and failing as gracefully and minimally as possible.

I'd like to suggest we excise a lot of these anecdotal examples. We're talking general principles here, and in most cases establishing a single example of how something might work (or not) does not actually address them.

Simple: because you have no objective way to choose standards in the first place.

Think of it this way: how do you know how long a foot is? By looking at a ruler, right? Well, how do you know the ruler is right? How would you go about "proving" that the ruler is a foot long? Same problem here.

I think I see part of the problem here. You're starting with the assumption that "quality" is some kind of metaphysical thing that is attached to abstract concepts like works of art.

"Quality" as its being discussed here is not the name for an innate property of a piece of art. It's the name for our perception of a thing. A good example is the word "see." You can "see" something that isn't there, or not see something that is. Maybe you have poor vision. Maybe you hallucinate. Regardless, you "see" things that may or may not be real, may or may not be as you perceive them...but even if something isn't there, it doesn't mean you did not "see" it. Because the word "see" is a description of your experience, not of external reality.

Quality, in this context, is the same way. It is describing a person's experience, not referencing an intrinsic property of the thing that necessarily exists for all people at all times.

Shared reality, not shared experience. That's the key distinction.

If the thing which gives it quality can exist only in your mind, why can't the concept of quality itself? Seems like a very arbitrary line to draw. Your emotions don't count and don't matter to quality...even though influencing them is how you measure quality?

I don't really know what kind of response you expect when I say X and you just say "How is it X?" I think you'll find the sentences surrounding X always explain my reasoning, so if you disagree, you should address that reasoning.

Ah, I see the problem now. When I say it is "not self-evident...the way logic is" I mean it is not self-evident at all, not that it's another kind of self-evident.

For all the reasons I've been giving, of course. I even gave you an example, which you did not address:

"The entire chain of logic hinges on "art is the expression of creativity." Is it? Michaelangelo's David is not especially creative, it is simply a monument to skill and dedication."

Why not directly address this example, rather than express the same kind of disbelief at my position?

I'd still like some kind of response on the issue of measuring "fastest," as well. That was your example, after all, and I asked some simple follow-up questions there, about time and distance, that I think illustrate the problem quite well.

I think what most prequels (and perhaps also the sequels) do is demystify the original story or original character, and the only one I can think of that demystifies the original successfully is Fire Walk With Me (but of course it also expands the Twin Peaks universe and is partially the set-up for the Twin Peaks revival series).

I'm not sure if there's anything to demystify about X-Men or Captain America because all those films need to deliver exactly the same spectacle so I guess it doesn't really matter who-did-what-when-first.

The sequel Exorcist III is an enjoyable horror film on its own terms, and even though it's based on a novel from 1983 there's the unfortunate situation of Child's Play being released two years earlier. It's basically the same premise and Brad Dourif even plays the same role (!)
"He didn't really die" is OK for soap operas but in this case it looks kinda cheap.
And for those reasons I mentally disconnect it from the original, but I'm happy to accept The Ninth Configuration as a legitimate spin-off from The Exorcist.

And why did they make a silly Wonka prequel but not the sequel that was the original sequel, Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator ??

Warner gonna Warner....