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A prequel is a work that portrays events which include the structure, conventions, and/or characters of a previously completed narrative, but occur at an earlier time. The word is a neologism, dating to the early 1970s; its first known, traceable use is in the original press pack for The Godfather Part II, where it is used to describe the sections of the film which take place before the events of The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola credits George Lucas with devising the term which Lucas and Steven Spielberg later used to describe their joint project Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom during publicity for its release. The word is a portmanteau formed from pre-, meaning before, and sequel, a work which takes place after a previous one. While the word is an etymological aberration ('sequel' derives from 'sequence' - latin:sequor - there is no such thing as a "prequor") its meaning is easily grasped and it has passed into common usage. The correct term should be protosequel, as adopted in other languages, like the Spanish "protosecuela". Lucas's own Star Wars prequel trilogy greatly popularized the term in American culture. The term distant prequel refers to a long interval between the prequel and its original. Another popular cinematic prequel is The Godfather, Part II. This film is both sequel and prequel, since it intercuts the further story of the Corleone mafia family under the leadership of Michael Corleone with the story of his father Vito Corleone in his youth. Like sequels, prequels may or may not concern the same plot as the work from which they are derived. Often, they explain the background which led to the events in the original, but sometimes the connections are not as explicit. Sometimes, prequels play on the fact that the audience knows what will happen next, using deliberate references to create dramatic irony. The idea of a prequel is not new. The libretti for the four operas of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle -- Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung -- were written in reverse order, making each opera a prequel to the following one. Another example of a prequel in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia is The Magician's Nephew, a prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which was written first. Though originally they were unplanned and unnumbered, many newer publications of the series order them chronologically in regards to the storyline. There is debate as to whether this was an appropriate change. The term prequel is often used to describe any work with a sequel. This is contrary to the term's original meaning, which defines a prequel as a type of sequel, not the converse of a sequel. For example, The Phantom Menace (1999) is a prequel to (1983), but not to Attack of the Clones (2002).
List of prequels Literature Plays Films Television Computer and video games Cross-media See also Notes | ||||||||
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