Prequels are bad

A little pop culture complaining as a break from the election

I went to see “The Phantom Menace” on opening day back in 1999, the day after I turned 18. And ever since the release of that objectively disappointing commercial success, I feel like I’ve been living my adult life beset by prequels of various kinds.

As a purely commercial undertaking, the logic of the prequel is strong. It makes sense that owners of valuable, commercially successful intellectual property would continue exploiting it. Sequels offer some of the same upside, but coming up with the next chapter in the story of beloved characters poses some fundamental problems. Especially in a film context, you end up being quasi-hostage to your star actors, who may or may not want to continue the role and may extract huge salary demands in exchange for coming back. But even beyond casting considerations, you run into issues. The book version of my beloved Harry Bosch was introduced as a middle-aged man in the late 1990s, and the linear progression of time has made it increasingly a stretch for him to be at the center of detective capers; the author is phasing him out in favor of a new younger character.

There are ways to address this sort of thing, but I think it’s what makes the prequel so appealing — it gives you license to simply recast the part without rebooting the continuity.

So instead of a sequel to the critically acclaimed but somewhat commercially disappointing “Mad Max: Fury Road,” we get the prequel “Furiosa.” But that only ended up being a disappointment critically, which drove bad box office. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think the prequel as a mode of storytelling suffers from some fatal underlying flaws.

Exceptions that prove the rule

It’s common in pop culture circles these days to speak generically about “franchise” or “IP” storytelling, often in a somewhat derogatory way.