Scott: 'New Alien film to be prequel'

[lustindarkness]

But the last three Star Wars movies were all prequels, so clearly it is possible...

Not really a good example.

[The Brain]

Does Batman Begins count?  It may not have been as good as Batman Returns but it's better than Batman.

Batman Begins blows.

[Malthus]

[TLotR is an example of a sequel that outshone the original book; thus it was made into a movie first, and in the movie version, it will appear to be a "prequel" when in fact the book was published first.

May be unique in this respect.

Is LOTR really a sequel though? I thought Tolkien worked on it for decades.

Why would that not make it a sequel? It was published after the Hobbit, and continues the narrative (if not the tone) of the earlier work.

[Malthus]

But the last three Star Wars movies were all prequels, so clearly it is possible...

Not really a good example.

I take it tongue was planted firmly in cheek. 

[The Brain]

[TLotR is an example of a sequel that outshone the original book; thus it was made into a movie first, and in the movie version, it will appear to be a "prequel" when in fact the book was published first.

May be unique in this respect.

Is LOTR really a sequel though? I thought Tolkien worked on it for decades.

Why would that not make it a sequel? It was published after the Hobbit, and continues the narrative (if not the tone) of the earlier work.

He worked on it for decades!

[Eddie Teach]

Why would that not make it a sequel? It was published after the Hobbit, and continues the narrative (if not the tone) of the earlier work.

Because conceptually it came first, so in a sense the Hobbit is really the prequel. /shrug

[Barrister]

Babaylon 5: In the Beginning didn't suck, and it was a prequel.

Many novel series have started as single books and then turned into series, so that some of the succeeding books were in fact prequels.  The Horatio Hornblower novels spring to mind as having prequels that were good. 

Similarly, the first TV series of Rumpole of the Bailey constituted a prequel to the Plays for Today BBC production of Rumpole of the Bailey, as they took place in the 1960s and early 1970s, compared to 1975 for the first work.

I will agree that prequels in general are usually inferior, but would also agree that sequels in general are inferior.  It is human nature to take more care with something that will establish a reoputation than something that will simply maintain it.

I wasn't a fan of In The Beginning.  It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know based on the series, and seemed to just re-use a great many shots and sequences we'd already seen.

Horatio Hornblower and Rumpole again are more example of a recurring character than an ongoing series with sequels / prequels (I've only ever read one HH book, and only read Rumpole books at all, so correct me if I'm wrong).

[grumbler]

Is LOTR really a sequel though? I thought Tolkien worked on it for decades.

Tolkien was only really writing the Silmarilian, and wrote out his expansion of the Tom Bombadil stores that became The Hobbit purely to amuse his children.  LotR was a concious effort to create a popular novel out of the more publishable portions of the Silmarillian.

[The Brain]

Is LOTR really a sequel though? I thought Tolkien worked on it for decades.

Tolkien was only really writing the Silmarilian, and wrote out his expansion of the Tom Bombadil stores that became The Hobbit purely to amuse his children.  LotR was a concious effort to create a popular novel out of the more publishable portions of the Silmarillian.

The unpublishable parts are pretty steamy.

[grumbler]

I wasn't a fan of In The Beginning.  It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know based on the series, and seemed to just re-use a great many shots and sequences we'd already seen.

Remember that In the Beginning was designed to introduce the viewers on TNT to the B5 stories that TNT had acquired as a result of their decision to pick up B5 for the fifth season.  It served that purpose pretty well, and I thought it was quite a good story, even if we knew about most of it already.

The only re-used footage was of the Battle of the Line, and that was done because TNT didn't want to pay to bring O'Hare back to film the material afresh.

[Barrister]

I wasn't a fan of In The Beginning.  It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know based on the series, and seemed to just re-use a great many shots and sequences we'd already seen.

Remember that In the Beginning was designed to introduce the viewers on TNT to the B5 stories that TNT had acquired as a result of their decision to pick up B5 for the fifth season.  It served that purpose pretty well, and I thought it was quite a good story, even if we knew about most of it already.

The only re-used footage was of the Battle of the Line, and that was done because TNT didn't want to pay to bring O'Hare back to film the material afresh.

I didn't know that.  I wasn't able to watch B5 as it was coming out, instead I only really got to watch the series a year or two later when the Space cable channel came into existence.

It may well have served that purpose - I have no reason to doubt you, and I guess it's not a terrible mid-way refresher.  But that doesn't mean that it's all that great as a stand-alone product if you have seen everything else.

[Siege]

I want a Halo movie! 

[Barrister]

I want a Halo movie! 

Siegey brings up a good point.

The only kind of movie worse than a prequel is a movie based on a video game. 

[Savonarola]

Siegey brings up a good point.

The only kind of movie worse than a prequel is a movie based on a video game. 

Oh, I don't know, this one wasn't so bad:

[Neil]

I want a Halo movie! 

I don't think it's possible to make a good movie based on Halo, unless MS buys a studio.