I agree to a certain extent, but I think your reasoning is wrong. SciFi, more than any other genre, is dependent on special effects to pull of suspension of disbelief. Prequels destroy that because we spend all our time comparing the two versions of supposedly the same reality. “Why can’t R2D2 fly in Empire?” “How come the Klingons totally forgot how to fire while cloaked by the time TNG rolled around?” The real answer is: we couldn’t pull off those special effects for the first movies. And prequels just LOOK newer than the originals, further making it difficult. As far as knowing how it will end… I don’t think prequels ruin that. Most scifi movies I know how they’ll end. I don’t need Raiders to let me know Indy will survive Temple… I could have told you that he’ll survive any movie. I haven’t seen Superman Returns, but I’m pretty willing to bet that he makes it through to the end and beats the bad guy. I’ll make the same bold prediction for Spider-Man 3. Prequels are not inherently wrong. We like to see more of what made heroes who they are. What was the best Batman movie? Maybe the first, some would argue the second, but for a ton of people it’s Batman Begins… a prequel. Why? Aside from the fact that it’s not a terribly different looking movie from any before, it’s just good storytelling. Ultimately that’s what we want to see.
Doctor Mac:
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:43 pm
I agree to a certain extent, but I think your reasoning is wrong. SciFi, more than any other genre, is dependent on special effects to pull of suspension of disbelief. Prequels destroy that because we spend all our time comparing the two versions of supposedly the same reality. “Why can’t R2D2 fly in Empire?” “How come the Klingons totally forgot how to fire while cloaked by the time TNG rolled around?” The real answer is: we couldn’t pull off those special effects for the first movies. And prequels just LOOK newer than the originals, further making it difficult. As far as knowing how it will end… I don’t think prequels ruin that. Most scifi movies I know how they’ll end. I don’t need Raiders to let me know Indy will survive Temple… I could have told you that he’ll survive any movie. I haven’t seen Superman Returns, but I’m pretty willing to bet that he makes it through to the end and beats the bad guy. I’ll make the same bold prediction for Spider-Man 3. Prequels are not inherently wrong. We like to see more of what made heroes who they are. What was the best Batman movie? Maybe the first, some would argue the second, but for a ton of people it’s Batman Begins… a prequel. Why? Aside from the fact that it’s not a terribly different looking movie from any before, it’s just good storytelling. Ultimately that’s what we want to see.