With the new Dark Crystal Netflix series just around the corner, I was thinking to myself about Prequels and Sequels. Not just the incredible Star Wars prequel trilogy which, while I do think about on a daily basis and in fact DO think they are incredible, I might mention as examples, I want to focus on the good, bad and hopefully how my observations might help when you are coming up with your own prequels and sequels to your WIPs.
While a prequel can be defined as “a work that forms part of a backstory for a preceding work”, I personally feel that sequels are slightly harder to define. The main cause of is the differentiation between a direct, unplanned follow-up and a planned series. Is The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers a sequel to Fellowship of the Ring? Yes. But it is also considered as just one long story so if something was set AFTER Return of the King then that would be a sequel. This is how Star Wars has been defined, with the whole Trilogies being split into Original, Prequels and Sequels. This is where problems can suddenly arise from creating a sequel, that is if it is unplanned.
A lot of stories are their own self-contained works. They wrap up nicely at the end, tying off loose ends and giving characters their happily-ever-after. But when a sequel suddenly comes along, they no longer have their happily-ever-after. In a way this can lead to the original being spoiled as you now know that this isn’t a good ending perhaps, especially if the follow-up is bad. I’ll just keep using Star Wars because I know it best, but The Last Jedi was quite universally disliked. In fact, many people say it ruined some of their favourite characters and is now a blot on a great series. These are the canon events that happen after Return of the Jedi, so the happy ending of the Empire being defeated and Luke Skywalker becoming a proper Jedi is now gone. Perhaps this is due to the original story that George Lucas came up with was scrapped and new directors took it on their own path, but the point remains that there is some danger in writing a sequel.
They are not always bad, in fact there are many sequels to surpass the original despite the first being an enclosed story. Terminator 2 and Shrek 2 are well loved and considered superior, though this is all opinion and therefore subjective. With Shrek 1 the story has a happily-ever-after in the most literal sense, with Shrek and Fiona getting married and travelling off into the sunset. Shrek 2 is all about their honeymoon and meeting the parents, so it is a natural progression of life that follows on smoothly from the last. The characters don’t undergo drastic changes, new characters that are linked but not unnecessary are included and the villain isn’t suddenly a bigger, badder foe that had never been mentioned before. Terminator 2 adds on to the original story, filling it with more depth, character and a new interesting villain that makes sense in the context of the story.
From these observations, it seems as though the major points when writing a follow-up is either to:
A) Already have a longer story idea in place
or
B) Continue naturally from where was left off, aka what would your characters be doing in X years, and how would the world have changed or not changed?
I find prequels tricky, since they are forced to end where the original begins, or at least allow for the original to begin the way it does. This means that characters that are alive and well in the original, if included in the prequel, must survive. This also means that new characters invented just for the prequel but are not in the original must have some explanation as to why they are no longer there. This can lead to a lot of plot-holes, so a director / writer must be careful with what they add. In Star Wars, we know that Anakin becomes Darth Vader and the prequels have to end with that fact. Obi-Wan must live, and Luke and Leia must be born. But then new characters have been added, such as Count Dooku, Mace Windu and Padme, so why were they never mentioned? Most likely because they died, and so while that does clear up any issues in regards to story, the audience watching now knows that they cannot survive due to the nature of prequels. This goes with characters that live, since that audience knows they cannot be harmed. This can drastically detract from engagement and developing emotional connections with the characters. I distinctly remember when watching the awful film Solo: A Star Wars Story a scene where Han Solo and Chewbacca are on a moving train. Chewbacca falls and Han grabs him, just pulling him up in time before the Wookie hits a wall. But they were never in any danger because Han and Chewbacca are alive and well in Star Wars: A New Hope, so it didn’t feel like there was any peril at all.
You must also be consistent. Again Star Wars, but in Episode III Obi-Wan fights against General Grievous, a cyborg. Grievous reveals he was ‘trained in the jedi arts’ and suddenly ignites four lightsabers. Obi-Wan is shocked, this information new to him. Or was it? Because apparently in the canon TV Series “Clone Wars”, a series set in-between Episode II and III, Obi and Grievous had fought with lightsabers many times, so this wasn’t the first and now the scene makes no sense. Be extra careful when writing the past, and in theory it shouldn’t be much of an issue keeping it consistent since you will already have everything you need already written down. I wonder if the people who made “Clone Wars” had watched Episode III?
Those are a few thoughts I had, if they can assist in any way with your writing then I am both surprised and honoured. It feels like it was mostly a rant against Star Wars, but it is a good example of both well executed and also poorly done prequels and sequels.
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.