Film producers quite logically believe that as long as the franchise enjoys the interest of viewers, it should be used to the maximum. The public may not like the new characters, and a good plot still needs to be found. It is no coincidence that they say that there is a crisis of ideas in Hollywood. But what to do if the story in your favorite film has already exhausted itself, and the enemies are finally and irrevocably defeated?
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This doesn’t stop resourceful screenwriters. This is how numerous prequels, spin-offs and sequels are born. In this jumble you can find either familiar places or parts of an interesting plot, or your favorite characters. But for most viewers, all these prequels/sequels/remakes are just another creation on a popular theme. Meanwhile, there are several variations in the development of popular history.
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What is a sequel?
Fans demand a sequel from any interesting book or film. Dumas also developed the plot of “The Three Musketeers” in two new novels: “Twenty Years Later” and “Ten Years Later.” In fact, any second and subsequent series of a book or film can be called a sequel. This word itself comes from the Latin sequella, which literally means “continuation.” Usually the presence of a number at the end in the title of a work determines whether it belongs to the sequels. Toy Story 2 and The Matrix 2 are classic examples.
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What is a prequel?
The word prequel appeared as the addition of pre (before) and sequel (continuation). When the story has already been told and there can be no logical continuation, the writers come up with earlier events. A good example is Star Wars, whose classic trilogy of the 1970s-1980s received three prequels already in 1999-2005. The film Hannibal Rising, about the early years of the famous cannibal, is considered a prequel. These backstories tell the audience how it all really began. Prequels help explain some of the plot twists. Sometimes screenwriters leave ambiguities just in case, hoping to have the opportunity to reveal them in a prequel.
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What is a spin-off?
If a prequel or sequel takes us in time in relation to the main work, then a spin-off (from spin-off – a by-product or branch) is a parallel development of events. There is a connection with the original plot in the form of familiar characters or events that flashed there on the sidelines. So, a classic spin-off is the series “Better Call Saul.” The enterprising lawyer Saul Goodman from the series “Breaking Bad” was so liked by the audience that he deserved his own well-developed story. It is also a prequel.
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What is a remake?
The aforementioned crisis of ideas also gave rise to remakes (from remake – remake). The term means coming out with a new interpretation of existing works. Sometimes Hollywood simply uses films that are little known in the West, creating their reworked analogues. Thus, the classic film “The Magnificent Seven” is a remake of the Japanese “Seven Samurai”. The horror film “The Ring” also had an Asian source.
During Soviet cinema, remakes were also made, among which, for example, two film adaptations of Ilf and Petrov’s novel “12 Chairs” immediately come to mind: Zakharov’s and Gaidai’s.
But a reboot is a similar phenomenon, but in this case, a once popular story is restarted with a slight change in the plot. The main characters remain the same. A new film can be made using modern, more spectacular technologies. Filmed in 1959 and showered with Oscars, Ben-Hur received a mediocre but much more spectacular reboot in 2016. Here we can also note the recent release of the adventure film “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”,
which is a reboot of the 1995 film Jumanji.
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Midquel, interquel, crossover, threequel, requel
But there are other, more exotic options for continuing the story. For example, a midquel develops the storyline of the main story in the same time frame. Thus, the cartoon “Bambi 2” complements the plot point in the first part.
An interquel wedges itself between already published works, being a sequel to one part and a prequel to another. The Animatrix cartoon takes place between the events of The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.
In the crossover, the writers bring together the heroes of several independent cinematic universes: “Alien vs. Predator,” “Batman vs. Superman.”
Numeral lovers use the concepts of duology (two films connected by plot), trilogy, threequel (the third of subsequent films, a sequel to a sequel) and quadriquel (the fourth sequential film).
And what exactly the rare terms requel (partial restart), parallelquel and fakequel are is difficult to understand even for those versed in cinema.
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