The movie Red Dragon is a remake of the film Manhunter.
Silence of the Lambs, novel and film, is the sequel to Red Dragon and Manhunter.
The prequals are both titled Hannibal Rising.
Novels
Red Dragon (1981)
The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
Hannibal (1999)
Hannibal Rising (2006)
Films
Manhunter (1986)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Hannibal (2001)
Red Dragon (2002)
Hannibal Rising (2007)
The less said about Hannibal Rising the better.
All of the early Hornblower novels are prequels, including Lieutenant Hornblower, which I regard as the best of the series by a very large margin.
Consider also the Sharpe’s Rifles series by Bernard Cornwell. The novel that gives its name to the collection was the 9th one published, but the 6th story chronologically.
The last of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels (Metropolis) is a prequel to the previous 13. I’m holding onto all of them so I can eventually read them in chronological order.
You make excellent points.
Atropos and Hotspur were good also.
Yes. They were.
Octavia E. Butler’s Patternist series books were first published in 5-2-4-1-3 order. The version I read, the currently-in-print Seed to Harvest, is in 1-2-3-5 order (book 4 having been disowned by Butler). If I hadn’t known that they were published out of order, I wouldn’t have guessed it.
Better Call Saul, if we’re including television. There’s no shortage of nods to Breaking Bad and you’ll probably enjoy it more if you’ve already seen BB, but it’s still standalone. I mean, stuff like Gus’ introduction might be a little disjointed if you haven’t watched BB, but his place in the show quickly becomes very apparent.
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold is a prequel to her Vorkosigan Saga. It gives the origin story to one aspect of that complex universe. The story is completely independent unto itself and can be read at any point in relation to the other Vorkosigan books. (I read it first.)
I had never heard of Philip Kerr or these books until I read your post but I am now halfway through Metropolis. It is absolutely engrossing and beautifully written. Set shortly after the 1928 German elections it is ripe with dramatic irony. I look forward to reading the rest in order. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.
Mother%#$%! I had no idea.
You’re welcome. For a ten year stretch a new book would come out every year and I couldn’t wait to read it.
It was a sad day when I learned Kerr had passed away and the Metropolis would be the last Bernie Gunther book. I won’t give anything away, but you should probably be aware that the other books are narratively structured a little differently; they usually tell two connected stories in different time periods. That was probably the original intention with Metropolis but Kerr’s illness intervened. It’s remarkable just how good that book came out considering the circumstances.
The OP said “good.”
According to L-Space, Small Gods is contemporaneous with Men At Arms.
Two sets of character links falsify this hypothesis.
1. The philosophers from Pyramids appear in Small Gods. The final clincher is the fact that both Reaper Man and Small Gods occur, according to the texts, in the Year of the Notional Serpent.
2. Dr Cruces appears in Pyramids and Men At Arms.
Of course, The Thief of Time renders all such speculation moot.
A prequel to what? If you’re thinking about, “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More”, Lee Van Cleef played in the latter. I’ve never seen the same actor play a different role in a prequel than in the subsequent movie.
I also question the validity of characterizing a movie as a prequel if it has absolutely no connection to what is supposed to be subsequent events.
It’s a fan theory (perhaps) supported by some mischief by the director. In the scene with the dying soldier, Blondie acquires the poncho worn by the man with no name in the previous films. As you note, for that to work, Lee Van Cleef has to be playing two different characters.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly itself deserves a good prequel since the three title characters are already acquainted before the film starts.
Is that even possible? There has to be some connection to the original work, otherwise it’s just a stand-alone work set in the same universe. If I write a romance novel set in 19th Century Japan, and later I write one set in 16th Century France, there would have to be some shared plot point(s) between the two for the latter to be considered a “prequel.”
Monsters University. There’s little teases to Monster’s Inc but they’re not needed to enjoy the movie. It’s also a rare prequel where you really can’t predict how it’s going to end.
There are lists of prequels online and some of them just aren’t. Like the last three films of the Planet of the Apes pentalogy. Just because they take place in the first two films’ past doesn’t make them prequels. They are sequels that follow the lives of time travelers (and their offspring). In fact, the time travelers’s son changes the past, completely voiding the future of the earlier films. It’s like calling Back to the Future 3 a prequel.
It’s pretty clear to me that, by “completely independent of the original,” @Asuka didn’t mean “not having anything in common,” but rather that a reader’s/viewer’s appreciation of the prequel doesn’t depend on their familiarity with the original.
Doesn’t count. The OP specified good prequel.
The Endeavour series is prequel to Inspector Morse and IMHO a lot better than the Morse series.