# Earliest prequel in film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 18, 2016, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518 "2016-01-18T19:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/21 "2016-01-19T20:53:41Z")
Wikipedia lists\* Another Part of the Forest\* (1948) as a prequel to _The Little Foxes_ (1941). That’s the oldest movie prequel listed. In literature, they list T_he History of the Holy Grail_ (1230) as a prequel to _Death of Arthur_ (c. 1210). ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/22 "2016-01-19T22:47:58Z")
> [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > I think that Lucas set the movie in 1935 because Karen Allen declined to be in it. We all know that George Lucas is a genius in this area. According to the DVD commentary, Allen wanted to come back and Spielberg wanted her back. It was Lucas who put the kibosh by insisting that Indy have a different love interest every movie a la James Bond. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/23 "2016-01-19T22:49:56Z")
“Destry” came out decades after Jimmy Stewart’s “Destry Rides Again.” ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/24 "2016-01-20T00:48:32Z")
While not the first, I seem to recall the word starting to gain currency with "The Amityville Horror II (1982), which happened ‘before’ “The Amityville Horror” (1979). [Google N-gram](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=prequel&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cprequel%3B%2Cc0) shows the word starting to really pick up steam in the late 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/25 "2016-01-20T01:03:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > _Escape From The Planet Of The Apes_, after _Beneath The Planet Of The Apes_. > > Fits all six criteria, technically. > > I said “technically”. From the point of view of Cornelius and Zira, the events of _Escape_ happen after that of _Beneath_. In fact, the time period they travel to, IIRC, is **after** the launches of the spacecraft featured in the first two movies. So, no. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/26 "2016-01-20T01:31:18Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > From the point of view of Cornelius and Zira, the events of _Escape_ happen after that of _Beneath_. From their point of view, sure. But the _events_ in question still took place before the events of the earlier film, right? > [@](#): > > In fact, the time period they travel to, IIRC, is **after** the launches of the spacecraft featured in the first two movies. Hey, the OP did specify “completely, or at least primarily”. If you indeed RC, you can rule out “completely” – but can you rule out “primarily”? ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/27 "2016-01-20T02:21:40Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > It occurs to me that _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_ (1984) is the earliest movie prequel I can think of, at least in the sense we commonly think of prequels today. Am I forgetting (or simply unaware of) a ton? For purposes of this exercise, I’m classifying a movie prequel as: > > 1. A film that came out after another film; > 2. set in the same story “universe,” of sequential events if not actual location; > 3. featuring the same protagonist, or at least a protagonist who was a primary character in the first film; > 4. with that character being played by the same actor (i.e. no two-decade-later origin story reboots); > 5. that depicts, completely or at least primarily, events that took place before the events of the earlier film (i.e. not just one little flashback scene); and > 6. neither the first movie nor the prequel are adaptations of books or other media. > > By those criteria, can you think of any earlier prequel than _Temple of Doom_? I know I could Google it, but I’d rather be made to feel dumb by y’all than by a cold, heartless search engine. 🙂 With the exception of criterion #4 (which was necessitated by the prequel being set about 50 years earlier), the 1964 _roman a clef_ film THE CARPETBAGGERS, based on the Harold Robbins bestseller, has a prequel that was made two years later in 1966, the western NEVADA SMITH. THE CARPETBAGGERS was set in the 1930s and starred George Peppard as Jonas Cord Jr. a Howard Hughes-ish womanizing industrialist. Alan Ladd played an old cowboy named Nevada Smith with a shady past that Peppard’s father, Jonas Cord Sr., (played by Leif Ericson, who dies early in the film) hired to bodyguard and help raise his son, Peppard. NEVADA SMITH gave us the prequel, set in the old west and starring Steve McQueen as the young Nevada Smith. A naive young half-white, half-Indian son of a rancher, he returns to the find the smouldering ruins of his home and the burnt remains of his parents (a scene that George Lucas “borrowed” for the first STAR WARS). Smith goes to hunt down his parent’s killers (Martin Landau, George Kennedy, and Karl Malden) after some training in gun-handling and street-smarts by Brian Keith, who plays Jonas Cord, Sr., and who will later hire Smith in THE CARPETBAGGERS. The entire film is actually contained in the original Robbins novel as an extended flashback. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518/28 "2016-01-24T00:33:33Z")
Previous thread on the subject, oddly 9 years and 1 month to the day prior to this one. > **[What Was The First Movie Prequel?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=400672)** > > Was having this discussion recently, and the earliest I (or anyone) could come up with was 1979’s Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. Were there any prequels released before this one? May not be around for a while, so thanks in advance. Sir Rhosis [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-prequel-in-film/743518.md?page=1)