Everything New Is Old Again
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Thomas Wolfe may have felt strongly about never being able to go home again, but to filmmakers and Hollywood executives there is creative and box office salvation in returning to the beginnings of a popular movie franchise. In the neverending quest to sell tickets, the movie “prequel” (a word that somehow never sounds right) is becoming a box office force — a trend that seems to please popcorn junkies and showbiz suits looking for a safe bet. Just ask 007, who simultaneously returns to theaters and introduces himself this week in “Casino Royale.”
It’s not easy to invent a movie franchise that excites audiences over and over again, and a movie that can be milked continuously by slapping a “II” or a “IV” onto the title is the Holy Grail of an industry that is equal parts capitalistic lust and artistic ego. The movie sequel isn’t going anywhere, and somewhere in Hollywood Sylvester Stallone is smiling about that; the Stallion is set to drag the sixth “Rocky” film into theaters in December (a full 30 years after the first installment won the 1976 Academy Award for Best Picture), followed in 2008 by the fourth chapter of the “Rambo” series.
Possibly the greatest example of the prequel is “The Godfather, Part II,” which is one of the greatest movie sequels ever made, and the only one to win an Academy Award. In the darker, heartbreaking follow up to “The Godfather,” we follow Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone as he loses his soul fragment by fragment. Simultaneously, we are transported back to turn-of-the-century New York City, where we meet a young Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando’s legendary character in the first film), played with understated dignity by Robert De Niro. The movie is an immensely satisfying narrative juggling act that in many ways surpasses its predecessor with its richness.
More recently, of course, the term prequel has become synonymous with George Lucas’s “Star Wars” episodes I, II, and III. So beloved were the first three pictures that many thought the idea of watching the rise of one the greatest film villains of all time, Darth Vader, would be a box-office slam dunk. (The project was, of course, a gigantic mini-empire with a bottom line fatter than the coffers of many Third World nations.) But in the end, no amount of updated computer technology could surmount the familiar and bitter resentment of fans that so often comes with sequels (in this case prequel sequels), which is the perceived ruining of perfection.
Still, our entertainment-mad society craves a little pop cultural wisdom; we want to see our favorite characters from their beginnings so we can find pleasure in rediscovering what makes them tick, how they got here from there, and why we came to love them in the first place. Maybe when we go to see a prequel, we want a better understanding of who we, the masses, are, via the impossibly big, vulgar cacophony of the silver screen. The charm of prequels, versus sequels, is the ability to see a familiar, beloved character in a new light.
Oftentimes, that “new light” is simply being faithful to a creator’s original intent. Take the recent “Batman Begins.” Tim Burton’s sinister “Batman” movies — “Batman” (1989) and “Batman Returns” (1992) — were huge artistic and commercial hits, but when Joel Schumacher took over the lucrative franchise and churned out “Batman Forever” (1995) and “Batman and Robin” (1997), they were loud, gaudy embarrassments. Mr. Schumacher assumed Batman had to be tweaked, stylized, and revised in order to remain popular. Conversely, Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” took us back to the dark, realistic roots of creator Bob Kane’s vigilante, jettisoning the circus spectacle and big explosions for the simple, intense psychodrama that is the genius behind the character: a troubled millionaire who is haunted by his murdered parents and dons a bat costume to punish criminals.
The new James Bond flick, “Casino Royale,” tries the same trick and succeeds. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond was a smirking, metrosexual tosser lost in a world of green screens. In “Casino Royale,” we watch Bond secure his 007 status for the first time and, even more, we watch the new Bond, Daniel Craig, surpass Sean Connery. Mr. Connery’s British agent was a sneering, sexist cad who looked bored when he killed. Mr. Craig’s Bond isn’t quite so nice; rather, he embodies Ian Fleming’s original creation — a sadistic, sociopathic MI6 agent who would cross out the “not” part on each of the Ten Commandments.
More prequels are on their way. The oncegolden but now toxic world of “Star Trek” is due for a reinvention at the hands of “Lost” creator and “Mission: Impossible III” director J.J. Abrams, who managed to make “MI3” highly enjoyable — its star notwithstanding — by imbuing the movie with the spirit of the television series. A man who respects the form and con tent of genre, Mr. Abrams is now in charge of di recting a “Star Trek” movie that takes us back to before the original series. The original “Star Trek” still charms and, parodied or not, perhaps there’s still an appetite for the adventures of a tin pot full of racially diverse boy and girl scouts scooting around the universe punching and pon tificating. Either way, it’s a way to inject new en ergy into an old idea.
The great workhorse director Brian DePalma whose last movie, “The Black Dahlia,” was a crime against celluloid, is planning a prequel to his 1987 blockbuster “The Untouchables,” fol lowing Al Capone and Jim Malone (the charac ter that won Mr. Connery an Oscar) through their early years. In the original “Untouch ables,” Malone mentions that he had had dealt with Capone before, which is why he knows that the only way to defeat him is to become a little bit like him.
Also next year, we’ll be treated to the early days of Hannibal Lecter in the movie version of the soon-to-be-published novel “Hannibal Rising.” Remember that there are years and years of horrible murders and feasts at the hands of this modern movie monster, so you can bet some bean counter in Los Angeles is hoping for a prequel sequel.
Understanding the past is one of the only ways we can make sense of the present. This mass nostalgia isn’t merely a movie trend — a new “Godfather” novel that is set between Godfather I and II is hot off the presses, and the vampire queen Anne Rice recently penned a book about a little kid named Jesus. On television, a pilot that follows Linda Hamilton’s character in “The Terminator” movies is being shopped around, and the creators of the critically acclaimed sci-fi series “Battlestar Galactica” have gotten the go-ahead to shoot a new series that takes place 50 years prior to when the current series is set.
Will the prequel trend ever wear itself out? We’ll know once I’m sent to review “Little Rocky II.”