Please. Not another Batman movie!
Or Basic Instinct!
Or Godfather!

You're only against Batman because he's against using firearms.

Now, if Bruce Wayne would just stand a post...

I would suggest actually watching this one before opening your mouth. It's easily the best Batman film ever made, along with one of the greatest "sequels" ever made. It's place here is kind of unwarranted but I'm at least 100% sure you haven't seen it so whatever.

Cynical, Bitter Old Fart Syndrome.

(To add to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.)

Well, there's that, plus Batman has been complaining about the price of gas for the Batmobile. And, you know, complaining about the price of gas is just so un-American.

He once worked for our mortal enemy the Soviet Union, too, so I've heard.

Speaking of which, PB, which (if any) le Carré novels have you read?

The Departed (but if it comes out I will see it, of course)

Infernal Affairs, the film of which that was a remake, has two sequels. At least one of them is a prequel.

I've read most of them, Mick. I think I even reviewed the film adaptaion of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD over at FCM.

Yeah, that's why I asked.

I've just started The Night Manager. Absolutely riveting stuff. I had forgot how much I love his writing.

The man hasn't lost a step, and he has to be pushing 80. I read his latest, THE MISSION SONG, last summer, and it was as fresh as the stuff he wrote in the '60s.

There's something incredibly astute and knowing in his observations of suited men behind desks; the brown-nosing, back-stabbing and brutal competitiveness of hierarchy. On one level, he's a writer of spy thrillers, but on another, I'd definitely put him among the finest in the canon.

I love how he sees through characters in terms of embodying their national stereotypes. When it comes to wit, he has no living peers.

Don't even get me started on the literary critics who classify him as a "genre" writer. Does such snobbery even exist in Europe, or is it just an American phenomenon?

Oh, and I've just realised Sidney Lumet adapted the George Smiley mystery Call for the Dead, as The Deadly Affair. Have you seen it?

It exists here, but probably less so in this case; we've championed him in all our British pride.

I remember the film. Barely. James Mason, right?

I'll have to check with my library for the book.

a sequel to The Departed would be a shame. now, a prequel, just like with any good movie, could be cool.

I'd rather see a sequel than a prequel, probably in any situation. AT least then you can extend and expand the story; but a prequel is an extended flashback to which we already know the ending.

(That's very basic, of course.)

I can't think of a single prequel that ever worked. Unless you count the flashback scenes in GODFATHER II. Oh, and if BATMAN BEGINS can be considered a prequel, that too.

The Star Wars prequels weren't too bad. They explained alot, but the acting was pretty bad.

Of course, the flashbacks in GFII were done superbly all the way around. But since they ocurred within a sequel, technically they don't count as prequels.

Yeah, STAR WARS' weren't horrible, but they didn't add anything we didn't already know about the fates of the main characters.

You know what always bothered me about the Star Wars prequels?

Well, Carrie Fisher IS crazy.

Yes, that must be it.

Knowing the ending doesn't mean you can't enjoy a film. It's not about the end, it's about the whole film. For example, I know the ending to The Godfather, but I'll still watch it.

The Departed left only a few characters alive to base a sequel on, and none of those characters were in the top 3 in importance in the movie.

However a prequel would give you much more to work with as far as the characters and that is what makes a story.

If a Soprano movie was made would you rather see a prequel to The Sopranos or a sequel? I'd prefer a prequel just because the ending was so good and what more can you do with the characters at this point?

It can be interesting to see how things got to a certain point, you don't need a surprise ending to make a film great.

Oh, I know. Tell-it-all titles like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford add an overwhelming tension to the narrative; and films on real-life events, like United 93 are interesting in how they can sustain suspense for an audience all-too-familiar with its ending.

Yes, but re-watching something is quite different, I think, to watching it for the first time.

Maybe, but what new light can really be shed by contriving a fictional past for characters that, in essence, do not exist outside the original narrative framework? The flashbacks are integral to Godfather II because they inform Michael's arc as it's happening, but a prequel has little function and little weight with which to change or enhance the meaning of the original; whereas a sequel can and does do that (re-watching The Godfather after seeing its two sequels is very different to the first viewing).

I see prequels as curiosity-quenchers; but if they were essential to the overall story, they'd've been the original film, and not conceived after the fact. Padding out fictional histories of characters we're familiar with is unnecessary, to me; I treat fictions as hermetic, self-contained works. The challenge of any writer is to exposit a character and all their "history"(/being/existence) within the self-implicated boundaries of the narrative. Some writers allow themselves more ground to cover; others don't treat characters as "real people" at all, they treat them as one-dimensional canvases, puppets, if you like.

TO stick with your example, you could carry on with The Departed and bring secondary characters to key roles in the new narrative (TV shows do this often, including The Sopranos). The writer then has to "flesh out" characters not hitherto conceived of in this way. But a prequel works with what you've got, with what the first film probably did anyway.

(Any narrative exists out of its own necessary factors; whatever is not necessary to a narrative, is not included in a narrative. All narratives are constructed at the expense of all other possible narratives. That we miss out many years of characters' lives is probably telling of the functions, purposes and intentions of the author.)


I'm against a Sopranos film, for reasons already given elsewhere, but I'd much prefer a sequel to a prequel. What could a prequel tell us, in terms of (hi)story? The Junior-Johnny years would be clichéd and silly; the Aprile years have been done in various flashbacks within the show; and the show itself is about Tony looking at his own past and seeing how it relates to his present circumstances. A prequel would shatter that premise, and would have to exist on its own terms; thus defeating the need for it (why not just make a totally unrelated film?).

Prequels wouldn't work in many films for the reasons that you have given, but for example what about a movie like Reservoir Dogs where you don't know much about anyone. A sequel would be pointless, but a prequel could shed some light on some characters. Particularly Mr. Blonde, but also Orange, White, and Pink. Curiosity quencher, sure, sequels serve the same purpose.

The ideas behind prequels, sequels, anything, are only limited by imagination. All you need is one character to use as a bridge from past to present, or present to future. This could still work with the Departed, I would think that using a main character would be better, but I guess we'll see how it plays out.

There are things that fit an arc of a story and that is why they are chosen to be in the story, but that doesn't mean that whatever is left out is no good. If you use a cookie cutter to cut shapes out of cookie dough the remaining dough is still useable.





Really, the type of Sopranos film that would allow the most freedom in the story would be one big dream sequence from Tony.

I don't think David Chase would allow the Johnny and Junior years to be clichéd and silly if he chose to write about it. We do not know much about Tony's father, a few quips here and there. We have not seen why Junior is so bitter, we haven't seen his jealously of Johnny. It has been referenced but that's it.

There is plenty to expand on in those years, not to mention Livia and the kids. Johnny was never boss of the family, so really the pre-Aprile years could also show us DeMeo and bridge us to the Aprile years.


I would disagree about the show itself being Tony comparing past and present. I find it to be more about the every day struggle.

Sequels I don't want to see:

Legally Blonde III
Father of the Bride III
Godfather IV

Well, don't forget that that film uses flashbacks within itself. It shows everything it needs to in order to illuminate what's happening post-heist. (I'd even argue the flashbacks detract, but that's another point completely.)

Good point. But a sequel can expand an already familiar universe and change the meaning of the original after the fact. I'd define a prequel as necessarily leading to the initial film, to somehow inform it or change its meaning. I think the prequels you talked about regarding the Reservoir Dogs characters would be more suited to self-contained spin-off films; anything which is vital to the original film has already been shown. (Incidentally and tellingly, Tarantino was at one point going to make a movie on the Vega brothers.)

Yeah, it's usually eaten, but it's not part of the finished product, it isn't served on the plate (otherwise, why cut the shapes out in the first place)? I'd liken that to discarded material that didn't survive re-drafts. It might have been there one time, but was ultimately taken out for good reason. I was talking about things that were never even part of the original concept, which are then fabricated after the fact.

It'd be a bit clichéd, a bit repetitive. We've already had the big what ifs handled (well) in the show. I can't see how a "what if" dream could elaborate upon the show. It'd be a bloated exercise in paranthesis. Not even that; an appendix penned in white.

And the reference we did perceive, however little, informed the show's meaning sufficiently. (Otherwise, I'd be complaining that Chase didn't explore it enough, which I don't think is the case at all.) So, again, that film would be better suited as a spin-off, with little overlap with the show, because I don't see how it could inform Tony's psychology any more than the show does within its own narrative boundaries. And then, of course, comes the killer question: why make a spin-off film? Why not just have another period gangster film with its own separate characters? Besides curiosity, of course.

Yeah, it deals primarily with Tony's everyday existential crises (mid-life, moral, ethical, work-related, etc.). But a lot of that is informed by means of his exploring, with Melfi, his relationship to the past. In the opening episode he laments how he came in too late, how all the best things are over; his panic attacks are related to memories of raw meat and parental sex. It's very much about how the past informs the present.

Analyze The Other Thing (Sequel to Analyze This, Analyze That)