Prequels

A prequel is a literary, dramatic, or filmic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work.

All "prequels" are, by definition, essentially sequels in that they "expand on a previous or preceding work." The term is a 20th-century neologism that is a portmanteau of the prefix "pre-" (from Latin prae, "before") and "sequel".

Like other sequels, prequels may or may not concern the same plot as the work from which they are derived. Often, they explain the background which led to the events in the original, but sometimes the connections are not as explicit. Sometimes, prequels play on the fact that the audience knows what will happen next, using deliberate references to create dramatic irony.

Though the word "prequel" is of recent origin, works fitting this concept existed long before. The Cypria, presupposing hearers' acquaintance with the events of the Homeric epic, confined itself to what preceded the Iliad, and thus formed a kind of introduction.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word "prequel" first appeared in print in 1958 in an article by Anthony Boucher in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, used to describe James Blish's 1956 story They Shall Have Stars, which expanded on the story introduced in his earlier 1955 work, Earthman Come Home. The term came into general usage in the 1970s and 1980s.

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) may have introduced the term "prequel" into the mainstream. The term has since been popularized by the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005).

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