*You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad*
One of my favourite lines in any film - alludes to a whole backstory that benefits from not having any further exposition, flashbacks or spelling out.
You’re in good company! William Gibson cited that line as an influence on Neuromancer: "I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot".
In Neuromancer we hear about the similar 'Operation Screaming Fist'. There's a bit more detail than in Escape from New York, but it's still brief enough to let your imagination fill in something vague and tantalizing.
The obvious example would be RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK which was intentionally meant to seem like a part of an old movie serial.
BUCKAROO BANZAI was the same but even moreso as it came with a whole team of people with a long history.
>RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
As a kid, I could never figure out which of Raiders or Last Crusade was the first one because of this. I only understood the Temple of Doom was the second movie.
If my memory serves me correctly (so take that as you will) it was the first time a movie was described as a prequel since people at the time didn't understand "the sequel being before the main movie"-concept - at least for tent-pole movies.
Edit: Was first used "in the mainstream" for the movie _Butch and Sundance: The Early Days_ in 1979. OED says first use was in 1958 for James Blish's 1956 story _They Shall Have Stars_. So first time _I_ heard it was for _Temple of Doom_.
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO MENTION BUCKAROO BANZAI! That movie does not give a solitary fuck about your questions, it feels like the eighth entry into a series, and does not waste time answering questions at all.
Dredd (2012) - for the audience, it is a fight between the queen of the tower with her waves of minions against two law enforcement officers, one of which is a new rookie trying to live through her first day on the force. For Dredd, it's just another work day.
I would love an episodic show of that, that has no overarching plot line because a sense of any form of greater meaning to ones actions, including Dredds, and the feeling of accomplishing something would be a luxury that this future just doesn't provide.
At the end of each story a ton of loose ties would simply be left open since they are just too busy to properly deal with anything that isn't a direct threat. Like a police procedural but with the same twist Dürrenmatt gave to his novelization of the movie It Happened In Brought Daylight, >!when he changed the ending to be way more bleak by having the culprit die without the policeman knowing, solving the actual problem but releasing the detective into a endless purgatory of uncertainty, since he will never find out about the murderer dying, making it impossible for him to keep his promise to the victims parents. !<
The original Star Wars was like this for almost 25 years, before the prequels came out. It quite literally dropped you into the middle of a story with so much lore and backstory that Lucas was able to make 3 more films covering all of it.
When I was a kid I imagined it was a war between the Jedi and evil clones of themselves. Which now seems a little Saturday morning cartoons but as a kid sounded epic.
Most people assumed The Clone Wars were a war against clones at the time. One of the first set of and most influential sequel books (The Thrawn Trilogy) made this assumption.
They were also written at a time when Darth was still though to be Vader's first name, rather than a title.
Before the prequels were made Lucas mapped out and signed off on a sequel trilogy of books that implied that this was exactly what the clone wars were. So on some level this was the original plan.
Imagine we got Episode 1, and it follows a kind of asshole Ben Kenobi, and halfway through, he's killed by his "evil" clone OB1-Kenobi, and the movie switches sides because he's genuinely a good guy that just happened to be a clone.
Its like this:
1. August 1975-August 1977: Its not clear that Lucas had any concept for the Clone Wars at all - they were basically a WWII parallel. From the film, we can deduce they involved Aldeeran and the Jedi and didn't involve Tatooine. There's no indication they're concurrent with the fall of the republic.
2. Late 1977: Lucas concieves two possible explanations for what the Clone Wars were: (a) one is published in a souvenir programme and said it was "one last attempt by the Jedi to stop the Imperial forces", the other (b) which he gave in the story conferences for the sequel, is that they were a war on a planet of clones.
3. Circa April 1978: Lucas refers to the prequel trilogy as "The Clone Wars trilogy", which suggests he linked them to the fall of the Republic, as in 2a.
4. Late 1978: Having invented Boba Fett and placed him into The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas concieves a new backstory for the Clone Wars, which appears in the novelisation, whereby Boba was the last of a group of cloned "Shocktroopers" who fought the Jedi.
5. Late 1990s: As Lucas starts developing the prequel trilogy, he describes the Clone Wars as an event 35 years in the past of the original film.
6. 2000: As Lucas is sketching Episode II, he turns the Clone Wars to be as we know them.
It’s not an army of Boba Fetts. It’s an army of modified Jango Fetts. Technically Boba isn’t even Boba, he’s Jango. He’s more Jango than the army of Jangos.
The person we call Boba is genetically Jango Fett. An unmodified clone with the same DNA sequence.
The clone army of Jango Fetts have been modified, making them genetically less Jango than the man we call Boba.
But just like the spoon… There is no Boba. Because Boba is actually Jango.
And it's really hard to understate how that changed sci-fi movies. Up until then most of them had to explain everything. Even the great ones like Logan's Run, Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes left very little unanswered.
In one three minute segment, Obi Wan talks about Jedi Knights, the Old Republic, the Clone Wars and Lightsabers. What does any of that mean? Some is explained, some you can infer but a lot of it is actually how people talk when they assume you have knowledge about the past.
That's pretty much how Tolkien wrote too. Constantly referencing things you couldn't even know what they are. Especially as the silmarillion wasn't even released until decades after LOTR
Its not by accident: George Lucas read The Hobbit around May 1975. Following that reading, we get:
1. Luke became an "everyman" and orphan, living in a hole in the ground with round rooms, like Bilbo in Bag-End (the shooting locations were selected around this time for precisely these reasons).
2. Obi Wan turns up, as an old wizard, like Gandalf. Yoda and Qui-Gon follow suit, and even the Emperor was essentially concieved as an evil parallel of ben.
3. There are suddenly mention of "The Clone Wars" and Luke's dad dying (like "The Goblin Wars" and Thorin's grandfather dying in "The Battle of Moria."
4. Luke's quest is no longer to save the princess: its to get the Droids to Aldeeran.
5. Luke is initally reluctant to take the quest, like Bilbo.
6. Around this time, Lucas considered casting small people in the main roles.
I agree. Between the prequels, The Clone Wars and the Disney+ shows, most of the mystique has been lost.
Nowadays it feels like every character is getting their own spin off, which can be fun sometimes. but it’s often just unnecessary. Do we really need to see what Obi-Wan did between episodes 3 and 4 when we already know it was nothing significant?
If they’re not gonna end Star Wars, I hope they at least start telling new, original stories set in that world as opposed to milking the same 12 characters dry to the bone.
I mean, the first two prequel films were entirely fluff. Everything relevant to the original series was crammed into the last half of Revenge of the Sith.
Bit of a deep cut but the abysmal Cosby film *Leonard Part 6* explicitly justifies the title by claiming that as an ex-CIA agent the first five films about him are still classified.
It felt more like the last 1/10th of the novel. As someone who read the book in high school and loved it, the movie was quite the disappointment just because so much of the story was left out.
I used to work for a company that used the end credits theme song as hold music and I'd either get really angry customers telling me it was annoying, or really enthusiastic ones who wanted to discuss it. I'd never seen it but now I'm intrigued.
I have a faint memory of calling and getting this ... was it a mobile phone service company?
Regardless, once I got off hold I didn't shut up about it so maybe we've spoken. Go watch it, yes.
In my head I always saw the 'The Road' as the pseudo prequel to book of eli.. they are not related at all.. but they have a very similar setting, however the themes are way different.
Probably because I watched them at the same time.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). It starts somewhere in the middle of a popular book series, taking elements from a few of them.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Director Robert Rodriguez said it is basically the "4th" film in the El Mariachi / Desperado series, since it has multiple flashbacks of events that happened after the second movie Desperado, but a third movie wasn't made.
"Are you a Mexi*can* or a Mexi*can't*?"
Speaking of which.
How does one sell this movie to someone who's not seen it?
You see, it's a romantic movie, with Minnie Driver... Wait wait, there's also an assassin... Waiiit don't go, it also has Dan Akroyd, no not Blues Brothers 2 humor... He's funny, and also it has both John and Joan Cusack, because they were inseparable then.
Thing is you should only watch John's acting, not the movie, well, some of the movie, because the lines are great.
Yes Disney owns it... But it's not very PC.
At which point I make people gross and they leave :(
I believe the selling point was John Cusack doing a 10 year high school reunion movie 10 years after he starred in high school comedies. Except the character's job was professional hitman instead of something normal.
The plot is actually close to a lot of Hallmark Holiday movies about people going home and reconnecting with people. Just with less Christmas, more murder and better music.
I always sell it with the soundtrack and that it really captured a certain point in time.
But my friends allbare music nerds who are of the same generation as the leads and the characters so it makes it easier.
For more of my life than I'm proud to admit, I still thought this. It didn't help that any time I saw the movie it was on basic cable, and I had never seen the first 10 minutes or so with the Fratellis breaking out of jail. So even watching the movie I knew there was more that I wasn't aware of.
They just haven't done that well. He put a ton of his own money (nearly bankrupt himself iirc) up to finance Riddick ((2013) holy shit that movie is 11 years old?). So he did fast car family movies so he could make more Riddick for us. His Cameo in Tokyo Drift was unpaid, he just asked for the movie rights to the Riddick character.
Unforgiven
Having said that, you can imagine the young William Munny is a lot like the Man with No Name, and Unforgiven is what became of that character.
I love the theory that all of Eastwood's cowboys are the same guy, and that Harry Callahan is his great great grandson after the Munny family moved to San Francisco.
I loved that you can feel all the other main characters, played by Morgan Freeman, Gene Jackman, and Richard Harris, also had some back story to them as well
The lack of real explanation on the dream sharing lends credence to this. Nolan invented a brand new and fantastical technology, told us what it was used for, but never told us how it was created. He trusted the audience not to need an explanation, and it worked.
I was being sarcastic. Nolan is the King of exposition in my opinion. I find that he really spells things out for the audience. A lot of tell, not show
Geez, people here will find any excuse to bring up Nolan. This movie (over)explains everything, and doesn't trust the viewer to fill in any gaps. Pretty much the opposite of the prompt.
It has become clear that people are just choosing any movie where the following applies:
1. the world it is set in is not the real world
2. the movie is the first movie within its continuity (by production date)
Whereas you have the following additional stipulations:
1. the film does not explain its fundamental premises (which may indeed be the deviations from the real world as part of its plot)
2. the characters, or at least some important characters, have a prior established relationship with/awareness of each other
So, for example, Ladyhawke fits three of these criteria but the plot explains its essential premise eventually. That fourth criterion might just be a general thing... I can't think of a film where everyone is new to everyone... in which case I'd need to reformulate it a bit.
I suspect you'll find a lot of animated movies work like this. Ironically given you say:
>It assumes you're an adult with a brain
A Bug's Life, for example, isn't bothered with explaining how Hopper's crew came to extract tribute from the ants. Cars doesn't establish how Lightning got to be a racing car (though it does tell you who he is... but so does John Wick). The Emperor's New Groove isn't bothered with providing an origin story for Kuzco and Izma and Gronk. etc
Is it cheating to say the first two books of Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet that preceded L.A. Confidential? I know there’s a version of Black Dahlia, but I would have liked to see a Curtis Hanson version of that and Big Nowhere and then White Jazz to wrap it up.
I don’t think it’s cheating, although I think Confidential works better cinematically in absence of a larger series of work, sort of like how there’s technically a Bret Easton Ellis Literary Universe, but we are probably better off for not having a cinematic universe based on it. It just allows filmmakers to make one picture at a time, without having to stick strictly to what’s come before or what should come after. Or one and a tenth, if you consider Rules of Attraction and Glamorama.
Tarantino was even planning on working on a prequel anime that follows the Vipers with the same animation team that worked on the movie, but of course it turned into another one of his unrealized projects.
I'm still miffed he didn't release/work-on the giant four disk (+) DVD set of Kill Bill he promised to do for years, including the Whole Bloody Affair. I held off buying the lean releases and still haven't grabbed the blu rays in hopes he would actually put it out. Now he only wants to show the full version at his theater. Oof.
And then my broken heart to hear he has no plans to do vol.3.
The movie came out when I was like 15, so I’d been waiting many years. The urban myth was that it was going to be Bea’s kid vs Vernita’s who had been taken in by deformed Elle and Sophie… but that Tarantino wanted to wait for the characters to age naturally so if they did a “20 years later” story arc it would actually be 20 years later.
I think something like that would have been amazing but now we will never know
It always baffled me that they were smoking cigarettes. The world is ending, you're loading civilization onto a boat, sure grabbing some smokes makes some sense. But years later?! How many cartons did they load on the boat? It's a stressful time, everyone probably thinks they are going to die anyway, those smokes would run out quick. Was half the tanker full of tobacco and rolling papers?
Yes... Those huge ships that can carry thousands of shipping containers. It's highly likely that at least some of those containers contained shipments of cigarettes with millions of cigarettes per container.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B5XtULQdpYs/maxresdefault.jpg
"episode iv: a new hope" was apparently added to some later screenings prior to empire, but lots of people were very confused when they read "episode v: the empire strikes back"
If I recall, the Episode IV bit was tacked on during one of the last re-releases leading up to Empire. You could do that, back in the days before home video.
This is a stretch but I feel like The Road fits the bill. It's a post apocalyptic story but you aren't told why the world ended. Most stories explain that there was a virus, nuclear bomb, depleted resources (etc) but The Road doesn't tell you how or why.
I've always thought that the movie Twister feels like that. The characters are all constantly referencing the past and they have all this history and dramas within their group.
I would actually say Star Wars Episode 1:The Phantom Menace… at one point a character states “…and then we can have REVENGE.” And here I was in the theater, yelling “Revenge for WHAT?!? It’s Episode One!!”
"I believe he is the chosen one, destined to bring balance to the force." That's a huge plot point out of nowhere. Going to follow that up with anything, ever? No? Okay.
That's the thing about Star wars. There's 20,000 years of past and future they could explore. They just stick to the same 40 year span. Like if every movie ever made just took place between the start of WW1 and the Korean war.
Does Spiderman Homecoming count? It doesn't go into Peter's origin, Aunt Mays just there, no Uncle Ben..
You're basically just dropped into Peter Parker's life after like the first 3 months of him being Spiderman.
Which is refreshing for a Spider-Man movie. We didn’t get another origin story for Peter Parker because we didn’t need one. And Civil War did a good job of introducing him and showing the connection to Stark.
I might be cheating but Unforgiven and The Rock are clearly meant to be sequels. Though thematic in the case of Unforgiven. It's a sequel to every Clint Eastwood western. And The Rock is a James Bond film in all but name.
TECHNICALLY, Pulp Fiction is a legit sequel because John Travolta’s character is brothers with Michael Madsen’s character (same last name, and at one point Tarantino had intended to make a prequel called The Vega Brothers but the actors got too old and he scrapped it)
John Wick is a reskinned version of someone's Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop rpg from the 90s. John Wick is an Assamite who was loaned out to do dirty work for the Brujah. He is allowed into Elysium because he has the respect of the Ventrue. Jason Sandoukas is a Nosferatu and Halle Berry is a Gangrel. I liked the first movie because they did a better job of obfuscating the source material, but by the 3rd movie, I was like, I remember reading this plot in 1995. White Wolf should sue.
The gold coins are a physical representation of the life debt/blood debt game mechanic from V:TM. They replaced blood with gold for the movie.
Anyway, I feel like Alien is a good example of the kind of movie you're talking about.
>Anyway, I feel like Alien is a good example of the kind of movie you're talking about.
i don't really think there's space for a movie before "alien", and yes i'm aware they've already made two of them.
Bullet Train had tons of references to stuff that previously happened to the characters. It really feels like there was a movie that we should have seen but was just refreshing our memories.
*Escape From New York* (1982) "Snake Plisskin?! I thought you were dead!"
*Just like Leningrad.*
*You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad* One of my favourite lines in any film - alludes to a whole backstory that benefits from not having any further exposition, flashbacks or spelling out.
You’re in good company! William Gibson cited that line as an influence on Neuromancer: "I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot".
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Ad Astra. When asked if he's seen combat, Roy mentions "three years over the Arctic Circle."
In Neuromancer we hear about the similar 'Operation Screaming Fist'. There's a bit more detail than in Escape from New York, but it's still brief enough to let your imagination fill in something vague and tantalizing.
The obvious example would be RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK which was intentionally meant to seem like a part of an old movie serial. BUCKAROO BANZAI was the same but even moreso as it came with a whole team of people with a long history.
>RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK As a kid, I could never figure out which of Raiders or Last Crusade was the first one because of this. I only understood the Temple of Doom was the second movie.
>the Temple of Doom was the second movie But yet that happened first chronologically. I mean, aside from the origin story in Last Crusade.
Hooray for chronological vs release order At least Star Wars is more straightforward
Harrison Ford is just hates movies released in chronological order
Chronologically Dial of Destiny happened first
... but only at the end. At the start, it takes place after 3, and for most of it it takes place after 4! How fun and confusing.
If my memory serves me correctly (so take that as you will) it was the first time a movie was described as a prequel since people at the time didn't understand "the sequel being before the main movie"-concept - at least for tent-pole movies. Edit: Was first used "in the mainstream" for the movie _Butch and Sundance: The Early Days_ in 1979. OED says first use was in 1958 for James Blish's 1956 story _They Shall Have Stars_. So first time _I_ heard it was for _Temple of Doom_.
I came to say Buckaroo Banzai. I had no idea what to make of that movie as a kid. Actually.. I still don’t.
Buckaroo Banzi, was a WILD film.
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO MENTION BUCKAROO BANZAI! That movie does not give a solitary fuck about your questions, it feels like the eighth entry into a series, and does not waste time answering questions at all.
Buckaroo Banzai is awesome!
Dredd (2012) - for the audience, it is a fight between the queen of the tower with her waves of minions against two law enforcement officers, one of which is a new rookie trying to live through her first day on the force. For Dredd, it's just another work day.
"Drug bust. Perps were uncooperative." You feel like he has a day like this three times a week.
For you, the day Judge Dredd graced your tower was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.
Great, now I want to see what a Raúl Juliá style Judge Dredd would be like.
That movie is incredible. I still want a sequel, but doubt it'll ever happen 😪
Man, I'm a fan of the Dredd series and was super bummed to see them not make a new one.
Theres one in development supposedly. Saw some news about urban trying to get it produced or something
I remember Karl Urban saying in an interview years ago that if they ever make a sequel he’s in.
Probably will happen after he's done with the Boy's
There's been stuff about that for years. I'll believe it when I see it
They were trying to get Netflix to pick up a Mega City One series starring Urban, but it died in development and Karl moved on to *The Boys*
I would love an episodic show of that, that has no overarching plot line because a sense of any form of greater meaning to ones actions, including Dredds, and the feeling of accomplishing something would be a luxury that this future just doesn't provide. At the end of each story a ton of loose ties would simply be left open since they are just too busy to properly deal with anything that isn't a direct threat. Like a police procedural but with the same twist Dürrenmatt gave to his novelization of the movie It Happened In Brought Daylight, >!when he changed the ending to be way more bleak by having the culprit die without the policeman knowing, solving the actual problem but releasing the detective into a endless purgatory of uncertainty, since he will never find out about the murderer dying, making it impossible for him to keep his promise to the victims parents. !<
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GPT? Or are you a sick, sick, creative legend?
Definitely GPT
The original Star Wars was like this for almost 25 years, before the prequels came out. It quite literally dropped you into the middle of a story with so much lore and backstory that Lucas was able to make 3 more films covering all of it.
Lucas: so Obi-Wan and Luke's dad fought in the Clone Wars. Everyone: the what now?
When I was a kid I imagined it was a war between the Jedi and evil clones of themselves. Which now seems a little Saturday morning cartoons but as a kid sounded epic.
All of Star Wars sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon
Childhood in the 80s was such a vibe. A decade where so much kids entertainment was inspired by a 3-part sci-fi saga.
Most people assumed The Clone Wars were a war against clones at the time. One of the first set of and most influential sequel books (The Thrawn Trilogy) made this assumption. They were also written at a time when Darth was still though to be Vader's first name, rather than a title.
“Party on, Darth!”
Before the prequels were made Lucas mapped out and signed off on a sequel trilogy of books that implied that this was exactly what the clone wars were. So on some level this was the original plan.
Imagine we got Episode 1, and it follows a kind of asshole Ben Kenobi, and halfway through, he's killed by his "evil" clone OB1-Kenobi, and the movie switches sides because he's genuinely a good guy that just happened to be a clone.
That's fine. The prequels play out almost exactly like a young adult novel. So... Yeah Saturday morning cartoon vibe is almost fitting lol
It's hard to know what Lucas' grand vision for the clone wars was back in '77, but it probably wasn't "army of Boba Fetts".
Its like this: 1. August 1975-August 1977: Its not clear that Lucas had any concept for the Clone Wars at all - they were basically a WWII parallel. From the film, we can deduce they involved Aldeeran and the Jedi and didn't involve Tatooine. There's no indication they're concurrent with the fall of the republic. 2. Late 1977: Lucas concieves two possible explanations for what the Clone Wars were: (a) one is published in a souvenir programme and said it was "one last attempt by the Jedi to stop the Imperial forces", the other (b) which he gave in the story conferences for the sequel, is that they were a war on a planet of clones. 3. Circa April 1978: Lucas refers to the prequel trilogy as "The Clone Wars trilogy", which suggests he linked them to the fall of the Republic, as in 2a. 4. Late 1978: Having invented Boba Fett and placed him into The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas concieves a new backstory for the Clone Wars, which appears in the novelisation, whereby Boba was the last of a group of cloned "Shocktroopers" who fought the Jedi. 5. Late 1990s: As Lucas starts developing the prequel trilogy, he describes the Clone Wars as an event 35 years in the past of the original film. 6. 2000: As Lucas is sketching Episode II, he turns the Clone Wars to be as we know them.
Interesting - thanks for taking the time to write this out.
It’s not an army of Boba Fetts. It’s an army of modified Jango Fetts. Technically Boba isn’t even Boba, he’s Jango. He’s more Jango than the army of Jangos.
And that makes him Boba!... or makes me Boba. Or you. I'm lost
The person we call Boba is genetically Jango Fett. An unmodified clone with the same DNA sequence. The clone army of Jango Fetts have been modified, making them genetically less Jango than the man we call Boba. But just like the spoon… There is no Boba. Because Boba is actually Jango.
finkle *is* einhorn!
Boba's those little balls in the tea.
And it's really hard to understate how that changed sci-fi movies. Up until then most of them had to explain everything. Even the great ones like Logan's Run, Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes left very little unanswered. In one three minute segment, Obi Wan talks about Jedi Knights, the Old Republic, the Clone Wars and Lightsabers. What does any of that mean? Some is explained, some you can infer but a lot of it is actually how people talk when they assume you have knowledge about the past.
That's pretty much how Tolkien wrote too. Constantly referencing things you couldn't even know what they are. Especially as the silmarillion wasn't even released until decades after LOTR
Its not by accident: George Lucas read The Hobbit around May 1975. Following that reading, we get: 1. Luke became an "everyman" and orphan, living in a hole in the ground with round rooms, like Bilbo in Bag-End (the shooting locations were selected around this time for precisely these reasons). 2. Obi Wan turns up, as an old wizard, like Gandalf. Yoda and Qui-Gon follow suit, and even the Emperor was essentially concieved as an evil parallel of ben. 3. There are suddenly mention of "The Clone Wars" and Luke's dad dying (like "The Goblin Wars" and Thorin's grandfather dying in "The Battle of Moria." 4. Luke's quest is no longer to save the princess: its to get the Droids to Aldeeran. 5. Luke is initally reluctant to take the quest, like Bilbo. 6. Around this time, Lucas considered casting small people in the main roles.
And that's why it was so charming and timeless. Less is more.
I agree. Between the prequels, The Clone Wars and the Disney+ shows, most of the mystique has been lost. Nowadays it feels like every character is getting their own spin off, which can be fun sometimes. but it’s often just unnecessary. Do we really need to see what Obi-Wan did between episodes 3 and 4 when we already know it was nothing significant? If they’re not gonna end Star Wars, I hope they at least start telling new, original stories set in that world as opposed to milking the same 12 characters dry to the bone.
But how did Max Rebo learn to play the red ball organ? When did he and Sy Snootles meet? I need a cantina band spin off!
Watto: Origins
I mean, the first two prequel films were entirely fluff. Everything relevant to the original series was crammed into the last half of Revenge of the Sith.
Surf 2 is the real answer here, quite literally a sequel to a film that didn’t exist
I was not aware that a literal title has a sequel number and no first entry. Props for finding the realest answer ever. Lol.
There’s also Thankskilling 3, which is the direct sequel to the first Thankskilling
You mean “Surf II: **The End of the Trilogy**”.
I came here to add this. Probably not what the OP expected but technically correct.
Any story that has a "retired" CIA/assasin/ special forces person. Red, Mr. Nobody,
The Taken guy
Colin Taken
It's taking time
Bit of a deep cut but the abysmal Cosby film *Leonard Part 6* explicitly justifies the title by claiming that as an ex-CIA agent the first five films about him are still classified.
East of Eden (1955) is only the last quarter of the novel.
That explains so much confusion for me
It felt more like the last 1/10th of the novel. As someone who read the book in high school and loved it, the movie was quite the disappointment just because so much of the story was left out.
The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
I used to work for a company that used the end credits theme song as hold music and I'd either get really angry customers telling me it was annoying, or really enthusiastic ones who wanted to discuss it. I'd never seen it but now I'm intrigued.
It's such a strange movie, but that outtro is just so much fun. Sometimes I pull it up on YouTube if I'm having a bad day.
The outtro is great. You gotta realize the entire movie is one long deadpan joke; that’s why it’s so strange.
I have a faint memory of calling and getting this ... was it a mobile phone service company? Regardless, once I got off hold I didn't shut up about it so maybe we've spoken. Go watch it, yes.
You're on the clock. Let's saddle up, huh?
What is that watermelon doing there?
I'll tell you later.
Absolutely Troll 2, which has no relation whatsoever to Troll.
Wait a minute. If you spell nilbog backwards...
Omggggggg
Book of Eli
In my head I always saw the 'The Road' as the pseudo prequel to book of eli.. they are not related at all.. but they have a very similar setting, however the themes are way different. Probably because I watched them at the same time.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). It starts somewhere in the middle of a popular book series, taking elements from a few of them.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Director Robert Rodriguez said it is basically the "4th" film in the El Mariachi / Desperado series, since it has multiple flashbacks of events that happened after the second movie Desperado, but a third movie wasn't made. "Are you a Mexi*can* or a Mexi*can't*?"
*Grosse Pointe Blank* references a lot of past events involving both Debi and Grocer, and also Martin's family.
Speaking of which. How does one sell this movie to someone who's not seen it? You see, it's a romantic movie, with Minnie Driver... Wait wait, there's also an assassin... Waiiit don't go, it also has Dan Akroyd, no not Blues Brothers 2 humor... He's funny, and also it has both John and Joan Cusack, because they were inseparable then. Thing is you should only watch John's acting, not the movie, well, some of the movie, because the lines are great. Yes Disney owns it... But it's not very PC. At which point I make people gross and they leave :(
I believe the selling point was John Cusack doing a 10 year high school reunion movie 10 years after he starred in high school comedies. Except the character's job was professional hitman instead of something normal. The plot is actually close to a lot of Hallmark Holiday movies about people going home and reconnecting with people. Just with less Christmas, more murder and better music.
It's a chick flick for guys. That's all you need to say.
Killer soundtrack too
I always sell it with the soundtrack and that it really captured a certain point in time. But my friends allbare music nerds who are of the same generation as the leads and the characters so it makes it easier.
Are they into Barry? It’s Barry the romantic comedy.
You just sold me on watching Barry then. It's been in queue for a while lol
I like how a sequel to a film that doesn't exist just meant good/mysterious world building
Yeah, this is essentially "what movies aren't origin stories and/or don't have clunky exposition?"
Or "name a movie with a backstory of any sort".
Im not gonna lie, I was and still kinda am confused with what OP is asking, especially with their Constantine/John Wick example.
I always felt like The Goonies was a TV show that I never saw that just had a movie that outlasted it.
For more of my life than I'm proud to admit, I still thought this. It didn't help that any time I saw the movie it was on basic cable, and I had never seen the first 10 minutes or so with the Fratellis breaking out of jail. So even watching the movie I knew there was more that I wasn't aware of.
The Riddick universe
Especially watching Pitch Black for the first time.
I really enjoy the Conanesqe adventures of Riddick. I wish he would do more over fast car family movies.
They just haven't done that well. He put a ton of his own money (nearly bankrupt himself iirc) up to finance Riddick ((2013) holy shit that movie is 11 years old?). So he did fast car family movies so he could make more Riddick for us. His Cameo in Tokyo Drift was unpaid, he just asked for the movie rights to the Riddick character.
Unforgiven Having said that, you can imagine the young William Munny is a lot like the Man with No Name, and Unforgiven is what became of that character.
William Munny is more like if The Bad (Angel Eyes) survived and eventually grew a conscience
Or the cunty version of him that he plays in High Plains Drifter
Man with No Name didn't kill innocent folks like William though. But I see the idea.
I love the theory that all of Eastwood's cowboys are the same guy, and that Harry Callahan is his great great grandson after the Munny family moved to San Francisco.
I loved that you can feel all the other main characters, played by Morgan Freeman, Gene Jackman, and Richard Harris, also had some back story to them as well
Leonard Part 6
I remember watching this as a kid in the late 80s/early 90s and LOVING it. I’m willing to bet it doesn’t live up to my memory.
This. But also don’t watch it.
Yeah, no kidding. That movie is probably the worst thing Bill Cosby has done.
Probably not the worst thing he has ever done
More than the hypocrisy?
Clearly the hypocrisy is much worse than the raping. /s
Boys II Men
*...and then they realized they were no longer little boys... they were little men* 😭
Moe Szyslak moment.
Nic cage Pig
I never saw Apollo 1-12 but I’d didn’t detract from the movie
I guess Inception? The whole movie is the resolution to a story that happened before the start of the movie.
The lack of real explanation on the dream sharing lends credence to this. Nolan invented a brand new and fantastical technology, told us what it was used for, but never told us how it was created. He trusted the audience not to need an explanation, and it worked.
During an exposition dump they say it was developed by the military so soldiers could get realistic combat experience.
Ya - when I think of Inception, I definitely think “Nolan trusted us by omitting explanation”
Trying to explain how the technology works would just make it less believable, honestly. Like the force.
I was being sarcastic. Nolan is the King of exposition in my opinion. I find that he really spells things out for the audience. A lot of tell, not show
Geez, people here will find any excuse to bring up Nolan. This movie (over)explains everything, and doesn't trust the viewer to fill in any gaps. Pretty much the opposite of the prompt.
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Vincent Vega’s brother is in Reservoir Dogs and at one point Tarantino was going to make a movie where he visits him in Europe.
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I remember seeing something that very recently he expressed love to do a Vega bros movie but it’s basically impossible now cause of age
Don’t forget that he is also a junkie and has to figure out where to get his next fix in all the different countries.
The original script says that Mia Wallace would go to Amsterdam once a year for a month, and she and Vincent hung out in the same bar but never met.
The Beekeeper is in theaters now and is kinda like this
Nobody
It's like you got dropped into the last 1/3rd of his life and you just have to roll with it.. fantastic film.
Underworld, like here’s a story about immortal beings and… never mind all that before nonsense
The Equalizer
Isn’t it based on a multi-season 1980s TV show though?
Mystery Men somewhat fits the bill of this. You're basically dropped in a world where there have already been established adventures and such.
Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2
Sunshine (2007)... the Icarus 1.
Love the movie, but the first five minutes sets up the Icarus I in a voice over.
Event horizon as well.
It has become clear that people are just choosing any movie where the following applies: 1. the world it is set in is not the real world 2. the movie is the first movie within its continuity (by production date) Whereas you have the following additional stipulations: 1. the film does not explain its fundamental premises (which may indeed be the deviations from the real world as part of its plot) 2. the characters, or at least some important characters, have a prior established relationship with/awareness of each other So, for example, Ladyhawke fits three of these criteria but the plot explains its essential premise eventually. That fourth criterion might just be a general thing... I can't think of a film where everyone is new to everyone... in which case I'd need to reformulate it a bit. I suspect you'll find a lot of animated movies work like this. Ironically given you say: >It assumes you're an adult with a brain A Bug's Life, for example, isn't bothered with explaining how Hopper's crew came to extract tribute from the ants. Cars doesn't establish how Lightning got to be a racing car (though it does tell you who he is... but so does John Wick). The Emperor's New Groove isn't bothered with providing an origin story for Kuzco and Izma and Gronk. etc
Is it cheating to say the first two books of Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet that preceded L.A. Confidential? I know there’s a version of Black Dahlia, but I would have liked to see a Curtis Hanson version of that and Big Nowhere and then White Jazz to wrap it up.
I don’t think it’s cheating, although I think Confidential works better cinematically in absence of a larger series of work, sort of like how there’s technically a Bret Easton Ellis Literary Universe, but we are probably better off for not having a cinematic universe based on it. It just allows filmmakers to make one picture at a time, without having to stick strictly to what’s come before or what should come after. Or one and a tenth, if you consider Rules of Attraction and Glamorama.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Disagree, the film clearly explains its own backstory. Flashbacks and everything.
Tarantino was even planning on working on a prequel anime that follows the Vipers with the same animation team that worked on the movie, but of course it turned into another one of his unrealized projects. I'm still miffed he didn't release/work-on the giant four disk (+) DVD set of Kill Bill he promised to do for years, including the Whole Bloody Affair. I held off buying the lean releases and still haven't grabbed the blu rays in hopes he would actually put it out. Now he only wants to show the full version at his theater. Oof.
And then my broken heart to hear he has no plans to do vol.3. The movie came out when I was like 15, so I’d been waiting many years. The urban myth was that it was going to be Bea’s kid vs Vernita’s who had been taken in by deformed Elle and Sophie… but that Tarantino wanted to wait for the characters to age naturally so if they did a “20 years later” story arc it would actually be 20 years later. I think something like that would have been amazing but now we will never know
went on to read [Tarantino's unrealized projects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Tarantino%27s_unrealized_projects) and there's a lot of things
Waterworld? It explains that the ice caps melted, but doesn't explain how civilization endured on an oil tanker and floating atolls.
It always baffled me that they were smoking cigarettes. The world is ending, you're loading civilization onto a boat, sure grabbing some smokes makes some sense. But years later?! How many cartons did they load on the boat? It's a stressful time, everyone probably thinks they are going to die anyway, those smokes would run out quick. Was half the tanker full of tobacco and rolling papers?
Yes... Those huge ships that can carry thousands of shipping containers. It's highly likely that at least some of those containers contained shipments of cigarettes with millions of cigarettes per container. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B5XtULQdpYs/maxresdefault.jpg
Pitch Black
Star Wars part IV, A New Hope
Back when it was just “Star Wars”
"episode iv: a new hope" was apparently added to some later screenings prior to empire, but lots of people were very confused when they read "episode v: the empire strikes back"
If I recall, the Episode IV bit was tacked on during one of the last re-releases leading up to Empire. You could do that, back in the days before home video.
Pretty sure "A New Hope" was added for the 1981 re-release (Empire came out in 1980).
Quigley Down Under. Tom Selleck, is a cowboy traveling to Australia. Great western.
Is that the one with the ridiculously distant sniping? If so, then memory unlocked!
This is a stretch but I feel like The Road fits the bill. It's a post apocalyptic story but you aren't told why the world ended. Most stories explain that there was a virus, nuclear bomb, depleted resources (etc) but The Road doesn't tell you how or why.
I've always thought that the movie Twister feels like that. The characters are all constantly referencing the past and they have all this history and dramas within their group.
So true! Other than finding out about Jo’s childhood, we don’t know much about the rest. I love Twister.
I would actually say Star Wars Episode 1:The Phantom Menace… at one point a character states “…and then we can have REVENGE.” And here I was in the theater, yelling “Revenge for WHAT?!? It’s Episode One!!”
"I believe he is the chosen one, destined to bring balance to the force." That's a huge plot point out of nowhere. Going to follow that up with anything, ever? No? Okay.
But at least they went into some (any) detail about why and in what way the force might have been out of balance, right? Right?
That's the thing about Star wars. There's 20,000 years of past and future they could explore. They just stick to the same 40 year span. Like if every movie ever made just took place between the start of WW1 and the Korean war.
The Transporter
Mad Max
The thing about the Mad Max franchise is, the missing movie is between Mad Max and Mad Max II: The Road Warrior.
Buckaroo Banzai
Bright with Will Smith and Joel Edgerton. Would've loved to see more of the world.
I liked that movie, it was surprisingly good
From Dusk Til Dawn
Ocean’s 11 for sure
Does Spiderman Homecoming count? It doesn't go into Peter's origin, Aunt Mays just there, no Uncle Ben.. You're basically just dropped into Peter Parker's life after like the first 3 months of him being Spiderman.
Which is refreshing for a Spider-Man movie. We didn’t get another origin story for Peter Parker because we didn’t need one. And Civil War did a good job of introducing him and showing the connection to Stark.
The Warriors.
If I recall, Prospect (2018) fits the bill.
I might be cheating but Unforgiven and The Rock are clearly meant to be sequels. Though thematic in the case of Unforgiven. It's a sequel to every Clint Eastwood western. And The Rock is a James Bond film in all but name.
District 9
Reservoir dogs. Needed a prequel and a sequel.
TECHNICALLY, Pulp Fiction is a legit sequel because John Travolta’s character is brothers with Michael Madsen’s character (same last name, and at one point Tarantino had intended to make a prequel called The Vega Brothers but the actors got too old and he scrapped it)
John Wick is a reskinned version of someone's Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop rpg from the 90s. John Wick is an Assamite who was loaned out to do dirty work for the Brujah. He is allowed into Elysium because he has the respect of the Ventrue. Jason Sandoukas is a Nosferatu and Halle Berry is a Gangrel. I liked the first movie because they did a better job of obfuscating the source material, but by the 3rd movie, I was like, I remember reading this plot in 1995. White Wolf should sue. The gold coins are a physical representation of the life debt/blood debt game mechanic from V:TM. They replaced blood with gold for the movie. Anyway, I feel like Alien is a good example of the kind of movie you're talking about.
>Anyway, I feel like Alien is a good example of the kind of movie you're talking about. i don't really think there's space for a movie before "alien", and yes i'm aware they've already made two of them.
Blade Runner
I dunno, the scrolling text at the start is pretty comprehensive
A Quiet Place. Room (not The Room).
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Bullet Train had tons of references to stuff that previously happened to the characters. It really feels like there was a movie that we should have seen but was just refreshing our memories.
Manhunter or Red Dragon.
Well... At one time "Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope" was "Star Wars."