What Makes a Prequel?

Misusing the word “prequel” is just one more bit of journalistic credibility chucked out the window, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Let’s get one thing straight: the Hobbit is not a prequel.

By this point, you’ve probably heard about the much-delayed big-screen project.

Based on the 1937 fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, it is being adapted into two motion pictures by Kiwi filmmaker Peter Jackson.

Jackson is the director whose Lord of the Rings trilogy grossed roughly a kazillion dollars and prompted nerdgasms around the world.

Since Jackson’s Hobbit will be released nearly a decade after his last LOTR installment, but is set in an earlier period of Middle Earth history, it has been described in online news reports as a prequel, giving rise to sentences such as these:

In a statement released by his production company 3foot7 Ltd, director Peter Jackson said that "despite some delays, we are fully back on track and excited to get started" with regards to the highly anticipated two-part Lord of the Rings prequel. – E! Online

It was the latest in a line of problems for the Lord of the Rings prequel, which had already been stalled for months due to financial issues and actors-union action in New Zealand. – WENN.com

The first day of photography for the two-film prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy will be March 21, according to an e-mailed statement from Wellington-based production company 3Foot7 Ltd. – Bloomberg.com

But here’s the thing: Tolkien wrote LOTR after the Hobbit, not before. Those three books came out starting in 1954, so the Hobbit is the original work and LOTR the sequel to it, not the other way around.

This means the Hobbit does not fit the definition of a prequel: a story created as a sequel, but set in the past of the original work.

Take the Star Wars prequel trilogy as an example that illustrates this rule. Those films came out a couple decades after the adventures of Luke Skywalker and company — but they tell a tale that happened a generation before Luke was born.

Ironically, the Oxford English Dictionary credits Tolkien with being one of the first people to use the term prequel, applying it to some of his other written works.

Steven Spielberg was the one who gave the word currency, lodging it in the public mind when he released Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. However, there are earlier examples of filmic prequels, such as 1979’s Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

Heck, you could probably trace the idea at back to Shakespeare.

Maybe this seems like so much pedantry to you. But think about this: if arts writers can’t be trusted to get the little details correct, why should readers trust them on the big picture? Misusing the word “prequel” is just one more bit of journalistic credibility chucked out the window, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

So what should we call the story of how Bilbo Baggins meets the evil dragon Smaug, if not a prequel?

How about a "precursor?"

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.