No two prequel movies are the same, but the format tends to share some basic similarities. Take Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and the Alien prequel, Prometheus. Despite both being sci-fi prequels to major franchises originally introduced in the ‘70s, they couldn’t be more different. The Phantom Menace is designed to fill in as much lore as possible, turning throwaway dialogue about “the Clone Wars” from the original Star Wars into pivotal prequel plot. Meanwhile, Prometheus is barely even an Alien movie, with returning director Ridley Scott more interested in raising new questions than explaining much of anything about the franchise he launched. Despite these differences, both films ultimately manage to flesh out the canon of their respective franchises in interesting ways, giving fans plenty of material to inscribe on various wiki pages and fueling nerdy new debates over the origins of the Force or Xenomorphs.
