My cinema year: 1986

TOP 10 U.S FILMS IN 1986

I saw none of these at the cinema then. I have seen 7 since.

1. Top Gun (watched on TV in 1990. Flying scenes ace. The rest is rubbish).
2. Crocodile Dundee (video in 1980s. Seemed fun then. Now seems offensive).
3. Platoon (saw in 90s Excellent but grim)
4. The Karate Kid Part II (Never seen)
5. Star Trek IV; The Voyage Home (saw in 90s. Fun)
6. Back To School (Never seen. Straight to video in UK)
7. Aliens (saw in 90s. Excellent)
8. The Golden Child (Never seen)
9. Ruthless People (saw in 90s? Unmemorable)
10. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (saw in 90s. Quite enjoyed)

The Transformers were the dominant toy craze of my childhood. At least, they were for boys.

There were other toys, yes: He-Man, MASK, Thundercats, Action Force and Zoids. But nothing else came close to the robots in disguise from Cybertron.

It was a different era. Who needed Amazon Prime when you had Optimus Prime? Need a villain? Forget Meghan Markle, try Megatron! Suffering from heartburn? Check out Galvatron! Instead of…er…Galviscon. Well, you get the general idea anyway.

I was fully sold. I got two Transformers Choose Your Own Adventure books. I replaced The Muppets lunchbox I’d had since Infants’ School with a new one featuring Optimus Prime. The Marvel UK TF comic joined Whizzer and Chips, The Beano, Buster and Oink! amongst my regular reads. I collected the Transformers’ Panini sticker collection and once got a very nearly complete album in exchange for a Whoopee cushion I’d brought to school. This was a real bargain: my friend burst the cushion later that day anyway. But I did get a mild telling off as the cushion had been given to me as a present. I shouldn’t have swapped it. It now seems odd I was allowed to take it to school.

We were given the opportunity to write stories for a special school storybook that year. I was regarded as one of the best storywriters in school but of all the topics in the world, I chose to write one about the Transformers. A friend (the same one who I got the sticker album off) drew the pictures. The narrative featured a U.S leader called ‘President Reynolds’ and another human hero called ‘Flip Jackson’. ‘Reynolds’ still sounds like a good name for a fictional US president but, on reflection, I’m not sure ‘Flip Jackson’ is entirely convincing as a typical American name.

In December 1986, I went to see Transformers: The Movie to celebrate my tenth birthday. The late Orson Welles, Eric Idle and Leonard Nimoy were amongst the voice cast for this cartoon but while I knew of Star Trek’s Mr Spock, I would not have recognised these names as a nine-year-old. There was a clever time travel storyline with the action switching between 1986 and the futuristic year of 2006. By the actual year, 2006, the live action Transformers film was in fact poised to come out. It’s stars, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox? Both were born in 1986. This makes me feel a bit old, especially as both actors are in their mid-thirties now.

Transformers: The Movie did not come close to making the U.S top ten in 1986. I make no apology for not having seen any of the films on the list at the cinema. It is not a very child-friendly list. Roughly half of them would not have been accessible to a nine-year-old cinemagoer. Top Gun, Aliens, Platoon, Ruthless People and Crocodile Dundee were all rated ’15’ or above (cinema age classification was much stricter then) and with the exception of Star Trek (yes, this is the even-numbered one where they go to 1980s Earth and Spock silences a noisy punk on the bus), I either had no interest or was unaware of all the others. The Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back To School was never released at the cinema in the UK. Two of my subsequent favourite films, Stand By Me and Hannah and her Sisters were released in 1986 incidentally. Neither made the top 10 US films’ list and, of course, neither would have interested me then, had I even been aware of them or able to go and see them.

An odd feature of my Transformers-obsession was that I was not particularly into the toys themselves. I was not very adept at transforming them and did not really enjoy playing with them. My interest did yield dividends though. Earlier this year, I produced a 2,000 word feature on the Transformers Marvel UK comic series for the ‘1984’ volume of the History of Comics anthology. In 2014, I also provided nearly all the written content for the Transformers 2015 annual, published by Pedigree.

My cinema year: 1984

TOP US FILMS OF 1984

(Number I saw at the cinema then: 1. Number I have seen now: 10)

1. Beverly Hills Cop
2. Ghostbusters
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
4. Gremlins
5. The Karate Kid
6. Police Academy
7. Footloose
8. Romancing The Stone
9. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
10. Splash

I’ve written a fair few film reviews over the years but thankfully have never had to write a review of Ghostbusters. Why “thankfully” you may ask? The simple answer is, because it was such a big film during my early childhood that I really cannot view it impartially. Is it a good film or is it a bad film? I honestly can’t tell.

Perhaps that’s not quite true. I can say fairly confidently that it isn’t a “bad” film per se. It’s also so fondly remembered that it had definitely achieved a degree of classic status. As Adam Buxton has noted, it was also marketed very well. I later had the Atari computer game (“Don’t cross the streams!”). I love the Stay Puft Marshmallow bit. I actually thought he was real for a while too. Not “real”: but I thought he was a genuine US advertising symbol who had been turned into a monster for the film. But he wasn’t. He was entirely made up for Ghostbusters.

Nearly thirty years later, I actually selected Ghostbusters the song to be played at my wedding (although not for the ‘first dance). It was a popular choice. But is it a genuinely good film? I honestly don’t know.

As with E.T., I had a shock early on: the library ghost sequence is easily the scariest bit in a not very scary film. But I was older now (eight, in fact: I’m sure I didn’t see it until 1985) and was now confident enough to still enjoy the film. I went to see it with my mum who didn’t like it at all. I seem to remember her being so bored that she read a magazine during the film. My memory may be playing me false here, however. How would she have read a magazine in the dark? I don’t think she liked it though anyway.

For the first time, I’ve actually seen all ten films listed, so I’ll run through them all quickly. 1984 seems to have been a much better film year than 1983:

Beverly Hills Cop: Really surprised this beat Ghostbusters to the top spot. Okay, but nothing special as I remember. People went nuts about the theme tune though.

Temple of Doom: Okay, but EASILY the worst of the three 1980s Indy films. I first saw it when it was broadcast on TV on Christmas Day a few years later. Part of the problem is that while the first film is based around the mythical Ark of the Covenant and the third one is based around the mythical Holy Grail, this one’s based around the…er… famous temple of Doom? It might as well be called Indiana Jones and ‘the Chamber of Bollocks.” Too silly, too much screeching, too many jumpy bits. And a bit racist, let’s face it.

Gremlins: Was scared to see this for a while after hearing an American relative describe how evil and demonic the Gremlins are. Of course, I saw it eventually, perhaps in my teens and wasn’t scared at all. It’s great fun. And all the “don’t get them wet/don’t feed them after midnight” stuff is genius.

The Karate Kid: Didn’t see this until my thirties when my wife made me watch it to fill a gap in my cinematic education. It’s okay. I suspect I’d like it more now if I had seen it as a child.

Police Academy: The sort of thing I used to end up watching on video at a friend’s house in the late 1980s. Confused me for a while: are all gay men big leather-clad bikers? Generally not a big fan. But I did later see Police Academy 6: City Under Siege at the cinema. No excuse really.

Footloose: Didn’t see this until my twenties. I still like it a lot though. John Lithgow can do no wrong in my eyes. The “Let’s Here It For The Boy” bit always makes me a bit sad though. Chris Penn was clearly so fit and healthy-looking then. What on Earth went wrong?

Romancing The Stone: Good, as I remember. We saw it as an end of term treat at junior school. It was a relatively ‘dangerous’ choice. The sequel’s not as good though.

Star Trek III: It’s easy to forget how popular Star Trek films were at the time. No one really watches them now. This was an odd numbered Star Trek film though and thus DULL.

Splash: An early video choice for the family. Very likeable and the first time I’d seen Tom Hanks in anything.

My cinema year: 1982

Is E.T: The Extra Terrestrial the most terrifying film ever made? (Answer: NO)

TOP 10 U.S FILMS OF 1982

(Number I saw at the cinema then: 1. Number I have seen now: 7)

1. ET – The Extra Terrestrial
2. Tootsie
3. An Officer and a Gentleman
4. Rocky III
5. Porky’s
6. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
7. 48 Hrs
8. Poltergeist
9. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
10. Annie

I remember almost nothing about the year 1982, but I do remember seeing E.T. I mainly remember being terrified.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my first trip to the cinema. I had only just turned five at the start of the year but I’d already seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by this point and Doctor Dolittle (for some reason) on a very early school trip. Neither of these were new films even then, of course, so neither made the top ten in any of the years during which I have been alive. Or ever in Dolittle’s case.

Snow White scared me too: it’s not surprising really.  I was a nervous child admittedly, but the Evil Queen seems quite terrifying to me even now. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way either. Her most chilling moment is when she disguises herself as an old hag so as to trick Snow White into eating the poison apple. It’s a bit odd really: this was the one moment when needs to win her over and she adopts a disguise which makes her look far more horrifying than she looks the rest of the time.

That said, Snow White is at least a classic film. While I think I enjoyed it at the same time, Doctor Dolittle struck me as fairly awful when I saw some of it again a few years later. I may be being harsh here. That said, I remember reading later about how the notoriously difficult Rex Harrison’s high jinks on set essentially ensured that his career was ruined as a result.

Despite my fear, I did manage to enjoy Snow White. Not so, E.T. The alien’s first appearance when E.T’s braying torchlit face appears briefly on screen gave me such a shock that I was so nervous that I was unable to enjoy the rest of the film for fear of it or something happening again.

I’m not sure why I had such an extreme reaction to that bit. Many people are reduced to tears by the film. This has never happened to me. If I cried then it was only out of fear.

For all his box office success, E.T. never appeared in any other films.

Probably about twenty years later, I saw Poltergeist, also on this list, on TV. It’s a good horror but I don’t think it scared me as much then as E.T. did when I saw it in 1982.

The films are, in fact, not dissimilar. Both feature little blonde girls who encounter an alien presence. Steven Spielberg was also heavily involved in both directing E.T. (which was written by the late Melissa Mathison, then about to become the second wife of Harrison Ford) and co-wrote Poltergeist.

I saw nothing else on the list at the cinema but have to date seen seven of the top ten listed above. I never bothered with Annie or Porky’s or the Whorehouse one. I suspect these last two would not have made the top ten in the UK.

48 Hours and Rocky III made little impact on me. Like most people I generally only remember it as “the one with Mr T in.” I did enjoy Tootsie though and on finally watching An Officer and a Gentleman in the 2000s was pretty impressed. Like Saturday Night Fever, it’s a much tougher, grittier film than its reputation suggests.

Incidentally, The Wrath of Khan is also probably the best of the original Star Trek films. Even as a Star Trek fan, I can appreciate this isn’t necessarily very high praise.

1982 was famously the year when many films bombed. Tron, Conan The Barbarian, The Thing. Blade Runner and Cannon and Ball’s The Boys in Blue all flopped, all crushed by the box office juggernaut of E.T. currently the seven biggest blockbuster of all time.

Sadly, although I am certainly no longer scared of it, my early mild trauma has perhaps diminished my appreciation of the film over the years since. In short, I can appreciate it is a classic film but its certainly never been one of my favourites.

And why on Earth does it have such a cumbersome title? “The Extra Terrestrial?” I’ve never met anyone who didn’t just call it “E.T”.

Q: What’s E.T short for? A: He’s got little legs.

2000AD timeline 8: 1984

1984 (Progs 350 – 398)

There are fewer progs of 2000AD than usual this year, due to industrial action halting publication of the Galaxy’s Greatest comic for several weeks in the summer.

March (Prog 359): Judge Dredd investigates The Haunting of Sector House 9 (Wagner and Grant/Brett Ewins).

(Prog 362): The cover price rises to 22p.

April (Prog 366): Dave the Orangutan makes his first appearance in Portrait of a Politician in Judge Dredd.

July (Prog 376): The Ballad of Halo Jones (Alan Moore/Ian Gibson) begins. Initially not popular, in time it becomes one of the most highly acclaimed 2000AD stories ever produced.

August (Prog 377): Mean Machine returns in Dredd Angel (Wagner and Grant/Ron Smith). This is the first issue in a month, following a printers’ strike.

September (Prog 385): Halo Jones Book One ends. Strontium Dog saga Outlaw! ends too.

October (Prog 387): Nemesis the Warlock encounters The Gothic Empire (Mills/O’Neill). The story will see him re-unite the ABC Warriors as well as ex-Ro-Busters, Ro-Jaws and Mek-Quake.

November (Prog 392): Rogue Trooper tracks down the Traitor General.

Other strips this year include: The Helltrekers, Ace Trucking Co., Rogue Trooper, Slaine and D.R. and Quinch.

(Prog 393): The final and perhaps best of the comic adaptations of Harry Harrison’s novels, The Stainless Steel Rat For President begins (Gosnell/Ezquerra). Judge Dredd meanwhile confronts the Hill Street Blues in City of the Damned.

Elsewhere:

February: Surprisingly disturbing John Wyndham adaptation, Chocky airs on Children’s ITV. Chocky’s Children (1985) and Chocky’s Children (1986) later follow.

March: Horror comic Scream! is launched. Sadly, it finishes in June, partly as a result of the strikes this year. Stories such as The Thirteenth Floor find their way into The Eagle.

Peter Davison regenerates into Colin Baker on Doctor Who.

July: William Gibson’s ground-breaking cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer is published.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock arrives. It is one of the odd numbered ones, so is generally considered less than good.

The Last Starfighter is released in the US.

Extra-terrestrial thriller, V lands on ITV this summer.

August: The first series of Manimal hits the UK.

September: The Tripods stride boldly onto British TV screens. Horrifying nuclear war drama, Threads is also broadcast.

October: Conan the Destroyer is unleashed.

November: The fourth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, So Long and Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams is published.

December: The year ends on a high as Ghostbusters hits UK cinemas along with Joe Dante’s Gremlins. As does David Lynch’s Dune.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

2000AD timeline 6: 1982

1982 (Progs: 245-296):

January (Prog 245): The year begins in style with the launch of a new Judge Dredd mega-epic, The Apocalypse War. Half of Mega City One and several other of the 22nd century world’s mega cities are wiped out. This is also the first Dredd story illustrated by Dredd co-creator Carlos Ezquerra to be published in the weekly comic. (Written: Wagner/Grant).

(Prog 246): Nemesis the Warlock Book Two (Mills/Redondo) begins.

April (Prog 259): Sam Slade moves to Brit Cit.

(Prog 260): Fifth birthday issue. The comic is dominated by Dredd, Nemesis, Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, The Mean Arena (which ends in September) and Ace Trucking Co. This is a golden age for 2000AD and after three major new stories in 1981, there are no significant new arrivals.

June (Prog 270): The Apocalypse War ends. The real life Falklands War also ends at about this time. There are to be no more Dredd mega-epics for five years and only one more in the entire decade (Oz in 1987-88).

July (Prog 271): The cover price rises from 16p to 18p.

September (Prog 280): Otto Sump returns to Dredd.

October (Prog 287): Harry Twenty on the High Rock begins (Finley-Day/Alan Davis).

Elsewhere:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Ian Livingstone is published. It is the first in the Fighting Fantasy series of role-playing adventure game books.

January: Peter Davison makes his debut as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who. The series which is nineteen years old now, undergoes a general controversial revamp.

Japanese sci-fi puppet series, Star Fleet arrives in the UK.

March: High quality monthly Warrior is launched featuring Laser Eraser and Pressbutton and the Alan Moore-scripted V For Vendetta and Marvelman (later Miracleman).

April: A new version of The Eagle is launched featuring another new Dan Dare, Doomlord, The Collector and Sgt. Streetwise.

July: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is released and unlike most non-E.T science fiction films released this year, is a box office success. Originally to be called Vengeance of Khan it had its name changed to avoid confusion with the forthcoming third (or sixth) Star Wars film, Revenge of the Jedi. This itself has its name changed and is released as Return of the Jedi in 1983. Khan is now widely regarded as the best of the original Star Trek films.

August: John Carpenter’s The Thing comes out in the UK. Regarded as a classic now, it is critically panned on release. Sword and sorcery epic, Conan The Barbarian is also released.

Life, The Universe and Everything (the third Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide book) is published.

September: Blade Runner is released in the UK. Author Philip K. Dick, who wrote the original novella, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, died in March, aged 53.

October: Tron is released, famously flopping at the box office.

December: Steven Spielberg’s E.T: The Extra Terrestrial is released in the UK. As of June 2021, it is the fourth biggest box office hit of all time when inflation is taken into account (just) behind The Sound of Music, the 1977 Star Wars and Gone With The Wind.

The first ever Doctor Who spin-off, K9 and Company arrives in the form of a pilot/Christmas special.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

Book review: The Year of the Geek, by James Clarke

The Year of the Geek: 365 Adventures From The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Universe, by James Clarke. Published by: Aurum Press.

When did it become fashionable to become a geek? Geekiness is, after all, surely after all, by definition a shameful, untrendy preoccupation. Does this mean that anyone who claims to aspire to be a geek is necessarily a pretender to the nerd throne?

Well, no. Some people blame this trend on things like US sitcom Big Bang Theory and the excellent but now defunct British near equivalent The IT Crowd. But, in truth, this tendency which has resulted in websites like Den of Geek and books like this, has always been there. After all, you can’t get Spider-man without meeting Peter Parker first.

This book takes a chronological approach with a different geek anniversary highlighted for every day of the year. This, it must be said, is potentially of some use to someone who writes professionally on geek issues like me.

May 25, for example, is the anniversary of Star Wars’ US release in 1977. Lord of the Rings’ author JRR Tolkien was born on January 3rd while even the fictional birthday of Harry Potter (July 31st 1990) is noted.

Some of the anniversaries are arguably not very major (the fourth season premiere of Babylon 5 on November 4 1995 is commemorated – as if any of us would forget this date anyway?) Some are arguably not very geeky (the outbreak of the First World War in 1914) but are interesting anyway. There is some discussion of each anniversary.

What elevates this book above the norm, however, is the innovative use of infographics used to illustrate a rich array of charts which demonstrate everything from the longevity of respective Doctor Who actors to the box office success of the Star Trek films.

An excellent addition to the coffee table of every socially maladjusted maladroit in the land.

Book review: The Impossible Has Happened by Lance Parkin

The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek. Author: Lance Parkin. Aurum Press. Published: July 21st 2016.

It has been fifty years since the creation of Star Trek and the franchise is undeniably going strong. A new film and TV series are both scheduled to appear later this year.

Twenty five years after his death, the reputation of the series creator Gene Roddenberry is more uncertain. On the one hand, he has been subject to a personality cult almost as elaborate as that surrounding Scientology creator and sci-fi author, L. Ron Hubbard. On the other hand, he has been sometimes unfairly demonised as a fraud, a philanderer and a phoney. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.

He was born in 1921 and served with distinction as a pilot in the Second World War. After the war, ironically he came very close to death in a Pan Am air crash which killed seven people in 1947. He served in the US police force drifting into TV writing and creating one non-Star Trek series, a police-themed one called The Lieutenant. He then created Star Trek which ran for three series between 1966 and 1968. At the time, it was neither very successful or a failure. The TV series of Mission Impossible which ran at about the same time was probably more successful. Mr Spock actor, Leonard Nimoy indeed joined the Mission Impossible cast after Star Trek ended. But unexpectedly, Star Trek became a huge success after it had ended through syndicated repeat showings. The show just grew and grew and grew.

Many of the myths surrounding Star Trek seem to come from stories Roddenberry himself, often from tales spun by him at science fiction conventions in the 1970s. Some had the commendable aim of consolidating a following for the series, but others clearly had more to do with Roddenberry’s ego. Yes, the series did end after three series but Roddenberry’s claims that it was ended unfairly by small-minded producers don’t add up. By that stage, it had no longer been profitable and the last series was significantly worse than the others. Roddenberry also subsequently exaggerated his own role as a champion of equality and civil rights claiming falsely that he fought narrow-minded studio heads over the issue In fact, though he wasn’t racist by mid-20th century standards, the 1960s series only ever featured as many other minorities as most other US TV series of the time. Nichelle Nicholls’ Uhura, for example, was barely ever given anything important to do. She was one of many women Roddenberry had affairs with and in truth, the original series really didn’t have a progressive role towards women at all.

Leonard Nimoy certainly grew to hate Roddenberry. Roddenberry would often claim sole credit for the success of the series, ignoring the contribution of many others. He had no role at all in the making of the most acclaimed film in the series, 1982’s The Wrath of Khan (which he hated) and his own increasingly drunken, ageing cocaine-addled influence partly explains why the ultimately excellent Next Generation series had such a dull start.

Author Lance Parkin provides a balanced portrait of a man who for all his many flaws took TV on a journey where no one had gone before.

First Among Prequels

Once stories had a beginning, a middle and an end. Not anymore! Today, the trend is for the middle and the end to come first, then the beginning to come along later. For this is the age of the prequel.  Stay tuned for Part One of this feature next week…!

 

The Hobbit (Book: 1937. Films: 2012-2014)

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a “prequel” to the Lord of the Rings saga in the sense that we’re using the term here. The book of The Hobbit was published well before the later trilogy (1954-55). But the films (the second Hobbit film is due out in December) are a different matter appearing a full decade after the Rings saga came to the screen (2001-2003). Got that?

Does it work?: Gandalf is greyer, Gollum a shade less green and Bilbo is Tim from The Office (Martin Freeman) rather than the one from Alien (Ian Holm). But so far, most complaints have been about the Hobbit saga being needlessly padded out into three films rather than about any inconsistencies n the chronology.

 

Star Wars Prequels (1999-2005)

This attempt to explain the origins of Darth Vader was less well received than the original trilogy (1977-1983), many fans finding it more boorish, cartoonish and perhaps even racist than the original three. The last film Revenge of the Sith (2005) does wrap things up neatly though, ending around twenty years before 1977’s A New Hope. This trilogy also probably did spark off the modern fad for prequels too.

 Hannibal  (2013-?)

This acclaimed recent TV series focuses on the life of Thomas Harris’s serial killer Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), before the events of the very first book, Red Dragon (1981).

 Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

This film does cheat a bit imagining Watson and Holmes meeting at school: in fact, they clearly first meet as adults in the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study In Scarlet. But it is a fun film and features the first ever computer animated film character (a stained glass knight who is hallucinated at the start). The movie was a flop though.

Young James Bond (2005-2008)

The adventures of the future 007 have been depicted in five books by Fast Show star Charlie Higson set in the 1930s when Bond was still at Eton. The books are: Silverfin, Blood Fever, Double Or Die, Hurricane Gold and By Royal Command.

The Magician’s Nephew (1955)

This was actually the sixth of CS Lewis’s Narnia novels but is actually set much earlier than the others. It opens in late Victorian England and explains the birth of Narnia. Some Narnia series today rank it as the first book in the saga, order-wise.

 

Star Trek Enterprise (2001-2005)/Star Trek films (2009-?)

The Star Trek franchise was briefly killed off by the unexciting Scott Bakula series which chronicled the early days of the Enterprise in the 22^nd century. The JJ Abrams series of films which detail the early lives of the characters from the original series (including a previously unmentioned liaison between Uhuru and Spock) have thus far proven far more popular.

Smallville (2001-2011)

Despite, rather oddly, being set in the present day, this TV show starring Tom Welling as the young Superman proved remarkably popular and enduring.

Endeavour (2012-?)

Before Lewis, there was Morse. And before even that, this recent 1960s set ITV series sees Shaun Evans playing Endeavour Morse at the start of his police career.

 

Monsters University (2013)

Monsters Inc ended rather neatly. So this prequel flashes back to Mike and Sully’s (child-friendly) college days.

Muppet Babies (1984-1991)

The Muppets in cartoon-form in one nursery supervised by a giant nanny. Basically rubbish.

 

The Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1996)

Taking its inspiration from the short sequence starring River Phoenix as a teenaged Indy at the start of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, this star studded  TV show saw the young adventurer played by several different actors (notably Sean Patrick Flanery) enjoying high jinks across a range of early 20^th century locations. A pre-Star Wars example of Lucasfilm prequeling.

 

X-Men Origins Wolverine(2009)/ X-Men: First Class (2011)

The first X-Men prequel (exploring Wolverine’s past) wasn’t great. The second one set in the Sixties (and featuring a cameo from Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine) was better. Despite James McAvoy’s Professor Xavier (the young version of Patrick Stewart’s character in the original X-Men trilogy (2000-2005) occasionally spouting lines like: “I suppose I am a real professor, aren’t I? Next thing you know, I’ll be going bald!” Ooh! The dramatic irony!

 

Prometheus (2012)

Very clearly a prequel to the Alien films despite various official attempts to deny it. Still not very good though.

 

The Godfather Part II (1974)

A sequel and a prequel, unusually. On the one hand, we see Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) continue to build his crime empire in the 1950s following on from the first film. On the other, we flash back to the start of the century and see his father Vito (Robert De Niro when he’s an adult) coming to America and slowly getting the family business started. Unlike the Michael stuff, these early bits are in fact derived from Mario Puzo’s original novel. The film ends just after Pearl Harbor (1941). The first film starts just after the war’s end (1945).

 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

An excellent prequel set in the near future which explains how the apes of Planet of the Apes (1968) managed to usurp humans as the dominant race on Earth.

 

First of the Summer Wine (1988-1989).

Prequel to the long running comedy set just before the Second World War. Peter Sallis (Cleggy) plays his own character’s father and Seymour appears even though none of the characters met him until a mid-80s episode of the original series. Not as bad as it sounds, as the young actors are well cast (including an extra one called Sherbet who we can only presume was killed in the war). It does rather miss the point though as “young men acting like children” isn’t quite the same as “old men acting like children”.