Sometimes a movie that comes out later in the series takes place before the ones that came earlier. One of the best examples I could find was The Scorpion King 2. It’s got a number in the title, is intended to be watched after The Scorpion King pt 1, only makes sense if you watch it after, but takes place before.
I’m gonna call these kinds of movies “prequels”. Watch after, takes place before. Easy peasy. And there are many, many other examples of prequels without a number in the title. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom comes to mind. Watch after Raiders of the Lost Ark but takes place before. (Or maybe don’t watch it. I’m maybe not the biggest fan of the two first Indy movies.)
Contrasted with them are “lost episodes”. Made after, or at least published after, but totally makes sense to be seen before. These are rarer.
I’m not going to police anyone else’s usage of these concepts, but please don’t “carrot and cigarette” me either: I am making a distinction between these two types of movies for the purpose of this essay only. “Takes place before but should be seen after” (prequels) vs “Takes place before and can, if you want, be seen before”, or even “should be seen before” (lost episodes). I need two words (and I went with “prequels” vs “lost episodes” here) for two concepts. But I don’t mean to from now on and for all time be the source of a bunch of “well actually” if other people use these words more loosely or even oppositely.
Okay, with definitions sorted, now it’s time for Star Wars talk! Yes, that’s right, as per ushe it’s the 50 year old science fantasy franchise that’s completely out of fashion and keeps losing money and I can’t stop talking about because I love it so much!
When Star Wars came out it had an “opening crawl” akin to the old Flash Gordon serials. “This is what has come before, this is what’s in the episodes you missed”. Then when the sequel came out, it wasn’t called Star Wars two. It was called Star Wars five! Episode V! And the original was rereleased with an “Episode IV” added in!
Then many years later episodes I, II, and III were made. I’m not here to pile on the hate against them. I’m personally not a fan of their look and atmosphere and the space ship designs in them or the milieus and world building but I love the characters. That’s right, I’m a Jar Jar Binks yaysayer! Okay, okay, Hayden sucks in II and III but he was just a kid, the director needs to have some responsibility too. And there are some dumb plot points here and there. Uh, wait, if I’m gonna start listing everything I don’t like about the prequels we’re gonna be here all day. Or if I’m gonna start defending them against totally unfair and exaggerated take downs like Plinkett then we’d also be here all days.
Let’s narrow it down to just “prequel” vs “lost episode” talk.
They suck as lost episodes. Completely do not do the job. In the eigthies, we were daydreaming about things from the past like those “clone wars” mr Obi-Wan was talking about (or was he a clone? His name sounds a li’l OB1-like!). Or I should say in the 90s from me because my first experience with the original Episode IV (outside of getting to hear a few glimpses of the audio book version from the older kids in the eighties—I was born in 1980) was the 1992 Game Boy game. That’s right, I first heard Cantina theme as a chip tune and it’s still caught in my head to this day. And it’s really cool that we got to see all this stuff finally. That scene especially when, uh, sorry, almost spoiled end of Episode III but it’s a scene I had heard about since 80s (yes, since before Game Boy game, in the “playground lore” era of my Star Wars experience).
They don’t work as lost episodes. You’re supposed to watch IV and V before I, II, and III, and given that, the title scheme is indulgent and dumb. Why don’t they work? Because not only do they spoil a couple of key beats of the original prequel, they undermine so many more. It’s really cool when such-and-such first show up but it’s less cool when you’ve seen a way more baller version of them in the preq, or even when it’s a way dorkier version of them as it in some cases!
So, not hating on the preqs, but just saying there’s a reason why IV, V, VI is called the original trilogy and that I, II, and III is called the prequel trilogy. If they had been made as true lost episodes, maybe they would’ve gotten the appellation “original trilogy”. Origin of the story, first three episodes. And then IV, V, and VI would’ve been called the “Luke trilogy” or something. But obviously that didn’t happen because the prequels are not lost episodes in this sense.
Neither is Solo. It’s a prequel. It’s Han Solo’s origin story, it’s a movie I really enjoy, have watched it a bunch of times and look forward to watching it again, but it’s full of in-jokes that’s gonna be way more fun if you’ve seen the original movies first and vice versa it spoils and undermines a couple of beats from them.
Now, how about Andor and Rogue One? They’re lost episodes. Not only do they fill in the gap of what happened in the opening crawl of episode IV, which a prequel could also have done, they really do work as lost episodes. They don’t spoil or undermine a single character. All things that are chilling or amazing when they first show up in the original movies? That’s just built up in Andor and Rogue One, not torn down or deconstructed or outshone. I did find one single counter example and that’s the AT-AT. That’s the sole undermined thing. A vehicle that’s supposed to look cool when you first see it, and you get now that reaction in Rogue One rather than in Empire. Contrasted with the millions of things that’d be spoiled or undermined by watching preqs first, both the quantity and the magnitude of those things. Other things that are in Andor or Rogue One but show up in the original trilogy, they’re only made even more fearsome by their depictions in Andor and Rogue One.
It’s lost-episode-recursion since Rogue One is a lost episode to what was made and published before it (episode IV), and then Andor is a lost episode again, this time to Rogue One. And Andor is a true lost episode (rather than just a prequel) to Rogue One and then the whole package is a true lost episode to Episode IV. You can watch the three (the Andor series as a whole, Rogue One, and then the original 1977 Star Wars later numbered “episode IV”) in any order and they’ll make sense and not ruin anything, and they things you recognize from what you saw before is only going to make what you see after more awesome. If you want chronological order, i.e. Andor first, then Rogue One, then Episode IV? It works. Five out of the six possible permutations (AR4, RA4, 4RA, R4A, to a lesser extent 4AR, and probably not A4R) work as rewarding first-watch-orders. It’s great. It’s a remarkable achievement.
Now, there’s one really good reason to do publication order, and that’s demographic. Star Wars (1977) is a pew pew space opera with wide appeal. Andor is a grown-up John le Carré, Patricia Highsmith, Jean-Paul Sartre slow-moving high-stakes, “gritty” story in the grim darkness of the faraway galaxy where there is only war. It’s too cruel, it’s too scary, it’s too subtle sometimes, it’s too intense other times. I think Andor is the best show ever made and Rogue One is a perfect movie. But I’m not sure they have the same wide appeal as Star Wars did that summer of 1977. I’ve heard Andor called a boring show and it lost a ton of money. Which, while it’s always great to hear about megacorporations losing money, says something about the limited audience for it. Don’t mistake that as “I’m such a special girl for liking hard-to-like things” bragging. I’m not happy about being a weirdo. I never signed up for it.