The Expanse (ENT)

[Rocketboy1313]

And don't even get me started on that other "Roman Empire" prequel series that kept pulling all kinds of enemies out of its ass—"Huns", "Carthaginians", "Visigoths"—why didn't any of them ever show up before?

Your position is begging the question. "This did happen, therefore there is no conflict with what we know."

Except they didn't have to write it that way. It is fiction and there is no reason to create something totally knew and different if the concrete of the series is to show a fresh perspective on what we already know about the series.

The reason I say that prequels are pointless is that they are. They do not advance the story, they just provide context. They answer questions and close gaps in the audiences understanding of the material, and to me that makes the story less interesting. It is fun to me when I do not know all about a character and see aspects of them revealed and explored as a story advances and allow my own imagination to fill in whatever blank spaces that happen to appear.
"But how does she know how to fly a ship? That is not realistic."
"Based on the 5 minutes of screen time she has been in you are already claiming she couldn't know how to fly a ship? The answer is, 'doesn't matter'."

I do not care how the Rebels got the Death Star Plans.
I don't care what the Clone Wars were.
I don't care about Indiana Jones fighting in World War I.

And I have to echo that "Temple of Doom" is a bad example because and I will put money on this, nobody knew it was a prequel or gave a shit, nobody felt that movie was informing you of some unknown previous detail about the character or lore. It is a stand alone adventure that could be watched without ever seeing the other movies. Same with "Ark" and "Crusade". There job isn't to answer questions, there job is to tell a story.

Even your Godfather example kind of misses the mark because it wasn't informing us what happened, it was contrasting the two characters' experiences against one another. Like how Indy tried to tell his father about the archaeological dig as a teenager and got ignored, that isn't there to tell us how Indy got a whip, it is there to establish the dynamic between him and his father. It is premise, so that the story has foundation to move forward.

[Durandal_1707]

And don't even get me started on that other "Roman Empire" prequel series that kept pulling all kinds of enemies out of its ass—"Huns", "Carthaginians", "Visigoths"—why didn't any of them ever show up before?

Your position is begging the question. "This did happen, therefore there is no conflict with what we know."

No it's not, it's just pointing out that, if you were writing a historically accurate series based on actual events, and you wrote a "prequel" at some point, it would be completely logical and believable that players might show up that hadn't been mentioned before. I mean, there aren't many "big bads" who are bigger or badder than Genghis Khan, right? If you were doing a historical series set in the time that he was rampaging across Asia, he would factor very heavily in your story. But if you based your story on 20th century events, it would be easy for Mongolia not to be mentioned. This is normal, and expected, because the world's a big place. The galaxy is bigger.

Except they didn't have to write it that way. It is fiction and there is no reason to create something totally knew and different if the concrete of the series is to show a fresh perspective on what we already know about the series.

So did you want it to be the Klingons for the 3,748th time? Or maybe the Borg again?

The reason I say that prequels are pointless is that they are. They do not advance the story, they just provide context. They answer questions and close gaps in the audiences understanding of the material, and to me that makes the story less interesting. It is fun to me when I do not know all about a character and see aspects of them revealed and explored as a story advances and allow my own imagination to fill in whatever blank spaces that happen to appear.
"But how does she know how to fly a ship? That is not realistic."
"Based on the 5 minutes of screen time she has been in you are already claiming she couldn't know how to fly a ship? The answer is, 'doesn't matter'."

I do not care how the Rebels got the Death Star Plans.
I don't care what the Clone Wars were.
I don't care about Indiana Jones fighting in World War I.

But many people do care about these events, as evidenced by the prequels I already mentioned that were very well received.

I thought of another example, by the way; Shakespeare's Henriad tetralogy—Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, and Henry V. These plays form a direct prequel to Shakespeare's earlier Henry VI trilogy, which begins with the death of Henry V, and are considered to be vastly superior to it.

And I have to echo that "Temple of Doom" is a bad example because and I will put money on this, nobody knew it was a prequel or gave a shit, nobody felt that movie was informing you of some unknown previous detail about the character or lore. It is a stand alone adventure that could be watched without ever seeing the other movies. Same with "Ark" and "Crusade". There job isn't to answer questions, there job is to tell a story.

Since when does that make it not a prequel? Merriam-Webster just defines "prequel" as:

a work (as a novel or a play) whose story precedes that of an earlier work

The Oxford says:

a story or movie containing events that precede those of an existing work: the film is a prequel to the cult TV series.

There's no mention of the work existing to "answer questions"—and if you make that part of the definition, then Enterprise's Xindi arc no longer qualifies as a prequel, since that story was very much a standalone adventure itself—as you yourself pointed out, we had not seen the Xindi before, and they did not explain any future events.

[Admiral X]

OMG, this prequel to the popular American Civil War series, about the early years of the USA, has this one season bringing us to The Barbary Pirates, a major enemy we never heard of in the previously existing Civil War series or in either of the two World War spinoffs! CANON ALERT!

And don't even get me started on that other "Roman Empire" prequel series that kept pulling all kinds of enemies out of its ass—"Huns", "Carthaginians", "Visigoths"—why didn't any of them ever show up before?

The argument being made there, though, is that we still bring those up and talk about those. The Xindi trying to blow up Earth would have been a pretty big deal and one would think something that would have been brought up time to time and be talked about. So really they probably shouldn't have done it. There was, however, another conflict during that time period they could have used for a continuing story arc, which was the Earth-Romulan War. And while yes, we know how that conflict turned out, we don't know about the crew (which is why the show should've been more about the characters), and that might lend itself to why the ship itself seems to have been forgotten.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

The 24th century crews name drop the 1701 Enterprise, Kirk, Cochrane, etc. In-universe, given everything that Archer purportedly accomplished (tons of first contacts, basically saving the known universe and founding the Federation) there's no reason for Archer's name not to be mentioned. Of course, they elected to retroactively pretend that Archer was widely recognized as one of the greatest people of all time. Which makes Archer's incompetence all the more irritating, really.

Chuck mentions the idea in one of his reviews, and I think it would have been interesting to explore. What if the Enterprise crew weren't all legends? What could have led to their being forgotten by history? There are a lot of complex topics that could be addressed there, concerning the nature of history, heroes, legends, etc. So yeah, missed potential.

[Wargriffin]

I think the Ultimate problem with Archer... is they did not know what to do with him.

Archer being a flawed wouldn't be so much of a problem... if they didn't do the thing that plagued Picard, and Janeway at their worst

"The Enlightened Evolved Human thing"

If Archer's the Trailblazer... being the Trailblazer is a MESSY job.


Basically Take Q's statement to heart for Archer's character arc o wait they didn't decied Archer had as character arc till three seasons in...
"You can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

[FaxModem1]

In regards to the Xindi war and the Xindi not really being mentioned, I think a good example would be the French and Indian War/Seven Years War.

A lot of it was a factor in the lead up to the American Revolution. However, it's not really something that is brought up a lot, and isn't as historically significant as the American Revolution. Same way for the Xindi War. It was a big event of the time, and it paved the way for the Earth-Romulan war, but compared to it, it wasn't as big an event, and not nearly as momentous, as the Romulan War. The Romulan war paved the way for the formation of the Federation. That's why it's the one that's talked about more.

It's also presumed that the Xindi are probably Federation members by Kirk and Picard's era, so it's not that big a deal for the Federation. Same way in that there was almost a war between Ohio and Michigan, it's not really something most Americans bring up on a constant basis, as it's a dead issue for most people.

[Admiral X]

The Xindi war threatened the Earth and all of humanity, though. That isn't exactly minor.

[Robovski]

The Xindi war threatened the Earth and all of humanity, though. That isn't exactly minor.

And carved a mile-wide trench across southern Florida, Cuba and down to Venezuela. This is at least more War of 1812 and the White House getting burned down if not the 9/11 analoge they promote it as.

[Durandal_1707]

The Xindi war threatened the Earth and all of humanity, though. That isn't exactly minor.

And carved a mile-wide trench across southern Florida, Cuba and down to Venezuela. This is at least more War of 1812 and the White House getting burned down if not the 9/11 analoge they promote it as.

And yet, how many times would you expect the War of 1812 to come up in a series about, say World War II?

(Heck, how many people even know what the War of 1812 was about?)

[PerrySimm]

Enterprise had three things to do.

Meet the Tellarites
Meet the Andorians
Fight the Romulans

Veering off from that course in the first place is what put it off track.

Meeting the Klingons and not touching off 20 years of war was another really big canon mistake.

If the point was to get the show back on track, IMO this episode should have been about Future Guy selling Archer out to the Romulans.