10

Thinking about how Star Wars saga starts at Episode IV, that is a very smart way of making room for yourself to create a set of prequels if it sells well and make it look like you had it all planned beforehand.

Is Star Wars the first instance of this or otherwise what’s the first instance of a fiction work on Movies or Writting which follows this schema?

Clarification: referring to situations where the order is specified as a number indication on the title itself.

Jorge Córdoba
  • 14,483
  • 12
  • 68
  • 105
  • 12
    Doesn't this apply to anyone who writes a successful book and then adds prequels? Like, say, LotR and The Silmarillion? – DavidW Sep 16 '21 at 22:30
  • 5
    I think it depends on your criteria. The Chronicles of Narnia were published 2, 4, 5, 6, 3, 1, 7. 3 takes place during 2, and 1 is effectively a prequel. But they were written one a year, and the 'main' series completed after the two earlier ones, so I don't know if it would count? That was 1950, so there's probably something earlier anyway. – BeginTheBeguine Sep 16 '21 at 22:48
  • 1
    I mean literally the title of the book or movie has a number different than 1 like in episode iv – Jorge Córdoba Sep 16 '21 at 23:19
  • 42
    @JorgeCórdoba The original movie wasn't initially labelled as Episode IV. That didn't happen until a few years later. – Sam Azon Sep 17 '21 at 01:25
  • 2
    From https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/3936/116908 "The original theatrical release in 1977 did not have a number. The "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the scroll text was not added until the 1981 re-release, a year after Empire came out". – PM 2Ring Sep 17 '21 at 03:35
  • You should probably fix your title to ask for "science fiction" instead of plain "fiction" (which I think would make this off-topic). – Eike Pierstorff Sep 17 '21 at 07:29
  • @BeginTheBeguine But Lewis was retconning Narnia with The Magician's Nephew, because you can't have The Last Battle and the end of the world without having previously created the world. The Narnia series before those two books is complete in itself by the end of The Silver Chair, having completed the arcs of the Pevensies, Eustace and Caspian. Retconning afterwards isn't quite what the OP is looking for. – Graham Sep 17 '21 at 10:08
  • 4
    @BeginTheBeguine ... But then the OP's example is a bad one for the question, because Star Wars was also retconned the same way. Still, it was an interesting question, even if the OP hasn't got things quite right. :) I say "it was" because the "clarification" actually makes it very uninteresting. Asking about series which start in media res is interesting. Any series which explicitly puts a number on the title because they think readers are too stupid to remember chronology is almost inevitably a crappy formulaic bit of writing, and hence an uninteresting question. – Graham Sep 17 '21 at 10:11
  • @Graham To be honest I wrote that comment very late at night, and hadn't quite picked up that the OP wanted books that had been numbered non-sequentially as they came out (I'm not sure that was very clear until an edit actually). It probably doesn't count anyway because Lewis himself said that he didn't know how many books he was going to write, and thought each would be the last so it's definitely missing the "intent" the OP wanted. – BeginTheBeguine Sep 17 '21 at 11:04
  • 8
    Almost nobody puts "numerical order" into titles, so I think you're being overly restrictive – Carl Witthoft Sep 17 '21 at 13:10
  • @CarlWitthoft, the numerical order is the point of the question - having an Episode IV implies Episodes I through III. Otherwise we're just looking at prequels. – pladams9 Sep 17 '21 at 19:54
  • 1
    @pladams9: But the OP explicitly lists Star Wars as examples, which only got the numbers designation after the prequels were created. At the time The Phantom Menace came out, there was no Episode IV. – Jörg W Mittag Sep 17 '21 at 20:57
  • 2
    @JörgWMittag, Wikipedia seems to think the "Episode IV" moniker was added in the 1981 re-release, so a bit after Empire and around 18 years before Phantom. And while I can't remember that far back, I do have the recollection that the numbering from 4 to 6 was there before the prequels came out. – ilkkachu Sep 18 '21 at 11:47
  • @ilkkachu: Interesting. Either my memory is messing with me, or the German titles were different, or both. (None of which I would categorically exclude.) – Jörg W Mittag Sep 18 '21 at 11:50
  • @JörgWMittag, with the amount of changes they've done to the three original films, who knows... Though the German Wikipedia also says (google-translated for the rest of us, end of 1st paragraph) "The German title Eine neue Hoffnung only prevailed years later when a THX-remastered trilogy version was released in 1995." so maybe the "Episode IV" moniker was also played down in Germany until that. Still not exactly the time of Phantom, but closer to it than the early 80's anyway. – ilkkachu Sep 18 '21 at 12:02
  • In reference to the “Star Wars” example of the original question, it needs to be noted that this was not the case for the original film Star Wars (1977) initial theatrical run as released without “Episode IV.” “Episode IV” numbering along with “A New Hope” subtitle were retroactive additions to the original print. In the original May 1977 release of Star Wars, the opening crawl did not feature an Episode number or the subtitle “A New Hope.” Those would be added with the film's April 10, 1981, theatrical re-release. – Silly but True Sep 29 '21 at 14:25

2 Answers2

43

This sort of thing has been done for as long as there has been fiction. Some of the earliest surviving texts have out of order narrative.

It isn't necessarily the earliest, but a good example is the three Theban plays by Sophocles.

  • Oedipus the King, first in story order, second written and performed (429 BCE)
  • Oedipus at Colonus, second in story order, last to be written and performed (401 BCE)
  • Antigone, last in story order, first to be written and performed. (441 BCE)

Oedipus The King itself has an out of sequence narrative. It starts with him already the king. It then provides descriptions of earlier events, the prophecies, the murder of the former king, and so on.

Additional info:

If you don't accept Oedipus, then how about the Iliad instead? It is definitely written as part 2 of a longer saga. It starts at a point late in the war, and ends before the end of the war.

Homer's other Trojan poem, The Odyssey, takes place after the war ends. Basically it's part 7 of the saga.

Other poems by other authors, now lost, tell other parts. Cypria by Stasinus, tells of the start of the war, but was written later.

Of course, none of them had numbers in the title.

Pete
  • 16,827
  • 4
  • 54
  • 84
  • 2
    Hi, I don’t mean stories told out of order, I mean specifically labelling the book or movie so that the reader knows it is intended to be out of order – Jorge Córdoba Sep 16 '21 at 23:20
  • 20
    @JorgeCórdoba But Pete's answer is so much more interesting than your question that you should rephrase your question to match it. – Invisible Trihedron Sep 16 '21 at 23:57
  • 2
    @JorgeCórdoba one would imagine that when they were collected as a set, they were labelled in that way? – Aster Sep 17 '21 at 09:56
  • 9
    @JorgeCórdoba If you're looking for explicitly numbered works, Shakespeare wrote the three Henry VI plays before writing Henry V. (The Henry IVs were likely before either of them, and nobody's quite sure about when Henry VIII was written, and there are no plays for any of the other Henrys.) Sure, the number in this case is part of the respective Henrys' titles, but they're plays with a number in the title by the same author, written and published out of order. – Darrel Hoffman Sep 17 '21 at 13:23
  • 5
    @DarrelHoffman you should make than an answer lol – Azor Ahai -him- Sep 17 '21 at 15:29
  • 1
    @AzorAhai-him- Maybe if this were Literature.SE, but Shakespeare's histories aren't science fiction by any definition. Oedipus arguably isn't either, but at least it's almost certainly fiction, if not-so-much on the science. The Henry plays are at least partially historical if not 100% accurate. – Darrel Hoffman Sep 17 '21 at 15:54
  • 9
    @InvisibleTrihedron that's... like, the opposite of the point of a Q&A site... – somebody Sep 17 '21 at 15:59
  • I would class the history plays as works of historical fiction. – Tom Sep 17 '21 at 16:32
  • @somebody Pete's answer reaped 32 likes in one day, while the original post got 6. I rest my case. – Invisible Trihedron Sep 18 '21 at 00:25
  • 2
    @InvisibleTrihedron ... again, this is not the point of a Q&A site. this is not an A&Q site where the questions depend on the answers. this is also not a popularity contest to see who can get the most imaginary internet points – somebody Sep 18 '21 at 01:31
  • 1
    @somebody Not every comment should be taken at face value. Sometimes they are intended ironically. – Invisible Trihedron Sep 18 '21 at 03:23
5

Since OP has added the restriction that the title of the work must include a number indicating an episode, let me proffer this movie from 1987.

Leonard Part 6.

Movie poster for Leonard Part 6

FuzzyBoots
  • 223,803
  • 23
  • 680
  • 1,039
Sam Azon
  • 2,058
  • 1
  • 12
  • 18
  • 6
    And what about The Magnificent 7, they never did get around to making the 6 prequels. – Pete Sep 18 '21 at 00:37
  • 6
    @Pete, or Ocean's Eleven, where Twelve, Thirteen and 8 were also made, but 9, 10 and all from 1-7 are still missing... :P – ilkkachu Sep 18 '21 at 11:51
  • 4
    Now you're being silly. – Pete Sep 18 '21 at 11:53
  • The Madness of George III was also written before The Madness of George I and II (which they never got round to writing). – DJClayworth Sep 18 '21 at 23:19
  • And we never got parts I, II or III of Shakespeare's Henry. – Rosie F Sep 19 '21 at 11:07
  • This was well after Star Wars. In fact, the idea to call this movie "Part 6" was a deliberate parody of Star Wars. – Darrel Hoffman Sep 20 '21 at 13:10
  • @DarrelHoffman It's a bit of a philosophical question as to whether the titles of the movies of the original trilogy included the episode numbers. Or, more precisely, what the titles actually were then and are now. I'm not interested in arguing the question, but I will say that my understanding is that the movie posters of the time did not mention the episode numbers. – Sam Azon Sep 20 '21 at 13:52
  • @SamAzon Only the first one (Ep. IV) lacked a number, and only in its initial release. By 1987, all 3 of the original trilogy had been released, and officially numbered. It might not have appeared on the posters, but it was stated at the top of the opening text crawl starting with ESB. – Darrel Hoffman Sep 20 '21 at 14:02
  • @DarrelHoffman I'm not disputing that. But when the movie came out, almost no one referred to The Return of the Jedi by any longer name or referred to it by Episode 6 or Star Wars: Episode 6. You can look at Siskel & Ebert's review or tape from the Oscars. Episode 6 didn't appear on the posters or on the Marquis or in ads in papers. I admit that one can easily argue that technically the title includes episode -- I might even agree. But it seems more a philosophical question, like many Is X a Y? type questions. – Sam Azon Sep 21 '21 at 00:10
  • Doesn't change the fact that Leonard Part 6 was only named "Part 6" as a deliberate spoof of the Star Wars films. There was never any intention to make Parts 1-5. (And of course the movie bombed so hard there was no way they'd have been able to make any others.) – Darrel Hoffman Sep 21 '21 at 13:43
  • @DarrelHoffman Perhaps you could explain why that is relevant? – Sam Azon Sep 21 '21 at 20:36
  • 1
    The OP asked for scifi works released out of order, but if there's only 1 of them in the whole series, it can't be out of order. – Darrel Hoffman Sep 22 '21 at 13:12
  • @DarrelHoffman This is a very good point. – Sam Azon Sep 22 '21 at 15:58