15 Movie Prequels That Answered Burning Questions

Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom establish many of the tropes familiar to Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, including his use of a whip, his fedora, and his fear of snakes. His fear of snakes comes up multiple times, most notably in Raiders when he finds the Ark of the Covenant, which is surrounded by asps. As for his hat and whip, it's never mentioned in the first two movies how he became skilled in using the whip or why he prefers a wide-brimmed fedora.

Technically, Temple of Doom is the prequel to the Indiana Jones franchise, but Last Crusade, despite mainly being a sequel, includes an important scene in the film's opening that establishes several of the franchise's tropes. The movie opens with River Phoenix playing a young Indiana Jones. He tries to recover an artifact from the men who found it because he believes it belongs in a museum. This leads to a chase that winds up on a moving train as the bad guys close in on young Indy.

While Indy evades the men on the circus train, he falls into a cart of snakes and comes face to face with hundreds of reptiles squirming all over him - that's certainly enough to establish a phobia. As the chase continues, Indy eventually falls into a car holding a lion, with nothing between him and the beast. He grabs a whip off the wall and uses it, only managing to give himself a scar on his chin (which matches Harrison Ford's scar). As for the hat, the leader of the men chasing him gives it to him to honor the kid's skills and bravery. That's a lot of fun origin details in one thrilling sequence!

While comic book fans knew how Professor Charles Xavier wound up in a wheelchair, the question wasn't answered in the X-Men film franchises for years. Since X-Men hit theaters in 2000, those fans unfamiliar with the books could only sit and wonder what happened in his past, as it's made clear he wasn't always in the chair. X-Men: First Class answers the question by outright showing precisely what happened in the past.

In the film, the newly-formed X-Men are on a beach where Magneto attempts to kill the human-operated naval vessels that fired upon them. To stop him from following through, Moira MacTaggert fires her handgun at him, but Magneto deflects the rounds before they make contact. He accidentally redirects one into Charles's lower back, and Charles immediately loses all feeling in his legs. In the following film, he is able to fix the problem at the cost of his psychic abilities, so he eventually opts to remain in the wheelchair to continue his mission to unite humans and mutants.

One of the biggest mysteries established in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope is how the Rebel Alliance gets their hands on the plans for the Death Star. It's briefly explained by Darth Vader, who says, “Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.” That's about viewers know about the plans - they were intercepted on the Tantive IV and were nowhere to be found because Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) placed them inside R2-D2. Fans also are left wondering why, exactly, the Death Star has such a notable vulnerability that allows Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to blow the entire station to bits with a well-placed torpedo in the right exhaust port.

Now, there have been plenty of explanations over the years in supplementary Star Wars material, but as far as finding the answer in a feature film, that didn't come until the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The prequel offers a detailed explanation of why the weakness was purposefully engineered into the Death Star as well as the perilous Rebel mission to retrieve the plans. In a way, the movie's sole purpose is to answer the question of how the plans were acquired by Rogue One before the events of A New Hope.

At the end of Predator 2, after Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) kills the Yautja (one of the alien species also known as Predators), he's met by several others who make their presence known by becoming visible. Harrigan sees them and assumes he's about to be killed, but he stands his ground. One of the Yautja recognizes the human for his skills in killing one of their own, so he throws him a trophy: a 1715 flintlock pistol that belonged to Raphael Adolini, indicating that the Yautja had hunted on Earth more than 280 years ago.

The question many fans had at the end of the film was, “Where exactly did the Yautja get that gun?” Fortunately, they got their answer in Prey, which is set in 1719 and features Adolini (Bennett Taylor), a French fur trapper and poacher operating in the area. The Yautja in Prey gets its hands on the weapon after slaughtering Adolini and members of his team. Of course, that Yautja also fails to make it to the end of the film, as it's bested by a young Comanche Nation warrior, Naru (Amber Midthunder).

While Gru is the main character in Despicable Me and its four sequels, it's impossible not to fall in love with the Minions, who support him in everything he does. When we first meet Gru and see his home, we learn that he has hundreds of Minions working for him in his underground base. What isn't clear is how he came to find the little yellow people, nor is it clear how they exist and where they came from - they're basically indestructible little yellow monsters who love supporting an evil mastermind… but why?

Minions offers a full explanation. Set in 1968, the prequel shows how the Minions, from the dawn of time, followed the deadliest, nastiest, and most dominating figures they could find. Throughout history, they attached themselves to all kinds of evildoers, including a T. rex, and they are often responsible for the deaths of their favorite bad guys. Eventually, they run into an eight-year-old Gru and see something in him they like. This leads the Minions to follow Gru and eventually become the helpers he needs to achieve his supervillain destiny.

The Godfather introduces Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his criminal empire. The seminal film also shows Vito's death, with his son, Michael (Al Pacino), rising to replace his father as head of the family. While much of Michael's backstory is explained through the film, what's unclear is how Vito rose to power and became a huge Mafia boss in the United States. There's very little said about him and his association with Sicily, leaving many questions at the film's end.

The Godfather Part II answers these questions by showing exactly how Vito rose to power. A flashback storyline interspersed with scenes in the present makes this film both sequel and prequel. Vito's prequel story begins with his immigration from Sicily to the United States after his entire family is killed by the local Mafia boss, Don Ciccio. Initially, he has nothing but the clothes on his back and takes refuge with distant relatives in Little Italy on New York City's Lower East Side. As Vito grows into adulthood (played by Robert De Niro), he kills the local Don Fannuci, taking over the neighborhood. He continues to grow his power until he is ready to return to Sicily, where he takes revenge against Don Ciccio, killing him for slaughtering his family.