POV Sequel

Normally people have trouble with sequels after their first idea is so, and I'll say it, so transcendentally brilliant. But not me! I have ideas for basically infinite sequels. Basically infinite out-of-genre cover sequels that is!
—T-Rex, Dinosaur Comics, 13/03/2008

So The Movie was a massive success, and the studio want you to make a sequel! Trouble is, you killed off all your main characters for real, blew up the Earth, destroyed the Time Machine and stopped the Big Bad from ever being born. So where do you go from here? Well, there was that one really cool side character - perhaps we could retell the story from his perspective!

The POV Sequel is a sequel which, instead of putting your characters in new situation, simply retells an old one with a new protagonist. Done well, it can help you flesh out your side characters and make your Card-Carrying Villain into a sympathetic guy. Done badly, and it reeks of laziness.

Compare the Perspective Flip, the non-canon equivalent; A Day in the Limelight, where the POV changes but tells an original story; Changing of the Guard, where the main character shifts to tell an original story; The Gump, when the sequel protagonist does something that retroactively affects the original's plotline; and The Rashomon, where the character's opinions can colour what the audience sees. Another Side, Another Story is a video game specific subtrope where the POV Sequel is another game mode unlocked after you complete it the first time.

Examples of POV Sequel include:

Anime & Manga


Comic Books

Film

  • The Lion King 1½ was partly The Lion King from Timon and Pumbaa's POV. (Because the initial film is Disney's Hamlet and the sequel is its Romeo and Juliet, this film is considered to be the franchise's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.)
  • Although not yet in production, the makers of Cloverfield have said an unnamed man with a video camera seen for a second in the scene on the bridge would be the protagonist of a sequel if they were asked to make one.
  • BURN-E, a short on the WALL-E DVD, shows how events on the movie affect one character, a repair robot left outside the ship in a throwaway gag.
    • Pixar did a similar short called Jack-Jack Attack on The Incredibles DVD. It shows what happened to the babysitter, how she got so badly battered, and why she was leaving all the crazy answering machine messages that Helen Parr listens to during the main movie.
    • For Up, they did two shorts: Dug's Special Mission, released on the DVD, about what Dug the dog was doing up to the point where he meets Carl and Russell; and George and A.J., shown on the internet, about the two orderlies who came to take Carl to the retirement home.
  • Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers tells the story of Iwo Jima from the point of view of the men who raised the famous flag, while Letters From Iwo Jima tells the story from the perspective of the Japanese defenders. None of the actors in either film appeared in the other.
  • Introduced in Wild at Heart, where she had a somewhat small role in the events, the character of Perdita Durango was promoted to the lead in 1997's Perdita Durango, loosely based on a 1993 novel by the same author, Barry Gifford; she was played by Rosie Perez this time around, and a severe case of Adaptational Villainy turned her into a Complete Monster.
  • Diary of the Dead apparently is from the POV of a group of film students on the first night of a Zombie Apocalypse show in Night of the Living Dead. However, because both movies were set in the "present" and Night was released in the '60's, it might be more accurately described as taking part in an Alternate Continuity.
    • Also, Night took place in the spring (Barbara's comments about the time change and days getting longer), while Diary took place during the autumn (the foilage & climate).
      • But what about the Savini-directed/Romero-produced remake of Night from 1990? Diary might fit that version better...
    • Diary's sequel Survival of the Dead in turn focuses on a group of soldiers who showed up only briefly in that film to steal some of our main characters' supplies.
  • Mary Reilly, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from his maid's POV.
  • Saw IV took place at the same time as Saw III, but in different parts of the city. We only find out the Saw III connection when the main character of the FBI Agent's subplot runs into Jeff during the climax. Rigg never actually encounters anything Saw III related, with the exception of his partner's corpse.
  • Parts of Back to the Future II retell some events of the first film from the POV of Marty himself, time-looping back over the same few days again (for an entirely different reason this time).
  • Get Smart 's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control was made at the same time as the Get Smart movie and released 10 days later. It takes place simultaneously to the movie and is about two techies at CONTROL that also appear in the main movie. There is some interaction with the main storyline, but mostly it tells a different story
  • In an in-story example from Wag the Dog, film producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) claims to have made an extremely successful film re-telling Moby Dick from the perspective of the white whale.
  • The Bourne Legacy is a sidestory told from the perspective of Aaron Cross, a Treadstone-affiliated operative who works to discover the roots of a conspiracy at the same time as the events of The Bourne Ultimatum (even using several of the same supporting characters).


Literature

  • The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Four entire novels with the same story from different POVs: Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960).
  • Ender's Shadow tells the story of Ender's Game but from the perspective of Bean, the youngest of Ender's generals.
  • "Crossroads of Twilight", the tenth book in the Wheel of Time series, spends a great deal of time showing what all the characters who weren't present at the ninth book's Grand Finale were up to at the time. The answer: absolutely nothing.
  • Midnight Sun, the fifth book in the Twilight series, would have been a retelling of the first book from Edward's perspective. But Meyer gave the early draft to someone who leaked on to the internet and she later published it on her website so her fans at least would get it legally, given that she got so upset over the leaking that she refused to continue to work on it.
    • Finally the author released The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, which is definitely a straight example. It prevents some Alternative Character Interpretation in Eclipse as to whether the Volturi secretly wanted the Cullens dead or sincerely wanted Victoria stopped.
  • Nerilka's Story, from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series, is a retelling of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern from Nerilka's perspective.
    • The Harper Hall trilogy and the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy have significant overlap as well, writing from different characters' perspectives. And I believe there's also some overlap between Master Harper of Pern and Dragonflight.
  • McCaffrey also did this in her Dinosaur Planet series, which she later came back to with co-writers to retell from the point of view of another character.
  • The Incarnations of Immortality series does this in a big way, with most major events covered in two or more of the eight books, each time from the POV of that book's protagonist.
  • Chainer's Torment, the second book in the Odyssey Cycle, is a retelling of Odyssey from Chainer's perspective.
  • Some Dragonlance books are these.
  • The Baccano!! Light Novels do this regularly with the larger stories, although they're always planned in advance. For example, "Local Episode" of Grand Punk Station focuses on Jaccuzi, Ladd, and Chane while "Express Episode" goes for Czeslaw, Rachel and the self-proclaimed Rail Tracer.
  • Belgarath The Sorcerer and Polgara The Sorceress view many events from The Belgariad from a much longer perspective.
  • The 2007 Death Star novel's second half is basically Star Wars: A New Hope told from newly identified extras' POV's during the Rebels' time aboard the Death Star and the battle afterwards, including the guy who said 'stand by' long enough for Luke to blow it away.
  • Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge.
  • In John Scalzi's Old Man's War series, the book Zoe's Tale is a retelling of the events of The Last Colony from the POV of the main character's adopted daughter.
  • Lo's Diary. The story of Lolita from the girl's POV.
    • Notably, this ignores the idea that the original had an Unreliable Narrator. The family of the original author disliked it for this reason.
      • Among others. Lo's Diary could more accurately be called the story of Lolita from the POV of an animal-torturing sociopath who matches her lipstick to her apple when she sets out to seduce Humbert, and who is given—at twelve! -- to writing in her diary such lines as, "No man can resist a woman who has an apple in her hand. It's theological."
  • The Gregory Maguire Novels could be cosidered this, those written by a different author a hundred years after the originals.
  • Very common in Japan; they're called gaiden in Japan.
  • Margaret Atwood's companion novels Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood move along similar timelines, showing the same events from different perspectives. They occasionally intersect, with characters who were the protagonists in one book being peripheral characters in the other.
  • The Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel Who Killed Kennedy examines the myriad alien invasions and whatnot of the Jon Pertwee (1970-1974) of Doctor Who on television from the perspective of a New Zealander journalist named James Stevens who is trying to expose a secret organisation called UNIT and its "Doctor" agents. Stevens is the protagonist while the Doctor himself is barely featured at all, though he is mentioned throughout.
    • The two text stories in the 2012 Doctor Who Annual: "Amy's Escapade" and "Rory's Adventure". The Ponds split up at a space mall and both contribute to defeating an invasion without ever realising the other's involvement.
  • Some of the Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles sequels have significant portions that retell events from the first book (Interview with the Vampire) as seen by the protagonist of the sequel in question.
    • There's also The Vampire Armand and Blood and Gold, which overlap quite a bit, but from the perspectives Armand and Marius, respectively.
  • John Marsden's So Much To Tell You is told from the point of view of Marina, a teenage girl who hasn't spoken since she suffered from a disfiguring acid burn. A later book, Take My Word For It, is written from the point of view of her classmate Lisa in the same diary format. It covers a longer period of time, ending long after Marina has started talking again, but clarifies several events briefly alluded to in Marina's diary. Thankfully, Marina doesn't hijack the story, as Lisa's character arc remains the focus to the end.
  • The Final Act of Wicked is the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • There have been several tie-in Disney storybooks which had the movie told from another character's perspective (besides the Lion King example mentioned above), such as Sebastian the crab, Mrs. Potts, the Genie, Meeko the raccoon, and Mushu the dragon. Also, there have been two tie-in storybooks based on Atlantis the Lost Empire which had the movie's plot told from ____'s point of view. And then there's the "My Side of the Story" series books, which had the film's plots told from the villain's point of view.
  • The second book of the Green-Sky Trilogy is mostly about the events of the first book from Teera's point of view, but after the second act, it takes a new direction and sets up Until The Celebration.
  • Golden Afternoon by Andrzej Sapkowski is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland from the point of view of the Cheshire Cat.

Live-Action TV

  • The Something Completely Different Doctor Who story "Love & Monsters", for the most part A Day in the Limelight story, also contains Flashbacks to several past events in New Who season from the POV of a Muggle.
  • The direct-to-DVD Battlestar Galactica movie The Plan retells the events of the Re-Imagined series's first two seasons from the POV of the Cylons.
  • Lost does this occasionally. The episodes "Man of Science, Man of Faith", "Adrift", and "Orientation" all have segments covering the same confrontation from different perspectives. There are also whole episodes which are done like this in the style of the show's flashbacks, such as "The Other 48 Days", "3 Minutes", and "Maternity Leave". And the plane crash is covered from a number of different perspectives.
    • The first two episodes that focused on Sun and Jin individually("House of the Rising Sun" and "...In Translation") told the story of their romance and marriage before the island from their respective points of view. Scenes shown in Sun's episode, are seen in a different light in Jin's.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: their episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" had the DS9 crew interact with the original series crew during the events of "The Trouble With Tribbles".
  • In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", we see events from the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country from the perspective of a young Tuvok, whose first Starfleet assignment was aboard the Excelsior under the command of Captain Sulu during the events of the movie.


Theater

  • Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests: three plays encompassing the same timeframe with the same characters, but from the POV of three different areas of the same house. Ayckbourn did a similar gimmick in House and Garden, two plays with the same idea.
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard is a famous POV sequel to Hamlet, though it has more in common with Waiting for Godot than anything written by Shakespeare.
  • Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol is a POV prequel/sequel to A Christmas Carol, from of course, Marley's point of view.


Music

  • A "scene" shared Sound Horizon's "Eru no Tenbin" and "Yorokobi to Kanashimi no Budōshu" wherein Abyss mutters, "What a pity," while presumably killing a man and kicking him into the water heavily implies that both songs are about the same event, each focusing on different actors ("Eru no Tenbin" focused on Abyss while "Yorokobi to Kanashimi no Budōshu" focused on the Runaway Bride Abyss was hired to retrieve).


Video Games

  • The first GBA Golden Sun took place through Isaac's perspective, while Felix was the main antagonist. However, once Golden Sun: The Lost Age, came out, it started out with Jenna and Kraden escaping Venus Lighthouse, around the same time as Isaac's final battle with Saturos and Menardi, which Felix and Sheba saw with their own eyes. Once the sequel's prologue ends, the player switches control over to Felix, as now said player is the one being chased by the very characters they controlled in the previous game!
  • The Half-Life 1 expansion packs Blue Shift and Opposing Force, which show the Black Mesa Incident from the POV of the security guards and the Marines respectively.
  • Shining Force III Part Two tells some of the story of Part One, but from the Empire's point of view instead of the Republic's.
  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is set at roughly around the same time period as Resident Evil 2. The starting portion of the game is actually set a day before RE2 begins and at one point, Jill falls unconscious for two days and awakens after the events of RE2 have already transpired.
    • The two Resident Evil Outbreak games feature numerous scenarios set during the fall of Raccoon City depicted in RE2 and RE3.
    • The spin-off games for the Wii, Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles, featured numerous scenarios set during the events of the first few Resident Evil games (including Resident Evil Code: Veronica).
    • The PS2 and Wii versions of Resident Evil 4 featured an extra scenario called "Separate Ways" which depicted the events of the main game from Ada's perspective and explained why certain items were located in the places they were.
  • Heart of the Alien, the Sega CD sequel to Another World, was originally intended to be set during the events of the first game, but played through the perspective of Buddy (Lester's alien friend, although technically Lester is the alien). Interplay vetoed this idea, but still included an extensive flashback which shows everything Buddy did during the first game.
  • Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 follows a different team during the same terrorist attack on Las Vegas shown in the first game.
  • The video game Enter the Matrix highlights what side characters Ghost and Niobe are doing during the events of The Matrix Reloaded, popping in and out of the actual plot of the film as needed.
  • .hack//Another Birth, the novels for people who didn't have the console or couldn't track down the original four games to save their lives, tells the story (originally Kite's) from BlackRose's perspective. It also ticks off Kite/BlackRose shippers by giving her a boyfriend, which may be why some don't consider it up to standard, although she does ditch him for no apparent reason near the end of the book.
  • Crysis has a POV expansion pack that shows what Psycho was off doing while Nomad was busy swimming around inside the alien mothership.
  • Rolling Thunder 3 for the Sega Genesis was set during the events of Rolling Thunder 2 and focused on a third WCPO agent named Jay. While Albatross and Leila were occupied with chasing Gimdo during the second game, Jay was assigned to track down Gimdo's second-in-command Dread.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV's 2 DLC, The Lost and Damned and The Ballard of Gay Tony, do this well. The main game and both DLC all have a different protagonist and interconnecting storylines, telling you more about the events you already saw, and fleshing out some rarely seen characters.
  • F.E.A.R. expansion Persius Mandate shows the events of the original game and its first expansion from the perspective of a no name F.E.A.R. operative.
    • Project Origin is from the perspective of a Delta Force operative.
  • Blaze Union is a POV prequel to Yggdra Union, taking place a few years before the main game and telling the story of how Gulcasa (Yggdra Union's Hero Antagonist) saved his country from its previous Emperor.
  • The director's cut version of the Tales of Destiny PlayStation 2 remake includes Lion Side; a mode where you play through the events of the first half of the game prior to Lion's death from his perspective rather than Stahn's. The additional scenes flesh out the relationships between Lion and other characters and the events leading up to his betrayal.
  • Halo 3 ODST to Halo 2.
  • Suikoden III does this to itself. Most of the game is played switching between three POVs (four if you count the dog). At the end you go back to play through several key events of the game from one of the villains' perspective.
  • Darksiders 2 is going to be this for the original game, according to developers, with Death, instead of War, being the focus.
  • Done twice with Dead Space series:
    • Whilst Dead Space consisted of Issac Clarke finding himself upon an already overrun Ishimura trying to uncover what happened, Dead Space: Extraction shows the aforementioned outbreak not only as it happens, but from several interchanging perspectives at once.
    • Though it takes place alongside the main plotline, the Dead Space 2 add-on Severed shows the outbreak occurring in reverse[1] from the perspective of Extraction's survivors instead.
  • The two Earth 2150 stand-alone Expansion Pack called The Moon Project takes place at the same time as the campaign of the original and has a more chronological feel to its missions than the original (where the only goal was to amass enough resources to build an evacuation fleet to escape from the dying Earth). The campaign of The Moon Project involves the Lunar Corporation finding something under the surface of the Moon and a secret United Civilized States force heading to stop them. All this while the main forces of the three powers are fighting tooth and nail to get the last remaining resources on Earth.


Webcomics

  • Dinosaur Comics pokes fun at the concept with "infinitely many out-of-genre cover sequels", where you see the same event from a different perspective each time with the help of judicious Genre Roulette (disaster film, gross-out comedy, road trip, Western).
  • Brock of the Undead is one to the Fan Web Comic Braceface Fangface showing Brock's prospective after being bitten and turned into a vampire.


Web Originals

  • Lonelygirl15 has done this twice with episodes. "Is He Out There", shown from Daniel's perspective, was directly followed by "Proving Bree Wrong", the same events from Jonas' perspective. Later in the series, "Uncle Dan" was shown from Jonas' perspective and directly followed by "Uncle Dan (D-Bone Remix)" (ommitted from the official website), told from Daniel's perspective.
    • This was also the central concept behind the four part story "Prom: It's To Die For".


Western Animation

  • The Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "The Little Peas" tells the same story as "The Big Cheese" through the eyes of a very small character trying to help.
    • It is notably the most reviled episode in the series, to the point where the creator issued an apology for it becuase A) it introduced a character even more annoying than Cheese, B) it took the one moment of good thinking that Frankie had in The Big Cheese and gave it to Little Peas, and C) The Big Cheese was already a hated episode on its own
  • The Fairly OddParents episode, "The Big Scoop," shows the events from "A Wish Too Far" (when Timmy wishes to be popular) from Chester and A.J's point of view.
  • Parodied in Family Guy with a Real Trailer, Fake Movie for Brokeback Mountain from the POV of the horses.
  • Phineas and Ferb does this occasionally; "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" shows how the Fireside Girls got the tree sap that the title characters use in "Bubble Boys," which takes place during the same day.
    • Another example would be the two "Unfair Science Fair" episodes.
    • Actually, would either of these two count? They mostly show what happened during time skips in the original episodes, albeit from other characters' points of view.
  1. ↑ You see the outbreak in the mines and the aftermath of the hospital, whereas the core plot shows it the other way round.
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