Best Stick to ONE Prologue

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I just watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice for research purposes. I know, many of you might scoff: How does watching a "bad" film help you write a good one? Why not watch a "great" film, like Excalibur?

First of all, I have watched Excalibur. A lot. "Enahl Nah Trach. Oos Vas Vethude. Donyel Dienve" is my ringtone.

Second of all, calling The Sorcerer's Apprentice a bad film is like calling Elliot Williams the worst player in the NBA. All it would take is one devastating earthquake at the ESPYS and Elliot Williams is the greatest basketball player in the world. You can learn A LOT from a player, and a movie, that ran the gauntlet all the way to the big show. The writer(s) wrote a script that got a green light, as well as attachments from actors you would KILL to have attach to your script. There is much to mine here.

Okay, so now that I've defended The Sorcerer's Apprentice, let me focus on my problem with its opening.

(SPOILERS!) The film begins with a prologue explaining the world of Sorcerers; Nicholas Cage and Alfred Molina are two apprentices of Merlin, until Molina joins with the evil Morgana and sets off a prophecy where Cage must find a special child who is "the one" to kill Morgana once and for all. 

Okay, many stories do these prologues, and then reboot into the actual story with the main protagonist, usually meeting a prologue character for the first time. In fact, Excalibur does the same thing, starting its story with King Arthur's father falling in battle as a price for the dark magic he uses to seduce King Arthur's mom. The father's final act is burying his magical sword, Excalibur, into stone such that only his newborn son can remove it when he grows up, thereby claiming his birthright to the throne.

But there's a danger in prologues. They muddy the inciting incident. I see a lot of writers bury their actual inciting incident under multiple prologues. Case in point: The Sorcerer's Apprentice!

After the film's prologue, we meet the main protagonist as a 10 year old boy. He stumbles onto meeting Nicholas Cage, who recognizes the boy as "the one". The inciting incident is upon us! Except then Alfred Molina arrives to scuttle the meeting with magic that winds up trapping him and Nicholas Cage in an enchanted vase. The boy grows up to think this magical moment was all in his head, delaying the true inciting incident until the grown up boy, played by Jay Baruchel, meets Nicholas Cage for the second time 10 years later.

How does this sort of muddiness happen in a major studio film? I have suspicions. Maybe the story was originally written with a 10 year old protagonist, but the studio feared putting the film's opening on the back of a no-name boy. Just look at Pan to see their fears justified. There are ZERO 10 year olds that can open a film. The more the marketing tried to focus us on Hugh Jackman's Blackbeard, the more audiences wondered why the film was called Pan, and stayed away. So maybe the studio asked to age up the protagonist to get Jay Baruchel attached. 

Or maybe the script originally presented the Merlin era in flashback rather than front loaded as prologue, but had to Frankenstein the prologue after shooting finished, due to audience reactions.

Whatever the reason, it's just not optimal. Learn from The Sorcerer's Apprentice's stumble. Look at your own story, and count the prologues. Unless your story truly has multiple protagonists, or a panicked studio is paying you a ton of money to force you to break this rule, you get ONE prologue.