Establishing Series Moment / Live-Action Films

• The introduction of the DeLorean in Back to the Future. Prior to that, the film could pass as your standard '80s teen comedy. Of course, it still is a teen comedy, but not exclusively.
  • Its focus on science is shown by the intro featuring a Rube Goldberg-style can opener, the clocks all set at the wrong time, and the case of stolen plutonium under Doc Brown's bed.
• "WHAT ARE YOU?!" "I'm Batman".
• Batman Begins:
  • Its opening scene, after a brief flashback to young Bruce falling into the well, establishes Begins as a new type of superhero movie. Instead of a fantastical-yet-traditional opening of Batman and/or a cartoonish version of his rogues gallery, we see a wandering, disheveled Bruce Wayne rotting in a Hellhole Prison until Henri Ducard comes calling to recruit him into the League of Shadows. This tells this audience this is not a simply "Batman exists to fight the bad guys" movie, but will dig into the hows and whys of Bruce Wayne becoming the Batman.
  • The final scene establishes that Batman's very presence will redefine Gotham's underbelly, with the first sign of this being a homicidal maniac who likes to mark his crime scenes with Joker cards.
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starts with a recreation of a standard episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Mister Rogers does a segment where he introduces his friends using a pictureboard and introduces a new friend of his, Lloyd Vogel...and then shows a picture of Lloyd's bloodied, bruised face. The scene then switches to a much more plausible scene of Lloyd giving a speech after receiving an award for an article he wrote. This establishes three things: the movie's frequent switch from surrealism to realism, the use of Mr. Rogers' show as a Framing Device, and that this will be a Sidelong Glance Biopic with Lloyd as the primary focus instead of Mr. Rogers.
• Brazil begins with a man getting abducted and tortured to death because of a typo. This shows that it's a Crapsack World that isn't malevolent but incompetent.
• Casino Royale (2006): The black-and-white opening establishes the Darker and Edgier tone of Daniel Craig's James Bond, as Bond notches the two kills required to become a double-0 agent, the first a brutal, Bourne-esque fight with Dryden's contact, and the second a cold-blooded assassination of Dryden himself, with a split-second view of a photo on Dryden's desk confirming that he is a family man to highlight the moral ambiguity of Bond's line of work. Just to reassure the audience that the classic Bond tropes will not be entirely absent, Bond does drop a Bond One-Liner after killing Dryden, and the scene ends with Bond shooting Dryden's contact, neatly cutting into the iconic Bond Gun Barrel.
  Dryden: Well you needn't worry. The second is...[Bond shoots him]
  Bond: Yes. Considerably.
• For the DC Extended Universe:
  • Man of Steel opens with the birth of Kal-El, which his mother managed with no obstetric aid of any kind. Then we see his father struggle to reason with both Krypton's council and Zod's rogue militia before finally taking matters into his own hands in the most heart-pounding manner imaginable. Within these first few minutes, audiences were alerted to the fact that this Superman story would be far more intense than its predecessor.
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was established with Bruce Wayne arriving in Metropolis right when the Kryptonians invaded and witnessing the death toll first-hand. This establishes that while his beef with Superman was misguided, it's at least understandable.
  • Wonder Woman (2017) has the Amazons fighting the German invaders. The Amazons had millennia of training and no fear of death, but still suffered heavy losses due to the Germans' firearms, which could fell any one of them with a single shot, establishing that this film will not romanticise war and making the titular characters' decision to fight appear all the more noble.
  • SHAZAM! (2019) had it with Billy Batson's first two words in the whole movie being "Holey Moley!", showing that this DC film would aim for a lighter, more whimsical tone regardless of how silly it may seem.
  • The first shot of Zack Snyder's Justice League is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice's final battle, where Superman pulled a Heroic Sacrifice against Doomsday. As this happens, Superman starts screaming, with his soundwaves reverberating across the entire planet and awakening three mysterious boxes from Cyborg's house, the Atlanteans and the Amazonians. This single act alone establishes the dangers of a world without Superman, since the planet is now fair play for anyone seeking these boxes.
• The first act of Edward Scissorhands features Peg Boggs catching sight of a decrepit gothic mansion at the top of the hill overlooking her picturesque suburban neighborhood. That tells you almost everything that you need to know about the film (and Tim Burton's default artistic aesthetic) in a nutshell.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail has almost five long minutes of increasingly wacky, metatextual and ridiculous Credits Gags before the actual movie has even started. (It even starts with the wrong movie.)
• Enemy at the Gates cements that War Is Hell when we see Russian soldiers gunned down by their own officers for retreating without orders.
• A Knight's Tale begins with a crowd of joust fans singing along to "We Will Rock You" by Queen.
• Knives Out opens with the story cliché of a housekeeper bringing tea to someone, only to discover a dead body. But instead of a scream or a Dramatic Drop, she catches the tray before she spills it, cursing. Immediately this hints that the ensuing murder mystery is going to be a Genre Savvy Affectionate Parody.
• The first shot of Kung Fury firmly establishes that it's a movie that runs on a ridiculously exaggerated version of the same nonsensical Rule of Cool that made movies from the '80s so endearing and you're willingly going to suspend your disbelief, no matter what happens or how ridiculous the movie gets, from this point onwards.
• The first few minutes of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist looks like a serious kung fu flick. That is until Master Pain opens his mouth.
• Up until X-Men, most movies in the superhero genre, while not without their moments of darkness, took place in some kind of fantastical universe like Metropolis or Gotham City that was clearly separate from the real world. The very first scene of X-Men shows a young Magneto in a concentration camp, being separated from his family. By chillingly grounding its setup in one of the most nightmarish real-world events in human history, X-Men set itself apart from the pack in terms of realism, and this was the moment that made the critics sit up and take notes about whether superhero movies could actually have something to say.
  • Logan opens with the title character sleeping in his car, looking very old and very tired, and the very first word out of his mouth is an exhausted "Fuck." Woken up by a group of thugs trying to strip the hubcabs off his car while he's still sleeping in it, Logan takes a rather severe beating before snapping and slicing them all to pieces. Gruesomely.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The Stinger at the end of Iron Man is the moment when fans everywhere learned that a movie Shared Universe was being planned.
    Nick Fury: Nick Fury, director of SHIELD. I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) has a good one. After the first few minutes showing the origin story of a young Peter Quill, the scene changes to adult Peter walking across a storm-blasted alien landscape. He enters a cave, pulls out a Walkman and starts dancing to Redbone's "Come And Get Your Love" in what can only be described as a '70s music video, alternatively kicking around the local hostile wildlife like footballs and singing into one of them like it was a microphone. This firmly establishes the movie as a lighthearted Breather Episode compared to the rest of the MCU, though with moments of darkness and drama.
  • The opening to Thor: Ragnarok establishes right away the Denser and Wackier tone compared to the previous Thor films. Thor is brought before Surtur while hanging in chains, and Surtur soon exposits his plan to bring about Ragnarok and destroy Asgard. But the gravity of the situation is undercut as the swinging chains keep turning Thor away from him, he confuses Surtur's crown for a giant eyebrow, and his dramatic declaration of escape is followed by a few awkward seconds of him having to wait for Mjolnir to come to him.
  • Avengers: Infinity War lets us know right off the bat that Thanos is not fucking around by having him blow up the Asgardian refugee ship, give the Hulk a brutal beating, and kill off Heimdall and Loki before the ten-minute mark. Also counts as one for Thanos himself.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian starts with a dignified portrayal of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount, but it devolves into comedy as soon as the people in the back of the crowd (who have to struggle to hear him) start trying to interpret his message.
• In Pan's Labyrinth, when Captain Vidal brutally beats a young man with a bottle then coldly murders him and the guy's father is the point where the audience realized the film wasn't a family friendly Narnia clone as advertised.
• Goodfellas: A guy getting beaten to death with the immortal narration "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."
• The slow motion shadow boxing intro of Raging Bull shows the beauty inherent even in a brutal sport like boxing. It's also a metaphor for the beauty in the tragedy of Jake's life.
• Judging The Room (2003) by the first few minutes, you might think it's just a badly acted romantic drama about a boring yuppie couple. But the arrival of Denny — an unintentionally creepy Heartwarming Orphan whose relevance to the plot is never explained — cements the movie as the bizarre, plotless melodrama that its fans know and love. As soon as Denny sneaks into Tommy and Lisa's room to join in on their sexy pillow fight, you just know that you're in for something, uh... "memorable".
  • Though for some fans, the Establishing Moment comes even earlier than that, when we get our first glimpse of the protagonist Johnny — an ostensibly charming banker with hair like Fabio and a face like a zombie — as he walks through the door and greets the love of his life with a completely monotone "Hi, babe" in an unidentifiable European accent.
• Run Lola Run starts off as a standard crime thriller. Lola hears from her boyfriend that he's a dead man if he doesn't get 100 thousand marks for some mobsters in the next 20 minutes. Lola hangs up and runs out of her apartment to help him. Then, one-third into the movie, Lola gets shot and killed. Suddenly, we're back in Lola's apartment, and Lola hangs up the phone and runs out the door again.
• Shoot 'Em Up begins with a close up of Mr Smith. He just stares out into space, then takes a bite of a carrot. This sets up the silly, cartoony sense of humour. Later, at the beginning of the very first fight, Smith shoots a tanker of gasoline, causing it to spill everywhere, runs at it... and uses it to slide along the ground, shooting everyone. This sets up the balls to the wall awesome action we'll be seeing.
• Star Wars:
  • The first scene of A New Hope does this for the Star Wars saga, though in ways that are difficult for modern audiences to appreciate. First, it gives the setting as "A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...", establishing this as a modern-day fairy tale in space. Next, it introduces the plot via an Opening Scroll as an homage to the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930's, complete with a bombastic opening theme. Then, just seconds later, we get that famous tracking shot of the underside of an Imperial Star Destroyer, showing off every lovingly crafted inch of the thing—and showing that, unlike Flash Gordon, this was a big-budget Epic Film in a painstakingly detailed fictional world. Moviegoers in 1977 had never seen a science-fiction film with production values that high, but that tracking shot gave them a taste of the spectacle that awaited them.
  • The Force Awakens gets a good one as well. First, as a homage to the above one from A New Hope, we see the ominous shadow of a Star Destroyer blotting out a planet from view, before cutting down to the planet's surface where we see a beautifully-crafted Practical Effects BB-8. The battle that follows also gives us two good examples of this, where 1) Kylo Ren brutally kills Max von Sydow's character, and 2) a stormtrooper gets shot by a hero and actually bleeds, before putting a Bloody Handprint on a comrade's helmet and then dying in his arms. Both of these instances serve to highlight the Darker and Edgier nature of the sequel trilogy thus far.
    Lor San Tekka: This will begin to make things right.
  • The Last Jedi begins with the Resistance achieving a severely Pyrrhic Victory, escaping from the base on D'Qar and blowing up the First Order Dreadnaught but at the cost of their entire bomber fleet, during which we witness the tragic Heroic Sacrifice of a likable character. When it cuts back to Luke Skywalker with Rey on Ahch'To, the first thing he does is take Anakin's lightsaber from her and throw it over his shoulder without even looking back. Both these scenes demonstrate quite handily that this is a Star Wars film that will not be playing it too safe.
  • Rogue One has the main character's mother killed by the Empire and her father taken prisoner before the credits roll, demonstrating immediately that this is a film where no one is safe. Did we mention already that the new Star Wars films are darker than their predecessors?
    • Even before any characters appear on screen, the movie makes its identity clear. It opens with the familiar "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...", but rather than a smash cut to the Star Wars logo, accompanied by the series' legendary opening theme and its bombastic opening horns, it simply delves right into the opening scenes. If you wanted proof that this was not a part of the main saga, but a "Star Wars Story", this was it.
  • In contrast, Solo lets us know what a fast-paced, entertaining Breather Episode it's going to be when Han steals a speeder and hyperspace fuel from his vicious crimelord boss and escapes in a breathless speeder chase, his hot girlfriend in tow, within the first ten minutes of the movie.
  • The Phantom Menace establishes the Old Republic's "more civilized age" as we see an immaculate cruiser, a bulkier yet still stylish predecessor to the Corellian Corvette from A New Hope's opening, arriving aboard the Trade Federation's flagship with two Jedi Knights onboard, one of whom is the young Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Stranger Than Fiction begins with a fairly mundane opening, as a man named Harold Crick wakes up, does his Morning Routine, goes about his work day, comes home, and goes to bed, all while a narrator explains that he has been stuck in this same routine for years. Then, at around the four-and-a-half minute mark, as Harold is brushing his teeth the next morning, he suddenly realizes that he can hear the narrator. Strap in, viewer, this is not going to be your typical drama.
• You know something's weird with This is Spın̈al Tap when you see the limo driver misspell their name as Spinal Pap.
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu establishes itself as a Darker and Edgier take on the series within the opening moments of the movie; kicking off with Harry Goodman getting into a car accident from investigating Mewtwo at PCL Labs and his son Tim going to Ryme City to find the truth about what happened. The movie's tone is then firmly established once Tim meets the talking Pikachu in Harry's apartment.
• Halloween (2018) begins when a true crime podcaster is trying to interview a prisoner who has been institutionalized for 40 years in a facility and shows him a very familiarizing mask before the opening credits which means one thing .... Michael Myers is back.
• After a Distant Prologue scene in American Splendor, Harvey Pekar narrates to remind the viewers that this is not a fantasy/escapism movie this is realism when he said "you got the wrong movie".
• At first, it looks like Meet the Feebles will be a generic Muppet parody, complete with an intro that would fit that genre- until the rat named Trevor, from the wings, shouts as the cast and uses a profanity, establishing that this will be an adult movie through and through.
• Zathura: Once the game begins and Danny draws the first card saying "METEOR SHOWER TAKE EVASIVE ACTION", it's made immediately clear just how real the game's effects are when a meteor shoots straight through the card that Walter is holding.
• Zombieland: The Horror Comedy begins with the hero Columbus narrating about how he's survived the Zombie Apocalypse by following various rules that let him avoid all the cheap ways people usually die in zombie movies (keep up with your cardio so you can outrun the zombies, Double Tap, Beware of Bathrooms, and wear your seatbelt are among those mentioned). All the while, the film shows people dying these exact cheap deaths and Columbus sarcastically remarks on them.

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