A clue or allusion embedded in the narrative that predicts some later event or revelation. It could be something a character says or does, an event that doesn't make sense until much later, a Meaningful Name, or really anything at all. The foreshadowing may be ominous, or seem perfectly innocent at the time.
Good foreshadowing doesn't spoil the surprise, yet seems an obvious clue in retrospect. Bad foreshadowing either deflates the suspense or is too obfuscated (such as an Ice Cream Koan) to predict anything. Foreshadowing may establish something to avoid an Ass Pull. Or it may put a viewer off as introducing a needless supernatural element to the story.
In literature, foreshadowing is commonly done when a possibility is mentioned, but almost immediately dismissed or disproved. To some readers, they will dismiss the suggested possibility just as the unsuspecting characters do. More experienced readers will immediately call the author's bluff and know what to expect.
Dreaming of Things to Come often foreshadows. Chekhov's Gun is often used as a foreshadowing tool. If it makes no sense, it may be Strange Minds Think Alike. If this is done with a work released after the work containing that which it foreshadows (such as the page image), it's a Call Forward.
Two specific variants are Futureshadowing, where the shadowing comes after the actual event chronologically but is still seen before it, and Foreseeing My Death, where a character has foreseen, prophesied or predicted his/her own demise.
When there's only a tiny gap between the foreshadowing and the actual foreshadowed event, that's Five Second Foreshadowing.
Contrast Plot Point. Compare AND contrast "Funny Aneurysm" Moment, Hilarious in Hindsight. Contrast Fauxshadow. Production Foreshadowing is this trope's meta version. This Index Will Be Important Later covers foreshadowing tropes. This trope is a good Rewatch Bonus.
Not to be confused with The Shadow Knows, which the picture to the right uses to do this trope.
Naturally, the examples are full of spoilers. Consider yourself warned.
Bob: Gee, do you really think there are spoilers ahead?
Alice: If so, the tropers will have to handle them on their own...
ElfQuest comics have a lot of foreshadowing. One of the best examples is in the original series. In ElfQuest #2 the Wolfriders are resting up during a grueling desert journey, having managed to find a little water. Cutter, however, wants to do some more exploring, and his friend Skywise reluctantly agrees, complaining that "you won't sit still 'til you've found us a blasted waterfall". Several years later (in both real and comic time), in ElfQuest #9, Cutter and Skywise are involved in a literal Cliff Hanger beside - you guessed it - a giant waterfall.
The retelling of "Sleeping Beauty" in Castle Waiting features this. The evil witch proclaims to the Opinicus — a griffin-like creature that she was riding — that after today, she'll ride the Devil himself as her steed and he'll thank her for the privilege. It turns out to be exactly correct, but not in the way she meant — her wickedness was worse than the standards the Devil considers acceptable and he disguised himself as the Opinicus on her return trip to personally carry her off to Hell.
Heck, all of Watchmen. If we made a complete list it'd be longer than the rest of this page. Just from the first three panels (read here◊): the blood on the smiley recalls the five-minutes-to-midnight Doomsday Clock that'll appear again, and then there's the red-headed guy being Rorschach.
In Alpha Flight, Northstar's sexuality was foreshadowed for years - right back to the beginning of the series - before he came out in #106.
A clever one foreshadowed a death in Fantastic Four, where the team are visited by the future Invisible Woman, who mentions that future Reed Richards and Ben Grimm died to get her there, but she doesn't mention Johnny Storm. This is a good way to do so as Johnny died about twenty issues later. Foreshadowing far ahead, but making the death more effective.
The era of Grant Morrison's Justice League of America started with Midsummer's Nightmare, where a villain gave all of humanity super-powers, leading to chaos and mayhem, in order to prepare them for a nebulous apocalyptic threat. When that threat finally appeared in the form of the "anti-sun" Mageddon, the League was only able to beat it by... giving everyone on Earth superpowers.
In the first proper arc of Morrison's run, the White Martians also mentioned that they'd experimented on humanity in the distant past, with the result that a species who should have been superhuman ended up only human. The anti-Mageddon plan pushed human evolution to the super-race it was destined to become.
In a Batman one-shot, a museum owner meets two female members of a rock star's entourage, and states that the musician is probably unable to keep track of all his groupies. Turns out he's right; the women from the entourage are Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy in disguise, and the real groupies are Bound and Gagged somewhere else.
All Fall Down - On his first trip to the moon, Pronto complains about being "boxed in." In issue five, he is in a crate, arriving at the same destination, as AIQ Squared's secret weapon.
During issue #4 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), Chrysalis comments that while she can drain emotions or take new forms, Twilight posses an ability and knowledge she doesn't have. Love? No, it's the power of devastation.
A possible one can be seen on the first issue, when the misterious stallion that always appears to watch important events can be seen watching Time Turner, who's holding a fob watch and looking at it with an alarmed expression.
Kyon mentions his uncle is called Keichii in one early chapter of Kyon: Big Damn Hero. Later on, he ends up in Hinamizawa for Golden Week, staying with said uncle.
Happens in every other scene in Hammered Down. When you get to the climax, it's like everything just decided to go boom.
Occurs twice in the Portal 2 fanfic Test Of Humanity. First is when Wheatley gets stuck in a garbage chute after trying to find a way to get into the lab and save Chell.. He later gets stuck in an exhaust pipe (he's too fat to fit all the way through) causing it to explode. The second time is when Wheatley is overwhelmed with guilt after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and begins comparing himself to HAL. During the climax GLaDOS tortures Wheatley by playing the film but replaces HAL's dialog with Wheatley's evil speeches from the games.
In the The OC fanfic AVDC, Summer hits on Alex early on in the story. Later in the story she ends up in a relationship with her Non Rival Anna
When exploring the ruins beneath Saffron City, Nightshade comments that Pokemon Tower was thought to have been built by the same civilization. The artifacts in the Tower prove crucial in returning Dan and Missy home.
The phrase "pokemon are made of stronger stuff than humans" is thrown about a great deal in the early chapters. This foreshadows Missy's survival of the apparently-lethal wound inflicted on her at the story's end.
At one point, Masque responds to Giovanni's directives with a smug "You cannot control a marionette with only one string." This comment, seemingly mere insubordination, actually confirms in a big way that Masque is the real danger and manipulating Giovanni. It even receives a direct Call Back when Masque reveals his true nature.
In the Season 3 finale of Script FicCalvin and Hobbes: The Series, the MTM takes a while to process, earning the ire of the gang, along with Hobbes' cowardice. When the latter mocks the deceased former as useless, Calvin is infuriated and belts out a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
At one point, the MTM complains about his low battery, which prevents him from teleporting everyone from the station.
The drifting canoe from "Camping Trip Part 1" is described as being a quarter-mile away from the island. In Part 2, Calvin combines this with twoChekhov's Guns and a Chekhov's Skill in order to get the canoe back to shore.
A Cryptic Conversation in "Dark Laughter Part 1" foreshadows the strange events facing the group in the rest of the episode and Part 2.
Clash Of The Elements: Hints of future plot events are thrown out quite often in Part 1 alone. A few examples include:
Rosalina's Big Damn Heroes moment, were it not easy enough to figure out before, had the clearest hint given at the end of Chapter 35 with the words: "shadow of an observatory"
Likewise, Mario destroying Joe Dark's sword with his star energy is hinted at during previous battles against him, where star energy was proven to be capable of dealing critical damage to beings consumed by darkness.
This hint is a bit of a stretch towards the end result, but The Genesis Samurais' souls going into Alex's body was more than likely foreshadowed by this line:
"Though his body may be weak, his soul still lives. And as long as that's alive, then he shall live as well"
Weightless: In one of the first chapters, Shepard went rampage on the Citadel after talking to Saren. Later, Liara mentioned that in Shepard's memories, there was a starved figure who looked a lot like Garrus. Sometimes, Shepard would think about a person who was the first one that showed her kindness. They seems irrelevant and random at first, but then the author reveals about Shepard's true connection with Nihlus.
Subverted with another other clue: When Shepard talked with Sidonis, she mention that she once had a lover, who was dead now. After the reader knew about Nihlus, they would think that she was talking about him. She was actually referred to Garrus, since to her, he died (at least in spiritual sense) once.
The reference to 19 (instead of 20) spectators in the Peanut Gallery during the final challenge and the flowers on the table hint at the nature of the tragedy that drives the story.
The description of Chef Hatchet’s attempts to save his mortally wounded patient foreshadow that he will fail.
Before Discord reveals himself as one of the Big Bads of Sonic Generations: Friendship is Timeless, he has made his presence known at several points in the fanfic. The Author's Notes in The Reveal chapter should explain everything, because, really, there's a lot.
At exactly two points in Ed, Edd n' Eddy Z, characters' lines that include foreshadowing have flashing "EPIC FORESHADOWING" text underneath the text box.
Animated Film
Used twice to great effect in The Incredibles. Dash comments that saying "everyone is special" is just another way to say that no-one is, which ends up echoed in Syndrome's Motive Rant. A bit later, Edna, while discussing why she doesn't work with capes, mentions a superheroine whose cape was sucked into a jet engine. This ends up being exactly how villain Syndrome dies.
In Coraline, the Other Father's song when he sang to Coraline.
She's a peach, she's a doll, she's a pal of mine/ She's as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who's ever laid their eyes on Coraline/ When she comes around exploring/ Mom and I will never ever make it boring/ Our eyes will be on Coraline!
Also, the Other Mother referring to the Other Father as "Pumpkin". Guess what he really is.
When Spink and Forcible read Coraline's tea leaves and declare she's in danger, Spink sees a hand while Forcible claims it's a giraffe. Both are right. The Other Mother's hand comes after Coraline near the end and the Other Mother's true form resembles a giraffe with a long neck and long, thin limbs.
Forcible also mentions that she sees a "tall handsome beast" in Coraline's future, which may allude to the Cat who isn't tall but his voice actor certainly is.
In the Other House, there are three frames, each with the silhouette portrait of a child in them. Coraline will meet them as the three Ghost Children whose souls were eaten by the Other Mother.
In Megamind, after creating Titan/Tighten, Megamind holds up a picture of Metroman with the head ripped off, so Titan's/Tighten's head is in place instead. Later on, after Titan/Tighten has revealed that he prefers being evil, he holds up the same Metroman picture, this time with Megamind's head in place. Not only does this hint to who the true hero will be in the film, it also gives a subtle clue as to who it really is when Metroman turns up during the final battle.
In the final fight shortly after Metroman (Megamind in disguise) says his death was greatly exaggerated, he strikes a grand pose and the tassels on his boots straighten and flare out as if Metroman is even able to flex his tassels. This frightens Tighten who immediately takes off trying to get away. Metroman can't flex his tassels, the tassels were being blown around by the jets as Megamind powered up his flying suit.
Near the end of Toy Story 2, StinkyPetethe Prospector actually threatens Woody and his friends that "one day, they will all rot away in a dump." Guess where the climax of Toy Story 3 takes place!
When Lightning McQueen and his pit crew arrive at Tokyo, Japan to meet Miles Axlerod in Cars 2, while they are all talking to Axlerod Sarge is frowning while everyone else is smiling, suggesting that he is thinking that Axlerod is up to no good. Guess who's actually right!
Also, the line "But I never leak oil!" Guess who was with Mater when the tow truck saw a puddle of oil on the carpet!
In the first film, Big Bad Chick Hicks is assigned with the number 86, which not only references the year Pixar was first established, but also a slang term for being fired. Which is exactly what happened to Chick at the end of the film for deliberately pushing Strip "The King" Weathers off the racetrack.
In Sleeping Beauty, during the scene where Maleficent is yelling at her goons, if you listen very closely when she hits her staff on the ground, it makes the same sound effect as her eventual dragon form's biting sound at the end of the film.
Waternoose: "James, this company has been in my family for three generations. I would do anything to keep it from going under." Sulley: "So would I, sir."
In Tangled, the opening line is Flynn saying, "This is the story of how I died." Who would take it seriously?
One of Flynn's first lines is how much he wanted a palace. He's joking, but that's what he gets in the end.
At the very beginning of the film, the mobile dangling above Rapunzel's crib is decorated with the cutouts shaped like a chameleon, a duck, a horse, and a cupid. All four things would appear in some shape or form throughout the movie.
Pascal the chameleon was Rapunzel's faithful companion. There was the "Snuggly Duckling" bar. Maximus the stallion helps Rapunzel on her journey. And there was the old man dressed as a cupid.
The Lion King: A king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. The sun will set on my time here and will rise with you. The guy who says that has his reign end at sundown, and in the end, his son ascends to the rock in the sunrise.
In Rango, before reaching the town of Dirt, Rango has a bizarre dream that foreshadows things to happen later in the movie. The dying cactus moving. The rattlesnake tails. The shadow of the hawk flying. The voice of Roadkill asking him "Where are your friends now, amigo?" Rango being submerged in water.
When the mayor orders his men to call Rattlesnake Jake, they warn him specifically that Rattlesnake Jake is a "grim reaper" and "never leaves town without taking a soul". He doesn't listen and orders Jake to be contracted anyways. After betraying Rattlesnake Jake, the mayor is dragged out of town by an angry Rattlesnake Jake.
Disney's Aladdin first film. During the song "One Jump Ahead", Aladdin and Abu grab a rug, jump out a window and ride the carpet down to the ground. Later on Aladdin rides a magic carpet several times.
In The Iron Giant, Hogarth shows the titular giant a few comics, like Superman and Atomo, later in the film, we learn the giant can fly, and Atomo bears an incredibly eerie resemblance to the titular robot's combat mode.
Near the very beginning of Pocahontas, while inside Kekata the Medicine Man's wigwam, Kekata actually tells Chief Powhatan about a dream he had of the settlers from England. As Kekata starts talking about his dream, he waves his staff around over a fire, causing the smoke rising from it to turn into a ghostly pack of wolves, which surround Kocuom. This foreshadows Kocuom being killed by one of the settlers, which is represented by the wolves.
The smoke wolves then rush towards Powhatan, but are dissipated before they can surround him as they did Kocuom, foreshadowing how Powhatan is also nearly shot by Radcliffe.
In The Nightmare Before Christmas, whenever Oogie Boogie is talking, an insect will occasionally crawl out of the seams holding together his burlap body and all over him before finally disappearing back inside, annoying him as it does so.
Near the end of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as Judge Frollo is destroying Quasimodo's model of Paris, at one point he grabs the wooden figure of Esmeralda and throws, knocking down a wooden figure of himself in the process.
Also, pay attention to the scenes where Esmeralda is kicking, jumping, or performing some other action that would make her dress fly up, which reveals the lacy, tattered hem of a white dress underneath. Guess what color dress she wore at the end of the film!
I'm guessing the lacy stuff was just her underwear, and the white frock is something new that Frollo made her wear for her execution.
During the song "Topsy Turvy", Esmeralda actually performed her infamous pole dance wearing a skimpy red dress, and this led to Frollo's obsession. Red is ironically considered as a sign of bad luck in real life according to Gypsy culture.
Near the beginnning of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, while ____ and Whitmore are talking to each other, Whitmore presents several photographs to ____ showing the explorers he will be travelling with to Atlantis. ______'s photograph shows only half his face.
In Brave, in an argument with her mother, Merida tells her that "You're a beast!"
At the abandoned castle, Bear!Elinor knocks over a large rock to protect her daughter from Mor'du. Guess how she defeats him in the final battle?
Midway through The Jungle Book, the orangutan King Louie kidnaps the human orphan Mowgli and demands the secret of fire, which Louie believes is the only thing separating him from being a man. At the film's end, Mowgli uses fire to drive off his nemesis, the tiger Shere Khan, and shortly thereafter leaves the jungle to claim his human heritage.
As Felix and Calhoun prepare to go into the game Sugar Rush, there is a particular subtle piece of graffiti on the wall. The word Turbo, and the 8 bit face of the man himself appears before what it means is fully explained.
Several times it is shown that Vanellope's glitching extends to whatever she is in contact with, including people like Taffyta. During the race, this exposes King Candy for who he really is.
King Candy is the first person to hint that there is more to "going turbo" than just abandoning one's game. King Candy immediately assumes Ralph is there to steal his game and goes crazy over the very thought. It turns out that King Candy is actually Turbo and has stolen the Sugar Rush game, explaining his irrational outburst.
When Vanellope first meets Ralph, she jokes about using the "royal we". And later on, she has Ralph kneel and appoints him like a knight, saying he was her "royal chump". There is also the fact that she is the only character with "Von" in her name which is associated with nobility. Even with her and everyone else's memories locked away, Princess Vanellope Von Schweetz is still subconsciously aware of who she's supposed to be.
When Ralph first enters the palace, he remarks to King Candy that it is oddly pink for a male character. Turns out the palace originally belongs to Princess Vallellope.
In Mulan, the titular character runs to catch up with the other girls throughout the song "Honour To Us All". At the end of the sequence, she opens her parasol slightly later than the other girls, foreshadowing the disaster of the matchmaker meeting that was to come.
During the acupuncture scene in Kung Fu Panda, Mantis has difficulty finding Po's nerve points because of his thick fat. Tai Lung's nerve attacks prove to be ineffective against him for the same reason.
The first film has hints of several things in Kung Fu Panda 2:
Crane's Wings of Justice move was used early on in the first film.
Somewhere in the middle of the first film, Master Shifu is chanting about Inner Peace.
Po's dream about fighting alongside mighty warriors actually occurs in the end of the film.
Even early bird cameos like Shen's symbol and the wolves that appeared previously in Po's dream appeared in the film. Po's memories may have been repressed but even little things like that still affected him.
Live-Action Film
In The Devil's Advocate, John Milton (who is eventually revealed to be Satan in human form) is shown always taking the subway when he moves around New York City, hinting at his "underworld" connections (both literally and figuratively, as he also turns out to be the mastermind of a worldwide crime syndicate). He also strews the film's dialogue with remarks that sound mundane in context, but by way of Fridge Brilliance are shown to be allusions to his past as the rebellious angel Lucifer and his being cast out of Heaven by God: "Underestimated from Day One!" and "You think I never lost before?"
The 1989 film: Jack Napier (soon to become The Joker) wears a purple suit, carries around a deck of cards for good luck...and when we first see him, he's watching television in a room hung with glamour portraits of young women with snow-white skin and ruby-red lips, just like the Joker's later female victims. He's also called a "psycho" by one character, even though we haven't yet seen him do anything particularly evil.
Oswald Cobblepot (the baby who will grow up to become the Penguin) picks a fight with a cat in one of the film's opening scenes, foreshadowing his later adversarial relationship with Catwoman.
Catwoman herself is (unintentionally) foreshadowed in a scene showing Selina Kyle working in her office at night: light from a lamp on her desk distorts the shadow of her spectacles, making it appear to be a Catwoman mask. (This happened purely accidentally, and the filmmakers decided to leave it in because it was so fortuitous.)
Die Hard With A Vengeance has McClane and Samuel L. Jackson successfully disarm a bomb and hand it off to some cops who are actually the Big Bad's Mooks in disguise. Even after the good guys have left, the "cops" agree they had better hang onto the bomb in case some kids get a hold of it. Of course, much later in the movie it turns out the bomb in the school is a fake. The bad guys are willing to lie, steal, and kill, but aren't willing to kill children.
Early in Do The Right Thing, Sal shouts (only meaning it as a figure of speech), "I'm gonna kill somebody today!"
At the beginning of Enchanted when Giselle is building a mannequin of her true love, of whom she dreamed, the mannequin is wearing Robert's blue jacket from the ball, not Prince Edward's poofy-shouldered maroon outfit.
A veeeeeeeeeery subtle one in Terminator 2 when the T-1000 shows up looking for John. In the first film, dogs were established as being used to spot infiltrators. John's dog Max, barely visible and audible in the background, is going nuts.
Also the look that the T-1000 shoots at the silvery store mannequin in the mall.
During the opening of part 1, the radio mentions the theft of plutonium by terrorists, the same who show up trying to kill Doc.
George McFly flexes his hand defensively during a confrontation in the unaltered 1985 in Part I, foreshadowing his final fight with Biff in 1955, the opening montage of the film (in Doc Brown's garage) foreshadows later parts of the film, including Doc's hang off the clocktower.
The DeLorean's ignition troubles once Marty arrives in 1955 during Part I.
The following exchange at the beginning of part 1:
Strickland: In the history of Hill Valley no McFly has ever amounted to anything!
Marty: Yeah, well history is about to change.
Lorraine says the following to her children at dinner, all of which she ends up doing to "Calvin Klein":
"I think it's terrible. Girls chasing boys. When I was your age I never chased a boy, called a boy or... sat ...in a parked car with a boy."
In Part 1 Doc mentions that if he can travel to the future he can see the winner of the next 25 world series. In Part 2 the same kind of future knowledge (thanks to the almanac) is used by Biff to build his fortune through betting.
Part II is filled to brim with foreshadowing for Part III, such as Biff watching A Fistful Of Dollars in Part II foreshadows Marty's boiler plate armor trick, a documentary mentioning "Mad Dog" Tannen being Biff's great-grandfather, and a lot more.
A bit of unintentional and subtle foreshadowing: In Part I, the Starliters play a song called "Night Train", which wasn't named in the movie, yet whose title foreshadows the use of trains in Part III. (When that Starliters scene was filmed, the sequels weren't even a glimmer in Robert Zemeckis' eye yet.)
What's even more hilarious in hindsight, the lyrics of "Power of Love" by Huey Lewis (the title song) include the following line: "Don't need no credit card to ride this train". It unintentionally spoilered not only the use of trains, but also the fact that the train would be hijacked... used for a science experiment.
The Final Destination movies revolve on those to warn the characters of how Death plans on dealing with them. Unfortunately (for them), it serves more to the viewers as foreshadowing on what's going to happen soon enough.
Pirates of the Caribbean: All throughout the films, Will Turner ends up the sole survivor of shipwrecks. The first wreck foreshadows the second, and it's retconned in the sequels into foreshadowing Will's destiny as captain of the Flying Dutchman in the third film, which doesn't pan-out until the bottom of the last act. The second film has several, including Jack arriving in a coffin and later falling into an open grave, foreshadowing his death in the last act. It also had a few for the third, such as Gibbs explaining the natives of Pelegosto thought Jack was a god in human form and intended to release him, just as Barbossa intended to do for Calypso.
Brick: Pay very close attention to Emily's phone call at the beginning of the film.
Reservoir Dogs: the very first scene foreshadows Mr Blonde's sociopathic tendencies, as well as the identity of the rat. A later scene drops a clue unintentionally as well, when an orange balloon is shown flying around.
The initial dialogue also shows Mr. White as the "protective" guy (defending the waitresses), as well as foreshadowing his clash of authority with Joe, Mr. Blonde's loyalty to Joe ("Shoot this piece of shit for me, will ya?") and Mr. Pink's individualist attitude.
The friendship between Orange and White is foreshadowed without either saying a word to each other - most of White's shots (especially when he's expounding an opinion) include Orange looking at him and reacting to him.
Mr Orange's Conflicting Loyalty (and Nice Guy Eddie's raging reaction) is foreshadowed when he is easily convinced by Pink's tirade.
In a rare case of foreshadowing that isn't in the first scene, Mr Orange asks his boss to 'take care' of Long Beach Mike, the guy who got Orange into the group. His boss very specifically tells him that Long Beach Mike is a piece of shit who he can't trust. Later, Orange tells his friend White that he's the cop. White (maybe) shoots him in response.
In a Blink And You Miss It, when David and Mc Kitrick are discussing working with Steven Falken, Mc Kitrick casually mentions that Falken "is a brilliant man..." not "was a brilliant man..." Later, David later finds out Falken is still alive.
There's a conversation in the beginning of L.A. Confidential where a police captain asks a younger officer intending to join the detective bureau if he's willing to do certain unethical things to bring a criminal to justice: plant evidence, beat a confession out of a suspect, and shoot a criminal in the back lest he be acquitted. The younger officer claims he won't... but by the end of the film, he's been complicit in all three.
The whole introduction scene of "bloody Christmas" has the three main characters foreshadowed, with White hitting everybody on his way without thinking despite good intentions, Vincennes paying off and getting a blood spot where he'll get shot, and Exley playing smart and lecturing his superiors. Oh, and Dudley already shows part of his dark side, being OK with torture.
The Haunting 1963: Nell asks to borrow her sister's car, to which her sister replies: "How do I know you'll bring back my car in good condition?" Nell is killed when she crashes the car into a tree.
In Inception, Fischer says to Saito after the avalanche, "Couldn't someone dreamed up a goddamn beach?".Later, Saito dies and goes to limbo which starts on a beach.)
Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are both FULL of foreshadowing (too many examples to fit this wiki). Almost every word and many images appearing in the first 30 minutes are full of foreshadowing and references to the whole plot. The Hot Fuzz DVD even has a function called Fuzz Facts which points out such bits of foreshadowing.
The Shaun of the Dead DVD, or at least the special edition, has something similar— the Zomb-O-Meter.
The quote at the top comes from the Rifftrax commentary on Daredevil where we see a young Matt Murdock standing behind his father, who is wearing a red hood with devil's horns on it, that casts a shadow onto Matt.
When Dr. Leavitt first enters Wildfire, she avoids looking at a flashing red light. Later on she looks at a flashing red alarm light and goes into a grand mal seizure, whereupon another character realizes she's epileptic.
"Come on, it'll be just like in the movies...we'll pretend to be someone else."
"This is the girl" (albeit this is more of an Ironic Echo)
"We don't stop here"
"You will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad."
In The Brothers Lionheart, during the song at the inn, the paintings on the wall depict things that will happen later in the story.
Serenity. River's comment about the Reaver that managed to get aboard the ship after their narrow escape ("He didn't lie down. They never lie down.") mirrors Inara's later comment about the victims of Miranda who didn't become Reavers and how they just lay down and died as an unexpected result of the Pax.
In the first Reaver chase of the movie, Mal and the others crashland their small hovercraft into Serenity's cargo bay. They start to relax when a sharp piece of the pursuing Reaver vehicle comes flying at Mal, which he barely dodges. Guess how Wash dies at the end?
The original King Kong begins with a (made-up) proverb about a beast being placated by a beauty, and how "from that day forward, it was as one dead" (said proverb is also quoted in the 2005 film). Later on, Carl Denham tells Jack Driscoll the story of the movie he's making: "The Beast was a tough guy... He could lick the world. But when he saw Beauty, she got him. He went soft, he forgot his wisdom, and the little fellers licked him." Guess how the movie ends.
Midway through Jaws, Hooper warns Brody about fiddling with his scuba tanks, explaining how they could blow up if not handled properly. There is also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit of foreshadowing along the same lines: watch the illustrations in that picture book on sharks Brody flips through very carefully. Quint remarks on this.
Quint: Yeah, that's real fine expensive gear you brought out here, Mr. Hooper. 'Course I don't know what that bastard shark's gonna do with it, might eat it I suppose.
In Jaws 2, it is foreshadowed on two seperate occasions how the shark is killed in the end. The marine biologist investigating the orca carcass caused by the shark mentions how sharks are attracted to rhythmic underwater sounds. When Brody's deputy and another assistant are searching for bodies on the sea floor, they find an electrical cable, and quickly drop it back to the bottom. At the end, Brody finds another electrical cable, and attracts the shark by bashing the cable with a bat, causing the sounds. The shark bites the cable, and gets electrocuted.
In Dead Poets Society, the ghost story Neil tells at the first meeting can be interpreted as a cryptic bit of foreshadowing of his own death.
For that matter his surname, Perry, could be symbolic for "Perish".
Also, Todd calming euphoric Neil when he gets the part, by telling him his father might discover it, foreshadows his father...well, discovering it.
One scene halfway through the fully-CGI Monster House has three kids stuck inside the titular Monster House's mouth, and the Smart Girl points out all the similarities to human anatomy, including an uvula. The token fat kid somehow misunderstands and goes "oh, so it's a girl house". Turns out he was right - the house was possessed by a giantess who fell to her death in its foundations..
In The Stepford Wives, a robotic wife starts malfunctioning, and is clearly at a party, where she keeps repeating 'I'll just die if I don't get that recipe!', which is both a hint at what is going to be Joanna's fate and at the horrifying reality of The Stepford Wives system, which has women literally die - and be replaced by placid robot clones for their husbands' desire of a prim and proper hausfrau, who cleans and cooks.
In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Stryker says to Wade Wilson that he'd be the perfect soldier if he didn't have such a mouth. Stryker later turns Wade into a mutated super-soldier who literally has no mouth.
In Gran Torino, Walt reading the paper on his birthday about a sudden life change that will occur that will come to a dramatic, yet seemingly anti-climatic ending. Guess what happens next? Immediately the Hmong girl walks over and invites him to their dinner where he makes new friends and works with a young boy that he comes to mentor. Oh, and the movie ends with him getting anti-climatically shot when everyone was expecting a major shootout.
Combines with Tempting Fate. Kane is the first crew member to die.
Kane: Oh, I feel dead.
Parker: Anybody ever tell you you look dead?
Dallas and Lambert note that the space jockey's ribs seem to have "exploded" from inside and wonder what could have caused it.
Ash never eats. The only thing he consumes is some milky-white fluid. He's later revealed to be an android, with white liquid for blood.
"Where's the rest of the crew?" is a very good question that's never brought up again, but a deleted scene from Alien shows that the xenomorph has a habit of turning its victims into more eggs.
In the Special Edition, the "bees and ants" conversation foreshadows the appearance of the Queen.
Hudson: She's badass, man, I mean big.
Newt reckons the scenario will turn ugly again for the humans, despite the presence of the Space Marines.
Newt: It won't make any difference.
Ripley promises that she won't leave Newt, "cross my heart and hope to die". She gets a chance to prove that she means it when the xenomorphs capture Newt with only minutes before a nuclear detonation will occur.
Ripley suggests nuking the site from orbit and Hicks agrees. The site ends up nuking itself when the damaged power plant explodes.
Alien³. There's a "blink and you might miss it" moment during the scene just after the xenomorph has attacked, some inflammable liquid caught alight and a large fire has been set off through the passage shaft. They activate the sprinklers to put the fire out, there's a view of the carnage and there's one brief shot of a bucket that was holding the inflammable liquid and was dropped and as the water hits it, the metal expands and snaps. This is how the xenomorph is actually killed at the end, they hit it with molten lead, it survives, they hit it with cold water and the rapid contraction causes it to implode.
Several characters in the black and white Kansas scenes foreshadow their alternate nature and events in Oz.
Hunk(The Scarecrow): Now you ain't usin' your head about Miss Gulch. Didn't think you had any brains at all!
Zeke(The Cowardly Lion): You lettin' that old Gulch heifer try and buffalo you? She ain't nothin' to be afraid of. Have a little courage, that's all!
Hickory(The Tin Man): Someday they're gonna erect a statue of me in this town!
Dorothyto Miss Gulch when the former is forced to put Toto in the basket: No, no, I won't let you take him! You go away, or I'll bite you myself!! (Aunt Em: Dorothy!) You wicked old witch!
Of course, we can't forget "Over The Rainbow". She even makes a reference to the song when she lands in Oz ("We must be over the rainbow!").
This all feeds into the All Just a Dream ending the movie has, since all of this would have been stuck in Dorothy's subconscious. In the books however, Oz is not a dream.
In The Usual Suspects, Verbal Kint is introduced early on as a short-con operator, which is the only job in the string that seems useless for what they're doing.
Agent Kujan tells Verbal that the way to spot a murderer is to arrest five guys for the same crime and leave them in a cell overnight. The next morning, whoever is sleeping is your guy. In the scene with all the suspects in jail for the hijacking, the one lying down is the one who actually did it.
In the thriller Fatal Attraction, during her second seduction of Michael Douglas's character over the telephone, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) says, in response to him explaining he needs to work and take the dog for a walk, "Just bring the dog over. I'm great with animals. And I love to cook." By the end of the movie, those two things are not mutually exclusive. Just ask that bunny.
Not only that, her overall demeanor starts to give hints as to her obsessive personality—calling him the day after, refusing to take "no" for an answer. Not to mention the way she flips out (even before she slashes her wrists) when he gets ready to leave a second time.
Early on Stanley orders his dog Milo to "Get the keys" (his car keys which he lost). Later, after Stanley is arrested he tells Milo to "Get the keys" again - the keys to his cell.
There's also an Incredibly Lame Pun example when, while he and his men are tailing the title character in a park, Kellaway, the police lieutenant, remarks: "We're gonna have a full dance card" (i.e., we're going to have a lot to deal with). That sequence ends with The Mask starting up a spontaneous Latin-themed dance party (which eventually shifts to 1940s swing jazz) and persuading everyone on the street (including the cops who have shown up to arrest him) to join the fun. The action is captured by TV news cameras, and a later scene has Kellaway's partner informing him that a few of those cops have been offered jobs as professional dancers in Las Vegas.
There is a cut in Se7en after detectives talk about the case directly to Pitt's character's wife's head. At the end, her head is delivered to Pitt's character.
There are many foreshadowing moments in The Matrix trilogy, but one prominent one is (which foreshadows at least two significant choices):
Rhineheart: The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job.
Because of the way it's disguised in plain sight as a throwaway line spoken with annoyance, many viewers and Neo himself miss it when the Merovingian says, with no cryptic language whatsoever, that Neo has had predecessors. This is not only a major reveal in itself but foreshadows other reveals Neo will learn when he meets the Architect forty-five minutes of film-time later.
While Bond is in the Whyte House he sees a painting of the owner, Willard Whyte. Later he meets and rescues Willard Whyte and discovers he looks just like his picture.
Plenty O'Toole is thrown out a window and ends up landing in a pool. Later she's killed by Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, who tie her to a weight and throw her into a pool to drown.
When Bond first meets Tiffany Case she's wearing a black wig. Later she sees black hair in a pool and thinks it's her wig: it's actually the hair of Plenty O'Toole. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd thought Plenty was Tiffany wearing the wig.
Goldfinger. Oddjob breaks off a statue's head by throwing his hat at it, and later on breaks Tilly Masterson's neck the same way.
While in Wonderland Weather Steed and Mrs. Peel see globes filled with weather patterns, including snowfall and a tornado. When Sir August attacks London with his Weather Control Machine it causes heavy snowfall and tornadoes.
Steed says "I'll stick to swordplay" just before his big sword fight with Sir August.
In Equilibrium, the fact that DuPont, the suit-and-tie wearing politician, can keep up with Preston in Gun Kata for far longer than anyone else in the move almost seems like an Ass Pull...except for a scene earlier in the movie where he's shown teaching a class on the technique, which would mean he himself knows it.
In The Dark Knight the first we see of Bruce Wayne is him tending a wound he recieved from an attack dog. The last shot of Batman in the film is him fleeing from a pack of police dogs.
Harvey Dent: You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Early on in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Norman Bates, taxidermist and mama's boy extraordinaire, defends his mother to Marion by saying, "Why, she's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds!" Guess what we find out at the end of the movie...
"Would you like us to integrate some alien stuff? Two-headed monsters? (Kuato) We're doing alien artifacts now (the alien device in the mine)."
A blink-and-you'll-miss-it one: when Quaid is being put into the Rekall machine at the beginning of the movie, one of the techs says in the background "Blue sky on Mars, that's a new one." Cut to the end of the movie, where Mars is given an atmosphere.
When Quaid first arrives on Mars, gunfire from the guards blows out a window leading to the air blowing out. Quaid ends up hanging from a rail to avoid being blown out onto the surface, exactly the way he ends up doing just before activating the reactor.
"One minute you'll be the saviour of the rebel cause, next you'll be Cohaagen's bosom buddy!"
After Cohaagen is forced to give the order to kill his friend Quaid (Hauser), he angrily knocks over his aquarium full of goldfish. The fish lie on the floor gasping, the same way Cohaagen, Quaid and Melina do after they're blown out into the Martian surface late in the movie.
In Avatar, it's practically a drinking game. Observe:
Grace: "I'd die to get a sample [of the Tree of Souls]." When she's dying later on they take her to the Tree of Souls, she says "I should get a sample."
Grace:"What're you gonna do, Ranger Rick? Ya gonna shoot me?" Quaritch:"I can do that." During their escape, one of Quaritch's shots hits her.
Trudy:"And I was hoping for some kind of tactical plan that didn't involve martyrdom." During the battle between the humans and the Na'vi, she attacks Quaritch's ship directly and ends up being shot and blown up.
Neytiri mentions that there has only been one Toruk Makto and that he brought all the tribes together, which comes back later when Jake becomes the Toruk Makto and brings all the tribes together.
Actually there's been 5, all happening in times of great sorrow... her grandfather just happened to be the last one who brought the clans together.
When Zartan is introduced in GI Joe The Riseof Cobra, he makes some remarks about the American political system based the book he's reading.
"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?"
The scene in The Empire Strikes Back on Dagobah where Luke Skywalker cuts off Darth Vader's head, only to find his own face beneath the mask.
Yoda: Much anger in him, like his father.
Star Wars: Clone Wars has this as well for Anakin Skywalker, when he is in the cave and has the vision. This also happens again in The Clone Wars when the Son shows Anakin his future, although it is later erased from his memory by the Father.
A few episodes later, Anakin meets and strikes up something of a friendship with Captain Tarkin, who of course will later become Grand Moff Tarkin. When they shake hands at the end of the three-parter, a few notes from the Imperial March play.
This exchange in A New Hope:
Aunt Beru: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him. Uncle Owen: That's what I'm afraid of.
Constantine. Papa Midnite tells Constantine that his soul is the only one Satan himself would come to collect. He's right.
The final lines of the movie Mommie Dearest, after Christina Crawford and her brother find out that their mother Joan Crawford had disinherited them, suggest that Christina would truly have "the last word".
When Indiana Jones gets captured by the Nazis after getting betrayed by Dr. Elsa Schneider, she says to him, "Don't look at me like that. We both wanted the Grail. I would have done anything to get it. You would have done the same." To which Indiana replies, "I'm sorry you think so." This minor exchange actually foreshadows the climax of the movie when Elsa tries to leave the temple with the grail. In that scene, Elsa almost falls into a crevice she created when she crossed the seal of the temple, but Indiana catches her. True to her earlier words, Elsa pulls a hand free to reach the grail below her instead of letting Indiana lift her up. Before she can get it, the glove on her other hand pulls off and she ultimately falls to her death. Indiana is then placed in the same situation, only he chooses to "let it go" and let his father save him.
Donovan says to Indy that they're only a few steps away from finding the Holy Grail, which prompts Indy to say "That's usually where the ground falls out from underneath your feet." Guess what happens when the Grail is found towards the end.
In Halloween H 20 Twenty Years Later, Laurie Strode (who now goes by the name Keri Tate) is teaching an English literature class on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Molly, one of the students, responds to a question about the book and fate with this: "I think that Victor should have confronted the monster sooner. He's completely responsible for Elizabeth's death. He was so paralyzed by fear that he never did anything. It took death for the guy to get a clue." She goes on to say that Victor finally confronts the monster because he "had reached a point in his life where he had nothing left to lose. I mean, the monster saw to that by killing off everybody that he loved. It was about redemption. It was his fate." This foreshadows the final scenes in the movie where Laurie finally decides to stop running from Michael Myers and confront her monster. After 20 years of living in fear and seeing her loved ones murdered, she had nothing more to lose. It was time to face her fears and end the nightmare.
Throughout the fourth Ju-on movie, Toshio repeatedly shows himself to be placing his hand on Kyoko's stomach. When one takes the ending into account, it becomes chillingly obvious why.
Not to mention the entire "Tomoka" vignette in the same movie. When the reason for the mysterious "banging" on her wall every night is revealed, it's downright horrifying.
From Thor, Loki's hand after he was touched by a Frost Giant. Also: "Allfather, you look ... weary."
In the beginning of the film, Odin tells a young Thor and Loki that both were meant to be king. It's later revealed that Loki was the son of the Jotun king.
In Captain America: The First Avenger, when Red Skull acquires the cube, the old monk warns him that its power will burn him. In the climax, when Red Skull tries to use the cube himself, he is seemingly disintegrated by it.
When we first see Red Skull without his red skull face there is a shot of blood dripping onto the silver skull on his jacket.
A bit later we see a painter painting a portrait of Schmidt. He's using mostly red paint...
In the beginning, a group of Nazis are scrambling to lift a lid off a tomb without any success. Minutes later, Schmidt walks over and effortlessly shoves the lid off by himself. We find out later that he had also taken the Super Soldier serum.
In X-Men: First Class, when we see Magneto as an adult, he uses his powers to slam a coin at a picture of Shaw in the forehead. This is how he kills Shaw in their final confrontation, except much slower.
Also part Chekhov's Skill where Erik asks Charles to shoot him point-blank and when met with Charles' refusal, he states he can deflect it. This comes back at the end where Moira shoots at Erik to stop him from sending the missiles back at the American and Russian navies and he easily deflects the bullets ... only to have one bullet hit Charles and paralyze him.
And in a scene where Havok is learning to shoot straight in the bomb shelter, Charles and Hank are standing right to either side of the target manekin. Charles says, with light emphasis, "And try not to hit ME, there's a good chap". A little odd, considering Hank is just as likely to get hit, so it should be "us". Later in the movie, of course, Charles is hit by a bullet, due to standing right NEXT TO it's intended target, Erik.
Before the attack at the CIA base, Havok beats Darwin at a pinball game. Darwin declares "Jesus man, you're killing me!" Later, Shaw uses the energy absorbed from Havok's blast to kill Darwin.
In Deep Rising, there are several allusions to the revelation that the monsters are actually the tentacles of a humongous octopoid monster, most notably Finnegan's anecdote about the octopus and the bottle.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon drops a few hints that something isn't quite right with Sentinel Prime, with the most obvious hint in hindsight being "I've seen this one. This is the one where Spock goes nuts.".
Also when Sentinel first wakes up, he accidentally attacks Optimus. The second time it happens, he attacks the Autobots intentionally.
A subtle one is how the Decepticons were public service vehicles, police, military and construction vehicles while the Autobots were regular private civilian cars. Sentinel's vehicle mode was a fire truck.
Mearing had earlier pointed out that Sentinel's pillars could be used to bring an invasion.
Carly's car is said to have a "deep throaty engine". Her car is Soundwave and voiced by Frank Welker.
In the film Unfaithful, Connie, the cheating wife in question, is on her way to meet her lover when she runs into some girlfriends. While having coffee with them, her lover shows up at the cafe. Unaware of Connie's relationship with him, one of the women proceeds to gush over how gorgeous she is, then half-jokes about how she wouldn't mind having a fling with him. The other woman denounces her for this, then reveals that she had an affair of her own and that it is the one thing in her life that she truly regrets. "These things always end in disaster. Someone always gets hurt". Despite this ominous and inadvertent (the other woman doesn't know about the fling either) warning, Connie continues the affair until sure enough, disaster strikes. Her husband finds out, kills her lover, and now they must contend with the possibility of him going to jail.
The first scene in The Artist shows George Valentin's latest silent adventure film. As his character is being subjected to Electric Torture, he is seen speaking, with the accompanying title card reading "I won't talk! I won't say a word!" Later, his refusal to do talkies leads to his film career falling apart.
Later in the film, Peppy Miller, the young starlet whose first screen role was an extra in one of Valentin's movies, is seen starring in a movie called "Guardian Angel". She ends up becoming a guardian angel to Valentin, inviting him to stay in her mansion while he recovers from injuries sustained in a fire, and trying to help him get back into movies.
When Holmes officially meets Moriarty, he tells him that if it one-hundred-percent guaranteed Moriarty's destruction, he would gladly accept his own. He follows this when he does a suicide leap off a cliff bringing Moriarty with him.
Earlier than that, when showing Watson the web of conspiracy, Holmes told him he'd give his life to see Moriarty's demise.
The fate of the Parisian bomb-maker who kills himself to protect his loved ones from Moriarty.
Kill List foreshadows several events late in the film in its apparently innocuous early scenes:
Jay and Gal's drunken play fight at Jay's dinner party becomes a real fight when their relationship is tested late in the film.
Early on, Jay finds the cat has left a rabbit with its entrails hanging out — this mirrors how he finds the mortally wounded Gal in the tunnels late in the film.
Jay's play fight with Shel and Sammy foreshadows how the cult force him to fight and kill them for real at the climax.
Blakeney makes Calamy promise that if he dies, not to stitch him 'through the nose' when wrapping his body in his hammock. After Calamy is killed in the final battle, Blakeney asks to personally take care of his friend's body to make sure that the last stitch doesn't go through his nose.
An albatross appears and the Captain of the Marines tries to shoot it. Moments later, the bird dives low, the shot misses and hits Dr. Maturin.
Spider-Man 3: Early on, after Peter and Mary Jane visit Harry Osborn in the hospital, a nurse comments to him how they really seem like good friends. Harry proudly states they're the best, and that he'd die for them. Guess what happens to him during the final battle?
In the The Avengers, when Loki arrives on the SHIELD airship, he briefly smirks at Bruce. Guess what or who his plan for escaping is?
Steve tells Tony that Tony isn't the kind to sacrifice himself for a greater cause.
The Galaga gag becomes a subtle foreshadowing for the final showdown. Much like the unwinnable video game, the heroes fight endless hordes of alien ships.
In Ghost Rider, the Caretaker's identity as another Rider, who knows what it's like to be one first-hand, is implied by his having left exactly the right number of cups of water for Johnny to guzzle when he wakes up.
Near the beginning, when asked if he has a car, Eddie says the he doesn't need one in L.A. since it "has the best public transportation system in the world." Turns out that a major plot point in the film was that Judge Doom was buying the Red Car so that he could dismantle it.
When Eddie Valiant comments wondering how Doom could be a judge, one of the cops mentioned that he bought the election in Toontown.
Doom: A human has been murdered by a Toon — don't you appreciate the magnitude of that?
Roger crying, "Somebody musta made her [Jessica Rabbit] do it!"
The weasels' laughter, which is purported to be quite fatal.
Smart Ass: Stop that laughing! You know what happens when you can't! Stop! Laughing?! One of these days, you're gonna die laughing!"
Roger: "A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."
Eddie: (to Roger) "I don't who's Toonier, you or Doom."
Pretty much everything about Doom's character. He's Obviously Evil in every sense of the word. In outfit, name, the way he presents himself, and even the way he talks. While the other characters are played more realistically, he's not subtle in the least, in actions or appearance. This makes a lot more sense when it's revealed he's a Toon, who are by their nature over the top and quite obviously their role.
Cloverleaf, as in the shape of highway on-ramps.
R.K. Maroon: "Unless Acme's will shows by midnight tonight, Toontown's gonna be land for the free—" (gets cut off by a gun that is fired into his back by Doom, killing him)
While baby Kal-El is in the starship his father Jor-El tells him "You are forbidden to interfere in human history". Guess what Superman has to do before the end of the movie to save Lois?
While Jonathan Kent is changing the tire on their truck Martha Kent warns him to take it easy because of his heart condition. Guess what happens to him later in the movie? That's right, a heart attack.
In The Amazing Spider-Man, if you look closely during the scene Peter puts the equation that allows the mouse to regenerate its leg, you can see the words severe mutation detected.
Peter swinging around the chains in the warehouse foreshadows his web-slinging.
Gwen's father makes Spiderman promise to keep her out of danger. If this is like the comics, then you know that Gwen's chances of surviving won't be good.
Men In Black. Near the beginning a bug smashes into the immigrant smuggler's van and he says "Goddamn bugs!" Later on an alien Bug with "unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper" almost causes the destruction of the Earth.
When Wayne meets Tate at the party, she mentions the importance of bringing "balance to the world". She also appears wearing a mask to hide herself, then removes it.
Miranda has a mysterious scar on her back similar to the League of Shadows brand seen early in Batman Begins.
When told that Batman can't evacuate her just yet, she says "Do what's necessary."
Bane disposes of Dagget immediately after Tate gets on the board at Wayne Enterprises. In fact, Dagget enters the scene where he dies complaining about precisely that.
Whenever Tate becomes part of the good guys' plans, the plans end up derailed soon after. For example, when Tate meets with covert agents trying to stop the nuking of Gotham, Bane's men soon arrive and kill them. Tate joins the Gordon's resistance group to help them find the bomb, La Résistance is captured by Bane's men.
After sleeping with Bruce, she has a whole monologue about how much she loves fire and what it means to her. This follows a good hour of fanatical terrorists using fire as a metaphor for their evil plot.
To Bruce Wayne's death:
Alfred's conversation that he's already buried too many members of the Wayne family and will not bury Bruce.
Blake mentioning that he might not get a chance to thank Batman later.
Batman telling Selina that he hasn't given the people of Gotham everything yet.
The positioning of the bat symbol behind Batman's back on the poster evokes angel wings.
Blake being the one to put together John Dagget's connection with Bane's construction work throughout the city, Blake figuring out on his own that Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Gordon's acknowledgement of Blake as a detective.
Batman giving Blake the curious advice of wearing a mask.
When Gordon asks Foley for help, he says "I'm not asking you to march down the street in your dress uniform." Foley ends up doing just that as he leads Gotham's police against Bane's mercenaries.
In Mean Girls, in the beginning of the movie, Cady narrates her immediate crush on Aaron and almost gets hit by a yellow bus, which foreshadows a much later event in the movie.
Cady: But this one hit me like a big yellow school bus.
The Saw series does this a fair bit, thought how much of it was originally intended as foreshadowing and how much was later simply worked into the overarching story is debatable. A example that was most likely intentional from the start comes from Saw III: the dying Jigsaw is briefly seen playing around with some melted wax in a very quick and easy to overlook shot. In Saw IV it's revealed during the autopsy of his corpse that he was using the wax to coat a tape so he could store it in his stomach for his next victim to find, allowing him to continue his work even after his death.
In A Christmas Carol The Musical, after Scrooge rebuffs the blind beggarwoman who later becomes the Ghost of Christmas Future, a hearse drives by with a coffin; specifically that of Mr. Smythe's wife.
The Hobbit does this with hints of things to come later in this film and in the upcoming films.
When Gandalf gives Bilbo his elvish sword, he tells him that true courage comes from knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare a life.
After seeing Elrond reveal the names of Orcrist and Glamdring, Bilbo wonders out loud whether his sword has a name. Balin then tells him that swords gain their names depending on their deeds.
Annoyed at Thorin's stubbornness and refusal to confide in Elrond, Gandalf mutters that Thorin's pride will be his downfall.
Old Joe: We all heard stories about the Rainmaker. Has a synthetic jaw, saw his mom get shot.
Later on, when Old Joe tries to kill Cid (who will become The Rainmaker in the future), he shoots him in the jaw, and his mother jumps in front of him in order to shield him from getting killed.
Not to mention the double Chekhov's Gun. With Seth as an example, telekinesis is suggested to be worth basically nothing. Then we find that Sarah is a much stronger than Seth. And finally there's Cid, who is much stronger than her...
The posters, drawings and action figures of a man in black wearing a wide-brimmed hat in Cid's room, just like the outfits worn by the Rainmaker's mooks in the future.
In The Wolfman 2010, inspector Aberline shoots a standing mirror which he thinks Lawrence Talbot is hiding behind. "Now there's some bad luck for ya," an officer says regarding the broken mirror. Near the end of the movie, Aberline is bitten by Lawrence, thus doomed to become a werewolf himself.
There's a few hints that Eli in The Book of Eli was blind before you actually know for sure, e.g. his innocuous statement "I walk by faith, not by sight."
Legend does it twice. At the beginning of the movie Darkness says "I require the solace of the shadows and the dark of the night. Sunshine is my destroyer." Just in case the audience forgot, while Darkness is in the underground cave with Lily he says it again. Guess how the good guys defeat him at the climax?
Beech expresses the desire to see the look on the Tet's face when they detonate the bomb. He got his wish.
Jack's conversation with Victoria at the beginning about the last Super Bowl before the Alien Invasion (especially, that the last play on it was a "Hail Mary" pass) becomes pretty important later on in context (the plan regarding the Trojan Prisoner is a "Hail Mary" play).
Music
In Journey's Don't Stop Believing, the guitar solo plays the same tune as the chorus before the chorus comes in.
Queen's "Under Pressure": the backing vocals under the "Chippin' around" part have the same melody as the "Love's such an old-fashioned word" part, a minute and a half later in the song.
From The Decemberists album, The Hazards Of Love, at the end of The Rake's Song he says that he expects the audience to believe him to be "haunted" over murdering his children, but then assures them that it never bothers him. Guess whose ghosts show up in the song The Hazards of Love 3 to get revenge on their father?
Newspaper Comics
A darkly funny one in Gary Larson's The Far Side: Some Natives are bidding farewell to a group of European explorers, when one of them turns to the man just to his right and asks: "Did you detect something ominous in the way they said 'See you later'?"
Two 1989 Bloom County strips foreshadowed the ending of the strip later that year, in which Bill the Cat with Donald Trump's brain fires all the characters. In the first, Milo says to Binkley that he has been feeling really secure around here and that around Bloom County, he feels a real sense of...permanence. Binkley responds "Dabbling in a little bit of ironic foreshadowing, are we?". In the second, Opus spots a shooting star, and after wondering what to wish for, he then says "I wish I knew if I'll have meaningful employment after August 6th" (August 6th was the day the strip ended).
Subverted in For Better or for Worse. Elly, discussing her daughter Elizabeth with a policeman, says "I suspect it will be a few more years before she meets Mr. Right!" A caption points out the Meaningful Name on the policeman's office door: "Constable Paul Wright." Paul and Elizabeth do begin a romance within a few weeks after that — but he doesn't turn out to be Elizabeth's Mr. Right and she winds up marrying someone else.
Olsen: Some day, her hoosban' is killing him. Mrs. Fiorentino: Dot would be terrible! Jones: He's li'ble to, at that. You know, he's got a wicked look in his eye, dat baby has. Mrs. Jones: Well, it's no more than he deserves, the little rabbit—goin' around and breakin' up people's homes.
In a Doll's House, Nora has a causal conservation with her children's nurse asking her "if anything ever happens, will you...".
The song "The Wizard and I" from the musical Wicked has several examples of foreshadowing. In this song we see starry-eyed teenage Elphaba, who we already know is going to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, fantasizing about being the Wizard's right-hand girl one day. She dreams about "a celebration throughout Oz that's all to do with me" after we've just seen the townspeople rejoice at her presumed death. She also says "I'd be so happy I could melt" and "when people see me they will scream." This could also be considered an interesting example of a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment.
Also in Wicked, there is foreshadowing with Fiero in the song "Dancing Through Life" whe he sings Life's more painless, for the brainless, hinting to his becoming the scarecrow with no brain later in the show.
There's a nice one in the musical version of The Secret Garden where Martha sings to Mary about what she can do now that she lives out in the middle of nowhere. She talks about all kinds of fantastical things to explore out there, including pirate caves and fairies. Tucked into all this fantasy, she sings If you chance to see a garden guarded by a tree and meet a bird who speaks to thee... which of course turns out to be real.
In Vanities: The Musical, Mary warns Kathy in the song "Let Life Happen" that her obsession with organizing will "drive her mad", foreshadowing her later nervous breakdown. Kathy recalls this in "Setting Your Sights (What You Wanted)" and "An Organized Life (1974)".
In the first act, Christian lampshades that he really would prefer his personal life to (stay with Roxane and defy De Valvert) to save his friend Ligniere’s life, but he chooses to do the right thing. He will chose the same at Act IV when he discovers that Roxane really love him for his soul (meaning that she really loves Cyrano).
At Act IV, Scene VIII, Roxane says that if Ulises have sent Penelope the letters Roxane had received, she also would have risk everything for his love sake like Helena did. At Act V, we see that Roxane, who at Act IV acted as real Guile Heroine like Helena, has settled to be a tragic I Will Wait for You heroine like Penelope, because she has got into a nunnery to devote all her life to Christian’s memory.
Abundant throughout the Ring Cycle due to Leitmotifs - for example, when at the end of Walküre, Wotan calls: "He who fears my spear-tip shall never cross the fire!", the Siegfried leitmotif is played, indicating that it'll be Siegfried who'll cross it.
Web Comics
Every single time Dan of El Goonish Shive writes one into a strip, which he does a lot, there's almost always a "lamp" in close proximity. What is left is usually cryptic or already blatantly obvious.
Most of the Sleepy Time storyline was a serious take on it though. All the dreams are this and/or Character Development. Proof? This foreshadows Elliot gaining a superhero spell and This foreshadows Nanase getting into a relationship with Ellen.
What's seen here translated with this. "Death. It Is Time For The End Of Man. This Master of Fire Shall Inherit The Earth. My Very Presence Eats Away At Your Flesh" Other than the two bizarre words in the end, it's pretty creepy.
Susan's sword (5th December, 2002) and "tattoo" Venus (5th October, 2005) were good hints that she isn't as simple as she looks, but were proven to be plot points and not throwaway gags only in much later flashback (26th May, 2010).
This arc cover is full of foreshadowing (and one Red Herring). It foreshadows the appearance of Abraham and Nanase's angel form.
In Get Medieval strip #731, Sir Gerard says: "I'd return via the Moon if that could avoid it." Guess what, 70 strips later and he's on the Moon.
The Order of the Stick had Xykon choose his name in Start of Darkness, with a poster of a skull - strongly resembling his lich self - prominently shown next to him.
The party wanders into a cave looking for an item for a Fetch Quest and discover that it's inhabited by a dragon. During the fight, the dragon mentions its mom, who thought it important to study other cultures and thus taught him to speak lizard. Later, the party wizard deduces that the Fetch Quest item they were after must have been brought there by a much older dragon. However, no character (and, surprisingly, not a single fan) thinks anything of it. Until the dragon's mom shows up over 400 strips later bent on bloody revenge.
V's, er, thorough and pragmatic approach to problem-solving is hinted at earlier.
The IFCC (Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission) first appears as part of a one-panel joke in #380. They then appear as an important part of the plot in #632 (spoilers).
The police chief of Cliffport jokes that he'll remain the chief until the mayor puts his head on a pike for allowing such a ruckus in his town. Turns out that Nale did the mayor's work for him.
When the different parts of Haley's mind show up in her head, one ("the part that is sick of all this emo crap and wants to get back to comedy") has short hair, and very much resembles her after her Important Haircut some 300 strips later.
Girl Genius strip here — it takes some conscious effort to put a mad science related heart exactly there, and if you're thinking coincidence you might have missed the fact the heart was "hit" twice and the first time Agatha was saying love. Or the piece of heart region clothing Gil loses, as if to expose his heart. Agatha touching a heart with seemingly no fear of being mangled by the combat klank, as some sort of symbol of her touching Gil's exposed heart despite Gil's antics. Gil grabbing Agatha is a distinct foreshadowing of the wedding proposal that comes before she leaves the airship. Plus 15 or so threads of you know what I mean about in the forums if you want more esoteric symbols mad love, or Agatha's love of the mad science involved.
Agatha's comment about her "parents" hating the Heterodyne Boys Stories portraying Punch and Judy as stupid foreshadows the reveal that they themselves are none other than Punch and Judy - they feel insulted.
When a jagermonster claims Agatha smells "really goot" in book one, Gil (and the reader) assume he's just being lecherous and disgusting. It later becomes apparent that jagers can smell that Agatha is a Heterodyne.
It gradually becomes evident to the reader that all of the major events in Narbonic have been planned long in advance. The Little Nemo in Slumberland-inspired Sunday strips, especially, hint in beautiful, complicated, cryptic ways at events to come.
In the middle of the series, Dave is lost in time and twenty years later meets a pre-recorded 'future Dave' who tells him a fundamental piece of information: "remember to fill the swimming pool." Years later near the end of the webcomic, this becomes the thing which saves the lives of Artie and Helen, and completely alters the future.
When Hilda Ramirez and Feddyg meet face-to-face for the first time, he mockingly compliments her as "almost Death Note smart." He then proceeds to kidnap her, keeping her alive just long enough for a very Death Note-like The Plan.
Now we have the (self-proclaimed) longest set up in webcomic history: started here and ended here. 1214 long-form comics for a punchline is impressive and crazy.
Books Don't Work Here. The author loves making the character's words come back to haunt them.
Every one of Robin's shirts has been exactly what she's asked for. although usually not how she meant it.
When Robin changes her mind about her roommate being her girlfriend (while bringing her into existence) she says that she is not friends with her in any way, and we will never know how much easier her life could have been otherwise.
This page has a good bit of foreshadowing in it, but then again it also kind of takes place in the future. It's a quasi jump forward in time referring to and before a redoing of a previous serious of events the readers haven't seen yet. with out time travel.
The author's latest story arc (Future Trading) has had elements foreshadowed since October 2009. See here. Alsothese Notice the hairy octopus?
Toward the beginning of Sam and Fuzzy's "Noosehead" arc, Malcolm says some things that most would dismiss at first as being the ravings of a paranoid nutcase who's been breathing too many fumes, but in fact they reference key elements of the coming arc. A guest comic after the arc's completion calls attention to this.
Calliope and Caliborn sharing a body was so heavily foreshadowed, a sizeable portion of the fanbase was convinced that this wasn't going to be the case because, well, it's Hussie.
In Gunnerkrigg Court, when Renard first sees Annie, he reasons that she must be Surma's daughter, and immediately concludes that Surma is dead. Fridge Logic? Then we see a flashback with Anja crying over Annie's transfer form, which was a weird coincidence, though in itself understandable — a reminder of her dead friend. It's explained only 28 chapters and 762 strips later, when we find out that both knew Surma will die soon after having a daughter.
Annie said "And so did I wait for word from my father, unaware that I would not hear from him for over two years." This only sounds like a simple reveal until it turns out that she quite literally meant it, that her father only calls her, that she would only "hear" his voice over the phone.
In Wapsi Square, Tina's nickname for Monica foreshadowed the role she played in the fixing of the calendar machine. Monica's response to Phix's riddle did the same.
The very second strip shows Monica receiving an ancient Peruvian doll which Amanda says looks like a voodoo doll of Shelly. In the next strip Amanda grabs the doll's foot, and elsewhere the real Shelly feels it. In isolation this looks like a one-off gag, but actually it's a foreshadowing of all the supernatural shenanigans that would later become the strip's main focus.
In the strip after that Monica tells Shelly she makes decisions using a committee in her head but it doesn't have a chairperson - a possible foreshadowing of Tina, who is a literal committee of inner demons sharing one body after its "chairperson" (the original Tina) died.
In Sluggy Freelance, way back in October of 1999, we saw Oasis get furious at someone, and shortly afterwards the building she was in went up in a fiery explosion. It wasn't until June of 2009, over nine years and 3000 strips later, that we found out that, when Oasis gets mad, she can start fires with her mind. There was loads of other foreshadowing between those two strips, but, if the strip's official forum is anything to go by, that revelation was still entirely unanticipated by the readership.
Numerous hints are made toward the Bohrok Saga, which begins after the game's conclusion:
One of the prophecies placed under the Great Telescope shows the silhouette of a Bohrok
A rock in the jungle area has "Wake one and you wake them all", the Bohrok Saga's Tag Line scribbled on it in Bionicle writing.
Similarly, the message "Beware the swarm" is engraved into one of the rocks in the snowdrifts, which triggers a cutscene about the player having an illusion, during which the text and the Bohrok symbol appear on screen
When you talk to Turaga Vakama, he says something vague about "expecting the arrival of another...". At the end of the game, he compares the player's (who we then learn is called Takua) adventures to those of the Toa heroes. Takua, two real-life years after the game's story, becomes a Toa himself.
The Onu-Koro miners talk about hitting an impenetrable rock strata that has organic properties. Seven years later, it's revealed that what they had reached was Mata Nui's face.
Hermione: A portkey is a enchanted object that will transport whoever touches it to a location decided upon by the enchanter.
Snape: Very good. Now can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is?
Hermione: Foreshadowing is a literary device in which an important plot point is brought up early in a story to return later in a more significant way.
And shortly after:
Lavender: Professor, can, like, a person be a portkey?
Snape: No, that's absurd! Because then if a person were to touch themself they would be instantly transported. A person can, however, be a horcrux.
Harry: What's a horcrux?
Snape: I'm not even going to tell you, Potter, you're just going to have to find that out for yourself.
After the events of Red vs.Blue ''Reconstruction'' Agent Washington ends up in jail and gets a call from Caboose in Recreation:
Caboose: Oh, we need your help! Can you come right away? Can you come help us?
Washington: I don't think that is going to happen.
In the Youtube video The Devil And Daniel Webster, the main character, Javez, along with 2 others mention 'not selling [Javez's] soul to the devil. After doing so, a character will look puzzled, and whoever said it will reply, "Foreshadowing."
In thisLeft 4 Dead custom campaign video, at about 3:40, the person playing as Zoey tells another person, when asked to predict the future, that he will die and everyone else will live. This actually turns out to be true. Lampshaded by an annotation at the end.
In Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, all of Bad Horse's communications are sung by a trio of cowboys. Guess what the ring tone sounds like when he calls?
Also, several (maybe) throwaway lines during the songs:
"'Cause the dark is everywhere and Penny doesn't seem to care that soon the dark in me is all that will remain..." Horrible/Penny: There's no happy ending/So they say Horrible: Not for me anyway... "It's not a death ray..."
Commonly in The Slender Man Mythos, whenever someone mentions childhood fears or something along the line of that, expect Slendy to be intersected with those fears at some point. For a more specific variant, see Just Another Fool, in which Josh mentions breaking an arm after some man in a suit refused to get off the road, so he swerved out of the way and fell off his motorbike. It's heavily implied that the next time this happens, it's not just his arm that gets broken.
In Stone's first appearance as a Global Guardian, a fight with several villains from TAROT, Strength jokes at him, "Say hello to your Mom for me." Stone, being an orphan, just took it as a taunt. Nine years later, Stone finds out that he isn't an orphan at all, that his mother is a supervillain and that Stone was hidden from her by his own father, and that she had worked with Strength on several occasions.
Stone: "At least now I know what that muscleheaded bastard meant..."
The Nostalgia Chick's Xanadu review mentioned her love for robots and had her finally getting pissed off with just doing girly shit. The next episode was a four part arc, starting with Transformers and the Critic yelling at her for going into his territory.
In The Gamers Alliance, foreshadowing happens quite often. Even relatively minor NPCs or objects referred to in passing can end up having a big impact some time later.
In the sixth chapter of Broken Saints, Raimi Matthews meets near the alleway a vagrant wearing a sandwich board with the same message as his computer in a previous episode. The vagrant talks Raimi in riddles In the last episode is revealed that the vagrant was an hologram, and his riddles were actually hints about the Big Bad plan and other events that take place in the next episodes.
In the chapter 18, "Forecast", at the end of her Tarot reading, the Albino fortuneteller advices Raimi to "chose love". Guess what ends destroying the Big Bad plans.
In Chapter 8.2 of Worm, the Travelers stand when Legend tells everyone who faced an Endbringer before to do so. We later find this is because they are victims of the Simurgh, a monster who sets up Disaster Dominoes in those who spend too much time in her vicinity.
Western Animation
Adventure Time: In The Eyes, where a horse spies on Finn and Jake all night, at the beginning Finn remembers all the adventures they have in that week, one of them is rescuing yet another princess from the Ice King, with screaming: "I only want to be happy!" The end of the episode shows The Ice King disguised as the horse spying Finn and Jake to learn how to be happy.
Also from Adventure Time: In the episode "Fionna and Cake" which turned out to be a Fan Fic written by The Ice King Fionna tells Cake to take off the Ice Queen's crown to "not catch her crazy". In the second part of "Holly Jolly Secrets" is revealed that the Ice King used to be a human antiquarian called Simon Petrikov who found the crown, which eventually made him lose his sanity.
And the captured balloon from that episode was seen in the middle of the third season, with improvements.
Katara's overall waterbendingpotential is alluded to early in the first episode when she rips an iceberg apart (and frees Aang) without even realizing it as she blew her stack over her brother's sexism.
Another is when we see attacking/blaming Appa is Aang's Berserk Button in "The Chase", and when Appa is gone, he goes for the full Heroic BSOD.
Another bit is Azula's brief appearance during Zuko's Agni-Kai vs. Ozai. We had no idea who she was at that point.
White lotus tiles sure do come up often. Especially around old men.
In "The Boiling Rock, Part 1", the Warden says he'd rather fall into the boiling lake surrounding the prison rather than let its record be blemished. In Part 2, he proves he's not just blowing steam.
A portrait of the lion turtle appears in Wan Shi Tong's library. And the music (complete with Buddhist chanting) which plays when Aang meets the turtle also plays when he is briefly possessed by Roku at the Fire Temple, setting up the connection between the turtle, the Avatar, and the Spirit World.
In "The Blue Spirit," Aang says to Zuko, "If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?" Guess what happens by the end of the series.
Not only do they become friends, but in a sense they did know one another back then as Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin were friends for a long time.
"The Southern Raiders" has two instances of foreshadowing, both for the near final. The first is towards the beginning of the episode when Katara is about to be crushed by falling rocks and Zuko dives to save her, to which she reacts with anger and he basically responds 'your welcome' in a sarcastic tone. In the final, he saves her once more from Azula's lightening attack, only to be nearly killed himself. The difference here is the warm thank yous exchanged between them afterwards. The second is Katara's refrain from killing Yan Rah, who everyone expected her to kill. This forshadows how Aang refuses to kill Ozai, who, again, everyone expects him to.
When searching Hama's house in "The Puppetmaster" the Gaang stumbles upon a closet full of marionettes. This foreshadows Hama's bloodbending ability, with which she controls peoples limbs, jerking them around like puppets. The episode title also foreshadows this.
In "Siege of the North Pt 1" before the fire nation attack, the northern Chief gives a speech calling his family knowing that "some faces will disappear from their tribe" we have a quick focus of Yue, Master Pakku and Hahn. In Siege of the North Pt2 Yue, sacrifices herself to revive the moon, Hahn is thrown off a platform after his failed attempt of attacking Zhao and Master Pakku leaves to the Southern water tribe at the end.
At the end of "The Beach," Azula gets the Mood Whiplash/Crowning Moment of Funny line of "My own mother... thought I was a monster. She was right, of course, but it still hurt." During the finale, the thing that finally sends her over the edge of madness is a hallucination of her mother.
When they fight the melonlord in "The Phoenix King", they group up like in the final battle. Aang is alone, Zuko is with Katara and Sokka is with Suki and Toph (who had to be melonlord this time)
In the second episode, "A Leaf In The Wind," Korra overhears a pro-Bending match on the radio featuring the Fire Ferrets and their team captain, Mako. This not only provides a grounds for Mako to become a major character throughout the rest of the series, but also foreshadows Korra herself becoming a member of the Fire Ferrets.
Photos of Tahno and Councilman Tarrlok appear on newspapers held [1]◊, and attacked [2]◊, respectively, by Korra in "A Leaf in the Wind." Though they serve as innocuous introductions for both characters, Korra is speaking with Tenzin about pro-bending while she holds Tahno's newspaper, and is attempting to airbend Tarrlok's in vain after a long day of practice.Tahno becomes her rival in the pro-bending arena and Tarrlok uses her lack of airbending ability as verbal whiplash against her in a later episode.
A notable example is one of Tarrlok's lines in "Out of the Past." [to Amon] "You fool, you've never faced bending like mine!"
In the Duckman episode "Room With a Bellevue", Cornfed has to break Duckman out of an insane asylum, and so flips through his large collection of previously-prepared contingency plans to find the appropriate one. One of the other plans is labeled 'Duckman becomes dictator of a South American country.' Two episodes later..
In the Futurama episode "The Lucky of the Fryrish," Fry's father tells Yancy, Fry's brother, that his name was passed on from his father's grandfather, to his grandfather, to him, then down to Yancy. He leaves out his father, or Yancy and Fry's grandfather. This is because in the next season episode "Roswell that Ends Well," it's revealed that Fry becomes his own grandfather.
From the very first episode: Nibbler's shadow is clearly visible at several points when Fry is goofing off in the cryogenics room, a seasons-long foreshadowing that Nibbler was present at, and in fact was directly responsible for, Fry being frozen for a thousand years. Here's a picture.◊
Also from the first episode, during the Time Passes Montage, Planet Express, Fry's future workplace, is seen being built in the background.
Also from the first season: Leela's cycloptic parents can be seen among the sewer mutants when Fry and pals end up in their city. It's not until the final season that Leela learns about this.
In Into the Wild Green Yonder, when Bender bursts out of the Donbot's wife (who is cheating on the Donbot with Bender), he quickly comes up with a flimsy excuse about having been sucked through a wormhole thousands of lightyears away. Guess how the Feministas elude Zapp Brannigan later in the movie? And what the Planet Express Crew escapes Brannigan again at the very end?
Gargoyles having been planned out to a degree would foreshadow many upcoming stories.
The "City of Stone" 4 parter and the following episode "High Noon" set up the 3 part episode "Avalon" as The Weird Sisters take control of Demona & Macbeth, as well as securing the three talismans (The Grimorum Arcanorum, The Phoenix Gate and The Eye of Odin).
A noticable example is "Future Tense". While largely being a dream that wouldn't come to pass, several events have occured in later stories and were planned.
According to the Word Of God, Elisa's boss Chavez does have a daughter.
Brooklyn claims that Thailog died in Clone Wars. "The Reckoning" would have Thailog apparently meeting his death during a fight between his clan and Goliath's clan. Though he would resurface in the comic as of Gargoyles #3.
An adult Alex Xanatos is introduced in the dream, with the next episode showing the birth of Alex, who like his dream counterpart has the middle name Fox.
The clocktower was destroyed by either Xanatos or Lexington using The Xanatos Program. "Hunter's Moon, Part 3" would see the Canmores (specifically Robyn) destroying the clocktower.
Lexington's Halloween costume in Gargoyles #4-5 is identical to Cyber Lex.
Furthermore, when Brentwood choses to join Thailog, Lexington's only objection is "You're making me look bad".
Additionally, Lexington will eventually go into business with Xanatos.
Much like Future Tense Brooklyn and Demona, their clones Malibu and Delilah look to have an interest in each other in Gargoyles #5.
Upon returning from his 40 year (the same amount of time that it took Goliath to return home to Manhattan in the dream), Brooklyn resembles his Future Tense counterpart with some differences (including an eyepatch on his left eye) as seen in Gargoyles Clan Building Volume 2.
Much like in "Future Tense", an Ultra-Pack will eventually appear.
Much like in they did in "Future Tense", Brooklyn and Demona would become allies in Gargoyles 2198.
In parallel to Cyber Lex, Gargoyles 2198 would introduce robots modeled after Lexington called LXM (Lexington Xanatos Matrix).
Phil Ken Sebben: I was wrong. Dead wrong. Ha! Ha! Foreshadowing. About being dead, not the being wrong part.
Justice League has had multiple foreshadows that ironically were largely unintended by the producers. The second season episode A Better World ended up being the start of the primary Arc story of Cadmus. And Brainiac's appearance at the climax of that story arc was a very old (7+ years) discarded story plot in Superman The Animated Series that was never added to.
On the other hand, the foreshadowing leading up to the Season 2 finale, "Starcrossed", was deliberate—and deliberately misleading. For example, in "The Terror Beyond", Hawkgirl realizes that Dr. Fate is using Thanagarian runes, and demands that he tell what he knows about Thanagar. This is because Hawkgirl is afraid that Dr. Fate may have blown her cover and discovered the Thanagarians' invasion plan. But, given Hawkgirl's cover story, the audience is led to interpret her reaction as her being antsy to return to her homeworld, and thinking that Fate might have information that could help.
In another episode, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl are flying through Brainiac's data banks, J'onn suggest that they could find information about Hawkgirl's homeworld, only to have Hawkgirl insist that they don't have time for that (cause they have to help Superman). In another episode, J'onn also discovers he cannot enter her mind, something that becomes a plot point in Starcrossed.
Also in the DCAU, the episode "Zeta" of Batman Beyond opens with a lecture debating free will vs. genetic predisposition at Terry's school. Considering "Epilogue" was written years later, the foreshadowing may have been unintentional, but it was certainly there nevertheless.
While the above mentioned episode was debatable, the end of "The Call part 2" which features a team up with Superman has Terry note that not joining the JLU is one of the things he and Bruce have in common. Superman's response and the final line of dialog for the episode is "More than you know." A more subtle one takes place in the "The Call part 1" where, when Bruce mentions DNA, Superman mentions Bruce will out live him because he's two stubborn to die. Terry's intial misgivings in "Epilogue" was that Bruce had a hand in the revelation out of a fear of dying. Finally, "Epilog" was very much foreshadowed in "Out of the Past", when a scene switch featuring a deaged Bruce's face to Terry's highlights some similarities between the two.
In the exact same episode, when the camera captures a bust "passing" behind a piece of glass, the pilot's main antagonist appears in its place. When the two objects don't overlap any longer, the image is gone. This was parodied in the Abridged SeriesMy Little Pony: Camaraderie is Supernatural, which featured a zoom-in, a dramatic musical sting, and a caption reading "FORESHADOWING" during this scene.
Lesson Zero begins with Spike reading a checklist and stating that, among other things, they've dropped Twilight's cape off at the cleaners. Twilight has never worn a cape, so this doesn't make any sense until the next episode where she dresses up as Starswirl The Bearded for Nightmare Night.
Happens a lot in Rollbots, most notably with Vertex collecting parts of the Dymex Key and with references to a lost tribe.
Crontab trouble starts with Spin sleep-talking "Zuuuuuuuuuushiiiiiiiiiiin".
The same episode, and later R.O.S.E. hint at a relationship between Pounder and Vertex.
And later on, when Spin tells her sbout Vertex, she says "there's no such thing as Spiderbots!" He never mentioned Spiderbots.
Every appearance of Daso or the En has involved foreshadowing somehow.
One episode of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, "The Masters of Evil," begins with a taxi driver reading a newspaper with a headline promoting a Baxter tenant's recollections of the time he got replaced by an alien. At first, this seems like just another of several Mythology Gags featured in the paper (which also contained references to The Punisher and the X-Men), but it later turns out that the second season of the show contains a Secret Invasion adaptation.
"The Private War of Dr. Doom" gives a hint of one person who will become revealed as a Skrull in the end: When Tony Stark calls out Reed Richards on ignoring Sue, Reed tells him that Sue's also been ignoring him lately; she seems distracted with something he can't figure out.
Hank Pym has a private fit of rage in "To Steal an Ant-Man." The camera cuts to a yellowjacket wasp afterward, in reference to the fact Hank will soon assume another superhero identity, Yellowjacket.
In The Simpsons, this sequence from the first of the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episodes foreshadows Burns's later attempt at stealing a lollipop from Maggie.
Burns: [Stealing oil from Springfield Elementary] will be like taking candy from a baby. (Burns looks through the binoculars and sees a baby with some candy.) Burns: Say, that sounds like a larf. Let's try it right now. Smithers: Er, um, there's some candy right here, sir. Why don't we eat this instead of stealing? Burns: Oh, very well.
In the first episode of Season 1 of Transformers Animated, when Decepticons are bearing down on his ship, Optimus Prime orders Teletraan 1: "Emergency Defense Program, Codename: Omega". Nothing happens, and the show goes on, where in the last episode of Season 2, the ship transforms into Omega Supreme.
Also the revelation that Sari is part-robot is foreshadowed so many times in the first two seasons that it might as well be a drinking game!
"You must never sacrifice a piece of the future to restore the past. When your time comes, you will understand."Prowl sure did and the fandom wept.
The series Transformers Prime confirmed Dark Energon to be the blood of Unicron. A behind the scenes video shows Frank Welker as Megatron stating that "Unicron...grows even stronger" meaning he will soon appear in some form.
In another Transformers show, Beast Wars, the episode where Rhinox is brainwashed into a Predacon actually forshadows his eventual transformation into Tankor in Beast Machines.
The Venture Brothers uses this a lot. A throwaway line about The Monarch's Henchmen stealing equipment from Sgt Hatred becomes the reason the later decides to become Dr. Venture's Arch-Enemy. The boys being clones is hinted through several times during the first season, most notably when Dr. Venture mentions it could have saved Dean from Testicular Torsion by eliminating it during the "prototype phase".
A rule of thumb for viewers: Any line uttered at any given point can become useful to the plot. Any. Or at least the subject of a Brick Joke.
Similarly, the name of Brock's assignment "Operation Rusty's Blanket" comes into play at the end of the third season.
Possibly an accident, but the first season finale has the main cast dressed at the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, including Dean as Riff-Raff. The in the third episode of season fourit turns out Rusty threw out a malformed Dean clone, who survived and looks quite a bit like Riff-Raff.
In the season one finale The Monarch tells his minions to send Wonder Boy's charred remains to Captain Sunshine, three seasons later and entire episode revolves around this event.
Another is when Monarch casually mentions during a Villain Party that he tricked Sunshine into believing he was invincible. A few seasons later Sunshine is shown to still believe this.
W.I.T.C.H. is famous for its constant foreshadowing of many of its main plot points and plot twists.
Elyon being the princess is eluded to many episodes before it is revealed.
The mystery surrounding the Mage's identity is also hinted and prodded at many episodes before the big reveal. Also, there are various scenes where we see Julian and the Mage exchange glances of longing for each other, especially after Caleb or Julian mentions their family, foreshadowing that the Mage is Caleb's mother.
Will states "Victory at any cost is no victory at all; not if you lose yourself in the process." In the final episode, in order to defeat the Big Bad (former Dragon Cedric), the Guardians connect with their true elements, becoming living manifestations of their powers. This also strips away their humanity, leaving them mindless, and vulnerable to control by Nerissa. Fortunately, that doesn't happen, and their friends and family manage to bring them back to themselves.
In "V Is for Victory" we have three in one scene, the one where Will enlists Phobos' help against Nerissa. The first is Raythor being the only prisoner who wasn't already near the energy bars of his cage to follow the conversation when he , hinting about the conversation he was having with an invisible Hay Lin in that very moment. The other two are when Will gets Phobos to swear on the power of Kandrakar to not use the power of the Seal of Nerissa for himself and Phobos is looking at his right, where Cedric is imprisoned, silently asking for warnings if it's a trap, forewarning both Will's plan and Cedric's future betrayal.
In Young Justice episode "Failsafe", the first clue that the team wasn't in the real world was that there was no time and date stamp in the beginning of the episode. Also, the team's reaction to the deaths of the Justice League.
The episode itself is littered with foreshadowing of events occurring throughout the rest of the season and even season two, from season two's "alien invasion" premise, a message the Team transmits around the world, to the winter stealth-suits and a mission in the snow, to Kaldur "leaving" the team, Kid Flash being distraught by someone's death, Dick's cold and calculating nature coming out, the Justice League being "gone" and leaving the kids behind in the wake of an alien threat, Artemis's "death", and M'gann's powers causing problems.
In one episode, this exchange between hero Red Arrow and assassin Chesire takes place;
Red Arrow: I think you know what I'm after.
Chesire: I do, actually. Do you?
This foreshadows that Roy is actually a pre-programmed clone who doesn't realize he's going to take down the Leauge from within.
When Kaldur visits Atlantis in season 1, in the background we see a fish boy practising magic. In season 2 he's joined the team as Lagoon Boy. Other cameos of heroes are also common; for example, Barbara Gordan (aka Batgirl) appears as a civilian in several season one episodes, Rocket is seen saving lives before joining the Team, and both Virgil Hawkins (aka Static) and Stephanie Brown (aka Spoiler/Robin IV) are among the Light's hostages in season 2. Garfield Logan stars as a civilian in a season one episode, only to have become Beast Boy by season 2.
M'gann makes many comments about racial conflicts and her green skin throughout season one, foreshadowing that her real form is a huge white monster that was discriminated against back on Mars. In the same episode, M'gann's catchphrase "Hello, Megan!" becomes much more important.
In Bloodlines, Bart introduces himself to Wally with the line, "You're Wally West! My first cousin once removed!" Since Wally is erased from existence at the end of the second season, Bart had never met him before the events of the episode.
In the Ed Eddn Eddymovie, Eddy says "Man, I'm really starting to hate slapstick." That was right after the last injury Eddy received before meeting his brother.
The third season of The Flintstones had several episodes where Fred mistakenly believed that Wilma was pregnant. This eventually built up to an episode where she truly was, leading to the birth of Pebbles later on in the season.
Fillmore: the firest few minutes of the first episode, "To Mar A Stall", shows one character's gloved left hand. At the end, it's revealed that she's wearing the glove to conceal red pen on her wrist - evidence that she committed the vandalism the episode is about herself.
Real Life
Josef Stalin said in 1931 "We are 50-100 years behind the advanced world powers. We must cover this gap in ten years, or else they will crush us" . They made it. Barely.
When the passage denouncing slavery was removed from the Declaration of Independence, John Adams said that it must be kept in, because if they didn't resolve the slavery issue there would be "trouble a hundred years hence." He was only fifteen years off.
Which is actually why the line had to be changed in 1776: Reality Is Unrealistic, and the writers feared that viewers would think they were being Anvilicious.
Ferdinand Foch, French general in World War I said after the Treaty of Versailles (1919): "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." And twenty years later...
It was not exactly an unpopular train of thought at the time, however. Many people voiced their opinions that the Treaty did too little, and political cartoons got in on the debate. One particularly black example had two dejected German soldiers trudging home on their horses, one saying "Vell, I guess war didn't pay." The other responds "Yes. Not this time."
Which is a stellar case of Right for the Wrong Reasons, as a major part of Hitler's rise to power was being able to use the dissatisfaction the Treaty (which piled pretty much all of the debt for the war on Germany) to catapult himself into the spotlight. If the treaty had either been harsher, or less severe, it might not have happened at all.
Chamillionaire's song "The Evening News" contained the lyrics "The White House is gonna stay white, even though we know that Obama's black." The album came out in September of 2007.
Otto Von Bismarck is credited for having predicted: The next great European conflict will be started by "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans". And of course, in 1914...
He also said that Germany will collapse twenty years after his death. He died in 1898.
Not just any point of view. He got it right down to the year - the German empire ended with a revolution in 1918 and was succeeded by the (shortlived) Weimar Republic.
Comics National Comics #18 was telling a story about a Nazi attack at Pearl Harbor. One month before the Japanese - who were allied with the Nazis - attacked Pearl Harbor.
Sports example: In Super Bowl XXV in January 1991, the Buffalo Bills, trailing 20-19 late in the game, had driven to the New York Giants' 30-yard line to set up what would be a game-winning field goal by Scott Norwood. As he prepared to kick, ABC ran a graphic stating that Norwood was pretty much at the outer limits of his kicking range, and later added that he had never kicked well on a grass field. Sure enough, he missed.
Once upon a time, there was a man named W.T. Stead. In the late 1800s, Stead penned two stories - the first one about a mail boat that collided with another boat, resulting in massive loss of life due to a lack of lifeboats. The second one was called From the Old World To The New, and dealt with a White Star Liner named the Majestic that was called unsinkable, sunk by an iceberg. He published this story in 1892. He died on April 15, 1912, at the age of 62, when the HMS Titanic sank.
Martin Luther King, Jr. "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" That speech was given on April 3rd. King was assassinated the next day.
A few days before he was assassinated, Abraham Lincoln actually had a nightmare where he was awakened by muffled crying coming from downstairs in the White House, in which he then found out that the crying was actually coming from the mourners at his own funeral held in the White House's East Room.
Shortly before being assassinated Lincoln had his photograph taken. Unfortunately the glass negative cracked while the photographer was printing it and had to be thrown away. The photographer wasn't too concerned because, after all, he could always take another photo later... And that's why the only surviving print of Lincoln's last photo has a dark line right across his forehead.
Osama bin Laden once said in an interview, "If I am to die, I would like to be killed by the bullet." On May 1, 2011, SEAL Team Six had no problem in granting that request.
The Titanic had so many foreshadowings, it is hard to tell how many of them were true or myth.
On the day the ship set out, a wave detached a ship that missed crashing into the Titanic by inches. The name of the ship? The SS New York.
The HMS R101 was a luxurious rigid airship built by the British as a part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. In an experiment pitting civilian aircraft companies against the governement, her sister luxury liner R100 was built by Vickers and is considered a technological marvel, whereas the R101 was built by the government and was plagued with the absolute worst aspects of British shoddy manufacturing and vicious politicking. The engineering and build quality of the ship was awful, and politics ensured that her testing was rushed and incomplete. On her maiden flight, like the Titanic, she was made to ignore a storm warning, and she found herself in a gale. The winds tore open the subpar, rotted fabric covering the bow, penetrating the gas cells, and she crashed into the ground, bursting into flames. Just 8 people survived. The wreck was eventually salvaged, and the duraluminum was used to build another airship... The Hindenburg.
The Hindenburg was actually an example of very good engineering, but it was doomed by a freak accident. It certainly doesn't help that it was supposed to use inert helium instead, before the Nazis ruined the Helium trade deal. The R101, however, was so incredibly analagous to the Titanic it was just spooky. Both were the largest ships of their kind ever built at the time, both were liners of peerless luxury, and both ultimately crashed on their maiden voyage at night, killing many, in disasters that were forewarned and could have easily been prevented at countless turns, in both engineering and human intervention.
Invoked by Jean-Paul Sartre. As a child, he read a book with (possibly fictional) stories from brilliant people's childhoods. These stories always contained some event that foreshadowed what they were going to do as adults. Sartre, who felt that he would surely become famous as an adult, went to his mom and told her that it was so dark in there, even though it wasn't. He figured that when he got older, he would be famous, and if he turned blind this would be seen as foreshadowing by historians who would marvel at little Jean-Paul's foresight.
King George V said of his heir Edward that "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months". He died in January 1936; in December that year, Edward was pressured into abdicating over his plan to marry a divorced woman.
The Labour Party founder Keir Hardie caused outrage soon after Edward's birth by denouncing the monarchy in the House of Commons: "In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill."
