This is supposed to be for adult works that have a violent or sexual beginning, to show that they aren't for kids.However, it's frequently misused for actual kids works, and teen works

Kids works

• Transformers: The Movie opens with the mass genocide of an entire planet save one survivor (who gets eaten alive later on anyway) before the opening credits, and then just barely five minutes after that shows several beloved characters from the TV series getting Killed Off for Real. Similar in the case of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm though, it just received a PG rating since it was made in the 80's.
• The opening for Muppet Treasure Island. It's accompanied by an awesomely chilling song about how bastardly the pirates are, and it cuts away just as Captain Flint begins the slaughter of the fourteen pirates who helped him bury the treasure, perfectly timed with this line from the song: "Shiver my timbers, shiver my sails... DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES!"

• Rockman Zero opens with Neo Arcadian forces slaughtering resistance reploids to a man, complete with Symbolic Blood sprays. This was bowdlerized for the western Megaman Zero release.
• Another Disney example, Hocus Pocus. A five-year-old girl is murdered by three witches in the first three minutes (off-screen, thank goodness) and about five minutes later (after said witches use a vile curse to turn her brother into a cat) they're arrested and publically hanged. (A discretion shot hides most of the hanging, but not all.) And this is followed by a rather dark scene with the cursed brother vainly trying to get his father's attention, only for him to shoo him and say, "begone, beast". In fact, this whole movie is darker than the typical Disney family film.
• Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. One of the first scenes you see is Xehanort stabbing Braig in the chest with his keyblade.
• Mega Man Battle Network 2 is this compared to 1. The first arc of Megaman Battle Network simply involves the oven being lit on fire. The first arc of Megaman Battle Network 2 involves a girl being gassed and held for ransom by an Obviously Evil man who holds no remorse for this... and the conclusion is him being told You Have Failed Me and getting blown up.

Teen works

• Each of the films in the Transformers Film Series have had this type of opening to some degree.
  • Transformers opens with Blackout and Scorponok committing a realistic assault on the army base in Qatar.
  • Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen opens with The Fallen brutalizing a prehistoric society, followed immediately by a brutal fight in Shanghai that ends with at least one bloody human death and a Decepticon being shot execution-style by Optimus Prime.
  • Transformers: Dark of the Moon opens with the final battle in the war that devastated Cybertron, with many Autobots and Decepticons being killed. The very next shot after that is a Panty Shot of Carly.
  • Transformers: Age of Extinction opens with alien warships killing many dinosaurs, and a couple of scenes later Ratchet is killed off by U.S Government agents with the aid of Lockdown, who then rips out Ratchet's spark
• The first episode of Black Butler II (that is, the second season) introduces Alois Trancy naked and bruised, in bed next to a very naked old guy, creepily muttering the word "darkness" to himself over and over again.
  • The entire episode counts as this, since it focuses on Alois being sadistic and crazy, basically telling the viewers that this season is much darker than the last one. Throughout the episode, Alois proceeds to: gouge out a maid's eye with his fingers, tell creepy personal stories about his prolonged abuse to strangers, make vaguely sexual comments to every male person he interacts with, beat that (now one-eyed) maid again, and then cry about not wanting to be alone.
• The 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist starts off by showing the transmutation that caused the loss of Edward's leg and Alphonse's body. With copious amounts of blood from Edward's stump.

edited 24th Feb '16 7:51:36 PM by hamza678

Now known as Cyber Controller

What we have here is Fan pimping misuse where people trying to shoehorn works that are for kids into edgier tropes because they want to somehow prove that they're really for adults and they shouldn't feel bad watching them.

It's a type of misuse that effects a lot of tropes. In the case it's not something wrong with the tropes, but the tropers.

I think the best thing to do here is a clean up with an edit reason an possibly a note on the description that works not aimed at adults need not apply.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

And to add further issues, the current image is that of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which if I recall right is not an example, as it is not aimed solely for adults. I may go and bring that up to Image Pickin'. (Edit: thread clocked out; planning on waiting until we reach a verdict)

I'm down with pruning the examples that don't fit.

edited 4th Apr '16 6:13:31 AM by Berrenta

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

I'd say Transformers The Movie would count, because it's a work that's blatantly trying to be Darker and Edgier than the source material. It went out of its way to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating and the opening shows that. Tropes Are Flexible should cover that, in my opinion.

edited 26th Feb '16 11:44:23 AM by Larkmarn

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Yes, Tropes Are Flexible, and, despite the name of this trope, I don't want its criteria to depend on the vagaries of ratings boards.

It seems there are two ways we could go about this:

• There would be a note in bold stating that kids' works may not appear in the list.
• Examples from kids' works would be allowed, as the trope could be written to be about any work that's making itself seem dark and edgy from the start.

edited 26th Feb '16 7:09:10 PM by Josef5678

I think the biggest problem isn't necessarily the rating of the works themselves, but the portrayal of the scene.

There's a big difference between having a brutal scene to establish the tone of the work, and a violent scene that's more there simply because of the story. I don't think I'm explaining myself fairly well, but the true horror of the Transformers example sounds more like Fridge Horror. That's a lot different than the Cube example, which is just explicitly brutal.

The Muppet Treasure Island example is another where, the lyrics of the song especially aren't going to be something kids are really going to focus on, and it's more Getting Crap Past the Radar than it is something attempting to set a brutal tone.

Are we ready for cleanup?

Now known as Cyber Controller

Doesn't look like it's been decided what the trope is about yet. I would hold off on it.

Given the misuse it's gathering, it seems like the trope is getting more use as "tone-setting opening sequence" than it is as "earning the movie its R rating in the first five minutes". And honestly, I think the former includes the latter anyway, as "this is not a kid's movie" is certainly part of setting the tone.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Tone setting is already a trope at Establishing Series Moment.

Now known as Cyber Controller

@hamza678: Yes, but this trope may also apply to individual works.

I think we should just cut all of the kid/teen works, and make it just works rated R that show it in the opening scene.

Just another day in the life of Jimmy Nutrin

Can we get a crowner?

Now known as Cyber Controller

We might just want to shove the non-R examples into something like Age Inappropriate Opening or Dark Opening For APG Show or something.

Age Inappropriate Opening sounds similar to R-Rated Opening and possibly others, and Dark Opening For APG Show sounds somewhat awkward to me. Then again, for this situation, I would rather lump all works that have a dark opening than split this into two tropes where the only real distinction is that one is reserved for kids' shows.

edited 1st Mar '16 12:27:04 PM by Josef5678

Dark Open might be all we need in a title. Make the definition to any opening that sets things as bleak, grim, violent, etc.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

We already have Downer Beginning

edited 1st Mar '16 5:38:31 PM by hamza678

Now known as Cyber Controller

Something like that might work but it would probably need a subtrope for those that pull back on the reigns like Dark Open Saccharine Show, although that might be a bit of an extreme name.

'Downer' and 'dark' are way different things especially here, we are more talking about violence levels.

edited 1st Mar '16 5:46:35 PM by Memers

I think those titles could get easily confused.

I'm not sure what exactly being proposed. A new trope? Renaming the current trope? Renaming and redefining the current trope?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That's what it looks like to me, but I think "setting a violent tone in the first five minutes" and "earning the movie its R rating in the first five minutes" are two different things, even if they can overlap.

Not that different in this case. Downer Beginning says "Most stories that involve disasters, genocide, rape, murder or whatever horror imaginable wait a little bit before things turn totally awful. Let the plot develop for a while and show some signs that things are about to turn nasty. Some works, however, prefer to kickstart the action by letting whatever unspeakable horror the story is about take place in the very first scene."

Downer Beginning is about showing extreme violence in the first scene. The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End belongs there. But I do see that the description of R-Rated Opening is essentially the same as Downer Beginning, except for the following "give fair warning for any parent who didn't pay attention to the R-rating but saw "cartoony people" in the movie trailer and thought they were taking their kids into some light-hearted fare."

That part about "fair warning" is interesting enough I can see a subtrope being present here.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The difference between "dark" and "downer" is that the first is about the setting and mood, and the latter about the plot and position of the protagonists. The trope is about the former, not the latter (not that overlap isn't common).

I'd respond, but it's probably off topic.

edited 3rd Mar '16 12:36:38 PM by AnotherDuck

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Downer Beginning is not defined to be the plot and position of the protagonists, but by the extreme setting and mood of the first scene.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

All difference between "dark" and "downer" notwithstanding, both are distinct from "R-rated." It is, after all, entirely possible the good guys are doing family-unfriendly violence against the bad guys (for example) in an entirely upbeat tone.