Downer Beginning: Difference between revisions
→Film -- Live Action
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== Film -- Live Action ==
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'' starts with Shoshanna's (one of the protagonists') parents and siblings being exterminated by Nazis, while she miraculously escapes the massacre.
* ''Every single movie'' in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' franchise, to various degrees of "downer". To take them in canonical chronological order:
* ''[[Star Wars]] Episode IV - [[A New Hope]]'' begins with the good guys getting captured or killed, an important victory for the bad guys. Adding insult to injury, they gloat about just having destroyed the last traces of democracy.▼
** ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'': The greedy Trade Federation is behind a blockade of the peaceful planet of Naboo, but as few know, there's a far-more sinister motive in the works.
** ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'': As the scrolling text says, "There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic" Most of this due to Palpatine's underhanded influence. The film itself the opens by Padme's ship being blown up.
** ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'': The film starts with the Clone Wars at their worst and no end in sight. "The Republic is crumbling", as the text says.
▲** ''
** ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'': The name of the film itself clearly indicates the Empire is taking the offensive, and the scrolling text does not mince words. "It is a dark time for the Rebellion" for sure, as they're on the run with the Empire in hot pursuit.
** ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'': The disaster carried over from the previous film sees Han Solo a prisoner of Jabba the Hutt, and a new Death Star being built, although the scrolling text is more optimistic.
* ''[[The Dirty Dozen]]'' starts with a hanging scene. An American GI is being hanged in a British military prison from robbery and murder.
* ''[[Memento]]'': You see Leonard kill Teddy despite his protests, and then you have to spend the rest of the movie watching the poor guy interact with Leonard.
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* ''[[Sucker Punch]]'' opens with Babydoll's mother dying, younger sister being killed by her stepfather, and finally being dropped off for a lobotomy at the local sanitarium.
* The ''[[Wing Commander (film)|Wing Commander]]'' film starts with the [[Cat People|Kilrathi]] wiping out a key Confederate outpost and learning the Solar System jump coordinates. Admiral Tolwyn makes calculations and realizes that the Kilrathi fleet will arrive to Earth two hours before his fleet. That's two hours more than they need to nuke everything on the surface.
== Literature ==
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