It’s interesting when the opening to a movie could serve as its own short film simply because it takes the time to develop the overall mystique of a given character, or presents a situation that leads into the main story and somehow builds up an expectation in the minds of the viewers of what’s to come, without giving too much away. In some movies, this is very useful since it does prep the audience for what’s coming and doesn’t reveal the main points that are yet to come, which proves to be a great idea for many movies since it does add on to the overall experience. With some movies it’s seen that such a long opening doesn’t really work since it goes off-topic, it doesn’t do enough explaining, and it might even give away a huge plot point that will ruin the movie later on. But more often than not this is a nice effect that sets the stage and gets people on board and willing to hear more of the story. It’s also interesting since many of these openings could stand as their own stories without really needing to go any further. The imagination of the average viewer would be enough to come up with a story that might fit.
Here are a few movies whose openings could have been their own short story.
5. Star Trek (2009)
The opening to this movie not only changes things in such a big way when it comes to Star Trek but it gives the reason that things have changed since otherwise people would be utterly confused as to why a young James T. Kirk was growing up the way he was. Of course, Kirk has always been the kind of person that’s done things his own way and dealt with whatever trouble has come as a result. But this time around his father wasn’t there to watch him grow up, and he became something of a troublemaker early on. Plus, the act of changing the timeline had a profound effect on the movies moving forward.
4. Inglorious Basterds
To be certain, the opening to this movie doesn’t make a lot of sense when being paired with the rest of the story until Shoshanna comes back into the picture and the loose threads start finding moorings to attach to in order to complete Tarantino’s web of madness. The whole exchange between the two men in the cabin is civil, calm, and composed, but the deadly undertones that can be heard are hard to miss since the reality is that Waltz is there hunting Jews and isn’t going to leave since he happens to suspect or know, that there are refugees being hidden beneath the floorboards. And yet, he’s so damnably CALM about it.
3. Up
It’s very true that this would have been an extremely sad tale if it was all that was given of Up, since the first sad bit, that the couple couldn’t have children, was bad enough. Something like this can crush a woman and cause couples to split up, but the two remained together, resolute in the fact that they had each other and that life was at it should be. And yet the husband knew, or at least felt, that he wasn’t living up to the bargain of making life as adventurous as possible, and when he tried to put together an adventure of a lifetime, his wife fell ill, and not long after was gone. Yeah, that would have been way too sad to end on.
2. The Dark Knight
This continual doublecross was actually well thought out and well-executed, no pun intended since after the first execution the audience might have suspected that it was going to continue, but it wasn’t until after the second one that a lot of people were likely to be certain. Then there was the fact that no one really knew who the Joker was until the second to last execution when the Joker stated that he was supposed to kill the bus driver. That would require a great deal of planning to make certain that everyone killed the right person and that no one was the wiser until it was too late.
1. The Scorpion King
So yes, this movie wasn’t quite as great as a lot of people were hoping it would be, since it was the kind of action movie that a lot of actors start out in, cheesy and over the top and not possessing a whole lot of substance. But people were so stoked by this movie that they were willing to overlook a lot, at least until about halfway through the movie when it was obvious that things weren’t going to get much better. But the opening was still pretty cool since it was a return to the kind of action movies that people have loved for decades.
Sometimes the opening is a little better, but sometimes it’s just the way to start off the movie.
Follow Us
