Questions tagged [first-appearance]
Which was the first movie/show to use a certain characteristic or technique?
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What was the first dramatization of an existing movie's production?
Recently, Paramount+ aired the new series The Offer (2022), a dramatization of the making of The Godfather (1972). I haven't seen it but it seems to be following in the footsteps of the film Saving Mr....
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How and why did Vivaldi's Spring Allegro become synonymous with "high class" in movies?
Vivaldi has been used a lot in film, and the Four Seasons is probably his most famous and popular work. Often, in films, you will hear the first party of Vivaldi's Spring (specifically the Allegro) -- ...
4
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What was the first film project to have double directors?
I was recently watching the latest season of Star Trek: Discovery. While watching the opening credits, I noticed that two episodes of season 4 had two directors listed for those two episodes: ...
11
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1
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What's the earliest example in comedy of someone reading out the prognosis as the patient quickly suffers them all one by one?
It's a classic trope in comedy. The Simpsons has used it at least twice.
Once where Dr Hibbard describes the stages of grief to Homer after he ate badly prepared fugu.
(One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, ...
13
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Is The Ethel Waters Show lost media?
The Ethel Waters Show was a 1939 NBC variety special starring actress and singer Ethel Waters, in what reportedly may have been the very first appearance of a Black person on TV.
I’d love to see the ...
19
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2
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What's the first movie to use a prop to destroy/control an entire world?
Infinity stones in Avengers series
Mother Boxes in Justice league series
Aries prototype in F9: The Fast Saga
Project Starfish | The Suicide Squad (2021)
What's the first movie to use a prop to ...
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What was the first TV show or movie where the viewer could hear a character's thoughts?
I was watching How to Get Away with Murder and, in the final episode, the character Annalise has a brief mental debate on what to wear to the trial.
What was the first TV show or movie to do this?
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What was the first movie in which the bad guy(s) are using a sky beam? [closed]
The use of a sky beam has become a trope in the last decade or so. They appear in Star Trek (2009), The Avengers (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), Independence Day (2016), and many others. Where/when did ...
2
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Where did this fight scene move originate?
In the movie John Wick (2014), the final fight scene pits the eponymous hero against crime boss Viggo Tarasov. As it seems Viggo is about to get the upper hand and stab John Wick, Wick uses Viggo's ...
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2
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What is the first movie to show present + flashback in single frame?
In Sahoo (2019), Ashok describes how shootout happened to police team.
We can see present + flashback in single frame while he describes:
What is the first movie to show present + flashback in single ...
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2
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Which was the first commercial movie featuring duplicates (doubles) on screen
Which was the first commercial movie featuring duplicates (doubles) on screen. By duplicates I mean, same person playing two different roles (or same role but from different time in case of Time ...
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What's the first movie to show newspaper spinning towards screen?
In old movies, they used to show newspaper spinning towards screen like this:
Here is the example from The Godfather (1972):
3
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0
answers
218
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First movie with a "character on a cracking glass floor"-suspense scene
The other day, I re-watched "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997) and I was amazed by the suspense scene in which Julianne Moore's character finds herself on a glass panel that starts ...
4
votes
1
answer
322
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Where did the "ordering someone to kill the dog" trope first come from?
In Dog Soldiers (2002), there is a scene at the beginning where a character is told to shoot and kill a dog to show his allegiance and loyalty to a commanding officer.
A similar thing also happened in ...
10
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First movie set in a world with COVID-19?
In the middle of The Paramedic (2020), the radio news announced:
"Friday, January 3, 2020... According to information from Chinese media, the cause could be a virus that originated in a live ...
4
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0
answers
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Earliest version of a freelance assassin getting an assignment from a handler
Following a John Wick binge, I've realized how used to the idea of freelance assassins getting sent assignments or bounties from some sort of guild and/or personal agent. We saw that in Hitman (2007) ...
2
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0
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What was the first TV series to show a toilet?
So over the weekend I was listening to my local NPR station to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and they were playing a true or false game about characters in the TV series, The Brady Bunch.
Anyways, one ...
6
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First use of super-slow zoom in horror films to create tension
Here I'm not talking specifically about a "dolly zoom", first introduced by cinematographer Irmin Roberts in Hitchcock's Vertigo, but about the agonizingly slow zoom that you see not ...
8
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0
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Who pioneered the use of Laughing Kookaburra birds to create the impression of a jungle setting?
I was sent a link to the first video below and it immediately sent me back to my childhood watching reruns of what were already old films on Sunday afternoon television.
I'm sure I've heard this bird'...
7
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1
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What was the first movie to show "Google" on-screen?
Google was founded in 1998. So what was the first movie to show "Google" on-screen?
3
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Is Psycho really the very first film to show a flushing toilet?
A lot of people always claim this about the film, but I haven't found anything to 100% confirm it yet. Anyone know for sure?
3
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What was the first movie to use viruses as the basis for zombies?
So when you watch old zombie movies, like Night of the Living Dead, zombies tend to be a mysterious thing, they are just an unnatural event with no explanation.
Fast forward 50 years into the future ...
5
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Origin of the side-view surprise car crash shot?
The most common form of the surprise car crash shot has the camera inside a moving car, with the frame showing the driver or a passenger in profile and (past them) a side window framing the world ...
2
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1
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When was the first action sequence involving a parachuteless jump out of a plane filmed?
The 1991 movie Point Break features a sequence where Special Agent Johnny Utah jumps out of a plane without a parachute and catches up to another person with a chute while in mid-air.
I believe I've ...
3
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What is the earliest example of a 'gag reel'?
Having just watched a string of gag reels on youtube, I would like to know what the earliest examples of this extra material would be. I found one from 1946 on youtube but it would be interesting to ...
5
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What was the first Zombie movie?
It is widely accepted that the first modern zombie movie is George A Romero's brilliant, low budget, Night Of The Living Dead.
But I'm sure zombies featured in Hammer Movies much earlier so Romero ...
8
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1
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Which show was the first to use concept art as the ending credits?
In Disney+'s The Mandalorian, each episode ends with concept arts during the ending song. I don't know if this is a new film technique or not, but I've seen in first in RWBY and now in The Mandalorian....
5
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1
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When was the first adult film ever made?
I was curious if anyone happens to maybe know when the first adult porno video was made on record? I was wondering how that might come about and what was the idea backing it versus how it is now?
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Pencils in the ceiling
I've just watched a Castle episode (S07E12) and this (pencils in the ceiling) scene (at 06:05) made me feel nostalgic, and smile.
I know another similar scene from The X-Files [1]. Mulder's office ...
4
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1
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Origin of montages with incongruously happy music [closed]
I'm asking about montages of some criminal or depressing thing that have a happy song underneath them. The first show I remember seeing them on is Breaking Bad, but I've also seen them on Stranger ...
8
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1
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What is the first movie to use a VCR (or recording device) to trick an adversary?
I was watching "Columbo: Playback", and the murderer uses a video security system to cover up a murder.
It got me thinking, what was the first movie to use video playback to trick another character? ...
4
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1
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Has this "lyrics with song" style of scene ever been done?
In the movie Baby Driver, in the Coffee Run scene, some of the lyrics of the song are plastered in graffiti on the walls while the main character walks to the coffee shop.
...
5
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0
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What was the first movie to be re-released with additional scenes?
Avengers: Endgame is being re-released in cinemas, with the additional of a deleted scene and a couple of newly-filmed scenes. There have been plenty of jokes on social media about it being "the first ...
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0
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First depiction of a quadruped robot-vehicle?
Episode 2 of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990) shows the baddies pursuing the main characters in a convertible vehicle, a submarine/ship that becomes a quadruped robot at some point of the ...
6
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1
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First film to feature a real news reader playing themselves reading the news?
Does anyone know the first film to use a real news reader or TV presenter playing 'themselves' and reading the news? eg Larry King in Ghostbusters.
3
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2
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What was the first film to use the sliding down a building with one arm move?
In Captain America: Civil War and Deadpool 2, characters with metal arms both slide down a building by sticking their arm into the building's facade and letting the resistance from breaking the stone ...
2
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1
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Cookie Monster's first appearance
I think to have heard that the Cookie Monster first appeared in a commercial rather than Sesame Street itself. Is this true? If not, where was Cookie Monster's first appearance if not in Sesame Street?...
5
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3
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Was Arrival the first movie with this plot twist?
The movie Arrival has an unusual kind of plot twist where
This is, in my view, an interesting twist because it goes against the expectations of the viewer who is used to that plot device.
Was ...
6
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1
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Origin of "red glowing eyes in the dark" trope?
I can't find/think of any examples off of the top of my head, but it is a common trope (especially in animated films) to show an area covered in shadow and have red eyes appear in the darkness. ...
8
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0
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What was the first movie to show a crazy person's wall covered with photos & articles connected by colored yarn?
In movies such as A Beautiful Mind, a crazy / obsessed person will cover a wall with photographs and news articles, and connect them with colored yarn. (This is called link analysis). We've all seen ...
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1
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When were animal masks first used in horror or espionage in cinema?
I have recently been watching the new Netflix TV series, The Umbrella Academy, based on the comic of the same name.
Two of its villainous characters are deadly assassins on the hunt for the ...
3
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0
answers
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Does David Lynch's eerie atmosphere (closer to german "Unheimlich"), have a definition and clear origin?
One aspect that all of lynch's films have is that eerie feeling that something is not quite right, but I find that atmosphere to be different from pure surrealism. Did Lynch start this? Or does it ...
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What is the first example of warning messages about special effects being shown to audiences before a film?
I have seen two instances of a message of caution or warning being shown before a film to explain to the audience that a particular moment in the film with a special effect is meant to be part of the ...
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Damsel in Distress on Rail Road Tracks [duplicate]
Excluding the mustache villian, what was the first movie to have a person tied to a train track? Did the movie scene come from a book?
7
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First film with a stewardess landing a plane
In its article about 1956 film Julie, starring Doris Day, Wikipedia claims that it is “potentially the first film to feature the subplot of a stewardess piloting a plane to safety, later used in ...
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Explaining wormholes using a sheet of paper
When explaining how wormholes work in movies its pretty common to see someone taking a piece of paper, folding it, and sticking a pen (or any other object) through it to show the folding of space-time
...
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What was the first film to include a post-credits scene? [duplicate]
We can see post-credits scenes in almost every Marvel movie - Avengers, Iron Man, and so on. Marvel make the post-credits scenes so interesting that we wait until after the movie ends just to see the ...
7
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When did transparent data screens become a thing?
Sometimes sciFi movies don't do a good job of predicting the future. The majority, for example, had CRT-based displays more or less until flat screen displays became common in the real world (Alien, ...
7
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1
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The path-on-the-map scenes in Casablanca and Raiders of the Lost Ark
Early in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, we watch a path appear on a map to represent the movement of characters across the earth.
This scene reminded me of the animation at the beginning of ...
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When did the term wrangler start applying to things other than animals?
In movie credits, you will see wranglers of animals, such as horse wrangler, ant wrangler (Pi), tiger wrangler, etc.
However, you will notice other things are wrangled, including children, ...