History Main / WarWasBeginning

--> "April 1805. [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] [[NapoleonicWars is master of Europe]]. Only the British fleet stands before him. [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Oceans are now battlefields.]]"

* ''Warhammer: Mark of Chaos'' begins with the rolling map illuminated by small explosions and fires, with the narrator describing the state of affairs in the Empire defending from the Chaos invasion.

* ''MobileSuitGundam'' opens with a description of the events of the One Year War before the series begins.

* ''[[Film/ThreeHundred 300]]'' -- combination of an {{Arcadia}} opening and HowWeGotHere, with a [[DarkIsEvil dark]] Persian {{Herald}} descending on the golden plains of Sparta. Somewhat subverted in that the ''entire movie'' is narrated with ominous [[LargeHam "and so it begins"]] intonation by David Wenham.
* ''TheRoadWarrior'': "For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all."

* ''FireOverEngland'' begins with a remarkably pompous and tendentious one:

* Every ''StarWars'' movie, although ''RevengeOfTheSith'' is the most direct about it, as it begins its OpeningCrawl with the phrase: "[[ThisMeansWar War!]]"
** ''It is a period of civil war. Rebel starships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against [[ObviouslyEvil the evil]] [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire...]]''

* Every game in the ''EscapeVelocity'' series starts by explaining the current war. The original and ''Override'' had {{opening scroll}}s (detailing the Alien War and the start of the Rebellion in the first case, and the United Earth/Voinian War in the second). ''EV Nova'' changed it to four splashscreens.

--> "HMS ''Surprise''. 28 guns, 197 souls, north coast of Brazil. Admiralty orders to cpt. J. Aubrey: 'Intercept French privateer ''Acheron'', en route to Pacific, intent on carryig the war into those waters. Sink, burn or take her a Prize...'"

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfRobinHood'': "In the year of Our Lord 1191, when Richard the Lion-Heart set forth to drive the infidels from the Holy Land..."

* ''Film/MasterAndCommander''.

** [[FridgeLogic Rather an ignorant thing for an Englishman to say, given that England had executed its king less than one hundred and fifty years before the French Revolution.]] [[note]][[UsefulNotes/ThEnglishCivilWar And eventually ended up giving his heir the throne back]], so maybe the middie wasn't speaking literally.[[/note]]

** [[FridgeLogic Rather an ignorant thing for an Englishman to say, given that England had executed its king less than one hundred and fifty years before the French Revolution.]]

* ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'': "The galaxy is at peace."

#Show how the future protagonists react to the start of the war, in a "where were you when"... way.\\

#Depict the events leading up to the start of the war, even if it happened years before the main story.\\

#If it's a war "everyone's heard of", the [[AudienceSurrogate audience viewpoint]] character is simply informed that a war is on, averting this trope.

* Except perhaps with a [[SpinningNewspaper newspaper headline]] (anachronistically titled) "UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo Begins," or worse, "UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne Begins," [[CriticalResearchFailure as if people back then knew it would be the first of two]].
* Surprisingly, #3 is less common, due to SmallReferencePools: World War II movies filmed ''during the war'' regularly opened with a WarWasBeginning recap.

* ''ToBeOrNotToBe'': "Lubinski... Kubinski... Lominski... Rozanski and Poznanski... we're in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. It's August, 1939. Europe is still at peace..."

* One of the more famous examples is the prologue to [[WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare's]] ''Theater/RomeoAndJuliet'':

* ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' may be the TropeCodifier.

* ''Film/Serenity'' plays with this: there are multiple nested opening sequences, and the first is a narrated description of the interplanetary civil war that Mal [[TheRemnant has still not quite stopped fighting even though his side lost,]] [[WrittenByTheWinners from the perspective of the Alliance.]]

* Every ''StarWars'' movie, although ''RevengeOfTheSith'' is the most direct about it, as it begins its OpeningCrawl with the phrase: "War!"

* Except perhaps with a [[SpinningNewspaper newspaper headline]] (anachronistically titled) "WorldWarTwo Begins," or worse, "WorldWarOne Begins," [[CriticalResearchFailure as if people back then knew it would be the first of two]].

* ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'': "With the coming of the SecondWorldWar..."

* ''SuperMetroid'': "The galaxy is at peace."

* Most of the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games start with RonPerlman narrating about the war. Even though the war is technically over, its lasting impact colors the setting throughout.

* The very first thing ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' shows us (after the great intro) is: "In the year 2015 AD". Cue peaceful landscapes full of military hardware. Cue giant monster...

* Most of the ''{{Fallout}}'' games start with RonPerlman narrating about the war. Even though the war is technically over, its lasting impact colors the setting throughout.

-->-- ''ZeroWing''

* ''{{Casablanca}}'': "With the coming of the SecondWorldWar..."

* ''[[ThreeHundred 300]]'' -- combination of an {{Arcadia}} opening and HowWeGotHere, with a [[DarkIsEvil dark]] Persian {{Herald}} descending on the golden plains of Sparta. Somewhat subverted in that the ''entire movie'' is narrated with ominous [[LargeHam "and so it begins"]] intonation by David Wenham.
* ''[[MadMax Road Warrior]]'': "For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all."