History Main / WhereItAllBegan

* Both versions of ''TheButterflyEffect''. The original does it well when the main character [[spoiler:goes back to the birthday party where he first met the love of his life and gets her to not want to see him again effectively erasing her from his life]], but the director's cut takes it to the ultimate extreme where the main character [[spoiler:commits suicide by strangling himself (in utero!)]]

** Also the climax of "The Ark of Truth" takes place in the City of the Ori, a place that Daniel and Vala visited early on in the ninth season. While not the start of the show itself, it was the start of the Ori storyline.

* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' season 6 finale "Full Circle" was originally envisioned as a series finale. The series was renewed, so the plot was altered. It still however featured a showdown between SG-1 and Anubis on Abydos, the planet where both the pilot episode took place, as well as the movie.

** Within the show's story, when the Jaffa kicked the Goa'uld's asses once and for all, the final battle took place on Dakara and they chose Dakara as the capital of their new country; for the express reason that it was also the place where they first became slaves.
*** It was also a significant religious site like Mecca is to Muslims.
*** Wait what, I was under the impression that Earth was where Humans were enslaved who were later turned into Jaffa.
*** Dakara was where the Jaffa were first engineered from captured humans (who were indeed from Earth), hence why the Jaffa Rebellion chose it as the location fo their LastStand.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'', the final task of the Light Warriors, after killing the four elemental Fiends and [[CosmicKeystone reviving the power of the Crystals]], is to go back the ruined Temple of Fiends, site of their first quest. Using the power of the Crystals, they travel two thousand years into the past, to the true Temple of Fiends, in order to battle the four Fiends and their master Chaos on their own home turf. And to take it even farther, [[spoiler:the FinalBoss Chaos and the first boss Garland are the same person.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' ends in the reef, with the characters doing the same things they did in the first scene, only differently, to reflect how the moral changed them.

* Eels: Their life history is in many ways a mirror image of salmon. Instead of being born in high mountain streams, they are born in the open sea. They drift with the ocean currents, growing in size and eventually swimming on their own while dodging their own gauntlets of predators on their journey to fresh water. The survivors swim up rivers and streams, where they continue to grow for as long as 15 years while avoiding a new set of predators. Then, they go downstream, even crossing wet grasslands, until they reach the ocean. Eels overwhelm their predators in much the same way that salmon do, with enough of them making it back to the breeding grounds before entering eel valhalla.

* Salmon, These fish are born in high mountain streams, at times hundreds of miles inland, past rocks and rapids atop the bodies of their dead parents. They travel downstream as they grow in size, some but not many(relatively speaking) dodging gauntlets of predators on their journey to the sea. The Survivors, the most fit whether by disease resistance, speed, strength or luck the only ones to reach ocean where they are further culled by mercilous mother nature. It is here they continue their growth and development for a few years, honing their skills and growing in strength for what lies ahead. At some point, they are called to the place where it all began, to spawn and join their ancestors in the hallowed halls of salmon valhalla. So they return, the only way they can, the hard way, swimming and leaping up the rapids and short waterfalls the entire route. Overwhelming their predators, man, bears and manbearpigs with sheer numbers, rock solid [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator determination]] and belly filling deliciousness, eventually enough of them make it back and engage in an orgy of death and babymaking before they shed their mortal shells and ascend into the heavens.

* '''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy's'' "Journey's End" ends with the inhabitants of space-station Terra Venture escaping from it to the planet [[spoiler:Miranoi, where the Rangers escaped from in the premiere.]]
** The ending of ''Series/PowerRangerRPM'' has Dillon revisit the lone flower he passed on the way to Corinth [[spoiler: now part of a beautiful garden in a healing world.]]

* VideoGame/WarioLand 3: the final music box is conveniently located at the first level. Then you can visit the BigBad at the temple, as in the first place you ever visit.

*** [[spoiler: Mass effect 3 starts on Earth and ends on Earth.]]

* DLC for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', "From Ashes", will include a mission on Eden Prime, where the very first mission in the very first game took place.

** VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum also does this in a way with the Joker's makeshift lair, which is hidden in the extremely creepy Visitor's Center. The first time the player visits it, a cutscene plays where [[IShallTauntYou Joker taunts Batman]] and [[ItHasOnlyJustBegun foreshadows dangers to come]], and the player can continue to visit it throughout the game to hear him comment on events if they choose. The penultimate message the player can get is the Joker laughing at them on loop as a lead-up to the Joker boss battle. Additionally, the large Joker gateway over its entrance continues to be built throughout the game, only being fully completed by the end of the night, [[PointOfNoReturn and once the player enters the visitor's center at that point, the doors lock behind them]], a cutscene ensues, [[BookEnds and the game finally comes full circle]].
** Apparently, the Arkham series loves this trope, because in VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins the final confrontation with [[spoiler:Bane and Joker]] takes place at Blackgate Prison, where the game began.

* VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity does this in a way. The final boss battle takes place at the theater Bruce Wayne attended on the night of his parent's murder, bringing it back to where it began not for the events of the game, but for Batman himself.

* In ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'', the game begins in Omnitopia before you get shuttled down to Evermore's surface. The rest of the game is largely spent trying to figure out how to go back home, which the protagonist believes can be done by returning to Omnitopia. And for the final areas of the game, he does.

* ''Videogame/{{Borderlands2}}'' brings you back to Fyrestone, the first area of the first game, in the penultimate mission of the main campaign.

* Near the beginning of ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'', you are sent through a portal from your hometown at the inside of Earth to outside. Near the end, this same portal is opened again and you visit your hometown. [[spoiler: However becouse of the changes you've made on the surface, it has subtle changes and right when you talk to anyone, they turn into spirits and attack you.]]
* ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves''' final battle ends in Paris, the area where [[VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusRaccoonus the first game]] begins Sly's quest to avenge his father and his family's name.

* VideoGame/SystemShock 2 does this in a bit of a roundabout way. [[spoiler: While in the original, Citadel Station was destroyed, the very last section of the sequel dumps you into a still-forming recreation of Citadel's medical level, big blue tiles and all- said medical level being the place where the Hacker first woke up in the original. It's still-forming because SHODAN is rebuilding it ''out of her own memory''.]]

** Likewise, in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'', the final battle takes place in the Halo Control Room, identical to the Halo Control Room in ''Halo 1''. [[spoiler: You even face off against the same enemy.]]
** In addition, the entire final level is on [[spoiler: A recreation of the first Halo.]] Clever gamers will note that the final warthog-run course is designed to be a near-exact silhouette of the island from popular Halo 1 level The Silent Cartographer.

** With the chapter title "... And The Horse You Rode In On"

** In Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, a significant chunk of the postgame is actually where the prequel started (the first two gyms and the Skyarrow Bridge, which were earlygame in Black and White but are locked off until the postgame in BW2), and you can even speak to the prequel player character's mother.

*** [[spoiler: Mass effect 3 starts on Earth and ends on Earth]]

* The WildGooseChase for [[MacGuffin Laplace's Box]] in ''GundamUnicorn'' begins and ends in the same colony: Industrial 7.

** ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'': the player's LastStand is held at the temple of Dirge, where the Spirit monks were all killed before the beginning of the game.

[[folder:Film]]
* It doesn't conclude the movie, but Luke returns to his home planet of Tatooine for ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
-->'''Luke''': I used to live here, you know.
-->'''Han''': You're going to die here, you know. Convenient.
** The first movie of the ''StarWars'' Original Trilogy begins on Tatooine, and the last movie of the Prequels ends there, so that probably counts, if you look at the films in order of production rather than in terms of in-universe chronology. Of course, the fact remains that we end up going to this desert middle-of-nowhere in five out of the six movies means we ''keep'' going back to WhereItAllBegan.
* Both versions of ''TheButterflyEffect''. The original does it well when the main character [[spoiler:goes back to the birthday party where he first met the love of his life and gets her to not want to see him again effectively erasing her from his life]], but the director's cut takes it to the ultimate extreme where the main character [[spoiler:commits suicide by strangling himself (in utero!)]]
* In a cruel twist of fate, the test subjects in ''Film/{{Cube}}'' [[spoiler:learn that the exit room was the very room they started out in, making their trek through the titular deathtrap dungeon a pointless waste of time and human life]].
* The protagonist of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' is introduced lying in a hospital bed and ends up in a similar setting towards the end of the film. The DVD commentary explains that it was deliberately done to invoke this trope (i.e., going full circle).

* Film/JamesBond film ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' begins in Gibraltar and after much business in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Afghanistan and Pakistan ends in Tangier, just three dozen miles southwest.
* Marty's destination in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' is to get back to where the movie started. We even get to see a scene from the beginning of the movie again at the end.
* Film/TheHangover

* ''RockAndRule'' begins and ends in Ohmtown.

* ''Film/TheFugitive'' starts out at a hospital benefit at a swanky Chicago hotel, and ends at a similar conference at another one.
* ''Film/TheSecretOfMoonacre'''s climax takes place at the clifftop where the Moon Princess married Sir Wrolf Merryweather.
* The film version of ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has its climax and ending in Arthur's home.
* ''Film/{{Highlander}}'' ends with Connor returning with Brenda to Scotland, where he was born.
* The final fight of ''Film/HanselAndGretelWitchHunters'' takes place right at the gingerbread house where the original story and the movie's prologue ended. The witch even uses the trope name when she comments on it. Hansel and Gretel react with an understandable "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
* ''Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers'': Loomis and Jamie set up a trap for Michael in Michael's childhood home, the place of his StartOfDarkness.