Foreshadowing/Film

"Foreshadowing... Literally!"

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film include:

Animated Film

• Used twice to great effect in The Incredibles. Dash comments that saying "everyone is special" is just another way to say that no-one is, which ends up echoed in Syndrome's Motive Rant. A bit later, Edna, while discussing why she doesn't work with capes, mentions a superheroine whose cape was sucked into a jet engine. This ends up being exactly how villain Syndrome dies.
• In Coraline, the Other Father's song when he sang to Coraline.

She's a peach, she's a doll, she's a pal of mine/ She's as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who's ever laid their eyes on Coraline/ When she comes around exploring/ Mom and I will never ever make it boring/ Our eyes will be on Coraline!

• • Also, the Other Mother referring to the Other Father as "Pumpkin". Guess what he really is.
• In Megamind, after creating Titan/Tighten, Megamind holds up a picture of Metroman with the head ripped off, so Titan's/Tighten's head is in place instead. Later on, after Titan/Tighten has revealed that he prefers being evil, he holds up the same Metroman picture, this time with Megamind's head in place. Not only does this hint to who the true hero will be in the film, it also gives a subtle clue as to who it really is when Metroman turns up during the final battle.
  • In the final fight shortly after Metroman (Megamind in disguise) says his death was greatly exaggerated, he strikes a grand pose and the tassels on his boots straighten and flare out as if Metroman is even able to flex his tassels. This frightens Tighten who immediately takes off trying to get away. Metroman can't flex his tassels, the tassels were being blown around by the jets as Megamind powered up his flying suit.
• Near the end of |Toy Story 2, Stinky Pete the Prospector actually threatens Woody and his friends that "one day, they will all rot away in a dump." Guess where the climax of Toy Story 3 takes place!
• When Lightning McQueen and his pit crew arrive at Tokyo, Japan to meet Miles Axlerod in Cars 2, while they are all talking to Axlerod Sarge is frowning while everyone else is smiling, suggesting that he is thinking that Axlerod is up to no good. Guess who's actually right!
  • Also, the line "But I never leak oil!" Guess who was with Mater when the tow truck saw a puddle of oil on the carpet!
  • In the first film, Big Bad Chick Hicks is assigned with the number 86, which not only references the year Pixar was first established, but also a slang term for being fired. Which is exactly what happened to Chick at the end of the film for deliberately pushing Strip "The King" Weathers off the racetrack.
• In Sleeping Beauty, during the scene where Maleficent is yelling at her goons, if you listen very closely when she hits her staff on the ground, it makes the same sound effect as her eventual dragon form's biting sound at the end of the film.
• In Monsters, Inc., this line comes up.

Waternoose: "James, this company has been in my family for three generations. I would do anything to keep it from going under."
Sulley: "So would I, sir."

• In Tangled, the song "Mother Knows Best" has many clever hints to Gothel's eventual fate.

Go ahead and leave me, I deserve it
Let me die alone here, be my guest.

• • One of Gothel's earlier lines was "I'm not getting any younger down here!"
  • And also Flynn's "This is the story of how I died" in the beginning introduction. Who would take it seriously?
  • One of Flynn's first lines is how much he wanted a palace. He's joking, but that's what he gets in the end.
  • At the very beginning of the film, the mobile dangling above Rapunzel's crib is decorated with the cutouts shaped like a chameleon, a duck, a horse, and a cupid.
• A king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. The sun will set on my time here and will rise with you. The guy who says that has his reign end at sundown, and in the end, his son ascends to the rock in the sunrise.
• In Rango, before reaching the town of Dirt, Rango has a bizarre dream that foreshadows things to happen later in the movie. The dying cactus moving. The rattlesnake tails. The shadow of the hawk flying. The voice of Roadkill asking him "Where are your friends now, amigo?" Rango being submerged in water.
  • When the mayor orders his men to call Rattlesnake Jake, they warn him specifically that Rattlesnake Jake is a "grim reaper" and "never leaves town without taking a soul". He doesn't listen and orders Jake to be contracted anyways. After betraying Rattlesnake Jake, the mayor is dragged out of town by an angry Rattlesnake Jake.
• Disney's Aladdin first film. During the song "One Jump Ahead", Aladdin and Abu grab a rug, jump out a window and ride the carpet down to the ground. Later on Aladdin rides a magic carpet several times.
• In The Iron Giant, Hogarth shows the titular giant a few comics, like Superman and Atomo, later in the film, we learn the giant can fly, and Atomo bears an incredibly eerie resemblance to the titular robot's combat mode.
• Pinocchio: "They never come back... as BOYS."
• Near the very beginning of Pocahontas, while inside Kekata the Medicine Man's wigwam, Kekata actually tells Chief Powhatan about a dream he had of the settlers from England. As Kekata starts talking about his dream, he waves his staff around over a fire, causing the smoke rising from it to turn into a ghostly pack of wolves, which surround Kocuom. This foreshadows Kocuom being killed by one of the settlers, which is represented by the wolves.
  • The smoke wolves then rush towards Powhatan, but are dissipated before they can surround him as they did Kocuom, foreshadowing how Powhatan is also nearly shot by Radcliffe.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas, whenever Oogie Boogie is talking, an insect will occasionally crawl out of the seams holding together his burlap body and all over him before finally disappearing back inside, annoying him as it does so.
• Near the end of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as Judge Frollo is destroying Quasimodo's model of Paris, at one point he grabs the wooden figure of Esmeralda and throws, knocking down a wooden figure of himself in the process.
  • Also, pay attention to the scenes where Esmeralda is kicking, jumping, or performing some other action that would make her dress fly up, which reveals the lacy, tattered hem of a white dress underneath. Guess what color dress she wore at the end of the film!
  • During the song "Topsy Turvy", Esmeralda actually performed her infamous pole dance wearing a skimpy red dress, and this led to Frollo's obsession. Red is ironically considered as a sign of bad luck in real life according to Gypsy culture.
• Despicable Me: The first scenes show a little child who does a perilous thing trying to get the attention from his oblivious father. Later, we will see the real reason why Gru wants to steal the moon.
• Near the beginnning of Atlantis the Lost Empire, while ____ and Whitmore are talking to each other, Whitmore presents several photographs to ____ showing the explorers he will be travelling with to Atlantis. ______'s photograph shows only half his face.

Live-Action Film

• The page image is an early teaser poster for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
• At the beginning of Enchanted when Giselle is building a mannequin of her true love, of whom she dreamed, the mannequin is wearing Robert's blue jacket from the ball, not Prince Edward's poofy-shouldered maroon outfit.
• A veeeeeeeeeery subtle one in Terminator 2 when the T-1000 shows up looking for John. In the first film, dogs were established as being used to spot infiltrators. John's dog Max, barely visible and audible in the background, is going nuts.
• In the Back to The Future trilogy, there are many examples, including:
  • During the opening of part 1, the radio mentions the theft of plutonium by terrorists, the same who show up trying to kill Doc.
  • George McFly flexes his hand defensively during a confrontation in the unaltered 1985 in Part I, foreshadowing his final fight with Biff in 1955, the opening montage of the film (in Doc Brown's garage) foreshadows later parts of the film, including Doc's hang off the clocktower.
  • The DeLorean's ignition troubles once Marty arrives in 1955 during Part I.
  • The following exchange at the beginning of part 1:

Strickland: In the history of Hill Valley no McFly has ever amounted to anything!
Marty: Yeah, well history is about to change.

• • Lorraine says the following to her children at dinner, all of which she ends up doing to "Calvin Klein":

"I think it's terrible. Girls chasing boys. When I was your age I never chased a boy, called a boy or... sat ...in a parked car with a boy."

• • In Part 1 Doc mentions that if he can travel to the future he can see the winner of the next 25 world series. In Part 2 the same kind of future knowledge (thanks to the almanac) is used by Biff to build his fortune through betting.
  • Part II is filled to brim with foreshadowing for Part III, such as Biff watching A Fistful Of Dollars in Part II foreshadows Marty's boiler plate armor trick, a documentary mentioning "Mad Dog" Tannen being Biff's great-grandfather, and a lot more.
  • A bit of unintentional and subtle foreshadowing: In Part I, the Starliters play a song called "Night Train", which wasn't named in the movie, yet whose title foreshadows the use of trains in Part III. (When that Starliters scene was filmed, the sequels weren't even a glimmer in Robert Zemeckis' eye yet.)
    • What's even more hilarious in hindsight, the lyrics of "Power of Love" by Huey Lewis (the title song) include the following line: "Don't need no credit card to ride this train". It unintentionally spoilered not only the use of trains, but also the fact that the train would be hijacked... used for a science experiment.
• The Final Destination movies revolve on those to warn the characters of how Death plans on dealing with them. Unfortunately (for them), it serves more to the viewers as foreshadowing on what's going to happen soon enough.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: All throughout the films, Will Turner ends up the sole survivor of shipwrecks. The first wreck foreshadows the second, and it's retconned in the sequels into foreshadowing Will's destiny as captain of the Flying Dutchman in the third film, which doesn't pan-out until the bottom of the last act. The second film has several, including Jack arriving in a coffin and later falling into an open grave, foreshadowing his death in the last act. It also had a few for the third, such as Gibbs explaining the natives of Pelegosto thought Jack was a god in human form and intended to release him, just as Barbossa intended to do for Calypso.
• Brick: Pay very close attention to Emily's phone call at the beginning of the film.
• Reservoir Dogs: the very first scene foreshadows Mr Blonde's sociopathic tendencies, as well as the identity of the rat. A later scene drops a clue unintentionally as well, when an orange balloon is shown flying around.
  • The initial dialogue also shows Mr. White as the "protective" guy (defending the waitresses), as well as foreshadowing his clash of authority with Joe, Mr. Blonde's loyalty to Joe ("Shoot this piece of shit for me, will ya?") and Mr. Pink's individualist attitude.
  • The friendship between Orange and White is foreshadowed without either saying a word to each other - most of White's shots (especially when he's expounding an opinion) include Orange looking at him and reacting to him.
  • Mr Orange's Conflicting Loyalty (and Nice Guy Eddie's raging reaction) is foreshadowed when he is easily convinced by Pink's tirade.
  • In a rare case of foreshadowing that isn't in the first scene, Mr Orange asks his boss to 'take care' of Long Beach Mike, the guy who got Orange into the group. His boss very specifically tells him that Long Beach Mike is a piece of shit who he can't trust. Later, Orange tells his friend White that he's the cop. White (maybe) shoots him in response.
• There's a conversation in the beginning of L.A. Confidential where a police captain asks a younger officer intending to join the detective bureau if he's willing to do certain unethical things to bring a criminal to justice: plant evidence, beat a confession out of a suspect, and shoot a criminal in the back lest he be acquitted. The younger officer claims he won't... but by the end of the film, he's been complicit in all three.
• The Haunting: Nell asks to borrow her sister's car, to which her sister replies: "How do I know you'll bring back my car in good condition?" Nell is killed when she crashes the car into a tree.
• In Inception, Fischer says to Saito after the avalanche, "Couldn't someone dreamed up a goddamn beach?".Later, Saito dies and goes to limbo which starts on a beach.)
• Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are both FULL of foreshadowing (too many examples to fit this wiki). Almost every word and many images appearing in the first 30 minutes are full of foreshadowing and references to the whole plot. The Hot Fuzz DVD even has a function called Fuzz Facts which points out such bits of foreshadowing.
  • The Shaun of the Dead DVD, or at least the special edition, has something similar—the Zomb-O-Meter.
• The quote at the top comes from the Riff Trax commentary on Daredevil where we see a young Matt Murdock standing behind his father, who is wearing a red hood with devil's horns on it, that casts a shadow onto Matt.
• The Andromeda Strain (1971)
  • When Dr. Leavitt first enters Wildfire, she avoids looking at a flashing red light. Later on she looks at a flashing red alarm light and goes into a grand mal seizure, whereupon another character realizes she's epileptic.
• Several in Mulholland Drive.
  • "... and now I'm in this... dreamplace!"
  • "It's strange, calling yourself."
  • "Come on, it'll be just like in the movies...we'll pretend to be someone else."
  • "This is the girl" (albeit this is more of an Ironic Echo)
  • "We don't stop here"
  • "You will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad."
• In The Brothers Lionheart, during the song at the inn, the paintings on the wall depict things that will happen later in the story.
• Serenity. River's comment about the Reaver that managed to get aboard the ship after their narrow escape ("He didn't lie down. They never lie down.") mirrors Inara's later comment about the victims of Miranda who didn't become Reavers and how they just laid down and died as an unexpected result of the Pax.
• The original King Kong begins with a (made-up) proverb about a beast being placated by a beauty, and how "from that day forward, it was as one dead" (said proverb is also quoted in the 2005 film). Later on, Carl Denham tells Jack Driscoll the story of the movie he's making: "The Beast was a tough guy... He could lick the world. But when he saw Beauty, she got him. He went soft, he forgot his wisdom, and the little fellers licked him." Guess how the movie ends.
• Midway through Jaws, Hooper warns Brody about fiddling with his scuba tanks, explaining how they could blow up if not handled properly. Quint remarks on this.

Quint: Yeah, that's real fine expensive gear you brought out here, Mr. Hooper. 'Course I don't know what that bastard shark's gonna do with it, might eat it I suppose.

• • There is also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit of foreshadowing along the same lines: watch the illustrations in that picture book on sharks Brody flips through very carefully.
• In Dead Poets Society, the ghost story Neil tells at the first meeting can be interpreted as a cryptic bit of foreshadowing of his own death.
  • For that matter his surname, Perry, could be symbolic for "Perish".
• One scene halfway through the fully-CGI Monster House has three kids stuck inside the titular Monster House's mouth, and the Smart Girl points out all the similarities to human anatomy, including an uvula. The token fat kid somehow misunderstands and goes "oh, so it's a girl house". Turns out he was right - the house was possessed by a giantess who fell to her death in its foundations..
• In The Stepford Wives, a robotic wife starts malfunctioning, and is clearly at a party, where she keeps repeating 'I'll just die if I don't get that recipe!', which is both a hint at what is going to be Joanna's fate and at the horrifying reality of The Stepford Wives system, which has women literally die - and be replaced by placid robot clones for their husbands' desire of a prim and proper hausfrau, who cleans and cooks.
• In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Stryker says to Wade Wilson that he'd be the perfect soldier if he didn't have such a mouth. Stryker later turns Wade into a mutated super-soldier who literally has no mouth.
• In Gran Torino, Walt reading the paper on his birthday about a sudden life change that will occur that will come to a dramatic, yet seemingly anti-climatic ending. Guess what happens next? Immediately the Hmong girl walks over and invites him to their dinner where he makes new friends and works with a young boy that he comes to mentor. Oh, and the movie ends with him getting anti-climatically shot when everyone was expecting a major shootout.
• In Alien³, there's a "blink and you might miss it" moment during the scene just after the xenomorph has attacked, some inflammable liquid caught alight and a large fire has been set off through the passage shaft. They activate the sprinklers to put the fire out, there's a view of the carnage and there's one brief shot of a bucket that was holding the inflammable liquid and was dropped and as the water hits it, the metal expands and snaps. This is how the xenomorph is actually killed at the end, they hit it with molten lead, it survives, they hit it with cold water and the rapid contraction causes it to implode.
• The Wizard of Oz. Bear in mind that this only happens in the movie:

Hunk (The Scarecrow): Now you ain't usin' your head about Miss Gulch. Didn't think you had any brains at all!

Zeke (The Cowardly Lion): You lettin' that old Gulch heifer try and buffalo you? She ain't nothin' to be afraid of. Have a little courage, that's all!

Hickory (The Tin Man): Someday they're gonna erect a statue of me in this town!

Dorothy to Miss Gulch when the former is forced to put Toto in the basket: No, no, I won't let you take him! You go away, or I'll bite you myself!! (Aunt Em: Dorothy!) You wicked old witch!

• • Of course, we can't forget "Over The Rainbow". She even makes a reference to the song when she lands in Oz ("We must be over the rainbow!").
  • This all feeds into the All Just a Dream ending the movie has, since all of this would have been stuck in Dorothy's subconscious. In the books however, Oz is not a dream.
• In The Usual Suspects, Verbal Kint is introduced early on as a short-con operator, which is the only job in the string that seems useless for what they're doing.
  • Agent Kujan tells Verbal that the way to spot a murderer is to arrest five guys for the same crime and leave them in a cell overnight. The next morning, whoever is sleeping is your guy. In the scene with all the suspects in jail for the hijacking, the one lying down is the one who actually did it.
• In the thriller Fatal Attraction, during her second seduction of Michael Douglas's character over the telephone, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) says, in response to him explaining he needs to work and take the dog for a walk, "Just bring the dog over. I'm great with animals. And I love to cook." By the end of the movie, those two things are not mutually exclusive. Just ask that bunny.
  • Not only that, her overall demeanor starts to give hints as to her obsessive personality—calling him the day after, refusing to take "no" for an answer. Not to mention the way she flips out (even before she slashes her wrists) when he gets ready to leave a second time.
• The Mask. Early on Stanley orders his dog Milo to "Get the keys" (his car keys which he lost). Later, after Stanley is arrested he tells Milo to "Get the keys" again - the keys to his cell.
• There is a cut in Se7en after detectives talk about the case directly to Pitt's character's wife's head. At the end, her head is delivered to Pitt's character.
• There are many foreshadowing moments in The Matrix trilogy, but one prominent one is (which foreshadows at least two significant choices):

Rhineheart: The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job.

• • Because of the way it's disguised in plain sight as a throwaway line spoken with annoyance, many viewers and Neo himself miss it when the Merovingian says, with no cryptic language whatsoever, that Neo has had predecessors. This is not only a major reveal in itself but foreshadows other reveals Neo will learn when he meets the Architect forty-five minutes of film-time later.
• James Bond
  • Diamonds Are Forever.
    • While Bond is in the Whyte House he sees a painting of the owner, Willard Whyte. Later he meets and rescues Willard Whyte and discovers he looks just like his picture.
    • Plenty O'Toole is thrown out a window and ends up landing in a pool. Later she's killed by Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, who tie her to a weight and throw her into a pool to drown.
    • When Bond first meets Tiffany Case she's wearing a black wig. Later she sees black hair in a pool and thinks it's her wig: it's actually the hair of Plenty O'Toole. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd thought Plenty was Tiffany wearing the wig.
  • Goldfinger. Oddjob breaks off a statue's head by throwing his hat at it, and later on breaks Tilly Masterson's neck the same way.
• The Avengers 1998:
  • While in Wonderland Weather Steed and Mrs. Peel see globes filled with weather patterns, including snowfall and a tornado. When Sir August attacks London with his Weather Control Machine it causes heavy snowfall and tornadoes.
  • Steed says "I'll stick to swordplay" just before his big sword fight with Sir August.
• In Equilibrium, the fact that DuPont, the suit-and-tie wearing politician, can keep up with Preston in Gun Kata for far longer than anyone else in the move almost seems like an Ass Pull...except for a scene earlier in the movie where he's shown teaching a class on the technique, which would mean he himself knows it.
• In The Dark Knight Saga the first we see of Bruce Wayne his him tending a wound he recieved from an attack dog. The last shot of Batman in the film is him fleeing from a pack of police dogs.
  • Harvey Dent: You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
• Early on in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Norman Bates, taxidermist and mama's boy extraordinaire, defends his mother to Marion by saying, "Why, she's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds!" Guess what we find out at the end of the movie...
• Total Recall
  • "Would you like us to integrate some alien stuff? Two-headed monsters? (Kuato) We're doing alien artifacts now (the alien device in the mine)."
  • When one of the staff members receives Quaid's memory package, he notes that it contains "blue skies on Mars," which is how the film ends.
  • "One minute you'll be the saviour of the rebel cause, next you'll be Cohaagen's bosom buddy!"
  • After Cohaagen is forced to give the order to kill his friend Quaid (Hauser), he angrily knocks over his aquarium full of goldfish. The fish lie on the floor gasping, the same way Cohaagen, Quaid and Melina do after they're blown out into the Martian surface late in the movie.
• In Avatar, it's practically a drinking game. Observe:
  • Grace: "I'd die to get a sample [of the Tree of Souls]." When she's dying later on they take her to the Tree of Souls, she says "I should get a sample."
  • Grace:"What're you gonna do, Ranger Rick? Ya gonna shoot me?" Quaritch:"I can do that." During their escape, one of Quaritch's shots hits her.
  • Trudy:"And I was hoping for some kind of tactical plan that didn't involve martyrdom." During the battle between the humans and the Na'vi, she attacks Quaritch's ship directly and ends up being shot and blown up.
  • Neytiri mentions that there has only been one Toruk Makto and that he brought all the tribes together, which comes back later when Jake becomes the Toruk Makto and brings all the tribes together.
    • Actually there's been 5, all happening in times of great sorrow... her grandfather just happened to be the last one who brought the clans together.
• When Zartan is introduced in G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra, he makes some remarks about the American political system based the book he's reading.
• Star Wars has a few of these.
  • In Attack of the Clones Obi Wan jokingly says to Anakin:

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?"

• • The scene in The Empire Strikes Back on Dagobah where Luke Skywalker cuts off Darth Vader's head, only to find his own face beneath the mask.

Yoda: Much anger in him, like his father.

• • Star Wars: Clone Wars has this as well for Anakin Skywalker, when he is in the cave and has the vision. This also happens again in The Clone Wars when the Son shows Anakin his future, although it is later erased from his memory by the Father.
    • A few episodes later, Anakin meets and strikes up something of a friendship with Captain Tarkin, who of course will later become Grand Moff Tarkin. When they shake hands at the end of the three-parter, a few notes from the Imperial March play.
    • This exchange in A New Hope:

Aunt Beru: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.
Uncle Owen: That's what I'm afraid of.

• Constantine. Papa Midnite tells Constantine that his soul is the only one Satan himself would come to collect. He's right.
• The final lines of the movie Mommie Dearest, after Christina Crawford and her brother find out that their mother Joan Crawford had disinherited them, suggest that Christina would truly have "the last word".
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  • When Indiana Jones gets captured by the Nazis after getting betrayed by Dr. Elsa Schneider, she says to him, "Don't look at me like that. We both wanted the Grail. I would have done anything to get it. You would have done the same." To which Indiana replies, "I'm sorry you think so." This minor exchange actually foreshadows the climax of the movie when Elsa tries to leave the temple with the grail. In that scene, Elsa almost falls into a crevice she created when she crossed the seal of the temple, but Indiana catches her. True to her earlier words, Elsa pulls a hand free to reach the grail below her instead of letting Indiana lift her up. Before she can get it, the glove on her other hand pulls off and she ultimately falls to her death. Indiana is then placed in the same situation, only he chooses to "let it go" and let his father save him.
  • Donovan says to Indy that they're only a few steps away from finding the Holy Grail, which prompts Indy to say "That's usually where the ground falls out from underneath your feet." Guess what happens when the Grail is found towards the end.
• In Halloween: H20, Laurie Strode (who now goes by the name Keri Tate) is teaching an English literature class on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Molly, one of the students, responds to a question about the book and fate with this: "I think that Victor should have confronted the monster sooner. He's completely responsible for Elizabeth's death. He was so paralyzed by fear that he never did anything. It took death for the guy to get a clue." She goes on to say that Victor finally confronts the monster because he "had reached a point in his life where he had nothing left to lose. I mean, the monster saw to that by killing off everybody that he loved. It was about redemption. It was his fate." This foreshadows the final scenes in the movie where Laurie finally decides to stop running from Michael Myers and confront her monster. After 20 years of living in fear and seeing her loved ones murdered, she had nothing more to lose. It was time to face her fears and end the nightmare.
• Throughout the fourth Ju-On movie, Toshio repeatedly shows himself to be placing his hand on Kyoko's stomach. When one takes the ending into account, it becomes chillingly obvious why.
  • Not to mention the entire "Tomoka" vignette in the same movie. When the reason for the mysterious "banging" on her wall every night is revealed, it's downright horrifying.
• From Thor, Loki's hand after he was touched by a Frost Giant. Also: "Allfather, you look ... weary."
  • In the beginning of the film, Odin tells a young Thor and Loki that both were meant to be king. It's later revealed that Loki was the son of the Jotun king.
• In Captain America: The First Avenger, when Red Skull acquires the cube, the old monk warns him that its power will burn him. In the climax, when Red Skull tries to use the cube himself, he is seemingly disintegrated by it.
  • In the beginning, a group of Nazis are scrambling to lift a lid off a tomb without any success. Minutes later, Schmidt walks over and effortlessly shoves the lid off by himself. We find out later that he had also taken the Super Soldier serum.
• In X-Men: First Class, when we see Magneto as an adult, he uses his powers to slam a coin at a picture of Shaw in the forehead. This is how he kills Shaw in their final confrontation, except much slower.
  • Also part Chekhov's Skill where Erik asks Charles to shoot him point-blank and when met with Charles' refusal, he states he can deflect it. This comes back at the end where Moira shoots at Erik to stop him from sending the missiles back at the American and Russian navies and he easily deflects the bullets ... only to have one bullet hit Charles and paralyze him.
  • And in a scene where Havok is learning to shoot straight in the bomb shelter, Charles and Hank are standing right to either side of the target manekin. Charles says, with light emphasis, "And try not to hit ME, there's a good chap". A little odd, considering Hank is just as likely to get hit, so it should be "us". Later in the movie, of course, Charles is hit by a bullet, due to standing right NEXT TO it's intended target, Erik.
  • Before the attack at the CIA base, Havok beats Darwin at a pinball game. Darwin declares "Jesus man, you're killing me!" Later, Shaw uses the energy absorbed from Havok's blast to kill Darwin.
• In Deep Rising, there are several allusions to the revelation that the monsters are actually the tentacles of a humongous octopoid monster, most notably Finnegan's anecdote about the octopus and the bottle.
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon drops a few hints that something isn't quite right with Sentinel Prime, with the most obvious hint in hindsight being " I've seen this one. This is the one where Spock goes nuts.".
  • Also when Sentinel first wakes up, he accidentally attacks Optimus. The second time it happens, he attacks the Autobots intentionally.
  • A subtle one is how the Decepticons were public service vehicles, police, military and construction vehicles while the Autobots were regular private civilian cars. Sentinel's vehicle mode was a fire truck.
  • Mearing had earlier pointed out that Sentinel's pillars could be used to bring an invasion.
  • Carly's car is said to have a "deep throaty engine". Her car is Soundwave and voiced by Frank Welker.
• In the film Unfaithful, Connie, the cheating wife in question, is on her way to meet her lover when she runs into some girlfriends. While having coffee with them, her lover shows up at the cafe. Unaware of Connie's relationship with him, one of the women proceeds to gush over how gorgeous she is, then half-jokes about how she wouldn't mind having a fling with him. The other woman denounces her for this, then reveals that she had an affair of her own and that it is the one thing in her life that she truly regrets. "These things always end in disaster. Someone always gets hurt". Despite this ominous and inadvertent (the other woman doesn't know about the fling either) warning, Connie continues the affair until sure enough, disaster strikes. Her husband finds out, kills her lover, and now they must contend with the possibility of him going to jail.
• The first scene in The Artist shows George Valentin's latest silent adventure film. As his character is being subjected to Electric Torture, he is seen speaking, with the accompanying title card reading "I won't talk! I won't say a word!" Later, his refusal to do talkies leads to his film career falling apart.
  • Later in the film, Peppy Miller, the young starlet whose first screen role was an extra in one of Valentin's movies, is seen starring in a movie called "Guardian Angel". She ends up becoming a guardian angel to Valentin, inviting him to stay in her mansion while he recovers from injuries sustained in a fire, and trying to help him get back into movies.
• Played with beautifully in Wood Allen's Match Point.
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Holmes warned Irene about working for Moriarty. When Irene outlived her usefulness to Moriarty, he kills her.
  • When Holmes officially meets Moriarty, he tells him that if it one-hundred-percent guaranteed Moriarty's destruction, he would gladly accept his own. He follows this when he does a suicide leap off a cliff bringing Moriarty with him.
  • Earlier than that, when showing Watson the web of conspiracy, Holmes told him he'd give his life to see Moriarty's demise.
  • The fate of the Parisian bomb-maker who kills himself to protect his loved ones from Moriarty.
• Kill List foreshadows several events late in the film in its apparently innocuous early scenes:
  • Jay and Gal's drunken play fight at Jay's dinner party becomes a real fight when their relationship is tested late in the film.
  • Early on, Jay finds the cat has left a rabbit with its entrails hanging out -- this mirrors how he finds the mortally wounded Gal in the tunnels late in the film.
  • Jay's play fight with Shel and Sammy foreshadows how the cult force him to fight and kill them for real at the climax.
• In Master and Commander, this happens several times.
  • Blakeney makes Calamy promise that if he dies, not to stitch him 'through the nose' when wrapping his body in his hammock. After Calamy is killed in the final battle, Blakeney asks to personally take care of his friend's body to make sure that the last stitch doesn't go through his nose.
  • An albatross appears and the Captain of the Marines tries to shoot it. Moments later, the bird dives low, the shot misses and hits Dr. Maturin.
• Spider-Man 3: Early on, after Peter and Mary Jane visit Harry Osborn in the hospital, a nurse comments to him how they really seem like good friends. Harry proudly states they're the best, and that he'd die for them. Guess what happens to him during the final battle?
• In the The Avengers, when Loki arrives on the SHIELD airship, he briefly smirks at Bruce. Guess what or who his plan for escaping is?
  • Steve tells Tony that Tony isn't the kind to sacrifice himself for a greater cause.
  • The Galaga gag becomes a subtle foreshadowing for the final showdown. Much like the unwinnable video game, the heroes fight endless hordes of alien ships.
• In Ghost Rider, the Caretaker's identity as another Rider, who knows what it's like to be one first-hand, is implied by his having left exactly the right number of cups of water for Johnny to guzzle when he wakes up.
• A Letter to Three Wives: A subtle one, at the start, the 3 wives' initial reaction to the letter before it's open.

Lora Mae: Open it up. The letter concerns her the most, since it's her husband who's run off with Addie.
Debra: No, wait...Knowing it's Addie, I mean, why let her spoil our day? She suffers the most because of this letter. When she gets home that night, and Brad's not there, she'll wrongly assume it's her husband who's run off with Addie.
Rita: Not my day. Addie Ross never saw the day she could spoil my day. She suffers the least from the letter. When she gets home, not only is George there, but all his strange behavior is explained and they are quickly reconciled.

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