Post-credits scene

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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A post-credits scene (also called a button, stinger or tag or coda) is a short clip that appears after all or some of the closing credits of a movie have run. It is usually included for humor or to set up a possible sequel.

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History

The use of stingers may be traced back at least to 1963 with the James Bond film From Russia with Love, which was the first Bond film to show the ubiquitous "James Bond will return in..." at the end of the credits. The 1978 movie Superman also featured a tagline promoting the film's sequel, due out the following year. These were simply text at the end of the credits, and did not include clips or teasers from the upcoming films (However, the original shooting script for Superman featured a stinger that featured General Zod, Ursa, and Non being freed from the Phantom Zone following the credits.)

One of the earliest appearances of a true stinger in a mainstream film was in The Muppet Movie in 1979, and use of such scenes gained popularity throughout the 1980s at the end of comedy films. The Muppet Movie also began a trend of using such stingers to break the fourth wall, even when much of the rest of the film had kept it intact. The scenes were often used as a form of metafiction, with characters showing an awareness that they were at the end of a film, and often telling the audience directly to leave the theatre. Films using this technique include Ferris Bueller's Day Off (in which the title character frequently broke the fourth wall during the movie) and The Producers (in which it was not so common). The stinger of the latter movie also includes the film's only cameo appearance of producer Mel Brooks. Stingers also appeared on the long-running TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000, introduced in episode 205 ("Rocket Attack USA"), continuing until the end of the series. The stingers, with a few exceptions, highlighted moments from the films that were either particularly nonsensical or had simply caught the Brains' attention.

The Great Train Robbery (1903 film) ends with leader of the outlaw band taking aim and firing point blank at the audience (after having been killed in the previous scene).

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Modern examples

Stingers lacking the metafictional aspects also gained prominence in the 1980s, although they were still primarily used for comedy films. Post-credits scenes became useful places for humorous scenes that would not fit in the main body of the film. Most were short clips that served to tie together loose ends — minor characters whose fates were not elaborated on earlier in the movie, or plotlines that were not fully wrapped up. For example, all four Pirates of the Caribbean films include such scenes. At the end of the Disney animated made-for-video film Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, we see Abis Mal asking for his third wish while in its sequel, towards the end of the song "Welcome to the Forty Thieves", which plays over the credits, Genie can be seen squished between the black background and the credits with a bit of dialogue at the very end. During its wide release, Napoleon Dynamite features a stinger that reveals that Kip and LaFawnduh get married. In the film The Cannonball Run, bloopers from the film are shown.

Even when post-credit scenes started to be used by films with little comedy development, the same format of giving closure to incomplete storylines or inconsequential characters remained in use. Using humor in such scenes is also still common for more serious films, as in the film Daredevil, in which Bullseye is shown after his defeat by Daredevil in a full body cast. Other films eschew the comedy in favor of a twist or revelation that would be out of place elsewhere in the movie, as in X-Men: The Last Stand's post-credits scene, where Professor X is shown to be alive. Another example is the stinger at the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which features a post-memory loss Lockhart.

With the rise of pre-planned movie franchises, post-credit scenes have been adopted in order to prepare the audience for upcoming sequels, sometimes going so far as to include a cliffhanger ending where the main film is largely stand alone. The cinematic release of The Matrix Reloaded demonstrated the sequel set-up use of stingers by featuring the trailer for The Matrix Revolutions.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace includes a stinger-like effect to tie this prequel to the later events of the original Star Wars film and its first sequel. Phantom Menace's end-credit music stylistically morphs into "The Imperial March" (the motif of Darth Vader), and the film concludes with Vader's trademark muffled breathing, both audio elements being quite familiar to fans of the earlier films.

Some films, including Jack Black's School of Rock, take the idea of the post-credits scene to its limit by running the credits during the main action of the film. In this example, the characters perform a song in the last minutes of the film, and the credits run inconspicuously until one character sings the line "the movie is over / but we're still on screen".

During the credits of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there is a scene between Professor Kirke and Lucy Pevensie, in which Kirke tells Lucy that she will return to Narnia, only not through the wardrobe.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999) has made extensive use of post-credit scenes namely for the purpose of setting a teaser for the following movie. In a post-credits scene of Iron Man 2, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson reports the discovery of a large hammer at the bottom of a crater in a desert in New Mexico setting up for the movie "Thor".

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Post-credit scenes in video games

Video games, particularly the ones that make use of complex stories, have begun using post-credits scenes. An early example is EarthBound, in which Ness awakens to knocks on the front door just like the beginning of the game, and finds Pokey's brother Picky with a message from Pokey, indicating that he did not die and plans revenge. Also notable is the Metal Gear series of video games, in which Metal Gear Solid, MGS2, MGS3 and MPO feature a voice-over only scene after the credits of one or more characters speaking as the game's logo is displayed, all of which reveal new information that gives a new perspective to the previous events as well as setting up part of the next game in the series. Another example is the Kingdom Hearts video game series, in which Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II include a post-credits epilogue, along with an unlockable, highly enigmatic scene depicting possible events in a future installment of the series (The Final Mix versions of both games also include another unlockable scene that takes off where the previous ones left). Also, Halo 2's post-credits scene doubles as a cliffhanger.

In "Version one" (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/Windows) of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, if the game is completed still on the side of Third Echelon, a post-credit level begins allowing the player to finish the game. Another example of this would be in The Warriors in which the player fights the Rogues as the Riff leader during the game's end credits.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Halo 3 are rare example in video games where a crucial twist is unveiled: for Twilight Princess, the title character Midna shatters the Mirror of Twilight before jumping into the vortex herself, leaving Link and Zelda standing alone in the desert and breaking the only known link between the normal and Twilight realms. Halo 3's post-credits scene reveals that Master Chief actually survived the events of the ending scene and sees him entering suspended animation to await his rescue.

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