Best opening monologue to a movie or tv series

How about a spoken word intro to an album? The Moody Blues Days of Future Passed:

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion

Pinprick holes in a colorless sky
Let insipid figures of light pass by
The mighty light of ten thousand suns
Challenges infinity and is soon gone

Nighttime, to some a brief interlude
To others the fear of solitude
Brave Helios, wake up your steeds
Bring the warmth the countryside needs

Is that an opening monologue?

It’s spoken word, not sung. It is at the beginning of the album just after an overture and sets the events of the rest of the album in motion.

Works for me. I always thought it was a closing tag for the overture.

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.”

The Outer Limits, 1963

It’s not Patton, or even Superman or the Lone Ranger, but a lot of people like this one.

There’s also a bookend spoken word part that closes out the album, after “Nights in White Satin”, which wraps up the day.

Maybe I, or someone else, will start a “Best closing monologue” thread.

Christopher Plummer in Starcrash. :grin:

Not a movie, not a tv series but a video game trailer so still … close enough?

I don’t know the dead man. Probably didn’t deserve what he got. Doesn’t make him special, though; all kinds of people die out here: the innocent, and the not-so-innocent. If I’m lucky, he hasn’t noticed me, yet. I want to warn him. I want to tell him to run, to hide, get out of sight so I won’t have to kill him. That’s what I want to say. What actually comes out of my mouth is-

‘I have the shiniest meat bicycle!’

(Scream)

Heh. Close enough.

An awesome intro to an awesome movie.

I would have gone with Trainspotting. But only because I’d forgotten how awesome the opening to Plan 9 was.

Just reading it doesn’t do it justice, so here it is in all its glory:
Criswell Predicts Plan 9 From Outer Space Intro - YouTube

Can’t believe that The Godfather’s opening monologue hasn’t been mentioned yet:

I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but – I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend; not an Italian. She went to the movies with him; she stayed out late. I didn’t protest. Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal. When I went to the hospital, her nose was a’broken. Her jaw was a’shattered, held together by wire. She couldn’t even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life – beautiful girl. Now she willnever be beautiful again.

Sorry…

I – I went to the police, like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison – suspended sentence. Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool. And those two bastard, they smiled at me. Then I said to my wife, “for justice, we must go to Don Corleone.”

Post #7

Dagnabbit, you’re right. Anyway, the entire monologue is a good read.

I love the opening monologue in the movie, “Payback”, with Mel Gibson.

Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death starts by establishing the context:

This is the universe.

Big, isn’t it?

Thousands of suns, millions of stars, separated by immense distances and by thin floating clouds of gas. The starlight makes the gas transparent. Where there are no stars it appears as dark, obscuring clouds…like that great black cone over there.

Hello,…there’s a nova. A whole solar system exploded. Someone must’ve been messing about with the uranium atom. No, it’s not our solar system, I’m glad to say.

Ah, those are called|a globular cluster of stars. Rather fine.

Down here in the right-hand corner,…see that little chap rather like a boy scout’s badge? It’s a mass of gas expanding at thousands of cubic miles a minute.

Ah, here we are, we’re getting nearer home.

The moon, our moon,…in the first quarter,…and here’s the Earth, our Earth,…moving around in its place,…part of the pattern, part of the universe.

Reassuring, isn’t it?

It’s night over Europe. The night of the 2nd May, 1945. That point of fire is a burning city. It had a thousand-bomber raid an hour ago.

And here, rolling in over the Atlantic… is a real English fog.

I hope all our aircraft got home safely.

Even the big ships sound frightened

Listen to all the noises in the air.

Listen….

Listen…

He is immortal. Born in the Highlands of Scotland 400 years ago. He is not alone. There are others like him, some good, some evil. For centuries he has battled the forces of darkness, with holy ground his only refuge. He cannot die, unless you take his head, and with it his power. In the end there can be only one…Cue Queen song

Here’s one on spec:

Next to me in the blackness lay my oiled blue steel beauty. The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive. Gradually, I drifted off to sleep, pranging ducks on the wing and getting off spectacular hip shots.