Opening movie

The opening movie is a movie that is shown after the game is turned on. It is present in every game of the series, with the exception of.

Super Smash Bros.
The opening movie starts, panning from the HAL Laboratory vanity card into a bedroom, where flies about picking up toy versions of a random starter character, which he places over a dresser, whereupon a lamp shines on it like a spotlight. Master Hand, then, goes about rearranging various other objects to make it look like a stage while dropping another toy character upon it. Master Hand then takes to the center of the screen, counts down from three to one and snaps his fingers. The desk morphs into a full stage, and the camera zooms into the first character picked, which comes to life and strikes a pose. After quick flashes of the starting characters, scenes of each character performing a quick move in their home stages are shown, followed by a full scene of all eight of them running together. The opening then cuts to show each character again: After these scenes, the scene cuts to and  facing off against a dark, thunderous backdrop. They jump and cross-counter each other with aerial attacks, followed by the other six starter characters doing the same: Link vs. Pikachu, Fox vs. Samus and Donkey Kong vs. Yoshi, followed by a white splash in which the four unlockable characters are rapidly shown (or their silhouettes, if they have not yet been unlocked). Finally, the title screen appears as the announcer shouts the game's name followed by the Crowd cheering.
 * is seen standing by a cliff playing the Ocarina of Time while the camera pans around him. He turns to face the camera once it closes in on him;
 * balances on a Poké Ball while a Pokémon Trainer, only seen by the legs, passes by;
 * A scene of and  fighting appears. Donkey Kong is having no problems, until Samus hits him with a fully-charged Charge Shot, sending him flying into the sky;
 * Four s appear guarding some Yoshi eggs in a nest;
 * Finally the Star Fox team's Arwings fly through space escorting the Great Fox, which is shown to be commanded by.

Super Smash Bros. Melee


Super Smash Bros. Melee largely uses the FMV scenes in its E3 trailer for its opening, with some changes.

The opening movie starts after the Nintendo and HAL Laboratory logos with a trophy of that is thrown in the air by a human hand into a stadium. As soon as the trophy lands, Mario revives from it and faces. and also join the battle. Then, a shot of is shown and Mario performs some of his moves. After that, rises from a fire sea and then  is seen swinging through a jungle and  fights Ridley. Some shots of Link are shown with a moving background with Zelda characters and many different colored s pass by. Then, the climb an ice mountain. Popo slips and almost falls off, but Nana saves him. After that, some gameplay shots are shown. 's eye quickly flashes onscreen as the transition to the next scene, in which plays on a harp while a ghostly image of  is in the sky and  flies around on a Warp Star. When Kirby disappears, an Arwing controlled by and a Wolfen controlled by Wolf O'Donnell are fighting and  warps into Onett. Then, several Pokémon appear while peeps out from the bottom right corner. Then we see and Samurai Goroh bumping into each other with their Blue Falcon and Fire Stingray. Goroh’s vehicle explodes. A vortex appears, sucking in images of all the starter characters. Then, Bowser roars as he appears in a flash of lightning, while Mario, Yoshi, and Peach struggle to hold their ground. Some shots of Melee characters are shown, the Great Fox, Falcon Flyer, and Samus' Gunship fly by. Next, a Bob-omb appears and we see the ‘Get Ready’ text on a black screen for a single second before trophies of four fighters are blasted away by the Bob-Omb and the title screen appears while the announcer gives the game's name.

The music that plays during this opening movie is .

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl's intro uses scenes from the Subspace Emissary, along with a few selections of Vs. Mode matches.

The movie starts with a view of all the characters (except for and ) gazing at an "X" in the sky that was formerly the Isle of the Ancients. This also appears as the last scene in the SSE. This is followed by scenes of, , , , , , , , , , and. Then, a scene of Sheik in a VS match is shown, followed by using its down special on, , and , followed by a VS match shot of  and a SSE shot of Zero Suit Samus and her Power Suit. After this comes SSE cutscenes of, and his Red Pikmin, , the ,  and Lucas, , Lucas, and. The next series of clips shows, , Wario, Lucas, the Ice Climbers, King Dedede, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, Peach, Meta Knight in VS matches. This is followed by SSE cutscenes of Mario, Pit, Yoshi, Link, and Kirby, an Arwing flying towards the Halberd, Kirby and Zelda, The Great Maze being assembled,, Pokémon Trainer, and Lucas, as well as VS clips of Olimar and his Pikmin, attacking Pikachu with Pokémon Trainer in the background, Zero Suit Samus, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Mario picking up a Super Mushroom, Kirby, Fox, and Zelda brawling. The movie continues with SSE shots of and Pikachu, Zelda, Diddy Kong, Ike,  and Pokémon Trainer,  and Meta Knight preparing to battle a Subspace Army, an Arwing flying towards the Halberd, Fox piloting, Kirby and Peach riding on a Warp Star, Bowser and his minions, Mario and Link dodging lasers fired by the Ancient Minister, Pit, Samus and Pikachu, Marth, Ike, and Meta Knight, and shots of the Halberd. The movie ends with the title screen being shown.

The music that plays during this opening music is the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Main Theme.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
There is no opening movie for, though in its place there is a character lineup that orders the roster in a similar fashion to the fighter numbers used in the next game, ordering the first-party starting characters, third-party characters, unlockable characters, clones, and DLC characters in their respective orders. There is a full opening movie in the Wii U version. It consists of footage from both gameplay and character introduction trailers shown prior to the game's reveal, barring 's.

It begins with a black background, with two slices forming a fiery Smash logo. The intro starts with a portion of 's reveal trailer with and, followed by 's trailer, Shulk's again with a shot of , a shot of 's trailer with , several shots from the first trailer of Super Smash Bros. 4, a screen of  in his reveal trailer, 's shot from the first trailer,  flying around in Greninja's trailer,  in their trailer,  driving in his Koopa Car in his trailer, and a shot of  fighting  in 's trailer, finishing it off with  in Greninja's trailer, as the Super Smash Bros. logo appears.

Gameplay footage soon follows, with a fight between, Samus, Mario, and Link. Donkey Kong uses his side special while a Bob-omb blows up behind him, followed by brawling with,  avoiding 's neutral special attack by taunting, Pikachu landing on the ground, Mario using his side special on Samus, Link charging up his bow before firing, Ness using his side special on  and his side smash against , with the latter later taunting his side taunt, Kirby standing up to find a Luma and Samus taunting in Orbital Gate Assault. We then get trailer footage intercutting with gameplay of the following newcomers:, Greninja, Wii Fit Trainer, , , Shulk, Rosalina & Luma, Robin, and Bowser Jr. The next following shots include Sheik taunting, Pit using his neutral special, hitting Little Mac,  and Alph using their up special with three different Pikmin,  entering,  taunting behind , Marth using his counter against Link, Ganondorf using his side special on Pit, Diddy Kong's on-screen appearance, Bowser using his down throw on a Villager,  removing her Phantom, Charizard landing,  taunting, Captain Falcon activating his side-special on Fox, and  doing a recovery. After this, we're given the final smashes of, Pit, a , Donkey Kong, Bowser Jr., Fox, Robin, Ganondorf, Shulk, Lucario, Wii Fit Trainer, Greninja, Peach, Zero Suit Samus, Little Mac, Luigi, Captain Falcon, and ending it off with Mario and Charizard.

We are later given the following shots for the third-party characters, which include, , and Mega Man. It ends with more shots of the character trailers and gameplay footage, followed by scrolling through various colored panels with character art before concluding with the game's title logo.

The music that plays during this opening cinematic is a variation of the Battlefield theme with a different intro, as well as missing most of the guitar solo at the end.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
The opening movie of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate mostly uses clips from Vs. Mode spliced between segments of cutscenes from Adventure Mode: World of Light.

The music that plays during the opening is Lifelight performed by Abby Trott in English and Erina Koga in Japanese, albeit missing the seventh through eleventh verses, most of the ending instrumental, and replacing the instrumental after the sixth verse with one from the tenth verse.

It starts with the shot of staring at the aftermath of Galeem's attack in the World of Light cinematic, then transitioning to in-gameplay individual shots of, , , and Kirby. The next shot is a group shot of male, and  attacking; which is followed by individual shots of  and the  girl to then cut to a cinematic shot on a cliff with most of the game's cast as the game's logo appears, then after showing Galeem and his army of s.

Gameplay footage is shown of detonating an explosive on Galleom’s stage,  doing a summon in Midgar and  getting attacked by, then showing off  along the rest of the Koopalings, followed by both the male and female  as they release , , and  into battle. is then shown running and jumping and is followed by battles between against the  and  against the Radiant Dawn iteration of, to then show a closer look at Galeem. and are shown in Delfino Plaza and then evade a giant  landing where they were as the stage changed into Palutena's Temple. is seen throwing a Fairy Bottle to a helpless who returns to fight after healing. is seen using Winged Pikmin while carrying other Pikmin. Both the female and male are shown chasing a soccer ball, to then cut to a shot of the default  and, before showing various puppet fighters in a cinematic.

is shown standing on. is seen using the Power of Flight, followed by a brief glimpse at the trees of Reset Bomb Forest. A sole shot of is shown, followed by one of  trying to make a distracted  fall through one of  Turning Blocks. and are shown fighting, transitioning to  and the  staring at a gyro. The default is shown using Flame Pillar to help Mr. Game & Watch cook, followed by  flying away from another fire, with more brief shots from the World of Light opening cutscene.

Paired shots of with  and  with  are seen and then one of  facing Ganon. Shots for, the Path of Radiance iteration of Ike and , with Metal Face,  and finally  fighting  are shown, followed by  performing its Final Smash on. All of the Inklings’ alternate costumes are shown, followed by as  falls behind him,  doing a Falcon Punch and  doing his Final Smash on Wario. is seen fighting, followed by a shot of along ,  dodging an attack from , then brief scenes of male , , Rathalos,  play before female Corrin is seen on Final Destination, ready to fight Master Hand.

Shots of Ken and and  with a pair of  are seen before a glimpse of Giga Bowser. ,, and  are shown fighting in Ganon’s boss stage, followed by a shot of  and the Villager with various items. Some seconds of a match between Mario, Link, Inkling, Snake, Kirby and King K. Rool are shown, then a shot of Simon performing Grand Cross.

Lastly, is seen landing on  and sees the stage transitioning into others, ending off on the variant of Final Destination encountered at the start of 's boss fights. The screen then cuts to a brief glance of Galeem and his engulfing of the universe into the light as the game's title screen appears as they play the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate title screen sound effect theme at the title screen.

Trivia

 * Super Smash Bros. and Melee are the only games that have the announcer shout the game's title at the end of the opening movie in the final game.
 * There is at least one unlockable character shown in each movie:
 * SSB: The four hidden characters appear as a flash near the end, in shadows if not unlocked.
 * Melee: and  appear in the Ocarina of Time segment, and  and  are in the Pokémon segment. Additionally, 's Shadow Ball can be seen charging and shocking.
 * Brawl: Not counting the lineup at the beginning, the clips shown contain, , , and.
 * Super Smash Bros. for Wii U: appears in a clip from her and 's trailer.
 * Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Every base game character (and thus all the unlockables) appears in the opening movie.
 * The opening for SSB is the only one in the series to be rendered in real-time, as opposed to all other games whose openings are pre-rendered videos.
 * The opening for SSB is the only one in which every playable character appears.
 * This does not include Brawl, as only the lineup at the beginning shows the roster in full, and is dependent upon how much of the roster is unlocked.
 * In the lineup at the beginning of Brawl's opening movie, the lineup initially shows only the starting characters. When the player unlocks more characters and later turns the game on again, they are added to the cliff side.
 * Prior to v1.0.6 in, there was a 10% chance that the opening movie wouldn’t play and instead bring the player directly to the start screen.
 * If the lineup at the beginning of Brawl's opening is not counted, Ness is the only one of the original 4 unlockable characters to appear in every opening movie.
 * Inversely, if the lineup at the beginning of Brawls opening is counted, Luigi is the only one of the original 4 unlockable characters to not appear in every opening movie, as he is absent in Melees opening.
 * SSBs opening is the only ones that contains original cinematic content made specifically for it. Melees is primarily just the E3 2001 trailer, SSB4 uses trailers used for newcomers, and Brawl and Ultimate use cutscenes from their respective adventure modes.
 * The lead singers of the Runaway Five, who appear in Melee's opening movie during Ness's introduction, appear with their Japanese design from Mother 2. In EarthBound, they wore red and green suits.
 * 's Final Smash in Ultimate, Stampede!, is based on the Yoshis scene from Melee's opening.
 * With the exception of Marx and Dracula, every boss in Ultimate is either represented in its opening movie by their stage or actually being present., Rathalos, Ganon, Galeem, and Giga Bowser are all present. Galleom, Crazy Hand, and Dharkon are not present, but their respective boss stages are.
 * Additionally, the opening movie is the only time where Galleom and Galeem/Dharkhon’s boss stages can be seen without the bosses actually being present. Ganon technically counts too, as he is not seen on his stage until the player defeats at the end of 's Classic Route.
 * A shot of Ultimate's opening movie possibly is a reference to the internet meme, No items, Fox only, Final Destination.