tvtropes.org

Title 1 - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Dec 01 2012

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_maxresdefault_0.png

"I mean, how cocky do you have to be to literally call your first movie THE FIRST MOVIE? It's like they knew they were gonna have a bajillion sequels so they decided to call it the FIRST movie just to make it easy for us. That's like naming the first Lord of the Rings movie, 'Lord of the Rings: Don't Worry, We're Gonna Have a SHIT Load of Sequels.'"

Most franchises with Numbered Sequels are like this: The first ever made has a title and the sequels just add numbers and/or subtitles in front of the title, like this: "Title", "Title 2", "Title 3", and if it's a prequel, sometimes it's "Title 0".

But an unusual case is when the first one is literally numbered the first, like "Title 1", or "Title One", or "Title I", or "Title: Part 1/One/I" or "Title: The First"; obviously, this is a sign that sequels are planned, or in development or even ready, thus avoiding Sequelitis.

And of course, the worst part of this trope is when a sequel is never made and the first one remains as the only one.

Sometimes we're talking about a work Divided for Publication; if it has a "Part 1/One/I" in the title because they want to divide a single story in parts to make it easier to follow or fit in the time schedule, keep that clear. There are also cases of when the title didn't have it originally, and then it was added as a Retronym; when adding examples, keep clear which titles were always called like this and which ones were renamed after the fact.

A subtrope of Title by Number. See also The Original Series.

It's a common practice in Fan Nicknames, but they don't count here.

Examples:

open/close all folders 

Anime & Manga 

  • Played with by Lupin III: The First. It's hardly the first film in the Lupin III franchise (which had been running for over 50 years by the time of The First's release in 2019), but it is the first CGI theatrical release, hence the title. The film, by dint of being explicitly set in The '60s, does avert the usual use of Comic-Book Time and is currently one of the earliest adventures of the gang, but the series' overall adherence to Negative Continuity means it's no longer "the first" from a chronolgical standpoint (as prequel series Lupin Zero and the Lupin III vs. Cat's Eye film are also set in the 60s yet feature Lupin at wildly varying ages).
  • The first Lyrical Nanoha movie is called Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st, given that it's an adaptation of the first season.
  • Pokémon: The First Movie, the first of a series of over 20 movies and still counting. Notably, it did not have the "First" in its title in Japanese (or most other languages); the decision to include this naming convention in the (informal) North American title was a safe one, though, since a second movie had been released in Japan months before the first one came to North America, a third one was already in development, and the Pokémon franchise was in the height of its popularity, so it was safe to count on the sequels coming to North America as well. Either way, the proper English title was Mewtwo Strikes Back (a direct translation of the Japanese title Mewtwo's Counterattack) which means the whole issue just comes down to the dubbers (not the creators) adding an unnecessary "First Movie" tag to the title.

Films — Animated 

Films — Live-Action 

Literature 

Live-Action TV 

  • Fox announced a channel named Fox Sports 1 (as a replacement for Speed Channel). With a number like that, sports fans must wonder if Fox can launch Fox Sports 2. Yes, Fox later announced Fox Sports 2 (as a replacement for extreme-sports channel Fuel TV), and both networks launched on the same day in 2013. (Naming the channel Fox Sports 1 gives it precedence above the regional Fox Sports channels.) They took the idea from sister company Sky, which labelled its sports nets as Sky Sports (number) until 2017, including channels 1-5; the special F1 channel, and Sky Sports News (HQ) are excluded.
  • Sky itself was simply called "Sky Channel", but became Sky One in 1989; although there was Sky News and Sky Movies at the time, it would be seven years before there was a Sky Two.
  • Canadian channel Sportsnet launched a national spin-off channel called Sportsnet One.

Music 

  • Daniel Amos: ¡Alarma!: The Alarma Chronicles Volume 1. They planned from the beginning for The Alarma Chronicles to be a four-album series — and they actually did follow through with it.
  • Barenaked Ladies: Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits 1991-2001.
  • Big Star: #1 Record
  • David Bowie did this twice.
    • Changesonebowie from 1976 was his first "greatest hits" compilation album. The second installment, Changestwobowie, followed in 1981.
    • 1. Outside, from 1995, subtitled The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper-cycle. It was to have been the first in a series of concept albums, with the second being called 2. Contamination, but he lost interest in the project.
  • Colosseum: Chapter 1: Delirium
  • Claude Debussy wrote a "Première Rhapsodie", but not a second.
  • The Dream Theater song "Metropolis, Part 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper" was one of these, as they added the "Part 1" to the title as a joke, having no intention of making a part 2. Later on, they created an entire album to serve as a sequel.
  • Eluveitie's Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion, their first acoustic album. They announced the sequel in 2012, which was eventually released in 2017, called Evocation II - Pantheon.
  • Flo Rida: Only One Flo, Part One. Even stranger that the intended sequel, Only One Rida, Part Two, had its name changed to Wild Ones.
  • The music video for Ariana Grande's "Dangerous Woman" was billed as "Visual 1", since she planned for an alternate music video for the song that would be story-driven and "weird." Due to lack of time, Visual 2 ended up being cancelled, with only a trailer for show.
  • Hurt: Vol. I. Not actually their first album, but the first to get a major label release, and the earliest still widely available. They abandoned the numbered naming scheme after the follow-up, Vol. II.
  • Michael Jackson: HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. Book II was never made, but there was Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix.
  • Madness had The Dangermen Sessions, Volume One. There has been no Volume Two yet, but if they ever do another covers album it's quite likely they'll return to the title.
  • George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1; no Vol. 2 ever made.
  • The OC Supertones: Live, Vol. 1. They meant to record at least one follow-up live album, but have yet to do so.
  • Shakira: Fijación Oral Vol. 1, followed by Oral Fixation Vol. 2.
  • The Sisters of Mercy: Greatest Hits Volume 1: A Slight Case of Overbombing, the last album they released.
  • Russian heavy metal band Slot's debut album was, imaginatively enough, SLOT1. The rest of their primary (Russian-language) discography has followed a sequential trend (either with numbers or words alluding to them) ever since.
  • Super Furry Animals: Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1
  • The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 was titled that as a joke, because it was intended as a one-off project, and they assumed there wouldn't be any sequels. When they defied their own expectations and made a second album, they called it Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.
  • Johnny Winter: First Winter
  • ZZ Top: ZZ Top's First Album

Pinball 

Professional Wrestling 

  • Diana Rising: Episode 1 ~Boppatsu~ Earthquake Reconstruction Charity - Day 1. There was never a Rising Episode 2, but Episode 1 did last eight days. Diana Dojo Show, on the other hand, exceeded 40, though they weren't consistently numbered.

Radio 

  • Parodied in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during a round of "Word for Word" (the "word disassociation game" where one team must exchange unconnected words whilst the other must buzz in if they spot a connection):

    Barry: [buzzing in] Creosote Butterfly...Sixties rock band.
    Jack: No, uh, I can't let you have that, Barry...I think you wouldn't be able to name one of their albums if I asked you.
    Barry: Creosote Butterfly One.
    Jack: Apart from the eponymous first album, obviously.

Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy 

Video Games 

Web Original 

  • Standard procedure on TV Tropes when a series that doesn't qualify for the Franchise namespace shares a name with its first installment is to trope the series at "Medium.WorkName" and the first installment at "Medium.WorkName1". The "1" on the latter page is usually removed via the custom title system, but sometimes nobody bothers.note 

Western Animation 

  • Family Guy:
  • Futurama has "Anthology of Interest 1" in season 2 in anticipation of yearly instalments; the series only got to 2 (in season 3 out of the original four-season run). (The general idea of an annual triplet of non-canonical stories like the original A.O.I.s came back in the four Comedy Central half-seasons, almost always before a hiatus, but didn't use the same title scheme or framing device.)

Real Life 

  • World War I (formerly "The Great War") got this name when World War II came by, but some people called it the "The First World War" before. However, this can also be interpreted as "There have been many wars, but this is the first world war." The War of the Spanish Succession had also been called "the first world war" before the big one.
  • Almost all monarchs and rulers don't get to become "the First" until there's a second. Pope John Paul I, however, did use "the First" in his title, and actually signed his name Ioannes Paulus Primus. In contrast, Pope Francis, the only other pope in a thousand years with an original papal name, won't be Pope Francis I until there's a Francis II.
  • Tech products usually don't become the "first generation" until a second generation version is released, but some are sold as this from the beginning such as the Nexus One and Nothing Phone (1) smartphones.
  • Red Digital Cinema's first camera was the Red One, and their first (and likely only) cell phone was the Hydrogen One.