I quite like Office Space's opening as it perfectly encapsulates Peter's frustrations. We see his painful commute, his awful work environment, and get a taste for his conflicts with his boss(es). None of the opening scenes will drop your jaw, but taken as a whole they really set up the whole movie.

I think, and I'm no expert by any means, the opening, whether soft or hard, has to entice the reader/viewer with the aforementioned 'HOOK'. In the action genre - DIE HARD has what you have defined as a 'soft' opening, and the bad guys don't even show up until page 18, scene 22 or 23. Yet, the script/film HOOKS us in the way it sets up the CHARACTERS, their own situations of the day. I like these type of openings, but for some reason, it doesn't play as well after you've told someone about it and they read it and they are like...uh, you said this was an action flick. ?? And just like I believe Scott mentioned on one of his blogs - it's all about the character(s). So, in my mind, the story 'hook' does not have to be suspenseful in any genre...it just has to keep us reading/viewing.

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