Despicable Me 2 (2013), writers Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF8R7NVogJE SILAS: Good afternoon, Mr. Gru. I apologize for our methods in getting you here. LUCY: I don't. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I am not going to lie, I enjoyed that. Every second of it. Gave me a bit of a buzz, actually. SILAS: That's enough, Agent Wilde. LUCY: Sorry. GRU: Okay, this is bogus! I don't know who you people think you are, but--- SILAS: We are the Anti-Villain League, an ultra-secret organization dedicated to fighting crime on a global scale. Rob a bank? We're not interested. Kill someone? Not our deal. But you want to melt the polar ice caps, or vaporize Mount Fuji, or even steal the moon, then we notice. GRU: First of all, you got no proof that I did that. Second, after I did do that, I put it back. SILAS: We're well aware of that, Mr. Gru, that's why we brought you here. I am the League's director, Silas Ramsbottom. (Minions have a laugh) Hilarious. Agent Wilde. LUCY: Oh, me now? Um, recently an entire top-secret lab disappeared from the Arctic Circle. Yeah, the entire lab just---swish! Voom! Gone. Where did it go? GRU: I don't care. LUCY: Hmm. The lab was devoted to experiments involving PX-41, a transmutation serum. What is PX-41, you ask? Mmmm, it's pretty bad. Look. A rabbit is injected with the serum, and turns into a monster, which then attacks the scientists. Gru and the minions react. GRU: Huh. You usually don't see that in bunnies. SILAS: As you can see, in the wrong hands the PX-41 serum could be the most devastating weapon on earth. Fortunately, it has a very distinct chemical footprint. And, using the latest chem-tracking technology, we found traces of it in the Paradise Mall. GRU: Huh! A mall. SILAS: Precisely, and we believe that one of these shop owners is the master criminal. And that's where you come in. As an ex-villain, you know how a villain thinks, how a villain acts. LUCY: The plan is to set you up undercover at a shop in the mall where, hopefully, you'll be able to--- GRU: Okay, I see where this is going with all the Mission: Impossible stuff, but no, NO! I'm a father, now. And, I'm a legitimate business man. I'm developing a line of delicious jams and jellies. SILAS: (Chuckles) Jams and jellies? GRU: Oh, attitude! That's right. So, thanks, but no thanks. And, here's a tip. Instead of tasing people and kidnapping them, maybe you should just give them a call! Good day, Mr. Sheep's Butt. SILAS: Ramsbottom. GRU: Oh, yeah, like that's any better. Dialogue on Dialogue: The "briefing" scene in the spy and adventure genres can be a way to info dump while entertaining the audience. This scene also fits into Campbell's Hero's Journey framework in that this is where Gru receives the call to adventure, but refuses it. Here the writers play up the scene with a few laughs thrown in to keep it light. Rather than bore the audience with a detailed rundown of how the story will unfold, they use Gru's indifference to cut short Lucy's discussion of the plan with a comment about Mission: Impossible. So, we don't a preview of the plot, but we get an idea how it will play out. They also make a callback to the first film (where Gru steals the moon) which gives a sense of continuity to the franchise.

Avatar (2009), writer: James Cameron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyRR8chgqLE QUARITCH: You are not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen, respect that fact every second of every day. If there is a hell, you might want to go there for some R&R after a tour on Pandora. Out there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubes. We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na'vi. They're fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that'll stop your heart in one minute. And they have bones reinforced with naturally-occurring carbon fiber. They are very hard to kill. As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed, not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong mental attitude. You've got to obey the rules...Pandora rules. Dialogue on Dialogue: Another briefing scene example. Cameron uses this scene to change the tone of the film. Up to this point we've seen wonder: the spaceship that brings Jake to Pandora, the flight down from orbit, the wondrous beauty of the world and the futuristic machinery at the base. Seems like a nice place. The speech by Col. Qaritch changes everything. Not only do his words tell us something about the world, but his military deportment, his tone of voice, and the scars on his skull all tell us this isn't the friendly place it at first appeared to be. What info do we get here? 1) the base is protected by a fence; 2) the fauna are mostly carnivorous; 3) the indigenous people are human-like, strong, less technically advanced but nonetheless have potent weapons; 4) that Quaritch is head of security; 5) he doesn't believe everyone will live long enough to leave Pandora. That's quite a lot to give an audience in a minute and twenty seconds.

District 9 (2009), writers: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7UpUwe-Wek WIKUS: We are here at, uh...must I look... REPORTER: Just look straight at the lens, here. WIKUS: We are here at, uh, MNU head office, Department of Alien Affairs. My name is Wikus van de Merwe, and behind me you can see other Alien Affairs workers. And what we do here at this department is we try to engage with the Prawn on behalf of MNU and on behalf of humans. BRADNAM: Not everyone was surprised that the ship didn't come to a stop over Manhattan, Washington or Chicago, but, instead, coasted to a halt directly over the city of Johannesburg. The doors didn't open for three months. It just hovered there. Nobody could get in. And they eventually decided, after much deliberation, that the best thing to do would be to physically cut their way in. LIVINGSTONE: We were on the verge of first contact. The whole world was watching, expecting, I don't know, music from heaven and bright shining lights. BRADNAM: The creatures were extremely malnourished. Um, they were very unhealthy. They seemed to be aimless. There was a lot of international pressure on us at the time. The entire world was looking at Johannesburg, so we had to do the right thing. The government then established an aid group that starts to ferry the aliens to a temporary camp that we set up just beneath the ship. LIVINGSTONE: We didn't have a plan. There was a million. So, what was a temporary holding zone soon became fenced, became militarized, and before we knew it, it was a slum. MORANEAU: Well, the truth is, nobody really knew what this place was. There's a lot of secrets in District 9. MCKENZIE: At first, a lot of attention was given to, uh, giving the aliens proper status and protection. WOMAN: They're spending so much money to keep them here when they could be spending it on other things, but there's at least...at least they're keeping them separate from us. MICHAELS: I want to be realistic with everyone. The aliens will not be able to go home. TV HOST: The aliens are here to stay. Dialogue on Dialogue: Speculative fiction and fantasy have some of the hardest work to do and often have to rely on exposition to give the audience an understanding of the story situation. District 9 takes place on a contemporary earth but in an alternate reality where aliens arrive and are partially integrated into human society. The writers took the imaginative approach to give the audience the needed background through a mock documentary that shows how the story situation came to be before the main plot gets rolling.