It Has Only Just Begun

"It's over!"

"No... it's only just begun!"

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This is stock phrase, used and abused and tortured to the point of cliche, possibly the most obvious comeback to someone telling you that your plans/goals/dreams are over. Over? No, they're not. They've only just begun.

Sometimes used by villains before revealing the next stage of their plans, sometimes used by heroes before standing back up and dealing a righteous ass-whooping, sometimes used by other people for... ...stuff.

Compare The War Has Just Begun, My Death Is Just the Beginning.

Examples of It Has Only Just Begun include:

Anime and Manga

• Sailor Moon episode "The Purity Chalice"

Mimet: You've brought great disgrace to the honorable Bad Behavior Bureau. You must turn in your skull keychain and Fire Buster immediately. Eugeal: Not a chance! The fight has only just begun, you back-stabbing weasel!

• Yubisaki Milk Tea: Touko and Yuki are playing basketball:

Touko: Basket number 8! You have zero! That was a "Drive fake"! Should we better stop? Yuki: No, not yet! I first begin now! (Note: the quote is from the german translation. The english is a bit different.)

Comic Books

• Supergirl and The Legion of Super Heroes #24:

Jeyra Entinn: You won this round, Legionnaries... But this is only the beginning...! Cosmic Boy: Wow. Is there some super-villain book of quotes they all work off of?

Film

• Die Hard 2:

Trudeau: McClane, is this their final response? John McClane: No. This is only the beginning.

• The evil hotel room 1408 mocks Enslin through the radio by playing The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" repeatedly.
• Last lines of Star Wars II: Attack Of The Clones:

Obi-Wan: I have to admit that without the clones, it would have not been a victory. Yoda: Victory? Victory you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the Clone War has.

Literature

• Double-subverted in A Song of Ice and Fire. Ironically, said in a flashback:

Arthur Dayne: And so it begins. Eddard Stark: No, so it ends.

• • Also Catelyn Tully-Stark to little Robert Arryn.
• Nyx says some variation of this in almost every book in The House of Night series.

Live Action TV

• The advertisements for American Chopper Senior vs. Junior start with "What looked like the end...was only the beginning!"
• In the last episode of the first season of Robin of Sherwood, the Sheriff managed to surround and kill Robin Hood ... and then the new Robin Hood showed up to rescue some of Robin's men. Dismayed, the Sheriff said, "Just as I'd begun to believe it was all over. It's not over. It'll never be over."
• 24 season 7 has Jonas Hodges saying something along these lines as he gets arrested, because he was only one member of a much larger group of villains.

Real Life

• Slight variant: At the Battle of Flamborough Head during the Revolutionary War, when Captain John Paul Jones was asked if he intended to surrender, his famous response was "I have not yet begun to fight!"
• Winston Churchill said "Now this is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Asylum has Batman and the Joker going back and forth with this.

Batman: It's over, Joker. Joker: Over? Why, my dear delusional Dark Knight, it hasn't even begun.

• Gradius's final bosses are this and total liars about it.
• DE BADDLE HAS JUSD BEGUNNN!
• The END Begins End of God of War 2, but the battle for Olympus has just begun
• Used in Resident Evil 5:

Chris: It's over, Wesker! Wesker: Over? I'm just getting started! (infects himself with Uroboros)

• From Halo

Cortana: Halo, it's finished... Master Chief: No. I think we're just getting started.

• From Command And Conqer: Red Alert 2, when the Soviets have shut down the entire US Missile Command.

Romanov: Is it done, Yuri? Yuri: No, Comrade Premier, it has only begun.

• Vlad says this in Max Payne 2, after Alfred Woden protests that the killing has gone on long enough.

Web Comics

• Wanda says this to Parson in Erfworld, at the end of Book 1.

Western Animation

• In Teen Titans, Robin and Slade have this exchange at one point.
• Zira says this to Simba in The Lion King 2.

Simba: Take him and get out. We're finished here. Zira: Oh no, Simba. We have barely begun. (evil chuckle)

• In Anastasia, when Sophie refers to Anya and Dimitri's elopement as 'the perfect ending', the Empress corrects her, saying 'No, it's a perfect beginning.'
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: While trying to get their third brother back, one of the two Duck Brothers in "The Duck Brothers" exclaims "We have not yet begun to fight!". His inflection makes it awesome.
• In Silverwing, when Goth got himself electrocuted

Marina: It's over, Shade. Shade: (grimly) No, it's just begun.