History Main / MonumentalDamage

* ''[[MassEffect Mass Effect 2]]'' - In the Kasumi DLC, Donovan Hock, the man whose manor you're infiltrating, has a large collection of various ancient (or at least very old) artifacts. Including the Statue of Liberty's head. In Jack's backstory, she mentions how she committed "Vandalism" towards the Hanar by [[ColonyDrop crashing a space station]] upon their favorite moon.

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Played chillingly straight with the White House. It is not dilapidated and abandoned, it is not occupied by an evil overlord, it is just... gone. Apparently it was [[NukeEm Ground Zero]].

* Averted (barely) in the new ''Film/StarTrek'' film: [[spoiler:When Nero attacks Earth, he fires his drill beam into San Francisco Bay. When the drill is cut, it falls into the bay, just missing the Golden Gate Bridge.]]

* The TokyoTower gets destroyed A lot by {{Godzilla}}, Mothra, {{Gamera}}, Gyaos, and yes, even KingKong in various Japanese [[{{kaiju}} giant monster]] movies.

* ''DeepSpaceNine'' - The Golden Gate Bridge wasn't so lucky during the Breen attack on Earth [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:San_Francisco_attacked2.jpg "The Changing Face of Evil"]]

** In the sequel, General Zod and co. damage the faces on Mt. Rushmore and the White House.

* ''IndependenceDay'' has the iconic shot of the White House being destroyed, as well as the Captiol getting destroyed in the resulting wave of energy. In a scene showing the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Statue of Liberty is shown being knocked down.

* ''{{Futurama}}'' sends up the trope by having the alien invasion occur on Monument Beach, a collection of world monuments, complete with the White House being blown up by an alien saucer in a parody of ''Independence Day''. The aliens then go on to destroy Fry's sandcastle with a tiny saucer to complete the parody.

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During the attack on New York, the Statue of Liberty is shown as having been decapitated. Just to add insult to injury, Great Mazinger is knocked through the remains of the statue and falls on the head. Elsewhere, the Great Pyramids, Sydney Opera House, and Great Wall are also damaged by SuperRobot / {{Robeast}} combat.
* In ''GundamSEEDDestiny'', when the [[ColonyDrop falling Junius Seven]] is destroyed by the ''Minerva's'' WaveMotionGun, fragments of it scatter randomly around the world. One of them still manages a direct hit on the Parthenon in Greece.

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They are also shown melting the Eiffel Tower in the background while slaughtering the French President and his cabinet.

* In ''BatmanForever'', Two-Face's helicopter crashes into an obvious {{Expy}} of the Statue of Liberty, named "Lady Gotham".

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* OlderThanRadio: During the WarOf1812, the British burned Washington, DC. They explicitly targeted government buildings, including the Capitol and the White House, to make a statement.
* Also: the Giant Buddhas of Bamyan (Afghanistan), destoyed by the Taliban.
* More recently (and tragically), [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Haitian_national_palace_earthquake.jpg the collapsed National Palace of Haiti]] (basically the Haitian White House) after the 2010 earthquake (to give you an idea, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Palacio_presidencial_de_Haiti.jpg this is what it looked like before]]). They say that the President was lucky he wasn't in when the earthquake hit.

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* ''Tetrastar'' - The first seconds of gameplay show the Statue of Liberty being destroyed by aliens. Then the camera moves to the right to show the WTC and the surrounding buildings. The player spends the rest of the stage trying to prevent the aliens from blowing up the city.

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* ''[[Series/MegaMan MegaMan]]'' - In the Ruby-Spears ''Megaman'' cartoon, Megaman jumped in front of the statue of AbrahamLincoln when Protoman turned his blaster on it.

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* ''Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'' - One of the earliest (1956) examples of this is the Washington Monument being cut at the base by a flying saucer beam in a nice piece of FX work by RayHarryhausen.

* ''Domino'' - A ballsy Vegas example has [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters a character sympathetic to Afghani rebels]] blow half the top off the Stratosphere Tower, which is a real 1,000+ foot observation needle. Then, TheHero falls down the elevator shaft in a cabin just like the ones used at the actual tower (though real ones don't have an speedometer on the floor counter). The whole scene was done with startling accuracy and the Stratosphere signed off on it's name/identity being used all over the darn thing, giving it that TooSoon quality.

* ''CiaphasCain'' - Invoked by Ciaphas, Hero Of The Imperium, in ''Cain's Last Stand''. He mentions that he hopes that an attack on the capital city of Perlia managed to destroy a particularly hated monument to him (a clock that features him decapitating an orc every hour), but he's disappointed to learn it's still standing.

* ''Tetrastar'' - The first seconds of gameplay show the Statue of Liberty being destroyed by aliens. Then the camera moves to the right to show the WTC and the surrounding buildings. The player spends the rest of the stage trying to prevent the aliens from blowing up the city.

So you're a marauding monster, invading alien, or anything that has a tendency to cause massive collateral damage. But you not going to destroy ''any'' random building, are you? No, where's the fun in that? You're going to behead the Statue of Liberty, or blow up the White House, or anything recognizable enough that by destroying it, you can show the world that you mean business.

->"Humanity's gotta take one to the gut, here! Knock some sense into the damn peaceniks! And showing them ol' Mount Fuji going boom ought to do the trick!"
* Fujiyama also takes damage from the final battle in ''{{Mazinkaiser}} vs. Ankoku Daishogun'', first as collateral damage from Mazinkaiser's [[BreathWeapon Rust Tornado]], and again when the Daishogun rams Mazinkaiser with his AirborneAircraftCarrier. During the end credits of the movie, the heroes can be seen ''fixing'' it afterwards.
** Also, during the attack on New York, the Statue of Liberty is shown as having been decapitated. Just to add insult to injury, Great Mazinger is knocked through the remains of the statue and falls on the head. Elsewhere, the Great Pyramids, Sydney Opera House, and Great Wall are also damaged by SuperRobot / {{Robeast}} combat.

* The White House, The Statue of Liberty, Tokyo Tower and the Eiffel Tower all are destroyed in a chain of nuclear blasts killing 13 million people planned by DirtyCommunists in ''FutureWar198X''.
* Shots of the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower being flooded by tsunamis in ''{{Thundersub}}''.

* In ''TheUltimates vol. 2'', some super powered soldiers push over the Statue of Liberty. Later, some superheroes pull it back up again.
** Averted in the same story where [[CaptainAmerica Ultimate Cap]] and [[EvilCounterpart The Colonel]] duke it out along The Wall (the Vietnam War Memorial) and it is not damaged.
* In the ''CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew'' 2007 miniseries, the giant monster frog villain Frogzilla pulls up from its foundation the Statue of Ribbity (Earth-C's Statue of Liberty) and takes it with him into Gnu York (Earth-C's New York), thinking the statue was a real person (and trying to hit "her" up for a date).
* Rare exception to the "Nothing harms Lincoln" rule: During the ''[[WonderWoman Amazons Attack]]'' miniseries, Hippolyta decapitates the memorial.
** Possibly referenced in the 2009 ''WonderWoman'' DVD, where an angry Steve Trevor rushes to the defence of the memorial declaring "no messes with Lincoln!"

* One of the earliest examples of this is the Washington Monument being cut at the base by a flying saucer beam in ''Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'' (1956)-- a nice piece of FX work by RayHarryhausen.

** You'd think the Pentagon would be a much better target since they're in Washington, especially since it's more likely to resist indirect damage.
*** Except that the Pentagon isn't ''in'' Washington, DC. It's in Arlington, Virginia. In fairness though the two are very close and some of Arlington is comprised of territory that ''used'' to be a part of DC.

* In ''{{Armageddon}}'', small meteors come in advance of the Big Doomsday Rock. They could strike anywhere on earth. Where does the biggest of the Harbingers of Doom hit? Dead center on the Eiffel Tower.
** Which city was the first to get hit by these small meteors? [[BigApplesauce New York City]]. And said meteor shower damages/destroys several NYC landmarks, including Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building... and the Twin Towers.
* In ''MarsAttacks!'', a saucer rolls a giant bowling ball and knocks over some of the statues on Easter Island.
** ''And'' cuts down the Washington Monument as a [[ShoutOut Shout Out]] to the aforementioned Harryhausen movie, plus [[JerkAss keeps tilting it from one side to another]] so panicking civilians don't know which way to run...
** They're also shown melting the Eiffel Tower in the background while slaughtering the French President and his cabinet.
* Subverted in ''ResidentEvil: Extinction'', where the Statue of Liberty is buried in sand... along with the Sphinx and Eiffel Tower, since they're all Las Vegas casino structures.
** And arguably played straight with Las Vegas itself.
** The Las Vegas damage from ConAir pales in comparison, which is a pity because 1. it was filmed in the real Las Vegas, and 2. buildings marked for demolition in real life were destroyed for real in the movie.
** The most ballsy Vegas example would have to be ''{{Domino}}'', which actually has [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters a character sympathetic to Afghani rebels]] blow half the top off the Stratosphere Tower, which is a real 1,000+ foot observation needle. Then, TheHero falls down the elevator shaft in a cabin just like the ones used at the actual tower (though real ones don't have an speedometer on the floor counter). The whole scene was done with startling accuracy and the Stratosphere signed off on it's name/identity being used all over the darn thing, giving it that TooSoon quality.

* The TokyoTower gets destroyed A LOT by {{Godzilla}}, Mothra, {{Gamera}}, Gyaos, and yes, even KingKong in various Japanese [[{{kaiju}} giant monster]] movies.

** The bridge wasn't so lucky during the Breen attack on Earth in the {{DS9}} episode [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:San_Francisco_attacked2.jpg "The Changing Face of Evil"]]

* The sixth HarryPotter film has an example early on, where Death Eaters rip apart the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge_(London) Millennium Bridge]] in London. This is a mild example, since while the bridge is somewhat known, it's not as renowned as things like the Tower Bridge or the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

* The second novel in ''TheBartimaeusTrilogy'' features a hilarious fight scene inside the British Museum where Bartimaeus, not knowing of its significance, uses the Rosetta Stone as a projectile weapon. HilarityEnsues.
** In the third novel, Nelson's Column get sliced in half by Nathaniel trying out the Staff.
* The Washington Memorial comes under massive fire from plasma and HVM rounds, in JohnRingo's PosleenWarSeries, as a reaction to a human sniper using the monument as a firing point. The Lincoln Monument also is destroyed, though by human forces.
* Invoked by CiaphasCain ''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM'' in ''Cain's Last Stand''. He mentions that he hopes that an attack on the capital city of Perlia managed to destroy a particularly hated monument to him (a clock that features him decapitating an orc every hour), but he's disappointed to learn it's still standing.

* Doctor Who "Aliens of London" involves a convoluted alien hoax plot (well, a convoluted hoax perpetrated by aliens) where they deliberately crash their spaceship into Big Ben to put the world on high alert in order to get their claws on the UK's nuclear launch codes. A bit of Genre Savvy on display by the aliens here too...

* {{Truth In Television}}: 9/11.
** [[YourMileageMayVary Debatable]], as the terrorist attacks were what made the WTC known worldwide in the first place.
*** The Pentagon was pretty well-known, and it's believed that Flight 93 was heading towards either the Capitol or the White House.
**** [[{{kittenmommy}} This Troper]] heard a theory that it might have been heading for Three Mile Island, which would have been... [[{{Understatement}} bad]].
*** Uhm, the WTC has been attacked before (in '93, as I recall), and was long a symbol of American capitalism, prosperity, and power. A shot of the Twin Towers was ''[[EiffelTowerEffect de rigeur]]'' for any EstablishingShot of New York. Certainly, for Americans, WTC was New York every bit as much as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Wall Street]], and [[BrooklynRage rude inhabitants]]. There's a reason why KingKong climbed them, not the Empire State Building, in the 70's remake.

** [[CompleteMonster Both In the]] [[BeyondTheImpossible same year!!]]

* ''DeusEx'' starts with the NSF blowing the head off the Statue of Liberty in the backstory. They must've done it repeatedly after the end as by the sequel the statue is gone altogether and is replaced with a hologram.
** Maybe they just got tired of having a mutilated statue in New York Harbor, tore it down, and put the hologram up in its place.
*** In the first game, at the top level of the pedestal there is a fenced-off area with a sign, "This building had been condemned". Presumably the statue was no longer structurally sound.
* The level ''Of Their Own Accord'' in ModernWarefare2 starts in a damp basement assumed to be somewhere in the Washington D.C. area, filled with wounded and dead soldiers while artillery shells shake the ground above. When a Sargeant orders the player character to follow him outside into combat, the player emerges in a muddy trench and the first thing to be seen of the outside are the scorched remains of the Washington Monument, backlit by dark clouds that reflect the fires of Capitol Hill, which looks more like Berlin in 1945.
* If you won the first ''CommandAndConquer'' game as Nod, you got to watch some HollywoodHacking and then you got to choose which monument to destroy, among which were the White House and Eiffel Tower.
** In ''[[CommandAndConquer Red Alert 2]]'', one of the Soviet missions involves turning the Eiffel Tower into a giant Tesla coil. Plus, you get to demolish the Pentagon and lots of other stuff. And in an unexpected inversion, the second to last mission of the Soviet campaign has you destroy [[spoiler:the Kremlin]].
*** The Soviets also destroy the Statue of Liberty at the start of the Allied campaign.
*** ''[[CommandAndConquer Red Alert 3]]'' takes this to its most logical conclusion, combining it with WeaponizedLandmark; the last mission for the Allies has you destroying Leningrad's Winter Palace, ''which turns into a massive shuttle launch facility.'' Nevermind Mount Rushmore's EyeBeams or Moai Head Man Cannon.
*** It also has the Soviets destroy the Statue of Liberty in their campaign only to build a statue of Lenin pointing ahead of him instead.
*** It also ''also'' has the Empire of the Rising Sun destroying...well, most of Moscow, but the Kremlin in particular. All of it, in fact, [[SymbologyResearchFailure not just St. Basil's Cathedral]]. Although you do get to ''stomp'' on the cathedral with the King Oni.
*** ''Red Alert'' has a cutscene of the Eiffel Tower getting nuked if you fail one mission as the Allies, and another cutscene of a Soviet air strike levelling the Parthenon.

* ''MetalGearSolid 2'' was scripted to have Arsenal Gear relocate the Statue of Liberty as it crashed into New York. this was cut from the final game because of being TooSoon since 9/11. Its crash deposits you onto a different landmark (Federal Hall) for the final BossBattle.

* One of the main draws of ''{{Fallout}} 3'' is running around the ruins of D.C. two hundred years after a nuclear war and seeing what's still around and what's been reduced to ruin. Interestingly, the Lincoln Memorial is one of the least damaged structures in the Capital Wasteland [[spoiler: although Lincoln's head is missing. You can get a quest to help restore it, though.]]
** Although there is an error in the game. The Washington Monument does not have steel rebar support inside of it. Ironically, it seems that this is where Modern Warfare 2 gets its Washington Monument, as they do the exact same thing.
** In the Fallout 'verse buildings were given reinforcement in expectation of a war with China, so the steel support can easily be explained.
** Played chillingly straight with the White House. It's not dilapidated and abandoned, it's not occupied by an evil overlord, it's just... gone. Apparently it was [[NukeEm Ground Zero]].
* In ''TwistedMetal 2'', the third level, fittingly titled "Monumental Disaster," is set in Paris, and you can blow up the Eiffel Tower with a well-placed remote bomb on the upper level. Not only does this look cool, it opens up the rooftops for combat -- the top half of the tower tips over and forms a bridge to one of the roofs, while pieces of debris land elsewhere. You can also go in the Louvre and torch the Mona Lisa and a number of other priceless paintings.
** Apparently, this was so popular that the developers remade the level for ''Twisted Metal: Head-On''.

* In ''MassEffect 2'''s Kasumi DLC, Donovan Hock, the man whose manor you're infiltrating, has a large collection of various ancient (or at least very old) artifacts. Including the Statue of Liberty's head.
** In Jack's backstory, she mentions how she committed "Vandalism" towards the Hanar by [[ColonyDrop crashing a space station]] upon their favorite moon.
* The first seconds of gameplay in Tetrastar for the NES show the Statue of Liberty being destroyed by aliens. Then the camera moves to the right to show the WTC and the surrounding buildings. The player spends the rest of the stage trying to prevent the aliens from blowing up the city.

* ''{{Futurama}}'' (of course) sends this up by having the alien invasion occur on Monument Beach, a collection of world monuments, complete with the White House being blown up by an alien saucer in a parody of ''Independence Day''. The aliens then go on to destroy Fry's sandcastle with a tiny saucer to complete the parody.
* Subtrope: The Sphinx's Nose (but not the rest of the sphinx) is destroyed in both the animated film ''Prince of Egypt'' and Disney's ''Aladdin''.
** Also in ''{{Asterix}} and Cleopatra''.

* In the [[Series/MegaMan Ruby-Spears Megaman cartoon]], Megaman jumped in front of the statue of AbrahamLincoln when Protoman turned his blaster on it.

* In Operation Teufelseelöwe (an AH.Com thread lampshading many tropes in a highly amusing way), the NAZI attack on London has beautiful lampsade of this in the quote:

** There is also the destruction of the Tower of London by Panza tanks (prior to which the Ravens fly off with the Crown Jewels'

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[[IndependenceDay http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/IndependenceDayWhiteHouse.jpg]]

->''"It looks like the storm is following an unusual pattern of hitting the world's most famous landmarks first, then spreading to the rest of the world."''
--> -- '''News Reporter''', ''CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs''

* In the first ''{{Film/Transformers}}'' movie, Starcream partially destroys the water towers of the Hoover Dam. In the second film, The Great Pyramid is destroyed to reveal Sun Harvester.

* ''{{Cloverfield}}''. The Statue of Liberty's beheading was something Abrams got from a poster for ''EscapeFromNewYork''... even though it's not in the actual ''Escape'' movie.

*** Uhm, the WTC has been attacked before (in '93, as I recall), and was long a symbol of American capitalism, prosperity, and power. A shot of the Twin Towers was ''[[EiffelTowerEffect de rigeur]]'' for any EstablishingShot of New York. Certainly, for Americans, WTC was New York every bit as much as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Wall Street]], and [[BrooklynRage rude inhabitants]].