| 1 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1385154247004318700 |
| 2 | %% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/earth_impact_2844.jpg]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:350: The Apocalypse never looked so spectacular.[[note]]''[[https://www.deviantart.com/ucd/art/Crowns-of-Fury-4415315 Crowns of Fury]]'' by ucd[[/note]]]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ->''"Oh, it's... beautiful."'' |
| 8 | -->— '''Director Orson Krennic''', ''Film/RogueOne'' |
| 9 | |
| 10 | Okay, so they've spent the entire series talking about it, and it finally happens: The giant, crazy, blow-the-budget scene where they show [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the apocalypse]]. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Or, y'know, [[DownerBeginning they open the movie with it]]. Whatever. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | This can't ''just'' be [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005 a brief shot of a planet popping out of existence like bubblegum]] -- the sound, fury and destruction should be as spectacular as it is complete and total. [[ItsNotPornItsAnIndex Disaster Porn]] if you will. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | In an academic sense, this trope has a wide variety of uses, from {{Ending Trope}}s to the ColdOpen and [[TheClimax everywhere]] [[{{Denouement}} in between]]. Equally capable of introducing a setting or establishing a character, it can be used to underscore how brutal a situation has become, or render an EldritchAbomination DeaderThanDead. Often an AfterTheEnd scenario will have one as part of the {{flashback}} {{backstory}}. When it comes right down to it, the only true constant between all the uses of this trope is the spectacular nature of the event itself. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | This trope is the visual, descriptive embodiment of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.[[note]]For when "TakeOurWordForIt" just isn't good enough.[[/note]] Said event will usually be on the ApocalypseHow scale, but not always. Often invokes the DistantReactionShot, since that's the cleanest way to show something of this magnitude. If it's a recording in-story by a firsthand observer, it doubles as an ApocalypticLog. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | See also ApocalypticMontage, EarthShatteringPoster. Compare StoryboardingTheApocalypse, which uses a (generally hypothetical) description (with or without SpreadingDisasterMapGraphic) of an apocalyptic event to create dramatic tension. Contrast SceneryGorn, which has a rather specific narrative use. If the audience is JustHereForGodzilla, this is usually what they've come to see. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | '''There are, of course, some very serious spoilers detailed below.''' |
| 23 | |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!Examples: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 30 | * This is how ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' ended. |
| 31 | ** ''Anime/EndOfEvangelion'' ended this way; episodes 25 and 26 just implied it. [[MindScrew Maybe]]. |
| 32 | ** ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion 2.0'' had a much more spectacular (read: less {{Squick}} and MindScrew) version [[spoiler:but it was interrupted by Kaworu doing the VillainousRescue in the after-credits scene.]] |
| 33 | ** Rebuild 3.33 went even further than 2.22, to the point where EVA-13 becomes a PhysicalGod and ''really'' makes the apocalypse look like it's well worth the risk. |
| 34 | * This is how ''Manga/{{AKIRA}}'' started... ''and'' ended (the movie at least). |
| 35 | ** Same with the manga (although the ending was under ''very'' different circumstances)... except that the manga has yet ''another'' Apocalypse about halfway through. All three have the same cause though (namely Akira). |
| 36 | * It wasn't permanent, but late in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' [[spoiler:Father ''succeeded'' in turning the souls of everyone in Amestris into a giant Philosopher's Stone (including shots of dying Winry, Gracia, and Elicia, among many others), turned himself into a giant LivingShadow covered in eyes, ''ripped open the door to [[{{God}} Truth]]'', '''ate it''', then turned into [[BishonenLine a younger version of Hohenheim]]]]. |
| 37 | * ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' shows an Earth being consumed by an exploding sun, followed by every star in its universe blinking out of existence. |
| 38 | * ''Manga/{{Kurohime}}'': |
| 39 | ** The end of the world is this plus MindScrew. [[spoiler: The [[HellGate Gateway to Hell]] opens and drowns almost the entire world under an ocean of corrosive blood. Skeletons and dead souls are running rampant [[IAmAHumanitarian eating people,]] trees are dying and to cap it all off, the Head God is ''[[GodIsEvil eating the sun.]]'' ]] |
| 40 | ** The final chapter ups this by [[spoiler: having TheHeroine slice the [[EarthShatteringKaboom ENTIRE WORLD]] (and the BigBad) in half using an enormous LaserBlade]]. |
| 41 | * The final chapter of ''Manga/ElfenLied'' has 10 or so pages dedicated to [[spoiler:Lucy initiating TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt while simultaneously repairing Kouta's gunshot wound. ''While singing''.]] For comparison, 2 or so chapters are [[spoiler:the destruction of the research facility, ending with it being annihilated ''from below''.]] Why so short? Because that's how long it lasted. |
| 42 | * Creator/GoNagai's ''Manga/ViolenceJack'', after the introduction of its title character, spends the first chapter of the manga destroying Japan via massive earthquake and mass volcanic eruption before introducing us to the CrapsackWorld that the Kanto region has become. |
| 43 | * In the final episode of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', [[spoiler: Madoka's wish causes one of these in the process of rewriting the universe multiple times - with Homura watching the whole thing]]. |
| 44 | %%* ''Manga/AngelSanctuary'' loves this trope. |
| 45 | * ''Franchise/DragonBall'': |
| 46 | ** ''Episode of Bardock'' ends with Frieza destroying the planet Vegeta and marveling at the destruction he caused. The same event is depicted in ''Anime/CoolersRevenge'' from Cooler's perspective and in ''Anime/BrolyTheLegendarySuperSaiyan'' from Paragus's perspective, and is the opening scene to the first episode of ''Anime/DragonBallZKai''. |
| 47 | ** In ''Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan'' planet New Vegeta is destroyed by the Comet Camouri with the heroes escaping in the nick of time. |
| 48 | ** ''Anime/DragonBallZ's'' Frieza Saga had Frieza blowing up Namek, only for it to have a 5 minute delay (and a much longer one episode-wise). This is the only time that the destruction of a planet is not instantaneous in the series. |
| 49 | ** ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' [[spoiler: basically repeats this sequence with Freeza destroying the earth after it's absolutely clear that Vegeta has beaten him. Unlike on Planet Namek, he doesn't drag things out, but the ensuing destruction is still quite spectacular, as we see the ground cracking beneath the heroes' feet, volcanoes starting to erupt everywhere, and a good 30-second CGI shot from outer space. Luckily, Whis and Goku were able to undo and prevent this]]. |
| 50 | ** In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', Beerus says that no matter how many times he does it, he never gets tired of destroying planets. Though this sounds callous, destroying planets is literally his [[DestroyerDeity job]]. |
| 51 | * ''Anime/PrettyCure'': |
| 52 | ** ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'', a usually happy-go-lucky magical girl series, has one. When the true BigBad, Dune, arrives, he promptly curbstomps the heroines, kidnaps the lead's grandmother, regains his full power and turns Earth into a massive desert, the only survivors being the main heroines [[spoiler:and the people whom they purified from being monsters.]] |
| 53 | ** Also happens in ''Anime/SmilePrecure'', where the BigBad succeeds in rendering the world into a wasteland... and when that wasn't enough to drive the girls into a DespairEventHorizon, promptly smashes a large chunk out of the planet for good measure. |
| 54 | * ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny'' has the infamous Break The World incident. After the previous episode was spent fighting a rogue faction of OmnicidalManiac ZAFT soldiers, most of the cast gets a prime view of [[ColonyDrop the fragments of Junius 7 carpet-bombing Earth]] [[ImpressivePyrotechnics with each impact producing a fireball visible from orbit]]. All the while Lacus is singing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIQgqicx8AA this]] to calm down a group of children on the verge of panic from their underground shelter being shaken up by the impacts' seismic shockwaves. It's pretty obvious [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion where]] the writers got the idea for this scene... |
| 55 | * Although on a smaller scale, the anime adaptation of ''Literature/FateZero'' shows the destruction wrought by the Grail, overlaid by Ilya recounting her [[DreamingOfThingsToCome prophetic dream]] for extra creepiness. |
| 56 | * ''Anime/OriginSpiritsOfThePast'' has a gorgeous opening in which the world gets peppered with [[MadeOfExplodium very explosive]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext Tree]] [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]] leaving the moon in pieces and the Earth within a [[ApocalypseHow Class 1/2 state of affairs.]] |
| 57 | * ''Literature/TheWorldIsFullOfMonstersNow'' starts with the apocalypse. When the main character wakes up, some unknown event has flooded Earth with fantasy staple monsters, goblins, orcs, etc. Vehicles are completely trashed by said monsters. Power and running water no longer work. To top everything off, law and order has completely fallen apart and anarchy rules the land. |
| 58 | * ''Anime/YourName'': A comet central to the story fragmenting results in [[spoiler:an entire small town's destruction]], but that same comet has a long technicolor tail and its fragments gets a smaller version of that tail, resulting in the sky becoming a beautiful sight while the whole thing is happening. |
| 59 | [[/folder]] |
| 60 | |
| 61 | [[folder:Card Games]] |
| 62 | * A lot of the more destructive cards in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' show the spectacle of what's going on, especially the "Wrath effects". [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=386298 Most versions of]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=376592 Wrath of God,]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=122423 Damnation,]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193658 All Is Dust,]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220139 Day of Judgment,]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370808 Planar Cleansing]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253512 Supreme Verdict]] are all good examples. |
| 63 | [[/folder]] |
| 64 | |
| 65 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 66 | * ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': Many continuities open with the destruction of [[DoomedHometown Krypton]]. This serves the purpose of establishing Jor-El's character, and actually getting Superman -and later ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}- to Earth. |
| 67 | %%** ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'' averted this with Krypton but played it straight with a certain character. |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 71 | * ''Fanfic/GenderConfusion'': The end of [[spoiler:humanity, and possibly the rest of the world,]] is described in ''excruciating'' detail. |
| 72 | * ''Fanfic/TheLastGreatTimeWar'': Happens several times, most notably at the end when [[spoiler:the War Doctor uses the Moment to obliterate all combatants and civilizations fighting in the Time War]]. |
| 73 | * ''Fanfic/TheWeaverOption'': The finale of the raid on [[spoiler:Commorragh]] is a spectacular cascading destruction. Entire sub-realms and settlements of the Webway are consumed by explosions, which in turn cause the connected gates to detonate and set off more explosions in the next realm. Chains binding suns break and they return to full size, consuming all surroundings, while daemons and the crystallized power of the Emperor clash. All of this leads up to the [[spoiler:''Will of Eternity'', infused with the Emperor's power]], exploding and consuming the entire [[spoiler:Dark City]] in planet-sized explosions. |
| 74 | [[/folder]] |
| 75 | |
| 76 | [[folder:Films -- Animated]] |
| 77 | * ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'': The desperate evacuation and subsequent EarthShatteringKaboom at the beginning. One shuttle is ''disintegrated'' by the force of the destruction, and the moon is [[DetonationMoon shattered]] as it bombarded with continent sized shrapnel. The rest of the movie deals with [[spoiler:making a new one]]. ''{{Inverted}}'' at the end of the movie. Not particularly important if it was scientifically inaccurate; it was freakin' cool, and you know it. |
| 78 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheMitchellsVsTheMachines'': This happens midway when PAL's army of robots captures all humans on Earth [[spoiler:except the Mitchells]] and imprisons them in environmentally-sealed pods (with free [=WiFi=]). The ultimate plan is to pool them into a giant spaceship and shoot everyone off into outer space. |
| 79 | [[/folder]] |
| 80 | |
| 81 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 82 | * Creator/RolandEmmerich loves this trope: |
| 83 | ** ''Film/IndependenceDay'' revels in the wholesale destruction of the populated centres of the world by alien forces. Love of this trope must be the reason that a movie which features the destruction of the White House is shown on American television every year on the Fourth of July. |
| 84 | ** ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'' spends a lot of time showing us the destruction of downtown LA by a super tornado and [[SunkenCity New York getting flooded]] by a monster tsunami wave, followed by New York's entire cityscape getting completely frozen over ''after'' it's been buried in snow on top of the frozen floodwaters. |
| 85 | ** ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'''s use of this was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0 parodied even before it came out]]. The main characters say "Hey, come look at this!" often during the film just to show off the effects: LA crumbling and sliding into the sea, Hawaii, the Crack in Las Vegas, the tsunami coming over the... oh heck. It's two hours of Scenery Gorn. (The movie seems well aware of its purpose as such and dashes through the pseudo-explanation and [[DevelopingDoomedCharacters character introduction]] with efficient haste to get to the show.) |
| 86 | * ''Film/DeepImpact'': The meteor impact, which causes a huge tsunami that floods the U.S. eastern seaboard as far as the Appalachian Mountains. |
| 87 | * ''Film/Armageddon1998'' features the destruction of Paris by asteroid impact in one of the more impressive scenes of the movie. |
| 88 | %%* ''Film/DrStrangelove'': The DoomsdayDevice, [[SoundtrackDissonance while "We'll Meet Again" plays.]] |
| 89 | * ''Film/EndersGame'' showcases [[spoiler: precisely what Dr. Device did to the bugger homeworld]]. |
| 90 | %%* ''Film/EscapeFromLA''. "He did it, he shut down the Earth." |
| 91 | * Subverted in ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005''. [[spoiler:the Vogon constructor fleet has surrounded the Earth and are about to demolish it. You expect a spectacular explosion, but the Earth just disappears in a pathetically small puff of smoke.]] |
| 92 | -->''Often this section is preceded by the words InAWorld [Earth explodes] but sometimes not.'' |
| 93 | * One of [[Film/Godzilla2014 Godzilla's]] themes is him being nuclear apocalypse in the form of a giant creature. Just look at Honolulu and San Francisco in the wake of the monster. This also ties into Gareth Edwards' "delayed gratification" approach to showing the monsters; Godzilla and the [=MUTO=]s don't fill the screen as often as the CGI stars of other summer blockbusters do, but the ''aftermath'' of their rampages can still be used to imply their recent presence. In fact, that's the major indicator of their presence. |
| 94 | * ''Film/{{Knowing}}'': The ending. [[spoiler:As the plasma burst from the sun slowly blowtorches Earth it is all shown in incredible detail]]. |
| 95 | %%* ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'' begins with one of these. |
| 96 | * Lars Von Trier's ''Film/{{Melancholia}}'' does it twice. At the start of the movie, the titular planet engulfs Earth while [[SoundtrackDissonance classical music plays.]] The movie also [[spoiler:ends this way, but now we see the collision on a human scale from the Earths' surface.]] |
| 97 | * ''Film/NihonChinbotsu'': |
| 98 | ** The 1973 original featured an extensive sequence of Tokyo being swallowed up in the disaster done by Teruyoshi Nakano, who is nicknamed "Japan's Michael Bay" for his love of StuffBlowingUp. |
| 99 | ** The 2006 remake didn't lack in the catastrophe department either, though it saved Tokyo (for last). |
| 100 | * Even people who say that ''Film/{{Pixels}}'' is terrible agree that scenes of pixellated destruction are amazing. Even more so in the short film, as there the apocalypse goes on undisturbed rather than being stopped. |
| 101 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 102 | ** ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'': Inverted at the end, only to be played straight in ''III''. Both times with the same planet (Genesis). |
| 103 | ** ''Film/StarTrek2009'' has the mightily impressive destruction of [[spoiler:Vulcan]], not before [[spoiler:(well... actually, yes, before...)]] the destruction of [[spoiler:Romulus in a super nova]], which sparks off the whole chain of events. |
| 104 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 105 | ** ''Film/ANewHope'': The obliteration of Alderaan, showcasing just how powerful the Death Star's superlaser is. The scene was especially spectacular, as ''Star Wars'' may be the [[http://www.listal.com/list/wait-did-planet-just-explode first film]] to actually ''show'' an entire planet exploding in this manner. |
| 106 | --->'''Obi-Wan Kenobi''': I felt a great disturbance in the Force...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror...and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. |
| 107 | ** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' one-ups ''ANH'' with the destruction of the Republic's capital worlds in the Hosnian system. In addition to showing the destruction of every planet in the system simultaneously, it avoids AMillionIsAStatistic by actually showing the terrified faces of the citizenry as the blast approaches. |
| 108 | ** ''Film/RogueOne'' goes the other direction, showing the Death Star's first two "test shots". At single-reactor power, these are "merely" strong enough to vaporize entire cities and launch chunks of planetary crust into orbit. |
| 109 | --->'''Director Krennic:''' Oh, it's beautiful. |
| 110 | * ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' films: |
| 111 | ** The start of ''Film/SupermanReturns'' shows the destruction of Krypton. |
| 112 | ** The destruction of Krypton also featured prominently into the beginning of ''Film/SupermanTheMovie''. |
| 113 | ** Krypton's apocalypse takes up the opening 20 minutes of ''Film/ManOfSteel'' |
| 114 | * ''Film/{{Surrogates}}'' ends in a way with this, as [[spoiler:all the surrogates just shut down, and as a result, cars start crashing ''en masse'' into buildings and each other, with all the destruction drawn out (though it is BloodlessCarnage since the surrogates are not human]]. |
| 115 | * ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'': The nuclear holocaust that Skynet unleashes. Both ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' (inside Sarah's dream) and ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' (for real at the end) show it in great detail. |
| 116 | %%* ''Film/ThorRagnarok'': The destruction of Asgard by Surtur. |
| 117 | * The 1980s TV films ''Film/TheDayAfter'' and ''Film/{{Threads}}'' were made specifically to scare the world straight about the threat of nuclear war. Increasing the fear factor for audiences is how both films are set in smaller, lesser-known cities of the US and UK (Kansas City and Sheffield, respectively), showing that nowhere is truly safe, and that the characters are ordinary people just trying to survive. ''The Day After'' was originally going to have a more graphic nuclear holocaust scene, but this didn't get past the ABC censors. |
| 118 | * ''Film/VForVendetta'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fI-dGWT74 ends]] with the exact event the plot's been building towards: The destruction of British Parliament. It might not even count as a Class-Zero, but dang was it well done. |
| 119 | * ''Film/XMenApocalypse'': During the film, Apocalypse uses his power to tear apart and reshape Cairo into a giant pyramid lair, and he has Magneto use his powers over the Earth's magnetic field to [[spoiler:begin leveling every city on the planet]]. |
| 120 | [[/folder]] |
| 121 | |
| 122 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 123 | * ''Literature/TheAscendantKingdomsSaga'': The Great Fire in ''Ice Forged''. First a green ribbon of fire snakes across the sky and fireballs begin to fall like meteorites across the city of Castle Reach, then the entire ribbon comes crashing down across the city and smashes Quillarth Castle to the ground. |
| 124 | * ''Literature/BlackLegion'': The third act of ''The Talon of Horus'' opens with the nascent Legion completely annihilating the Canticle City by the way of throwing a kilometers-long ship at it from orbit. Khayon takes his sweet time observing it and notes, among other things, that the entire city is engulfed in a miles-tall layer of dust and smoke and that the entire continent shakes. |
| 125 | * The great freezing at the end of ''Literature/CatsCradle'', which sounds like "the great door of heaven being closed softly" and, within moments, causes the sky to fill with tornadoes. |
| 126 | * In ''Literature/{{Cerberon}}'', the complete destruction of Loethess and everything around it is described in detail from multiple perspectives, from a mage in the center of the city paralyzed with OhCrap, to a family nearby hoping they'll survive, to a distant overview by a pair of people being carried away by a flying dragon. |
| 127 | * At the end of ''Literature/ChildhoodsEnd'', [[spoiler:the last remaining normal human]] broadcasts the Earth essentially being vapourized. |
| 128 | * The ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novel ''Caves of Ice'' ends with the detonation of a ''gigaton'' range Fuel Air Explosive. It completely obliterates the sole settlement on the planet, and the shockwaves are felt by ships in low orbit. |
| 129 | * The demolition of Vavatch [[RingWorldPlanet Orbital]] in ''Literature/ConsiderPhlebas'' is so spectacularly done,[[note]]A Culture starship slices the ring in several places, and the Orbital's own spin makes it fly apart. ''Then'' they bombard the chunks with antimatter until they're smashed to atoms.[[/note]] it almost qualifies as performance art. |
| 130 | * This is the meat of ''Literature/DeathFromTheSkies'', which deals with the [[ApocalypseHow different ways everything may end]] in RealLife, from the effect of [[ColonyDrop asteroid impacts]] to the death of the entire Universe and everything between and each chapter opening with a description of one of those events not sparing details at all.[[note]]See Quotes/DeathWorld for an example.[[/note]] |
| 131 | * ''Literature/DeathsEnd'' includes an antagonistic alien race which [[spoiler:literally flattens the Solar System with a weapon that folds a dimension away into the quantum level, turning it 2D. This is described in horrifically intimate detail for several pages]]. |
| 132 | * ''Literature/DungeonCrawlerCarl'' is all about aliens watching the last few humans struggle through an eighteen-level dungeon assembled from what's left of Earth. It's a fantastically popular and profitable show -- so long as you're in the audience instead of being one of the poor sods in the dungeon. |
| 133 | * ''Literature/{{Footfall}}'' includes the aliens, after being driven off Earth once, dropping an asteroid in the Indian Ocean to soften up resistance before trying again. |
| 134 | * At the end of Creator/GregBear's ''Literature/TheForgeOfGod'', the Earth's destruction is described in loving, ''agonizing'' detail. |
| 135 | * ''Literature/HaloHuntersInTheDark'' starts with a family fleeing their home world as the Covenant arrive to [[OrbitalBombardment glass it]]. Luther Mann, four years old, is amazed by the power of the Covenant vessels and whispers "[[ChildrenAreInnocent Pretty]]". His mother flips out and hits him. As anyone who has played the games can tell you, the Covenant plasma fire ''is'' hauntingly beautiful. And deadly. |
| 136 | * Despite the subversion of [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005 the film adaptation]], ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'' plays this straight: |
| 137 | -->[[MassOhCrap There was a terrible ghastly silence]].\ |
| 138 | [[EarthShatteringKaboom There was a terrible ghastly noise]].\ |
| 139 | [[EverybodysDeadDave There was a terrible ghastly silence]]. |
| 140 | * The aftermath of [[spoiler:Operation Oyster Bay]] in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is described in substantial detail, despite being "only" a set of [[ApocalypseHow/Class0 Class 0]] events. |
| 141 | * ''Literature/HorusHeresy'': |
| 142 | ** ''Galaxy in Flames'' shows the Isstvan III Atrocity in loving detail as a planet is bombared with chemical weapons that cause all living beings to rapidly rot and then the result is ignited in a firestorm that consumes the whole atmosphere. |
| 143 | ** ''Know No Fear'' spends nearly thirty pages to describe the opening attack on Calth. Ship speeding near c crashes into orbital installations, half of the waiting fleet is annihilated, two or three city-sized vessels hit the planet, the impact causes earthquakes and tsunamis and that's just the beginning. Highlights include: "It starts raining main battle tanks." and "For a brief moment, Calth has no nightside." |
| 144 | * ''Literature/JurassicPark1990'' features this at the end [[spoiler:when the fictional Costa Rican Air Force destroys Isla Nublar with Napalm]]. |
| 145 | -->Grant looked back just once, and saw the island against a deep purple sky and sea, cloaked in a deep mist that blurred the white-hot explosions that burst rapidly, one after another, until it seemed the entire island was glowing, a diminishing bright spot in the darkening night. |
| 146 | * The end of [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]] is described in detail at the end of ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' -- which, by no coincidence, heavily draws upon the biblical apocalypse. |
| 147 | * Creator/StephenBaxter's short story "Last Contact" ends with the earth (and universe) being ripped apart from the inside as cosmological inflation accelerates, as seen from the viewpoint of a mother and daughter awaiting the end in their backyard. |
| 148 | * The ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series provides a few examples as the {{Trope Namer|s}} to LensmanArmsRace. Spaceships capable of depopulating or destroying a planet on their own are already present in the first book, and by the end of the sixth we've had the "[[ColonyDrop nutcracker]]" (hitting a planet from opposite sides with two other planets) and doing similar but with a planet made of antimatter, and end up with firing planets travelling faster than light by launching them from a parallel universe, not only giving them insane levels of destructive power but also making them impossible to detect or counter in any way. |
| 149 | * ''[[Literature/TheLongEarth The Long Utopia]]'' ends with the complete destruction of [[spoiler:an alternate Earth (Earth West 1,217,756 to be precise)]], described in minute details, as it is observed by [[spoiler:Lobsang who downloaded himself to an orbiting satellite]]. |
| 150 | * Mark Geston's novel ''Literature/LordsOfTheStarship'' is about a vast rocketship that takes well over a century to complete, at which point two immense armies fight for control of it. Then the ship uses its rocket exhausts to incinerate the armies, and then reverses thrust to incinerate itself. Then the shadowy enemy that designed the ship in the first place sends a couple of city-sized fireballs to finish the job. |
| 151 | * ''Literature/LucifersHammer'' details the end of the world with beautiful descriptions. The meteor leaves behind a fiery rainbow trail that blinds anyone who looks at it. The resulting multiple-impacts cause earthquakes and giant tsunamis all around the earth, flooding entire mountain ranges. |
| 152 | * The whole last volume, and especially the last few chapters, of ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' is a ''spectacular'' example, complete with volcanic particulate winter, the planets being ''moved in their orbits'' (by warring gods), and the entire surface of the world being scourged by fire as it is moved too close to the sun, while the surviving humans shelter in underground bunkers. And that's in a world that was a postapocalyptic wasteland from the very start of the series. It ends with an inversion, though: a WorldHealingWave. |
| 153 | * ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' -- unsurprising for a series in which regular starship weapons can wipe a city off the map with a few shots, bombs exist that can consume an entire planet in a slowly but steadily spreading unstoppable nuclear firestorm, and even stars get blown up once in a while -- has been known to indulge in this in what over time amounts to a fair few issues. |
| 154 | * ''Literature/QuantumDevilSagaAvatarTuner'' features the destruction of the Junkyard -- which to the characters was their entire world. At first absolutely everything, including the [[EvilTowerOfOminousness impossibly tall Karma Tower]] is covered by the [[EldritchAbomination black ooze]]. Then, the ooze vanishes in an instant, leaving everything perfectly clean, and the whole Junkyard disintegrates in a gold light. |
| 155 | * The asteroid colliding with Earth and ''breaking it into pieces'' in ''Literature/{{Remnants}}'', near the end of the first book. |
| 156 | * Creator/ArthurCClarke's early story (in fact, the first story he sold) "Rescue Party" has the people of Earth set up cameras to beam images of Earth's end to the '''huge''' escape fleet in which they evacuate. It's following the line of those transmissions that leads the alien rescue ship to the fleet. |
| 157 | * The slow apocalypse in ''Literature/{{Seveneves}}'' is described in detail. It gets especially spectacular around the A+2 year point where the larger rocks start dropping (and there are still earthbound [=POVs=] to show it). |
| 158 | * In ''Literature/TheShatteredWorld'', though the actual Shattering is not described, the vivid imagery of huge fragments of landscape tumbling through the Void makes it clear that the titular world's breaking '''must have been''' an ApocalypseWow. The collision between two fragments in the sequel, ''The Burning Realm'', gives an ominous preview of the surviving fragments' impending doom. |
| 159 | * ''Literature/TheSongsOfDistantEarth'' has its doomed planetbound inhabitants set up cameras to record images of the end of the Earth for the posterity of those stargoing vessels which just managed to escape its final destruction. Music/MikeOldfield's album ''The Songs of Distant Earth'', which is meant as an accompaniment to the novel, has a music track that chronicles the Earth's destruction. ''Magellan'', the ship that features in the novel, was the last ship to leave the solar system. Its primary mission (before going on to set up a new colony) had been to operate as the relay station for all the cameras, probes, sensors and other telemetry, forwarding [[ApocalypticLog the data collected]] on to the rest of civilisation. [Insert video clip of the Giza Pyramids melting.] |
| 160 | * ''Literature/ThatIsAll'' goes through every day of 2012 as it deals with Ragnorak via the awakening of the 700 Ancient and Unspeakable Ones. All the oceans are flooded by a giant sentient pool of blood. All the dogs gather together and eat most of humanity, while the animatronic presidents finish off any remnants. Finally, all the Iron in the world magnetizes, burrowing into the Earth, cutting it in two. |
| 161 | * This happens in ''Literature/WhenWorldsCollide'', in the kind of spectacular fashion that you'd probably have guessed from the title. [[Film/WhenWorldsCollide The 1951 film adaptation]] did the best it could with this, but the upcoming remake certainly should provide more of the disaster porn as described in the book, to say the least. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 | |
| 164 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 165 | * ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'': |
| 166 | ** The series starts with one in both [[Series/BattlestarGalactica1978 the original]] and [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 the reimagining]]. |
| 167 | ** ''Series/Galactica1980'' starts with a computer simulation of one, and goes downhill from there. |
| 168 | ** In the post-[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 reimagined series]] MadeForTVMovie ''The Plan'', we see the series' opening ApocalypseHow from the point of view of [[RobotWar The Cylons]]. Massive simultaneous orbital nuclear carpet bombing of all 12 colonies. |
| 169 | * ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}'' deconstructs its premise to this conclusion: after a season of ridiculously, incredibly MisappliedPhlebotinum, the Season One finale skipped forward [[DistantFinale 10 years]] and revealed that the Dollhouse's technology would destroy civilization if used just a little bit more creatively. |
| 170 | * ''Series/Supergirl2015'' starts with Krypton exploding right after the House of El launches [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Kal]] and [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]] into space. |
| 171 | * The end of the final episode of ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs''. |
| 172 | * An alternate universe episode of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' shows the Xindi super weapon kabooming Earth. |
| 173 | * Shows up in the end of the pilot episode of [[Series/StargateUniverse SGU]], and again about halfway through the 19th episode, where both the Icarus-type planets capable of dialing ''Destiny'', end up suffering an EarthShatteringKaboom as a result. |
| 174 | * ''Series/StargateSG1'' |
| 175 | ** The episode "A Matter of Time" starts with one of a pair of binary stars collapsing into a black hole, while SG-10 desperately scrambles to reach the Stargate in slow-motion... at least, that's how it appears because of the massive time-dilation. |
| 176 | ** Carter later invokes when she comments they can actually ''witness'' spaghettification and the planet being torn appear by the black hole, earning her a rebuke from O'Neill who reminds her that she's talking about watching good men die ''horribly'', in extreme slow-motion. |
| 177 | ** This pales in comparison to some of the SeasonFinale episodes. The writers often didn't know if the series would be picked back up for another season and would blow the entire SFX budget. Extreme examples are the season 6 finale destruction of Abydos by Anubis' super weapon, and the famous season 4 Sam Carter triggered super nova which decimated Apophis' fleet. |
| 178 | * While the series itself averts this (with a 33-year TimeSkip after a brief shot of the Votan fleet descending), the intro to ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' episodes shows the ships spectacularly falling to the ground and some of the effects of the uncontrolled terraformer tech, such as plants mutating into strange and colorful versions and also showing the Old St. Louis folded in on itself before moving the camera up to the titular town built atop the ruins. |
| 179 | * The ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' GrandFinale "[[Recap/FarscapeS05E02ThePeacekeeperWarsPart2 The Peacekeeper Wars, Part 2]]" has John Crichton finally demonstrate the full destructive power of a wormhole weapon, summoning into existence an expanding black hole that destroys a planet depopulated by Scarran death squads and gradually eats the warring Scarran and Peacekeeper fleets. John threatens to allow the black hole to devour everyone present, himself included, unless the Scarrans and Peacekeepers agree to sign a peace treaty. |
| 180 | [[/folder]] |
| 181 | |
| 182 | [[folder:Multiple Media]] |
| 183 | * ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'': |
| 184 | ** ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'': [[PlanetEater Unicron]], while on-camera, graphically and ''messily'' devours a small planet, a moon, and rips into a larger planet ''with his bare hands''. It's kind of like TheWorfEffect, but with a planet... |
| 185 | ** The ''Anime/UnicronTrilogy'' version does it a bit differently: he generates sort of a suction that causes a planet to be ''torn apart'' as it's pulled toward him. By the time it reaches him, the planet is in chunks small enough to be pulled inside the (relatively) small circle on his body. [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Unicron_eats_blizzard.jpg Ouch.]] |
| 186 | [[/folder]] |
| 187 | |
| 188 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 189 | * The final track of Music/TheMechanisms' RockOpera ''The Bifrost Incident'', appropriately titled "Terminus", depicts the delayed arrival of Yog-Sothoth to the Yggdrasil system. It's not a song, so much as a series of distress calls that overlap and build to a cresendo before cutting out. |
| 190 | * The Music/InsaneClownPosse song "It's All Over" is surprisingly upbeat take on the apocalypse, although every horrific way the world could end is happening [[AllOfThem at the same time]] the main duo are just [[WhileRomeBurns enjoying the view]]; one of the lines of the song even states "Seeing this great world come to an end, would be the next best to seeing it begin!" |
| 191 | [[/folder]] |
| 192 | |
| 193 | [[folder:Myth and Religion]] |
| 194 | * OlderThanFeudalism: Literature/TheBible's Literature/BookOfRevelation is one huge Apocalypse Wow: disasters unleashed on the world, the Four HorsemenOfTheApocalypse, the rise of TheAntichrist,[[note]]or at least "the Beast"; the word "Antichrist" is [[BeamMeUpScotty avoided in the text itself]][[/note]] the final battle of Armageddon, the last judgment, a visual tour of New Jerusalem... Evidently, the {{Trope Namer|s}} and the TropeCodifier. In fact, it even [[TropeNamers gives us the word "apocalypse"]] from its title in the original Greek -- ''apokálypsis'', meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". |
| 195 | * The Ragnarök of Myth/NorseMythology, literally meaning "The Final Fate of the Gods". Two wolves so massive that their open maw stretches from the earth to the sky devour the Sun and the Moon, kicking off the [[EndlessWinter three-year-long Fimbulvetr]]. Then [[TheLegionsOfHell the Fire Giants of Muspelheim invade]], and then the [[NightOfTheLivingMooks army of the Underworld too]]. A serpent so colossal that it can wrap around the world and touch its tail is unleashed. [[MutualKill Almost all the gods and all the monsters wipe each other out in an utterly titanic conflict]], and all life is wiped out as it is caught in the crossfire. The world will flood and [[DestroyerDeity Surtr]] will call the end of Ragnarök by wreathing the planet in fire, and then finally everything left will collapse into Yggdrasil. [[HijackedByJesus Or perhaps]] [[AdamAndEvePlot a single couple, Lif and Liftrasir, survive to build the world anew]]. Truly a final War in Heaven that is certainly deserving of that HeavyMetalUmlaut. |
| 196 | [[/folder]] |
| 197 | |
| 198 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 199 | * Given, it doesn't last particularly long, but the sound of the Earth exploding in ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978'' is absolutely perfect. |
| 200 | -->'''F/X''': A LOW THROBBING HUM WHICH BUILDS QUICKLY IN INTENSITY AND PITCH. WIND & THUNDER, RENDING, GRINDING CRASHES. ALL THE NIGGLING LITTLE FRUSTRATIONS THAT THE BBC SOUND EFFECTS ENGINEERS HAVE EVER HAD CAN ALL COME OUT IN A FINAL, DEVASTATING EXPLOSION WHICH THEN DIES AWAY INTO SILENCE |
| 201 | * The Halloween broadcast of ''Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' should be mentioned. An hour long description of HumongousMecha from another planet destroying everything in their path. Bonus points for making people actually believe it was happening. |
| 202 | [[/folder]] |
| 203 | |
| 204 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 205 | * Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG's [[WhatIf alternate ending]], ''December 21, 2010'', is fully dedicated to showing off this trope in all its horrifying glory. |
| 206 | * ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'': Destroy the Godmodder 2 ends with an illustrated version of this. To summarize, [[spoiler: not only is [[VideoGame/{{Minecraft}} Minecraftia's]] Moon destroyed and its fragments are sent on a collision course to Minecraftia while the Sun itself turns a crimson red in Trial 6, and Earth itself is destroyed by crashing its Moon into it in the End of Act 4, but the ''universes that those planets are located in are destroyed through the power of the Conflict''.]] |
| 207 | [[/folder]] |
| 208 | |
| 209 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 210 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' gives us exterminatus. A planet is bombed with a virus which consumes all organic matter, in the process producing large quantities of flammable gasses. The gasses are then ignited, setting fire to the atmosphere and ensuring that not only is everything on the planet dead, but that it is left a barren husk that will never support life again. Or, barring that, the surface is glassed through orbital bombardment and the planet is finished off with Cyclonic Torpedos, an explosive so cataclysmically potent it shatters and churns the entire surface until there is nothing but fire and molten rock. This is used by the "good" guys of the setting. |
| 211 | [[/folder]] |
| 212 | |
| 213 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 214 | * The ending cutscene (one of only two not rendered using the game's engine) in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'' shows exactly how the First Civilization was destroyed. There's a KickTheDog moment with a terrified mother clutching her child as an explosion slowly engulfs them. After this, the hologram simply mentions that out of two civilizations (humans and the First People), only about 10,000 individuals survived after only a few days of the catastrophe. |
| 215 | * ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'': |
| 216 | ** The end of the mission "Shock and Awe" which comes complete with satellite images of the nuclear detonation that kills your character and most of his unit. |
| 217 | ** A striking point...the people who made the game showed us part of how you would die if you were within about 3 miles of ground zero and not vaped in the blast. Yes folks, expect your death to include barfing your organs out in your last moments on earth to the sound of radioactive wind blowing away the last of your Organ of Corti, that is, the organ that does the actual hearing in your ears. |
| 218 | ** Things get even worse (or better, in way of trope examples) in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2''. We see [[spoiler:the US East Coast being invaded by the Russians, UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC in ruins, and an EMP occurring over the city wiping out all forms of electronics on the US East Coast]]! |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' |
| 220 | ** Losing to Lavos will "treat" you to a scene where you see the world getting fried by Lavos's explosive fury. The most iconic scene is watching the viewscreen in the dome fill up with red dots that each represent a big crater, driving the point home that the world is now FUBAR. |
| 221 | ** The [[ColonyDrop Fall]] of [[FloatingContinent Zeal]] is also a pretty destructive scene in its own too. |
| 222 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'': The ending of the Nod campaign has [[spoiler:Kane teleporting off the world while his Apocalypse missile starts, then launch its capsules and finally unleashes the Tiberium bomb that sets Earth's atmosphere ablaze and turns everything into pure Tiberium.]] |
| 223 | * ''VideoGame/Crysis3'' opens up with a vision Prophet has about the Ceph forces arriving at Earth, with him being unable to do anything but watch as it is destroyed. Towards the end of the game, [[spoiler:the very same thing happens, and you can even watch the Ceph freeze the planet if you do not succeed in stopping them in time]]. |
| 224 | * ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' opens with the Biblical Apocalypse. Angels, Demons, the whole shebang. You get to run around and kill things (briefly). |
| 225 | * The [[Platform/PlayStation2 PS2]] version of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' has its New Dark Age Ending cutscene showing the lab explosion being seen from space, and [[BigBlackout the lit cities of Earth all going out]]. |
| 226 | * ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'' features ''two'' of these: |
| 227 | ** In the first game, the Junkyard disintegrates into green data, starting from the edges. Before it reaches them, the gates to Nirvana at the top of the [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Karma Temple]] explode and everything is engulfed in a golden light. |
| 228 | ** In the second game, ''the Sun downloads the Earth''. That is depicted as the Earth slowly dissolving into - golden this time -- data and being absorbed in a manner eerily similar to that of a black hole. It doesn't help that [[WeirdSun the sun is black]]. |
| 229 | --->"It's transmitting from our side... Upload rate is... 945.56 zettabytes per second!" |
| 230 | * In ''[[VideoGame/DontEscape Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive]]'', the moon has been shattered, causing various deadly phenomena, and will culminate in the moon crashing into the Earth in 4 days, destroying everything left. The protagonist's party's only option for survival is [[spoiler: reaching a space station on the moon, built by the same people who caused the apocalypse, to access technology that will transfer their consciousness to an {{alternate universe}} before that happens. The protagonist has a nice view of the moon falling to Earth as everything starts tearing apart.]] |
| 231 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDPj2f1v2w0 LC campaign ending]] from ''VideoGame/{{Earth 2150}}''. |
| 232 | * Nobody does [[NukeEm nuclear apocalypse]] like the guys behind ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}''. Creator/RonPerlman's narration is just the icing on the cake. |
| 233 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 234 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', after Kefka destroys the balance of the Warring Triad, the [[WorldSundering world is torn asunder]]. This is depicted as the land shaking, shifting, mountains rising and chasms opening, all while helpless people run for their lives. Then the view changes to a [[DistantReactionShot distant view of the planet]], covered in hundreds of explosions... and all of a sudden, to drive the point home that everything has changed, a chain of explosions travels across the planet and splits the continents apart. |
| 235 | --> [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-KKuOQXXG0 "On that day, the world was changed forever..."]] |
| 236 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' Kuja destroys [[spoiler:the entire world of Terra]] at the end of the third disk. This makes him one of the few FF villains to [[spoiler:actually succeed in destroying a world]]. |
| 237 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has ([[EldritchAbomination Sin]]) do this regularly. The fun comes when the rest of the world fights back. It was taken up to eleven at the conclusion of the game, when Sin was shown punching holes in continents, leaving trails of explosions visible from space, and releasing gravity magic that made the moon visibly shudder... |
| 238 | *** The [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 sequel]] has this as one of the optional endings. Lose the final battle on purpose to see it. |
| 239 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings'', though hardly apocalyptic, we get treated to a rare fully animated scene when Bahamut first appears, just in time to show it shattering an entire floating continent, crumbling it almost to nothing. |
| 240 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': |
| 241 | *** Near the end of the original, pre-A Realm Reborn version of the game, one of the antagonists, Nael Van Darnus, [[ColonyDrop sent one of the moons on a collision course with the planet]]. As the moon reached closer and closer, it began to break apart until... [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39j5v8jlndM this happened]]. The kicker? That cutscene was the last thing any player of the game saw before the servers were cut until the release of A Realm Reborn, ''three years later''. So in a way, Bahamut's rampage completely destroyed the entire first world of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''. |
| 242 | *** The end of ''Shadowbringers'' has you witness firsthand [[spoiler: the destruction that befell the world that came before The Source and its shards. A terrible sound came from within the Star, with no known explanation of what it was. The native inhabitants of this world were driven mad by their fear of what could be causing it, and this, in turn, caused their natural ability of CreatingLife to spiral out of control, causing them to unwillingly manifest the very monsters that would tear their world apart. It's made especially tragic in that you get to meet and interact with shades of this world's original inhabitants, and they are all nothing but pleasant and friendly to you and your companions. As you make your way to the FinalBoss you are completely unable to stop any of the destruction going on or save any of the innocents you see dying around you.]] |
| 243 | * The [[WordOfGod still canonical]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7z2U-w53Tk extended opening cutscene]] from ''{{VideoGame/Freelancer}}'' features a massive Nomad ship triggering a supernova, eliminating almost everything in the solar system. |
| 244 | * ''VideoGame/{{Freespace}} 2'' ends with [[spoiler: the Sathanas Fleet causing Capella to go supernova.]] |
| 245 | * ''VideoGame/GoodbyeVolcanoHigh'': Starting from the end of episode 5 and throughout the rest of the game, the asteroid's proximity to the planet as it gets closer causes its electromagnetic field to trigger [[spoiler:a permanent [[WintryAuroralSky aurora borealis]] in the sky]], which triggers global ApocalypseAnarchy. Fang admits they like looking at it despite knowing they shouldn't, and later laments how much it sucks that the end of the world is so beautiful. At the finale of episode 8, [[spoiler:the aurora's colors intensify and fluctuate on the final day during the concert, making it look like a light show]]. |
| 246 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' quite a few, almost always involving the Covenant. |
| 247 | ** The WarIsHell [[DownerBeginning opening montage]] of ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' includes shots of vessels glassing the planet Harvest. |
| 248 | ** ''VideoGame/HaloReach:'' The later levels have a WatchingTroyBurn feel, as you travel around Reach that is being further and further destroyed by the Covenant. The level "New Alexandria" has you fly around the city as the Covenant burn it around you. It is simultaneously visually amazing and absolutely heartbreaking. |
| 249 | ** ''VideoGame/Halo4'' set on the [[DysonSphere shield world]] Requiem. One level is set in an inner level of the planet (in or near the core), and ends with you racing out of it as collapses around. You can't stay to take the (very impressive) destruction in though, or you'll be caught in it. |
| 250 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Sy7qkkTy8 trailer]] of ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic IV'' depicts the cataclysmic battle between Gelu and Kilgor, the ensuing impressive EarthShatteringKaboom and some of the aftermath in loving detail. |
| 251 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': |
| 252 | ** The [[OrbitalBombardment glassing]] of Taris near the beginning of the game is a good minute of cutscenes showing a BeamSpam of turbolaser fire blowing up buildings and turning the sky red as the ''Ebon Hawk'' takes off. |
| 253 | ** And keeping with tradition, ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' has [[spoiler: [[WeaponOfMassDestruction the Devastator]]'s use on the formerly-fertile world of Uphrades]] in the Jedi Knight storyline. It also invokes it again with [[spoiler: the "former" Sith Emperor exterminating ''all life'' on Ziost]] in ''Rise of the Emperor''. |
| 254 | * [[NonStandardGameOver The moon crashing]] and destroying the world in a fiery inferno in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. |
| 255 | * In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', you are right in the middle of the action when huge swarms of {{Kaiju}}-sized {{Eldritch Abomination}}s descend on planets and start to rip them apart while swarms of [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Cyborg Zombies]] pour through the streets. |
| 256 | * The opening of ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'', involving a number of planets getting ''obliterated in seconds''. |
| 257 | * ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': |
| 258 | ** In ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', after defeating the Mother Brain and successfully making it back to your ship, the camera zooms out, showing massive cracks in the surface of the planet Zebes, which are apparently even visible from high orbit, before the planet is reduced to space debris. There is a secret sidequest at the end where the last surviving natives of Zebes escape with just moments to spare. |
| 259 | ** [=SR388=] in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion''; the Biological Research Laboratory space station plummets into the plant and self-destructs, wiping out both in a titanic EarthShatteringKaboom. |
| 260 | ** Phaaze in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', with added drama with the Galactic Federation fleet trying to escape in time. {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' with the destruction of Dark Aether, we only get a space view of the half-visible Dark Aether fading from Aether. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'' features an optional case -- at the end of the game, you are tasked with destroying a [[ReactorBoss reactor]]. If you do this but fail to take certain steps you were instructed to follow afterwards, you get to visit a cinematic showing first several explosions rocking the building the reactor was in, and then the scene shifts to a view of the planet, zooming out until you see the planet and its moon. Then the ''planet'' explodes, with the [[PlanarShockwave shockwave]] obliterating the moon. |
| 262 | * The ending of ''VideoGame/Mother3'', which features lingering shots of all of the places you've visited crumbling away to nothing. Though the "The End?" screen shows that at least the people somehow managed to survive. |
| 263 | * ''VideoGame/NieR'' opens up with an intro beginning shortly after the apocalypse hit, with the hero scraping by to support himself and his daughter, fighting off monsters in the process. The game then skips forward thousands of years after the apocalypse, with humanity now struggling to scrape by. |
| 264 | * In the original ''Videogame/PlanetSide'', the Bending that caused the breakup of Oshur continent into 4 islands and scattered the rest of Auraxis across the cosmos culminated in a massive meteor storm across the planet as an unknown voice initiated the "bend sequence". When the game shut down after 13 years, the world ended in a cross-empire party around Ishundar's 'stonehedge' as meteors rained down and the ground shook as the shut down timer approached. |
| 265 | * The opening sequence of ''VideoGame/PrimalRage'' shows the Earth being struck by a meteor, triggering the cataclysm that reduces humanity to a primitive state and frees the god-like dinosaurs that rule the planet in the new AfterTheEnd setting. |
| 266 | * In ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'', Kyrie's destructive powers are shown twice in all their sand-inducing glory. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne''.The planet turned inside-out and all but five people on the planet were wiped out and replaced with demons before you enter a single battle. Six if you count Hijiri. [[spoiler:But he was DeadAllAlong, so not really.]] Seven if you count [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry Dante]], since he's only half-demon. |
| 268 | * The aptly named "End of the World" stage in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006''. You see some really trippy colors while playing the level as it slowly gets more and more screwed up. Orbs appear as it gets more intense, and then there is a purple glaze that goes over the levels you are playing, until it is a very dark green all over. Somehow, statues with eagles on them can reverse this effect temporarily. It's intense, [[FakeDifficulty but for all the wrong reasons]]. Accompanied with very echoey music which is incredible. |
| 269 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceSiege'' opens with the Kerak devastating Earth and eliminating nearly the entire evacuation fleet. |
| 270 | * ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': On finishing the game, [[spoiler:the simulation is deleted, which is depicted as everything disintegrating and falling apart]]. ''Road to Gehenna'' shows the same event [[spoiler:from the perspective of one still inside, if you choose to stay behind]]. |
| 271 | * ''VideoGame/Tekken8'': Devil Jin's ending has him go full-on OmnicidalManiac. With most of Jin's friends and allies are dead, his Devil Gene takes over him and goes on rampage around Manhattan, [[spoiler:he tears down the UN's space satellites by flying into space before he obliterates the Earth with one powerful laser that reduces the entire planet into a smoking crater]], the scene ends with Devil Jin laughing jubilantly at the sight of the Earth's destruction. |
| 272 | * The [[http://store.steampowered.com/video/201310?snr=1_5_9__400 opening cinematic]] of ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Albion Prelude]]''. The [[BigDumbObject Torus Aeternal]] is a giant space station around Earth's equator that serves as a docking ring, trade center, [[KillSat orbital defense station]], and shipyard, as well as a symbol of Earth's prestige and might. Saya Kho suicide-bombs with a nuke it one year prior to the start of the game, an event akin to the 30th century equivalent of Hiroshima and 9/11 rolled into one: it kills thousands of people on the Torus alone, never mind the millions potentially killed by [[ColonyDrop deorbiting debris]]. It touches off an [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge all-out interstellar war]] between the Terrans and Kho's own [[HumansByAnyOtherName Argon]] [[TheFederation Federation]]. The event is at least [[ApocalypseHow Planetary/Societal Disruption]]. |
| 273 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG1TNiJ6PjY As can be seen here,]] ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' does this with [[spoiler: Weltall- Id fulfilling its programming and taking out main parts of the superstructure of Solaris. The resulting "reaction weapon" explosion leaves a significant hole in one of the nearby continents on the game map.]] |
| 274 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' is the setting that gave us Exterminatus, so when it gets adapted in a visual medium expect to see major fireworks. ''VideoGame/FireWarrior'' features [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYPSg-Ab7Dc a spectacular orbital bombardment]] for its ending, but was one-upped by ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II: Retribution'', where the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67JpMyrOVE sudden death of a world]] serves as a potent WhamEpisode. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 278 | * In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'', it is later revealed that [[spoiler: The Most Despair-Inducing Event in the History of Mankind happened, converting most of the world into a wasteland,]] prior to the events of the game. |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 282 | * ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has the "[[GambitPileup Competitive]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Eschatology]]" series of tales. Essentially, [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover the pantheons of every human culture (and many non-human ones)]] are all trying to end the world in their own ways. |
| 283 | ** Also, [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1288 SCP-1288]]'s dimension heard about our 2012 Mayan Apocalypse and decided they should get in on that. The "Wow" factor is from the giant Mayan pyramids (apparently nuclear power plants) at the center of every major city. |
| 284 | --->How you have concluded that the end of the calendar signifies the end of all things, we can not be sure. Before we saw you, we thought it only a way to tell the passing of seasons and kings. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Your reckoning of time inspired us and urged us to take action.]] |
| 285 | --->We have left you this record to show you how we succeeded. For a hundred years, you have only waited for the end to come. From this, we concluded that we must instead bring it about. Please, study it so that you might properly plan in the next thousand years. |
| 286 | * ''WebVideo/{{Hermitcraft}}'' Season 8 ended with [[spoiler:a professionally-made animation of the moon crashing into the planet, featuring close-ups on some of the series' beautiful builds being torn apart by gravity and smashed by moon rocks.]] |
| 287 | [[/folder]] |
| 288 | |
| 289 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 290 | * One episode of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'' ("Planeteers Under Glass") has the Planeteers and a female scientist (Dr. Derek) enter a virtual planet where pollution is sickening the planet in centuries (sped up in minutes), starting from [[ApocalypseHow societal disruption up to planetary devastation and species extinction]]. But then Dr. Blight traps them all in the rapidly wasting virtual planet, bringing the Apocalypse Class up to total extinction and closer to physical annihilation before destroying them all (not even Captain Planet can save them)... or so Blight thinks. Fortunately, the team of Planeteers have a backup spot before they vanish so they can return safely to stop Blight. |
| 291 | * ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': [[Recap/FinalSpaceS1E9Chapter9 Season 1, Chapter 9]] treat us to some terribly ''beautiful'' and somber shots from Earth as the planet's cities, atmosphere and ''crust'' are being torn apart by the Final Space breach's gravity overwhelming Earth's own, whilst [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwauF7_kWA4 this piece of soundtrack]] is playing. |
| 292 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', in "The Late Philip J. Fry": [[spoiler: The one-way time machine goes so far into the future that Fry, the Professor, and Bender watch a time-lapse of the end of the universe, complete with stars exploding like fireworks and receding into the distance, while drinking beer and generally treating the events as a spectacle.]] |
| 293 | * ''WesternAnimation/MoonGirlAndDevilDinosaur2023'': In episode 6, the Beyonder performs his erasure of Earth and humanity like he's conducting an orchestra. People and objects levitate as structures crumble, gradually glitching out of existence. However, he restores everything back to normal, revealing he wasn't gonna do it because Eduardo's science fair project (which he made the determining factor of humanity’s fate) impressed him. |
| 294 | * The Beast Planet, would EAT planets several times through the duration of ''WesternAnimation/ShadowRaiders''. First, a giant metal hatch on the Beast Planet would open and a truly massive claw would come out. That claw would then reach out and grab the planet to be eaten, then pull the planet back inside the Beast Planet, before the hatch would close. |
| 295 | * ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', of course, begins with the destruction of Krypton, but with a rather impressive presentation and rochestral musical score to match. As we see it deteriorate, it starts with the populace panicing and the destruction of infrastructure, moving on to planetquakes and tectonic fissures, escalating into surface explosions on par with '''nuclear detonations''' with the entire outer portion of the planet becoming '''molten''', until finally the entire planet explodes into oblivion. |
| 296 | [[/folder]] |
| 297 | |
| 298 | ---- |
| 299 | -->[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Congratulations!]] |
| 300 | -->[[GainaxEnding Congratulations!]] |
| 301 | -->[[MindScrew Congratulations!]] |
| 302 |
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