[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheRoad https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/desolation_shot_6.png]]]]

->''"Absolute ruin. A fallen city is like a dried and decayed corpse; it's a husk that suggests a shape without fleshing out the details. The outline of the victim is there, and the empty holes where it used to look out upon the world... but glass or eye, the critical things that make it alive and breathing are long gone."''
-->-- ''Literature/SailorNothing''

In an apocalyptic movie, the camera will sweep over once-populated areas, showing what was once a flourishing place.

Doesn't even have to be in movies, either. Books can do this with a description of "now abandoned structures" or whatever.

This shot can often be the setup for a BittersweetEnding or RayOfHopeEnding, as after lingering on the scene for a while, living things - be they animals, plants, or human survivors, may suddenly be seen among the wreckage.

See also GhostCity, GhostTown, EarthAllAlong, RuinsOfTheModernAge, and SceneryGorn. May feature in {{Mordor}}, the PollutedWasteland, or the DoomedHometown after its demise.
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!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'':
** ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' after [[spoiler:the Zentraedi destroy most of the Earth's surface]] absolutely revels in shots of cratered, ruined deserts. One particularly memorable shot featured the desiccated, bullet-ridden corpse of a Zentraedi, his severed hand clutching [[{{Narm}} a singing Minmei doll]].
** In episode 22 of ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'', after the [[spoiler:devastating Vajra attack on the Frontier]], Ozma and Cathy ([[spoiler:on the run after President Glass' murder]]) walk across a district of the city that was all but razed. There's even an EmpathyDollShot of [[MythologyGag a small Ranka doll in Chinese garb]].
* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'': In the 1984 anime adaptation, the first version of the opening sequence features multiple pans across ruined cities when the narrator describes the aftermath of the nuclear apocalypse that set the series' events in motion.
* ''Anime/{{Shelter|2016}}'': There are a couple times during the short film where the camera focuses on a barren and/or ruined landscape: the first is when Rin is in the bath and there's a desolate landscape outside her room; the second, during the flashback section where the news displays Tokyo in ruins; and the third when there is a brief shot of Shigeru and a young Rin looking over the oncoming destruction.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* [[http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics/OQ/OQ06/DisplayOQ06.html?page=33 The scene]] in ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' where Cutter and Skywise return to the burnt out remains of the forest that used to be their home. Incidentally, the scene is drawn in charcoal, appropriately enough -- that is, burnt wood.
* ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'', a post-ZombieApocalypse comic book.
* ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'' has a couple: one just after the {{Gendercide}} strikes, sweeping over several unrelated places around the world (Tokyo Stock Exchange, a farm in Idaho, a football ground in Sao Paulo, and so on); and another when 355 and the new President abandon their car, showing the Interstate highway filled with crashed cars.
** We get a third much later, seeing West Hollywood's Santa Monica strip (a large center for Gays) reduced to an abandoned and reputedly haunted "Boy's Town" plagued by nihilistic street gangs.
* Jacques Tardi's ''It Was the War of the Trenches'' opens with a large image of an apparently deserted battlefield, all churned mud, wreckage, barbed wire, and shattered trees, looking like nothing living could possibly be there; and then you turn the page and see that there are men huddled in trenches.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* Old London in ''FanFic/AeonNatumEngel'' and ''FanFic/AeonEntelechyEvangelion'', which gets more desolate which each Herald/Harbinger fight.
* All the descriptions of post-fall-of-card-games Domino in ''FanFic/DecksFallEveryoneDies'' are this and sometimes this is played for laughs.
* ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'':
** In order to bring [[EvilOverlord Olga]] to justice, Kyril and the Black Dogs traverse [[{{Mordor}} Garan]]. What was once a verdant place is now a desert wasteland, with villages few and far in between.
** Chapter 14 has the village of Shad, now wiped out, with the villagers' corpses either drained of their blood or torn up, as if [[ChestBurster something had crawled out of them]].
** Rad, in Chapter 16. The [[ItsQuietTooQuiet silence]] and the [[TakenForGranite petrified]] citizens add to the foreboding atmosphere.
* The first full view that the four get of the GhostCity of Ehndris in ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/WallE''. In the beginning, the only true life on Earth appears to be a cockroach and our hero. And since our hero is a robot.... A unique Desolation Shot due to the fact that it's done to the tune of the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eeiohJn1sQ "Put On Your Sunday Clothes".]]
%% Needs context * ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'' absolutely [[SceneryGorn revels in this]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/HortonHearsAWho2008'', a very chilling one occurs of Whoville after Vlad drops it. A very sad contrast to the lively, carefree world it was not half an hour earlier.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'', we get a shot of Pleasure Island wrecked and littered, with all the boys gone [[spoiler: due to them being turned into donkeys and rounded up]].
-->'''Jiminy:''' Where is everybody? This place looks like a graveyard.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': This occurs when Simba returns to the Pridelands and sees the barren, lifeless wasteland it has become under Scar's reign.
-->'''Nala:''' It's awful, isn't it.
-->'''Simba:''' I didn't want to believe you.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart'', a few shots of Bricksburg, which was abandoned because of the DUPLO aliens destroying it, are shown before revealing that the citizens now live in Apocalypseburg.
* ''Magnetic Rose'' and ''Stink Bomb'', the first two parts of ''Anime/{{Memories}}''. In ''Magnetic Rose'', it's when the mansion's holograms fail and its ruin is revealed. In ''Stink Bomb'', it's when the protagonist sees all the dead animals. What really gets him, though, is how sunflowers and cherry blossoms are in bloom at the same time.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' sweeps over London, still and silent, when the protagonist leaves the hospital.
* ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. The colony on LV-426 as the Marines land.
* TheFilmOfTheBook ''Film/TheAndromedaStrain'' shows the town of Piedmont, New Mexico after the title disease wipes out the population, especially while the two scientists are walking around in their protective suits.
* The alternate ending to ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness'' had a shot like this, [[spoiler:as the main character has just awakened in the post-apocalyptic future]].
* ''Film/TheDayAfter'': in the very end. The only thing even [[MonumentalDamageResistance remotely still standing]] is Kansas City's Liberty Memorial tower, which has been reduced to a stump.
* The original ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' (edited to get ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!]]'') featured a Desolation Shot of the city after Gojira's attack, complete with destroyed buildings, ambulances, and a choir lamenting the deaths.
* ''Film/TheHappening''. Or st least some trailers of it.
* ''Film/IAmLegend'' and ''Film/TheOmegaMan'', which are both adapted from the same novel. ''The Omega Man'''s shot wasn't entirely desolate, though.
* Done in the Resident Evil movies ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse'' and ''Film/ResidentEvilExtinction''.
* ''Film/NightOfTheComet'', a comedy about how almost all life on Earth was reduced to red dust by residue from a comet tail. Had a number of shots of buildings and neighborhoods, with the red dust blowing along the ground.
* ''Film/ThePostman'' had a few of these, judging from the trailers.
* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}''
** The opening of ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' pans across the devastated Los Angeles.
** ''Film/TheTerminator'' does a good job of showing a ruined landscape and a bleak environment for humans.
* An Italian film dubbed in English despite being filmed in English called ''Film/WarriorsOfTheWasteland'' had probably the most [[{{Narm}} unintentionally goofy]] Desolation Shot ever, with burned mannequins in plastic silver armor holding ray guns strewn around the rubble of long-dead cities.
* ''Film/TheRoad'' has many shots of an absolutely devastated American landscape, to show just how utterly gutted the world is after the mysterious catastrophe.
* Many establishing shots of {{Mordor}} in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''.
** Also used for the vision in the Mirror of Galadriel of the corruption of the Shire, which happens in reality in the book but is only used as a warning of the consequences of failure in the film.
* ''Film/WaterWorld'' had this underwater.
* The opening scene in Film/{{Patton}} right after the flag speech shows a desert battlefield.
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'': Haven. Also, Miranda, which isn't "desolate" so much as "[[GhostTown completely gorram empty]]".
* Part two of ''Film/TheHobbit'' is called ''The Desolation of Smaug'' for a reason. [[spoiler: It refers to Smaug's initial destruction of the two kingdoms in the backstory, the scene of which the company reaches late in the film, and of the impending destruction of Laketown.]]
* ''Film/Bait3D'': The movie ends with a wide shot looking over the tsunami-devastated beach town after the survivors escape the shark-infested shopping centre that they were trapped in.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The novel version of ''Literature/IAmLegend'' has one of these somewhat later than the usual placement.
* The novel ''Literature/ThePostman'' has one of these for the University of Oregon.
* ''Literature/TheRoad'' by Cormac [=McCarthy=] is all about this trope.
* Creator/SMStirling's "Literature/{{Emberverse}}" novels feature quite a few depictions of devastated towns and villages after the technology-destroying "Change."
* The description of Dead London in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds1898''.
* The Fall of Coruscant in the Literature/NewJediOrder provided ample opportunity for these, including sequences throughout the ''Enemy Lines'' duology about a recon team returning to the ruins.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
%%* Parodied in the "Modern Warfare" episode of ''Series/{{Community}}'' (pretty much a direct lift from ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'').
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Near the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]], the Doctor [[spoiler:returns to Gallifrey to discover that the Master was not lying when he said it had been destroyed, beholding the ravaged ruins of the Citadel.]]
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** On their way to Dragonstone in "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", Gendry and Melisandre pass through the sunken ships from the Battle of Blackwater.
** "Two Swords" ends with Arya and the Hound riding out into the war-ravaged countryside of the Riverlands.
* ''Series/{{Katla}}'': A major tool in the camera crew’s box of tricks is a long shot reminder that, well {{UsefulNotes/Iceland}} can be a bit bleak at the best of times, and when you add a layer of volcanic ash, it gets much worse.
* Pretty much all of the documentary and spinoff series ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'' is composed of shots like this, since it's showing the decay and eventual collapse that major cities will undergo if humans disappeared from the face of the Earth.
* Season 1 of ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' ends up with a shot of the newly formed {{Mordor}}, the once beautiful and picturesque Southlands.
* Heavily done in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', since the Wraith obliterates any world that resists them.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** The episode "Silicon Avatar" began in a thriving small town on a pastoral planet. Then the Crystalline Entity showed up and destroyed everything. There's a shot panning right across the desolate, smoking landscape, with Riker in front of it, looking at it. Cut to opening credits.
** Also done in Part 1 of "The Best of Both Worlds", showing the remains of a colony after a Borg attack. The remains are a ''mile-wide crater.''
** In "The Survivors", there is a disturbing shot of a devastated planet, a former Federation colony, with exactly one undamaged house surrounded by a square of perfectly manicured grass. The plot is our heroes' attempts to remove the residents of that house from that planet. Interestingly, that view came from above: there are no desolation shots from the house.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music and Music Videos]]
* The video for 'Sing for Absolution' by Music/{{Muse}} features a dusty, barren planet that's revealed as Earth when the camera angle changes to show the Houses of Parliament in ruins.
* "Dead London/The Red Weed" from ''Music/JeffWaynesMusicalVersionOfTheWarOfTheWorlds'' doesn't even need visuals to convey the Journalist's trek through a devastated, Red Weed-choked London.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The first visit to [[AbandonedArea Freeway 42]] starts with a panning camera across the area showing it in ruins after it was decimated by the [[UnwillingRoboticisation Mechanika Virus]].
* The whole of ''VideoGame/CannonFodder'' is one long Desolation Shot.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}''[='s=] intro movie has this, as does the intro for ''VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel''. The trailers and intro for ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' do it as well. Averted in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''[='s=] intro, as the New Vegas area is much more populated than the Capital Wasteland, and in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', as the game begins in the past (future?) of the day the bombs fell, and everything there-on is first-person, allowing no time for any such shot.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has a memorable one when the group finally makes it to Zanarkand.
* The intro to ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'', after the battle flashback, is a series of incredibly depressing Desolation Shots followed by a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome featuring a huge Terran-Vasudan fleet led by the [[CoolShip GTVA]] ''[[CoolShip Colossus]]''.
* ''G-VideoGame/{{Darius}}'' does this twice. The first is the route Zeta opening; your craft passes a doomed space colony crushed by debris. The insides look very pretty until it's torn up bit by bit. The real one comes in route Omikron opening (final stage, G.T.'s route). Your craft fights in a darkened area with rain effects. However, every once in a while, lightning lights up the area. The spectacle is filled with sunken buildings, roads, infrastructures, etc., culminating finally in a shot of G.T. itself. To further drive the point home, the stage name is ''Grave of Cultures''.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** In the intro CutScene to ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''[='s=] last level, you see how Halo has been turned into a desert wasteland by the Flood. In ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', you see a Flood-infested High Charity.
** In the final cutscene of ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', you see a shot of Marines investigating an empty New Phoenix after [[spoiler:its entire population has been Composed by the Didact]].
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak'' has a shot of a street visited earlier by the survivors; despite the zombies eating people, all there is are burning buildings and wrecked cars.
* ''VideoGame/RType Final'' does this, starting with a pan over a crashed space colony. Indeed, the title screen does it too, showing [[spoiler:the control rods of a Force Device jutting out from underwater, implying that the player's ship won't survive the game]].
* Happens in the end of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', right before the final boss battle with Chaos.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'': "The Ruined Zoo" opens with this, following [[VideoGame/Mother3 Lucas]] as he wanders alone through a long-abandoned, dilapidated zoo.
* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}: Shadow of Chernobyl''.
--> "Dancing on the ashes of the world, I beheld the stars..."
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2: Episode One'' is deliberately set up with these types of shots to highlight the devastation of City 17 in the wake of the Combine Citadel's destruction. Similar shots are used again in Episode Two, to highlight the second and much more destructive explosion.
* Any time the PC of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is in the Deep Roads you get this, not necessarily a sweeping shot but you're still standing in the ruins of [[VestigialEmpire a once great empire]].
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', there is a panning shot of what used to be Hyrule Castle but has been destroyed by Ganondorf and made into a desolate wasteland.
* The Earth [[BookEnds portions]] of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', most prominently including an exploding human dreadnought. Also, the view from Menae (a moon of Palaven, the turian homeworld) of Palaven visibly burning -- Garrus even mentions that one particularly large firestorm was his home city.
** The Extended Cut can show, in addition to one of Earth depending on decisions made, Desolation Shots of [[spoiler:Rannoch]] and [[spoiler:Tuchanka]].
* In ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadTelltale'' Season 1 Episode 4 when Kenny looks at the beached boats the camera zooms out to show the hopelessness of the situation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', the "Rad Block" storyline [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/2017-03-13 opens]] with scenes of cities and suburbs in ruin.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "Tortuna"
-->'''Doc:''' Dead Man's Desert sure has some strange formations.
-->'''Niko:''' All this was suburbs once. Millions of Tortunans lived here.
-->'''Doc:''' What happened to them?
-->'''Zach:''' The [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen]] [[MoralEventHorizon came]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** In the [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS3E13MagicalMysteryCure Season 3 finale]], both [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eaFzKBqW9zY/UCacSOrgUVI/AAAAAAAA0DQ/cQ1PrvsKk5g/s1600/313_l03_ext_carousel_boutique_rundown.jpg Carousel Boutique]] and [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-The1riQKtNo/UCacS1UMEOI/AAAAAAAA0DY/vz-D4r_V6Og/s1600/313_l05_sweet_apple_acres_dilapidated.jpg Sweet Apple Acres]] fall into desolation and ruin [[FisherKing within hours of the Mane Five's cutie marks being switched]].
** The final BadFuture in the [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E25TheCutieRemarkPart1 Season 5]] [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E26TheCutieRemarkPart2 finale]] has an [[NoodleIncident unspecified catastrophe]] reduce Equestria to [[DeathWorld a barren windswept wasteland devoid of life]].
* Shots like these are played for laughs in many episodes of ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''.
* Happens in the ''Challenge Of The {{WesternAnimation/Superfriends}}'' episode "History of Doom", after the unexpected interaction between a Solar Flare unleashed by the Legion of Doom to destroy the Hall of Justice and Superfriends interacts horribly with the Superfriends protective planetary force field to kill all life on Earth. The episode starts with the desolation shot (complete with the stock blowing newspaper declaring the end of the world) before moving forward with visiting aliens looking over the ruins looking to find out what happened.
[[/folder]]
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