A montage of various locations (and their
major landmarks), with or without their inhabitants, which are being catastrophically obliterated or soon to be. Usually depicts
The End of the World as We Know It.
This is what happens when a villain
Storyboarding the Apocalypse succeeds.
This trope is inherently spoileriffic, be wary!
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Films — Live-Action
- The end of Fail-Safe. Shots of landmarks and street scenes in New York just before it gets hit by a nuke dropped from a US plane, dropped on orders from the President to "make up" for a US plane nuking Moscow.
- The War of the Worlds (1953) has one of these, showing the Martians attacking various armies, locations and populations. Watch it here, starting at 5:10
.
- Mars Attacks! has one with the aliens attacking London, Mt. Rushmore, the Taj Mahal and Easter Island. Watch it starting at 2:45.
- Independence Day, when the aliens use their Kill Sats on the major cities.
- Implied in WarGames, when the computer runs the various scenarios of a nuclear holocaust that always results in total nuclear destruction.
- In The Day After Tomorrow, the degree of destruction is so extreme that it feels more like Gaia's Vengeance.
- Deep Impact.
- Occurs in the film Godzilla: Final Wars in which several giant monsters (IE: King Seesar, Rodan, Zilla, etc.) are shown destroying various cities (IE: Okinawa, New York, Sydney) while under the control of the Xillians.
- In the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, this trope occurs when the Vogons are about to destroy the Earth.
- Dr. Strangelove.
- The entire second half of 2012.
Live-Action TV
- Life After People - has such montages for the fates of the many, many things we leave behind should we go extinct as a species.
- Battlestar Galactica movie The Plan has this while depicting the destruction of the Colonies.
Videogames
Webcomics
- Homestuck has a few of these, but with the main characters' homes instead of monuments.
Western Animation
- Parodied in at least one episode of Futurama, when an alien invasion just happens to begin with "Monument Beach," a beach in New New York where a former Supervillain President gathered all the world's famous monuments (which the invading aliens promptly destroy with their "Monument Destroying Ray").
