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Ooooh... Pretty...
Somewhere deep inside my brain my little reviewer voice was gabbing off about the level design being unintuitive and confusing, but I hushed him because it just looked so damn nice it didn't bother me. — Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw on Crysis, Zero Punctuation
Now while this shot looks useless, we need it to see where all the trees are in relation to each other. — Unskippable, commenting on the opening sequence of Grandia III
Scenery Porn is the emphasis on luscious backgrounds with great detail, lovely lighting or both. It means that the makers put in extra effort for something that might not have direct influence on the plot. Of course, there are extra points to be earned when the scenery actually enhances the plot in some sort of symbolic fashion.
Scenery Porn also occurs in live-action movies, when extra effort is put into emphasizing a beautiful surrounding, usually wide-open landscapes. Stage productions can have copious amounts of Scenery Porn with elaborate sets and backdrops. A main characteristic is that the scenery is almost treated as a character in its own right, either as a passive onlooker or with a more active role, depending on the setting of the show.
In literature, Scenery Porn shows itself as long paragraphs that go into more detail about the setting than necessary, such as describing at length the mountains of the Swiss countryside, or name-dropping all the streets in Chicago as the character turns on them. It's the author's way of proving that he's from the area in question or did the research, and while it's a great bonus for people who know the area, it can be seen as Filler to just about everyone else. On the extreme end of this, some works are popular entirely because they are nothing but Scenery Porn.
Compare Shoot The Money. This can be distracting in video games when part of an Empty Room Psych. Silent Scenery Panel has a high chance being this. Scenery Gorn is when Scenery Porn goes bad.
Also compare Costume Porn, Gun Porn. Contrast Scenery Gorn. Not to be confused with when someone knows the scenery in the Biblical sense.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- The anime adaptation of Aoi Hana has a lot of it, exploiting Kamakura's eye-catching sceneries.
- The first episode of Black Lagoon gave a nice glance at the scenery in the South Pacific.
- Blame! is a unique version of this trope. It obviously lives and breathes Scenery Porn, but it is much less "pretty backgrounds" and more amazingly-detailed, gritty, futuristic architecture... and it works.
- Le Chevalier D Eon. The animators in this series like to use many types of cinematic shots and camera pans that are more associated with live-action than anime, and it results in many GORGEOUS shots of Paris and Versailles.
- Now and Then Here and There has some amazing sunsets and vistas.
- Hal Film Maker seems to be really good at this with their Slice Of Life work.
- The Macross universe as a whole has this. Macross Zero, Macross DYRL, and Macross Frontier are standouts.
- Kyoto Animation is also good at this.
- AIR: The beautifully rendered sea and blue sky with white clouds play a very important symbolic role in both the game and the anime series. The town is often depicted with great detail as well.
- The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya pays a surprising amount of attention to its backgrounds given how completely mundane they are: a small city and the local high school. See this page
 for several side-by-side comparisons of shots from the anime and photos of Nishinomiya, the real town in which it's set. This page also has a lot of photos of locations shown in the anime. As another example of scenery porn, witness the five planes of motion illustrating such exciting activities as Kyon walking to school and the background in the Asakura vs. Yuki fight.
- Here are similar side-by-side comparisons for Kanon and CLANNAD.
- Melody Of Oblivion's water color style backgrounds are very beautiful, although because of the rich symbolism, they often are important to the plot.
- To be fair, a number of anime JCStaff worked on (things like Honey And Clover and Nodame Cantabile to name a few) have that great watercolor background going on. Sometimes, it goes to the the detriment of actual animation quality, but the backgrounds are plain beautiful.
- Most of Makoto Shinkai's work. Shinkai, in fact, will focus the camera on the Scenery Porn in the middle of important scenes with his characters.
- 5 Centimeters Per Second is the epitome of cloud Porn.
- Every production released by Hayao Miyazaki (and Studio Ghibli by extension) manages to pull at least a long sequence of very pretty scenery.
- Kamichu! has a lot of shots of Onomichi, the seaside town where the main characters live, emphasizing the hilly landscape and shoreline.
- Blue Drop contains many beautifully animated sceneries, usually involving lots of seabirds or Hagino's spaceship standing in for a submarine.
- The Mahou Sensei Negima manga is infamous for its beautiful backgrounds which were made on a computer. Most of the tankoubon volumes actually have appendices showing off the models, and listing the real-world architectural influences they draw upon. Many people complain that they look out of place, what with the character models being simplistic to the point of Only Six Faces, although they certainly add a great deal to the atmosphere, especially once the Magic World arc gets started.
- While it isn't as advanced or as noticed, Ken Akamatsu's previous series, Love Hina, had its backgrounds similarly developed.
- ICE contains a quite a few pretty shots of the dystopian future world it tries to warn against.
- Kara no Kyoukai may be a subversion, as it features incredible artwork and attention to detail, but in a very gloomy, run-down city setting.
- Not the second movie though, you get a very beautiful city for at least a good half.
- Gankutsuou was known for this, regarding specially the psychedelic patterns
- Mushishi has lots of it as well.
- The works of Katsuhiro Otomo, such as Akira, whose formal education was in the field of architecture, is known for his painstakingly rendered urban landscapes.
- Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence was godly in this regard.
- The first Ghost in the Shell had the gratuitous mood-setting boat ride sequence.
- The Stand Alone Complex series have extremely detailed backgrounds for TV animation.
- Texhnolyze, despite its bleak surroundings, features some startlingly beautiful and detailed scenery.
- Both Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo (or really, any anime directed by Shinichiro Watanabe) feature this in spades.
- Eve no Jikan and it's precursor Aquatic Language both feature sumptuously lit, gorgeously filmed coffee houses (with interesting clientele).
- ef: A Tale of Memories plays this trope to sometimes absurd levels, often abandoning realism totally for its backgrounds.
- The animated film Patlabor 2 has a large amount of Scenery Porn. The apex of this is the "boat scene" in which two characters have a long, extremely philosophical conversation while riding a small boat down a waterway. As the conversation goes on, the camera view focuses on old buildings, factories, and other features of a near-future Tokyo.
- Seirei No Moribito has the lush Ghibli Hills of their "real world" and the strange, spectacular Spirit World, both shown in eventless, lingering shots and accompanied by the proper soundtrack.
- A Little Snow Fairy Sugar does this to show off the tourist-bait preserved medieval German village where the series is set.
- In Mokke the characters are often placed in shots that offer a good view of the hilly surroundings around the main characters' village. Yes, the Japanese really love their hills.
- Maikaze did a great job with the landscaping in their portrayal of Gensokyo, that this troper wants to visit Hakurei Shrine and watch the clouds...
- Arguably a lot of Yotsuba&! is devoted to stunningly realistic and gorgeously detailed drawings of Yotsuba's ordinary Japanese suburb, including several beautiful shots of the surroundings.
- Ashitaka's travel sequence in Princess Mononoke exists for the sole purpose of showing off how good Studio Ghibli is.
- Diamond Daydreams is rife with beautiful shots of Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most island—so much, that it sometimes feels as if show has been sponsored by the Hokkaido Tourism Organisation.
- The city of Alto Mare in Pokémon: Heroes. Based on Venice, Italy and absolutely beautiful.
- Hell, you could say this for all the Pokémon movies...
- CLAMP have made some good manga examples of this, which may or may not carry over to the animated adaptations. Present more or less in all their works but mostly in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, where some of the background art is truly spectacular (Rekort, Outo and Piffle, anyone?).
- The Dragon Ball manga is also rife with breathtaking establishing shots (that more often than not get blown up in the course of fight scenes) — it helps that Toriyama has a small army's worth of assistants to draw in all the windows of a skyscraper.
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is positively awash with it, both in the manga and in the anime. There is no chapter or episode without some beautiful landscape thrown in, and there are a lot of chapters consisting of NOTHING ELSE than scenery Porn.
- In Amanchu!, Kozue Amano again showcases her ability to draw lovely backgrounds, which was already the trademark of her highly successful other work, ARIA.
- Binchou-tan blends the moe-aesthetic with lots of lovely shots of the hill and the town at its foot. Whether this is a match made in heaven or hell is up to debate.
- While the original series had its moments, Rebuild of Evangelion takes this to non-stop, Nerdgasmic levels of Scenery Pornography. Seriously, just watch the second movie's trailer.
- Hayate no Gotoku has some pretty stunning scenes. Sakura petals, cityscapes, giant Ferris wheels... pretty much all of the background work (of the manga) is impressive.
- Yu Yu Hakusho has a nice moment of this, when, during a tournament held on an island, one fighter flies (he's one of the few in the series who can) up high over the island to get a good look at the ocean and feel the sunshine and the breeze; understandable, he's from the Demon World.
- The 2004 Appleseed movie, particularly the flyby of Olympus in the beginning. The sequel Ex Machina does this better still.
- Scenery Porn, in combination with the fact that Kentaro Miura doesn't use assistants, is largely responsible for the snail's-pace at which chapters of the Berserk manga are released.
- Basquash! treats the viewers to some very pretty shots of a shabby cityscape.
- Eiichiro Oda's detailed drawings of backgrounds and buildings in recent volumes of One Piece (especially the Thriller Bark arc) may qualify: although they don't distract from the story or the foreground, careful attention is still paid to them and they are one of the reasons for the more cinematic quality of the anime of late.
- Also, whenever the characters visit a new locale in the manga, a good page and a half is almost always dedicated to giving readers a good view the place.
- Eden Of The East does this, even with Washington DC where particular attention was paid to Dulles and the White House.
- Osamu Tezuka, the grandfather/deity of manga and anime, loved to do this. Many of his serious works, like Buddha and Phoenix, devote a noticeably large number of pages to showing gorgeously drawn vistas and photorealistic architecture. His works often devote entire pages to such beautiful scenery for nothing more than an establishing shot. There is also a huge contrast between Tezuka's simplified and cartoony character designs and the detail put into the full-page landscape art; it creates an effect that makes the characters stand out by visually separating humans and animals from inanimate objects and greenery.
- Real Drive wallows in it, to the point of completely abandoning the plot just to show some lovely scenery.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena has one of the most unbelievably beautiful schools ever. Both versions are extremely unlikely, but the quality and gorgeousness of the scenery makes it well worth it. Amazing in that Utena was a budget series.
- Monster has a good bit of this, with many real-life locations being painstakingly drawn.
- Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has this in spades, with some of the most mind-blowing scenes also beautifully rendered, accompanied by full orchestration.
- Yeah, full orchestration that just so happens to be an obvious mix of APPLE LOOPS!
- Kenichi Sonada's Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats (both anime and manga versions) are set in Chicago. Sonada took a tour of Chicago before Gunsmith Cats was drawn, and took copious photographs and notes. As a result, it's not only possible for natives of the city to pinpoint where the action sequences take place, but also when, as Sonada happened to be visiting the city during a major face-lift being given to the Field Museum—and his animators faithfully reproduced the scaffolding that framed the building for a significant period of time.
- Sengoku Basara, renowned for it's high quality animation, is fitted with some pretty stunning landscapes.
- While most of Bleach is known for its extreme QUALITY, episode 227, a filler episode mind you, has the most beautiful animation in the entire series.
Comics
- If there are two things that Cerebus The Aardvark is known for, the one that isn't soul-crushing misogyny are the intricate pen-and-ink backgrounds rendered by artist Gerhard. The trade paperback covers are even more impressive.◊
- The series Top Ten is THE example of this trope in comics. Every bloody panel is filled with incredible detail of the city of Neopolis, as well as no less than three visual Easter Eggs per page.
- Another independent comic book example, Luther Arkwright and its colored spinoff Heart Of Empire had a lot of thought put into the Steam Punk backgrounds, which were usually flooded with references to other issues, Victorian culture, science fiction or random statues of Luther (after he died).
- Skydoll puts great effort in settings that will only be shown for few panels. It helps that one of the creators is an architect.
- Calvin and Hobbes sometimes does this when Calvin plays in the woods, or during the "Spaceman Spiff" strips. (Though arguably this served the plot in each instance to emphasize the natural world as a trope in Calvin's life — contrasting it with his television watching habits — or to emphasize the expanse of his imagination.)
- Incidentally, most of the alien desert scenery isn't made up — they're basically Bill Watterson's sketches of beautiful desert scenery in the US.
- Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet has far more interesting scenery than characters, at least so far.
- In Archie Comics' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, the Turtle's world tour arc is kicked off with some breathtaking artwork of the cliffs of Tibet.
- Roger Leloup of Yoko Tsuno fame loves drawing very complicated backgrounds of all kinds.
- Pogo had some fantastic scenery.
Films
- S Darko has ridiculously good scenery porn for an otherwise terrible movie.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert is full of Scenery Porn describing the three protagonists' trip towards Alice Springs. Guilty also of Costume Porn, with both during the climb to Kings Canyon.
- The Brothers Grimm: Nothing but Scenery Porn. The magical woods were the best part (possibly only good part) of the whole thing.
- {{Bram Stoker´s Dracula}}. Studio interiors of Victorian London, especially the rose-filled garden, bathed in rich colours and looked really... fantastic. Great Costume porn, too.
- Hammer Horror, namely their Gothic films has sumptuously lush and dazzlingly clean London and Transylvania.
- There was considerable Scenery Porn in the Tom Hanks vehicle Cast Away. It was justified, however, because of a need to show just how isolated and alone his character was when trapped on the island.
- Ironically, most of the views looking out to sea were CGI-enhanced. The location itself was in the middle of a chain of islands all visible from the beach.
- Coraline is this trope mixed with plot. The garden and mouse circus scenes in the other world are beyond breathtaking, especially in 3D.
- Curse of the Golden Flower is an indoor example which mostly takes place in an opulent Chinese castle overflowing with intricate ornamentation. The film extends the detail to Costume Porn as well.
- Funny Games: How would you like to watch a minute long static shot of the outside of a house with no sound effects, voice-overs, or plot development whatsoever? (This was done intentionally to let viewers get the feeling that this was happening in as close to real time as possible. Funny Games also has a 7 minute scene of Naomi Watts struggling to stand up. No, that's it, just her standing up.)
- Terrence Malick ostensibly built his career on Scenery Porn. His movies may either be brilliant explorations of the scope and depth of man's existence or boring as box of rocks. No one can doubt, though, the sheer awe-inspiring beauty of his films. See:
- A Good Year
- The Fall, where every frame of the movie could be hung in an art gallery, though most of this is due to being filmed all over the world, rather than set design.
- The Lord of the Rings. The films are sometimes described as "the best advert the New Zealand Tourist Board ever had".
- This is directly mocked in Flight Of The Conchords. The band's manager is a New Zealand tourism board employee, and his office is full of travel ad posters referencing The Lord of the Rings.
- Both of The Chronicles of Narnia movies; again filmed in New Zealand. There's a reason films from New Zealand use this trope though...
- The Narnia films also had scenes shot in the Czech Republic and elsewhere.
- Ditto the much older Willow (itself heavily based off The Hobbit) and every fantasy epic since LotR.
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture spends a lot of time on Scenery Porn, to show off the jazzy new SFX and the sleek, new model of the Cool Ship. The theatrical version is especially gratuitous with the Scenery Porn because the film actually wasn't finished when it was released to theatres, so the special effects shots were just edited in without being trimmed down at all. The director's cut tones it down a little (but not entirely).
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock featured a gorgeous shot of a Vulcan temple high in the mountains towards the end of the movie. The establishing shots inside the temple may fall under this trope as well.
- The Shining begins with a long sequence of a car driving through mountains, because mountains are cool, apparently.
- It's really just to give them time to play Dies Irae in the background. Ironically enough, that same driving sequence was the original happy ending to the theatrical release of Blade Runner.
- Not actually irony, just incongruity. The knowledge the viewer has (that the same footage was used for the happy ending of Blade Runner) does not heighten tension or serve a narrative purpose set against the film's characters' ignorance of that knowledge.
- This is backwards, anyway - unused chopper footage from The Shining was used to create the happy ending of Blade Runner, not the other way around. Like the rest of the "happy ending", it was done on the cheap.
- The Sound of Music. Three solid minutes of beautiful shots of the Austrian mountains, with pretty, birdlike instrumentals in the background, has got to be the ultimate example of Scenery Porn.
- Gus Van Sant's Gerry is pretty much nothing but Scenery Porn.
- Sunshine
- In this vein, Under the Tuscan Sun mainly exists to make yuppies think that Tuscany is very, very pretty.
- While George Lucas is not a very good character director, he does know how to impress with his wide pans over alien landscapes in Star Wars. The Gungan bubble-city in Episode 1, the floating city in Empire Strikes Back, the Death Star, as well as the entire Order 66 scene in Revenge of the Sith are good examples that show where he truly excels.
- The parts of the James Bond films that aren't Fan Service or Stuff Blowing Up fall into this category a lot of the time. Examples:
- The David Niven movie of Around the World in Eighty Days — including long scenes of the heroes ballooning through the Alps, long parades, and a flamenco dance in Madrid that lasted at least 5 minutes — and that one was while the hero was supposed to be in a big hurry!
- This movie is just one of many from the 1950s-1960s that indulged in this. At the time, the advent of television was pulling enough people from movie theatres that gimmicks like widescreen photography were put into play, and filmmakers needed to fill that space somehow...
- All of Jules Verne's Les Voyages Extraordinaires are like this, and therefore each corresponding Film Of The Book tends to follow suit.
- The Searchers is full of this.
- The Western genre in general is prone to this, ranging from John Ford's films (of which The Searchers was just one of many) to New Old West variants like Brokeback Mountain.
- True Grit is chock-full of this—big, sweeping shots of beautiful Western scenery.
- The Proposition, although the landscape in question is the barren Australian outback. Still beautiful, in its own way.
- Generally, any film shot outdoors in the American West, the Australian Outback, or New Zealand, that doesn't make use of the scenery for at least one establishing shot, is missing a bet.
- The films of David Lean (especially Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago) are textbook examples of this trope.
- Just about any Terry Gilliam film fits this trope. In fact, one reason the other members of Monty Python eventually chose Terry Jones to direct the troupe's films was their belief that Gilliam was more concerned with cinematography and set design than with creating comedy.
- Used gratuitously in the Mamma Mia! movie.
- Tim Burton's films are full of this, with his Batman films a particularly good example. Joel Schumacher's entries in that series attempted this but were too garish and implausible for their own good. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy largely eschews this as per its more realistic approach to the universe.
- Van Helsing had so much eye candy it outshone many of the movie's flaws.
- What Dreams May Come's title alone suggests how much of the movie is spent just showing off CGI vistas of the afterlife. From a mountain range made out of paint, to angels flying around classical cities perched on cliffs flowing with waterfalls, to a bleak hell filled with giant shipwrecks and littered with crawling bodies.
- Justified in the characterization. Heaven is whatever you imagine it to be, and Heaven to Robin Williams' character is living in his wife's beautiful landscape paintings.
- Superman Returns and the first Incredible Hulk movie both fell short of the expectations of the two's franchise. However, both movies had an amazing sequence of showing off the two titanically powerful characters in very eye catching scenes (Hulk hopping around in the American Southwest desert and the Lois/Superman flight sequence).
- Russian Ark, a single take film encompassing thirty three rooms of the impossibly gorgeous Hermitage Museum, is arguably 100% scenery Porn. It also reaches similar heights of art Porn, history Porn, and costume Porn.
- The Coen Brothers do this in almost all of their movies in order to establish the era and area their movie is taking place in, but it's especially notable in Fargo and No Country For Old Men.
- Used copiously in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. I swear, they spent half the runtime just on the breathtaking establishing shots.
- There Will Be Blood. The scenery was the next biggest character after Daniel Plainview, even after Day-Lewis ingested mass quantities of it.
- One of the many attributes of an Alfred Hitchcock film. He liked to make sure you knew that this was a real place, putting emphasis on noteworthy landmarks or monuments.
- Jarringly averted in Forgetting Sarah Marshal, which was set in Hawaii. There was hardly any Scenery Porn. In fact, if not for the fact that it's repeatedly mentioned (and odd little things like Mila Kunis' kukui-nut leis) it could have been any hotel in any tropical area.
- The Hellboy film series, especially the second movie (The Golden Army). The Troll Market scene in particular is beautifully done, looking like a peek into a filled-out and populated magical world.
- Basically every movie produced and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Another recent example (from 2006) is El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth).
- Wuxia examples: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, House Of Flying Daggers...
- Walerian Borowczyck, whose softcore erotic films tend towards this trope. A good example is the short film La Marée (The Tide), from Immoral Tales, which features two young cousins taking a cycle ride to a white-cliffed beach in northern France.
- The Emmanuelle series of films also frequently mix softcore porn with scenery porn.
- The Twilight movie adaptation takes this to a ridiculous level, for no real reason except, perhaps, to seem "romantic": sweeping shots of mountains, fields of flowers, huge waterfalls.
- The road trip sequence at the end of Elizabethtown qualifies and is pretty much designed specifically to be gorgeous by the love interest so it will keep the protagonists mind off his depression.
- Akira Kurosawa is a master of this trope. Try seeing Ran and not falling in love with the amazing beautiful landscapes of Mount Aso (where most of the movie was shot).
- The Harry Potter movies have a LOT of Scenery Porn, often left in at the expense of subplots from the books.
- Several scenes in Serenity, particularly the intro to Beaumonte, were shot to emphasize the beauty (or, in the case of Miranda, the surrealism) of the environments.
- Hard Candy was directed by David Slade, who had primarily done music videos in the past. It shows; even though almost all of the movie takes place in a few rooms, it looks absolutely stunning, with saturated colors and narrow focus-planes.
- In Bruges, thanks to the filmmakers' ability to use the rarely-filmed city as the actual shooting location.
- Koyaanisqatsi
- Jeremiah Johnson
- Renegade (aka Blueberry) features a great deal of breathtaking panoramas often shot from sweeping helicopters.
- Every single shot of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist.
- The extended shots of Chicago in Ferris Buellers Day Off.
- Pretty much any film by Wong Kar-Wai, another Chinese director for whom Scenery Porn (and stuff verging on the real) is a Signature Style. Some of his best Scenery Porn:
- Michael Bay's pretty much a lousy porno director working in Hollywood with a massive budget in every film he makes.
- Dead Man's Shoes has a lot of this, with grand sweeping shots of the beautiful countryside of the Peak District in north-central England standing in harsh contrast with the dark events of the film, an effect which Word Of God confirms is intentional.
Literature
- Dan Abnett does this in droves, particularly in the Gaunts Ghosts novels, where he'll spend a couple of paragraphs just describing a single room.
- Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series more known for its normal Porn, but full of pages and pages of descriptions of apparently identical hills covered with many, specified, types of grass.
- Victor Hugo is notorious for devoting whole chapters of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to describing the cathedral itself and the Paris skyline. The book is actually called Notre Dame de Paris — the name of the church — and a large part of it is a plea for the preservation of old cathedrals. Many literary critics in fact consider Notre Dame to be the main character.
- Hugo did much the same thing with Les Miserables, wherein the story - changed in the musical version to be centrally about Jean Valjean and Cosette - was centered around the entirety of France.
- The heath is described so much in Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native that it might as well be its own character.
- Robert Jordan had a tendency towards this sort of thing - settings, views, and even minor character mannerisms were described in great detail. For some, it makes it more immersive, for others... well, the Wheel Of Time books might as well be the poster children for the Doorstopper page...
- Dean Koontz can take this to great lengths, sometimes exaggerated for humor.
- By the Light of the Moon features a very detailed description of a bedroom shared by two brothers, contrasting the personality of the elder with the younger, ending by mentioning that the latter has been left bound and gagged on his bed. The surreal church visions throughout the book (isolated bits of the church appearing in hallucinations to the protagonists, such as a font seen in the desert and a confessional booth reflected in a restroom mirror rather than the stalls that are really there) are crowned with elaborate descriptions of the church interior proper late in the book. One of the viewpoint characters is a painter, which helps justify some of the Scenery Porn.
- Dark Rivers of the Heart: Justified Trope in that the traumatic memories of the male protagonist center around a childhood incident involving his father's home; he says of his father, a noted painter, that anything he did was done with the aesthetics well worked out in advance.
- HP Lovecraft is best known for indescribable Eldritch Abominations, but he certainly didn't skimp on description when it came to scenery. He was very much a fan of architecture, and his stories feature long and detailed descriptions of the scenery (see for example the descriptions of Providence in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward). Usually this worked well and helped to set the mood, but on a few occasions it came out as rather egregious. The Dream Quest to Unknown Kadath in particular has a scene near the end where it seems like the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep has been hired as the spokesbeing of the New England tourism committee.
- Cormac McCarthy's The Road intricately describes the bleak, empty, lifeless wasteland setting in far more detail than he does any of the book's characters.
- Chris Riddell's pictures of the sky ships in The Edge Chronicles. Hell, most of the pictures in those books. None of the illustrations distract from the actual written story, but they're still rather detailed and well-drawn.
- The World at the End of the World by Luis Sepúlveda. Read it, and feel how you're actually picturing yourself looking at the majestic landscapes of the far southern tip of South America.
- John Steinbeck had a crush on the Salinas Valley.
- Shaun Tan, man. Just Shaun Tan. If you're reading this page, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of The Arrival. Or The Red Tree. Or Tales from Outer Suburbia. Or any other book with his name on the cover.
- JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. At least 80% of it was Scenery Porn, or it felt like that. This is why it made such good stock for film.
- All of Jules Verne's Les Voyages Extraordinaires are like this.
- Around the World in Eighty Days is the most notable example. The book indulges in long descriptions of scenery and culture as well — in fact, it's half of the appeal of the book. That's not even mentioning the incredible number of journey-delaying encounters Phileas Fogg encounters while being "in a big hurry". They'd be Wacky Wayside Tribes if Verne hadn't integrated them seamlessly into the plot.
- From the Earth to the Moon
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Mysterious Island
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Angus Wells was aiming for Scenery Porn in his GodWars trilogy, but this troper finds it expedient to just skip every other page when rereading the series in order to not be bored to tears by the excessive description of the various countrysides the group travels through on their journey.
- Dragons Wild by Robert Asprin spent an extremely inordinate amount of time describing both the scenery and streets of New Orleans French Quarter and the people who lived there (and their hours and routines as a result of living in the Quarter) as if to say "see, I really lived here! I'm a local!"
- The first two books were fine, but the last two books of the Hyperion Cantos — especially the last one — are largely endless descriptions of pretty nonexistent locales on other planets (well, aside from the transplanted Vatican City), with little bits of completely inconsequential plot and exposition thrown in here and there.
- This troper re-read Robinson's RGB Mars solely for the scenery.
- Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. According to rumour, he wrote the first few chapters especially Scenery Porn-heavy in order to drive off readers looking for cheap and quick thrills. Elitism isn't dead!
Live Action TV
- Both Kingdom and Doc Martin have long shots of their (Norfolk and Cornwall respectively) scenery.
- Supposedly the reason why Last Of The Summer Wine was initially popular was that people would watch with the sound off, ignore the plot, and just gaze at the beautiful scenery.
- Most episodes of Charmed open with some magnificent, view-from-the-sky establishing shots of San Francisco. The White Lighters have also been known to have meetings with the main characters on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.
- Burn Notice is full of shots of Miami in every single episode, often accompanied by girls in bikinis, which makes it an odd combination of Scenery Porn and actual Porn (or ecchi, at least).
- Falcon Beach did this, too. I can't remember if there was one scene change in the show's entire two-season run that wasn't comprised of a random shot of beautiful extras. Well, at least they weren't sexist about their fanservice...wait, how did a show with that much fanservice get axed after only two seasons (if even that much)?
- Pushing Daisies not only has this (including a beautiful CGI-enhanced graveyard), it also has architecture Porn. Can't... stop... drooling!
- Lost. The directors of the show not only use the gorgeous vistas of Hawaii (where they actually shoot) really well, but they also create really meaningful establishing shots. No generic, CSI-style flyovers here, folks.
- On Top Gear during their overseas specials, at least a few minutes of reverent attention is paid to the surroundings. The Vietnam special was particularly devoted to this, at least in part because the presenters wanted to show the country as "more than just that place where a war happened".
- Carnivale has perfect cinematography. At least, the first season had it nailed down pretty fine.
- No Reservations is as much Scenery Porn as it is Food Porn.
- Any science fiction show, when they leave their station/ship/plot device. And sometimes when they're still on it.
New Media
- Demoscene productions. Just skim through them and there's a lot which make you say "WOW".
- Go to the TerraGen website and look through the photo gallery.
Theater
- The Phantom of the Opera includes a few sequences designed to make you "ooh" and "aah" just from all the pretty effects they exhibit. The regenerating theater at the beginning, boat scene, bridge and, of course, the chandelier all fall under this. This and other examples of style over substance are a big reason the show has a lot of haters.
- The musical version of Sunset Boulevard exhibits this in several of its effects, including one where the stagehands actually built a ''split screen", with Norma Desmond's famous staircase on the top and a party scene on the bottom. This eventually proved to be the original production's downfall, as it was too expensive to run with anything less than capacity audiences.
- After intermission, the musical version of The Producers brings out an identical set to the office, except painted completely white (even the windows and desks) for little more than a cheap gag and to show us how much money they spent.
- Similarly 42nd Street, also meant to evoke the Follies, as well as the movie musicals of Busby Berkley. Where did they get all those costumes in Depression-era New York anyway, especially since it appeared to only be the first rehearsal?
- Sunday In The Park With George has both a straight example and a subversion. Act I involves the actors and a few flats, recreating a famous painting almost perfectly onstage. Later, in Act II, they put on an impressive laser light show, and then make a deal out of it being all flash and no substance.
- Speaking of Sunday, the recent revival recreated both of the above effects with a set made entirely of giant computer screens.
- Theatre's dual champs of scenery Porn could be Cirque du Soleil's "O" and KA, in Las Vegas. The theatres were specifically built for them, which is standard for all non-touring Cirque troupes, and thus all of them indulge in scenery Porn to some degree, but these take it to a whole new level.
- "O" lifts its red curtain to reveal a giant swimming pool on and around which performers and huge set pieces (such as a drifting shack) come and go. Depending on the scene, the stage can be converted to a solid floor as well.
- In KA, there are two moving stage floors, one of which is manipulated throughout the show - tilting, spinning, rocking, and even standing completely vertical - to create the various settings (a barge, a mountainside, a beach, a battlefield...). Also spectactular is the "storm" sequence with a life-size boat that rocks in "waves" and sends performers flying.
- Not to mention the enormous columns that rise out of the stage...or the bridges into the house...or all the pyrotechnics...KA is filled with awesome Scenery Porn.
- Cirque du Soleil also had "Wintuk", which, while focused more on human acrobatics, had a memorable sequence when a blizzard literally blew the scenery off the stage; then there was the scene where the Ice Trolls came to life—that is, the entire back wall of the production turned out to be huge, mobile puppets.
- Because most non-Broadway theater (not the same as "Off Broadway theater") operates on minimal budgets, sets tend to rather spartan these days. A subtle but effective pan of the show often starts by raving about the sets and costuming, implying the story, acting and direction were awful.
- Lampshaded in Spamalot!, with references to King Arthur and Patsy being lost in "A Very Expensive Forest", complete with flashing dollar signs on the obviously-cardboard trees.
- The London production of Voyage, the first in Tom Stoppard's exhausting trilogy of plays about Russian thinkers The Coast of Utopia, utilized a backdrop of photorealistic video imagery projected on a massive white semi-circular screen that curved around the stage. During scene changes, the video would pan and scan to the next frame - for example, from the yard to the manor. Overall, the effect was pretty stunning.
- Tanz Der Vampire has so much scenery prn. There are several gorgeous sets, but if the scene of Sarah coming into Krolock's castle for the first time doesn't have your chin in your lap, then nothing ever will. The second you realize that the chorus is being sung by the portraits - which until that moment anyone would have sworn were actual paintings - that is a crowning moment of awesome.
- The Broadway version of The Lion King also qualifies. The opening number alone is worth the price of admission.
- The Light in the Piazza has the most GORGEOUS sets.
Video Games
- The first Unreal might quite possibly be the game that started Scenery Porn in first person shooters. It starts you off in a crashed spaceship. After navigating through narrow corridors and smoky machine rooms, which were visually impressive but still just rooms, you'd emerge from the vessel, and your jaw would fall on the floor as you gazed at the most beautiful waterfall, replete with small lake, lush vegetation, local fauna hopping and flying about, and... my God, the sky... look at the sky! The clouds are moving!!!
- Aliens vs. Predator 2 had a scene where you, as a predator, reach a cliff with an awesome look while a scripted spaceship flies low over your head. Beautiful.
- The visuals of Braid are some of the finest for a 2D game.
- Chrono Cross.
- Crysis. Yatzhee praised the graphics, as noted in the page quote. Coming from an Accentuate The Negative critic, this carries extraordinary weight—if only for how beautiful it has to be.
- The Devil May Cry games have a few such shots show up.
- The Elder Scrolls series is rife with pretty visuals and effects, such as the night sky of Morrowind. Likewise, in Oblivion, one could simply wander around the land for days admiring the beautiful fields and stately architecture without even touching the main plot of the game.
- Eternal Sonata must have spent over half its budget on coding gorgeous 3D scenery. This troper has walked right into monsters while distracted by shiny, brightly colored backgrounds.
- And of course, every time you walk into a new part of the world, it shows it off. But that's nothing compared to the second cutscene, where you have the narrator telling us all about Tenuto. Not to mention that the game has the prettiest sewers I've ever seen.
- EVE online. Done. The first time one plays the game...let's just say it'll take awhile to complete any missions.
- The earlier games in the Oddworld series havea tendency to do this, particularly Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus.
- Some games that aren't scenery Porn can become so with a computer upgrade. This troper recently bought a new machine and so was finally able to crank the setting on one MMORPG up to max, the first time since he'd started the game years ago that he could. And then spent hours just flying around oohing and ahhing. Note to self: Giant Monsters do NOT like being oohed and ahhed at.
- Final Fantasy IX had a stack of quirky towns, but when Square (now Squeenix) upgraded to Playstation 2 hardware, they really spent a lot of time making sure anyone playing Final Fantasy X spent the start of every new area smacking their gob, over and over. I mean, it started with the futuristic city Zanarkand, moved to the spooky ruins of Baaj Temple, then took to to Besaid-frikkin'-Island. This Troper and his friends, in years hence, had competitions to find the most beautiful screenshots for a given area.
- Final Fantasy VIII had a number of these, from exterior shots of Balamb and Galbadia Garden, Deling City, the town of Balamb, to Esthar, the gorgeously fururistic city that appeared out of nowhere (well, out from behind a giant video screen camouflage) in the middle of a giant dry lakebed.
- Don't get me started on the sending, the Farplane, or the place Yuna and Seymour got married. The sending has such beautiful lighting and camera movement that it distracts me from the sadness, and the overhead shots of Yuna walking down the aisle make me artist-gasm so hard. There are no sufficient words to describe the Farplane — save that if it were real, everyone and their fourth cousins would kill themselves to get there.
- Final Fantasy XI. Holy shit, Final Fantasy XI. Especially in many areas in the Chains of Promathia expansion, especially once you get to the region of Lumoria. You'll likely spend a few hours wandering around Al'Taieu, wondering how the dev team could possibly beat this work of art... then you get raped by a giant UFO with tentacles outta nowhere. And the first thing you say after your horrible death will be how pretty the enemies look.
- If there were a way to get happy juice to gush from your eyes, the view of Tavnazia would do it.
- Even before Chains of Promathia, the Rise of the Zilart expansion had the Temple of Uggalepih with an amazing room rounded by two staircases covered in vines and beautiful detail and the floating Ru'Aun Gardens that is even more amazing during Auraras. The Treasures of Aht Urhgan has the massive Ruins of Alzadaal that can be seen sticking out of the oceans on the various boats in the region. The Wings of the Goddess has massive cliffs in Vunkerl Inlet, a beautiful view of the Crag of Dem from Grauberg, the barely ruined ruins of La Vaule, and the amazing scenes in the Walk of Echos. (Hey, is that Cait Sith?) Not to mention that the original game had the three crags, Drogaroga's Spine in Meriphataud Mountains, and the view of Castle Zvahl in Xarcabard from the original areas of the game. There is more Scenery Porn in Vana'diel than you can shake a stick at. This isn't even counting special effect Porn that they put into cutscenes.
- Final Fantasy XII also does this constantly, having multiple epic entrances to areas which serve practically no other purpose, as well as beautiful cutscenes of areas the first time you enter them. Occasionally, the cutscenes are prerendered FMV.
- Every single area in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles qualifies, but of special note is Jegon River. This is, of course, helped by the game having the best graphics on the 'Cube.
- The new trailer for Final Fantasy XIII essentially confirms there will be this and how.
- Final Fantasy VII, even working within the limitations of its graphics, has its fair share as well.
- It used this trope quite effectively as the background scenery and the cutscenes are what made that game look impressive at the time, as the actual character models were plain terrible.
- In particular, the introductory cinematic for the game seemed to exist solely to scream "LOOK HOW COOL WE MADE THIS!" It starts with a tight focus on one character, then pulls back through busy streets and takes a breathtaking swoop upwards until the camera is hovering over the city, all in one long, very impressive shot.
- Freelancer indulged in this hard enough to make its graphics not look dated even though the game is from 2003.
- Several scenes in Half Life 2 qualify. In the commentaries, the developers explicitly call these "vistas" rewards for the player.
- Perhaps the best example of this are the several long-range shots of the destroyed citadel from the radio tower in Episode 2.
- Homeworld was arguably the first game to successfully have Scenery Porn IN SPACE!
- ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus, full stop. Both games feature breathtakingly beautiful, large environments for the player to explore, often with the camera zooming all over the place to give players the best possible view of the scene.
- Metroid Prime 3 has about 2/3rds of its game worlds as Scenery Porn. Let's see, there's Bryyo, a planet where bits of the planet are literally chained to the surface. Giant war machines made entirely of stone litter the landscape; a brutal reminder of an ancient war that broke the planet. Elysia is almost quaint by comparison. Well, it would be if it weren't a gigantic city floating high about the planet's surface, filled with artwork and Steampunk machinery. Buildings drift on the wind, held aloft by large engines under them, and connected by tram systems. The scale of the view is absolutely incredible; you can actually go to buildings that, from a previous vantage point, looked like they were miles away. The Pirate Homeworld and Norion are pretty boring by comparison.
- The first Metroid Prime isn't without its Scenery Porn; try climbing up to the top platform in the first open area of Phendrana Drifts and looking down at the environment. Oh and the background music! Crowning Music Of Awesome...
- Those familiar with the Monster Hunter series of games will recall that with the first trip to any locale, there is a lovely moment of Scenery Porn to allow you a moment to get a feel for where you will be adventuring, touched off with the area intro tune. Those who have played the PS 2 version, then the PSP upgrade port, have often been floored at how intact the Scenery Porn remained, in transition. Those who have played the Japan Only import sequel could say doubly the same for the later PSP upgrade/port of THAT game, as well.
- Additionally, three different fights against VERY literal The Dragons are lead into with Scenery Porn featuring the unique areas in which you fight them. Especially noteworthy when in the case of one particular battle out of those two, if you manage to successfully SLAY The Dragon, part of your victorious Crowning Moment Of Awesome is an especially epic shot of the Fort you are defending...and watching the dragon die an Oscar-equivalent-worthy death. The first time you witness it, you WILL be awestruck.
- Monster Hunter Tri jacked that level up a notch by giving you scenery porn... UNDERWATER. Indeed it is not just reminiscent of the reefs structures but you have to fight giant dragons while getting distracted by the underwater madness. The opening movie sealed the deal when it tracks the Rathalos from the sealine ALL THE WAY across a plain, UP a mountain and finally into the great beyond. This isn't scenery porn. This is a scenery orgy.
- Every scene in Myst was lovingly hand modelled in StrataStudio Pro, packed onto CD, and then given a beautiful, haunting redbook soundtrack. Much of its sales were even rumored to come from people who bought their first CD-ROM drive just to marvel at the game's stunning visuals◊ rather than actually playing it. When Riven rolled around, they'd upgraded from Mac IIs to Indigos, and the sheer detail of its environment is still amazing.
- The gameplay design in Riven was also specifically tailored to lovers of scenery Porn. In Myst, you have to play the game or you'll never get off Myst island so you won't see most of the scenery. In Riven, you can reach 4 out of 5 islands without solving any of the game's major puzzles.
- The rest of the games continue this trend, all successfully (except for End of Ages, which disappoints by comparison and is around maybe Myst-level quality.) Revelation, in particular, is practically about having impressive vistas and incredible immersion elements everywhere — including blurring the foreground when the background is in focus and vice versa — despite the actual locations being shipwrecked lagoons◊ and pointy mountain ruins◊ orbiting stars◊.
- Nexus: The Jupiter Incident has several levels with extremely-detailed backgrounds. The prize takes the last level, where the player's ship is in a space/time anomaly, which looks absolutely awesome, especially the effect it has on the camera.
- Gothic's main selling point was its open world, and significant parts of that world seem to exist for no reason other than to be explored and look beautiful doing it. The changeable weather and rising and setting sun make the experience even better. A couple of characters in Gothic II seem to spend about half the game just gazing out to sea, and it's not hard to see why.
- Quantum Redshift is an unfortunate side effect to this sort of thing. The graphics are probably the best on the Xbox, but it seems that they spent a lot of time on them compared to the game mechanics.
- Super Smash Bros Brawl and Melee (but not the original) indulged in this to the detriment of gameplay: as the stages became louder and more fanciful, it became harder to distinguish them from the actual fight, an unwelcome addition to the franchise's fast-pace, high-chaos gameplay.
- The Halo games have this in droves. A good chunk of the rendered parts of the map are specifically designed to awe, and every map of every game has at least one vast backdrop setting that range from merely good to awe-inspiring. They particularly enjoy playing with objects of mind-buggering scale in the backdrop, coming to head in Halo 3 when, on closer inspection, the little glowy dot at the middle of the vast construct you're on the edge of is a STAR.
- A memorable example is the Regret level in Halo 2, with its ancient-looking pyramidal temples on the lake.
- Uprising / The Great Journey. The serene music in the former goes well with the scenery.
- Lampshaded during the scene in which one of the marines accompanying Master Chief points out that the Milky Way Galaxy is hanging in the sky above you, and Sergeant Johnson basically tells him, "Yeah, yeah, it's pretty. Now pay attention to the aliens who want to kill you."
- The season 4 DVD of Red Vs Blue, a machinima based on Halo, devoted one of its extras just on the scenery.
- The openings of Super Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time have flyby scenes showing off the first playable areas. Similarly, in Twilight Princess, you're treated to a flyby each time you enter a new zone—and again when you remove the Twilight from certain regions. There are even certain points of geography that seem to exist for no other reason than to provide scenic overlooks of other points of geography.
- The Metroid Prime games do something similar to Twilight Princess when entering a new region.
- The dream sequence tutorial in Kingdom Hearts almost does this with using pictures of the princesses as the floor.
- The opening sequence of Bio Shock has one of the most stunningly beautiful reveals in gaming when the motion of the diving bell suddenly allows you to see the outside of Rapture through the porthole.
- Bio Shock architecture is genneraly stunning, but Arcadia is on another level. Art Deco greenhouses, with flowers, trees and vines running rampant over everything... breathtaking.
- This is a major theme of the entire Tomb Raider series where almost once per level you are shown an impressive ancient structure of staggering size. The detail and lighting is particularily impressive in Anniversary, the recent remake of the original[1]◊.
- God of War has extremely impressive vistas whenever you enter a new area, with an appropriate surge in music while this happens. God Of War II, one of the last games made for the PS2 and with a team that had an excellent knowledge of the machine, takes this further; hell, you could even count the Colossus of Rhodes as a Scenery Porn Boss.
- The .hack// video game series has some very gorgeous plot-important set areas. .hack//GU pushed the video graphics capability of the PS 2 to its very limit: cathedral floors so polished you can see the character's reflection, giant ancient god-killer weapons in the background of the less impressive (but still pretty) playing fields... In fact, several characters in-game remarked how they just like to stand around and admire the view.
- Baten Kaitos is 90% Scenery Porn, 10% game. Unfortunately, this trope did not extend to the character models...
- The Castlevania series is well-known for boasting some damn fine two-dimensional visuals. In particular, Order of Ecclesia's Castle Entrance.
- Another World definitely qualifies.
- Rez, full stop. Really, are the insides of real computer networks that pretty? On top of that, the game would lose 95% of its charm without them.
- Fallout 3 does this right at the start of the game, and then again when you reach the top of the Washington Monument.
- Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. The whole damn game, and if something isn't this it's Scenery Gorn.
- Uncharted 2, just, Uncharted 2. This troper set down his controller and stared at the environments. Just stared, for like 15 minutes. Each. I don't remember ever doing it before.
- Far Cry 2 does this every five minutes or so, but especially so upon reaching paraglider locations. If you don't stop and gawk for minutes on end before strapping in and flying off, then you're doing it wrong.
- The first Far Cry also has a ton of Scenery Porn moments.
- Okami, especially apparent in the scenes showing the restoration of cursed zones.
- X3: Reunion certainly qualifies as this from the very first screen. Everything from the ship and station models to the planets and their moons that inhabit some sectors are jaw-dropping.
- Shadow Of The Beast, at last for its time when it was released. The most central root of its success was its then-gorgeous video game scenery that had never been accomplished with such rich detail before.
- Vexx does this frequently. Every level has its own separate aesthetic. There's even a sky full of bits of world, and a mysterious tower.
- Assassin's Creed: everytime you ascend to one of the viewpoints in a city you get a cinematic panorama of the surrounding area. Also, some of the highest Leaps of Faith from these points are positively breaktaking.
- This is combined with Did The Research, as the designers spent months poring over maps of 12th century Holy Land cities to get the designs right. When you're looking at Jerusalem, you're looking at Jerusalem.
- ... With every major piece of architecture blown up to 10 times its real size, for extra effect. Also with the impressive golden Dome of the Rock, which was only plated gold about 50 years ago. The city was definitely prettified, and it worked.
- Prince of Persia takes the scenery Porn from Assassin's Creed, slaps on some cel-shading, and goes to 11. Sure, you're only fighting a few named enemies, plus a few Mooks, but you just don't give a damn.
- The Shin Megami Tensei games on the PS 2 tend to provide scenery Porn in the form of their final dungeons.
- Final Fantasy IV: the crystal floor section of the Lunar Subterrane. It looked awesome even on the SNES.
- Nowadays it looks blocky and outdated, but when Pilotwings 64 originally came out it looked simply gorgeous. Half the fun was taking the vehicles out for a spin to look at all the different islands. The final hidden vehicle is just a birdman outfit so the player can fly around without any restrictions.
- Batman - Return of the Joker boasted with some of the finest graphics done for the NES system. Virtually every stage contained few special effects to show off what can be done with that primitive system, if tried hard enough.
- If we're on NES topic, shall we mention Kirby's Adventure which had one of the most extensive color palette for the NES games and game demonstrating it constantly. This game had its own special effects too.
- Many Kirby games have highly detailed backgrounds, since they're often produced later in a system's lifespan than Nintendo's Killer App.
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is one of the best examples in 3D.
- Gears of War and Gears Of War 2. Are they grim and dark? Yes, but the city ruins have a definite air of majesty and beauty, somewhat emphasized by their destroyed state. Gears Of War 2 adds in a lot of very beautiful scenes, particularly distant background art.
- While Tales of Legendia had awkward super-deformed character models and lots of bright colors, the dungeons were absolutely beautiful to look at, and the soundtrack is pure Crowning Music Of Awesome to the point of almost being able to classify as Scenery Porn itself.
- Tales of Symphonia had moments very detailed, very gorgeous cities and cutscenes. Even the protagonist's house (complete with single parent) is beautiful, with lots of ivy climbing the exterior and a lot of potted flowers; the design is so well-done, you can even tell that the hero's second-story room (and his verandah) were added after the main part of the house was constructed.
- The cities and towns in Tales of Vesperia were astoundingly beautiful. They obviously put a lot of work into the scenery in this game.
- This troper has a friend who only recently played 2D Sonic The Hedgehog games for the first time; he was quite impressed by the backgrounds of Sonic 3.
- And so do XBOX 360 and PS 3 version of Sonic Unleashed manage to combine Scenery Porn with motion.
- Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald had scenery Porn for its cities; one city was built around in the curves of an extinct volcano's crator.
- There doesn't seem to be any reason for the Breather Level Distortion World other than the M.C. Escher-inspired scenery and the experimentation with camera angles. Hell, they even zoom out so you can see more of the area.
- Perhaps Primal's main motivation. King Herne of the first level is a stunning character model, especially for a non-player character in what is essentially a bit part.
- Psychonauts has some very lovingly-designed levels, but... just get the first eyeful of Black Velvetopia.
- Knights Of The Old Republic is a pretty good-looking game overall, but holy shit, Dantooine. Beautifully-rendered grasslands which seem to just go on for miles.
- World of Warcraft tends to do this with capital cities and certain zones like Stormwind, Stranglethorn Vale, Nagrand, Silvermoon City, Blackrock Mountain, Shadowmoon Valley and Icecrown.
- Scenery Porn is also the whole point of fan-made art replacement videos like
- Baron Soosdon's Unlimited Escapism series.
- Some instances, like Wailing Caverns and Maraudon, where also quite pretty. Hell, almost EVERY instance is... except for Ragefire Chasm.
- Just about every major flightpoint involves taking the scenic route in and out of wherever you are. Even just flying between the different levels of Wyrmrest Temple involves taking a spin or two around the tower before landing.
- Mass Effect had quite some of those. The first time you are in the citadel, you'll probably just stand there and look around, especially on the PC version with the prettier graphics.
- Forget actually walking around on the Citadel-the arrival cinematic is an excellent example-when the Normandy arrives at the mass relay and begins flying through a nebula, you know you're in for some scenery Porn-the first glimpse of the Citadel through the nebula only seals the deal. Then you actually approach the station...
- And what about the shots of the huge cities and arcologies on Feros, as you come in to land, and as you travel along the skyway? Astounding use of scenery Porn.
- Furthermore, I contest that Saren's ship taking off from Eden Prime, and numerous other examples, all count.
- Most of this game conforms to this trope. At almost every point in the game there is something that you can just gawk at.
- Phantasy Star Universe in its online version has some of the most stunning scenery, in places meant for the players to stay, chat and form parties.
- Sa Ga Frontier II. The entire game - backgrounds, sprites, art, attack animations, text boxes, pretty much everything but the text itself - is done in watercolor. Even the concept art is watercolor. Which is pretty much the point of the game...
- Guild Wars. Just about anywhere in it. Best of all, the graphics specs were meant to be highly scalable from the start, so even without all the fancy lighting and effects, you can enjoy the distinctive terrain, features, and monuments in each area. And unlike some examples of this trope, the character and creature designs are equally elaborate and detailed, making for some truly exquisite screenshots.
- While they aren't anything special by today's graphical standards, when it first came out Donkey Kong Country's popularity at least partially stemmed by how amazing the graphics looked.
- Along with the sequels, it had one of the best soundtrack/scenery graphics combinations in any game, ever. The N64 version totally missed the point, and the graphics actually got worse (not to mention how almost every Donkey Kong-themed game since has raped the original soundtracks).
- Infinity The Quest For Earth lives on this trope. These videos (skip to about 2 minutes in in the second video) are rather stunning, and these are from early in development, without fauna or elaborate texturing.
- Vectorman on Genesis used special effects on backgrounds in almost every level with examples being waving flags, lens flares, lightning flashes (looks cooler than it sounds) etc. . In fact, it had better graphics than most of the Sega 32X games.
- Odin Sphere features beautiful 2-D environments with shiny, shimmering things and organic backdrops aplenty, giving the whole game a warm and very appropriate storybook feel. The aurora seen in the mountain level is especially stunning.
- Muramasa: The Demon Blade, the spiritual successor to the above, is equally stunning.
- William and Sly, despite being a free flash game, pulls this off beautifully.
- Even once the Pixar-on-drugs novelty of Team Fortress 2 has worn off, some of its maps are truly gobsmacking to look at. Dangerously so, in fact: spending too much time taking in the likes of Sawmill, 2Fort and Badlands is liable to get your head blown off.
- Both The Longest Journey and Dreamfall contain amazing scenery to go along with the twisted plot and unusually intelligent dialogue.
- Painkiller, like, seriously, just play through it and you'll know what I mean.
- Some of the jaw-dropping settings include a cathedral, a fancy opera house, a castle, a Turkish-style palace, a Venice-like city on the water, a modern dockyard with towering cranes, a hilltop monastery, and an absolutely vertigo-inducing snowy bridge level.
- Some arenas in Demigod are breathtaking beautiful to look at. In Exile◊ you fight on the body of a gigantic statue of a snake struggling with a gigantic statue of a man... in SPACE! Then The Brothers◊ is in an arena held on the titanic swords of 4 matching sized skeletons who look like they murdered each other at the same time. Then there's Levithian◊, which is fought on some kind of ornate pool area, on top of a gigantic oyster, surrounded by two water spitting fish statues, inside a glass globe... in the bottom of an ocean. Cataract◊ is on an structure atop a huge aqueduct, high in the clouds. Zigurat◊ is on the top of an immense, well, zigurat, in the middle of a jungle. Finally, Mandala◊ is on an intricate mandala chained to huge columns atop ice-white mountains.
- Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren's games (not to mention most of the well-designed levels for Knytt Stories) have their fair share of eye-catching landscapes, combined with almost entirely ambient soundtracks and unobtrusive sound effects.
- The Dig, pixelated or not, is absolutely glorious to look at (and listen to). What's that? You want me to explore this salivatingly gorgeous alien planet? Oh, twist my arm!
- Wipeout HD is one of the relatively few games to run at 1080p, 60 Frames-Per-Second High Definition; and it uses it to wonderful effect.
- Scratches (despite the mystery/horror theme) takes place in a painstakingly detailed Victorian mansion, where you can spend hours exploring and gazing at beautifully detailed renderings of real world paintings and other works of art.
- Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception has the stunning vista of Gaiuss Tower/Atmos Ring/Wild Card, a brilliantly lit cityscape at night with a towering skyscraper in the centre. For being on the PSP with its small screen, it easily puts some of the towns and cities from the PS 2 titles (I'm looking at you, San Salvacion) to shame.
- Brutal Legend. You can pause the action pretty much anywhere and be assured that you're in a location that looks like it belongs on an album cover. To further accentuate this, handy tourist-binocular things are scattered around the map, to give you a nice sweeping view of anything the devs thought you would really want to look at.
- Ghostbusters: the Video Game (2009) has the ghost-world version of the New York Public Library. While the actual level you travel through is very linear with the only variation being a few turns in the path, the structure you are in is HUGE, with numerous ghost portals like the ones you pass through to progress visible in the distance, but never accessed. If you look extremely closely though at just the right time, you might see Ray or Egon on a path connected to one. The bookshelves that stretch to the terrifying orange sky over your head while inside the building itself are enough, but the final platform you stand on before leaving the self-destructing area is by far the greatest example of this in the game as you can look back and see the ''entire'' behemoth structure in the distance while bits of it drift off into space. The game doesn't force you to look back at it, but it dominates your view if you turn around at the portal and is accompanied by a dramatic music cue from the first movie - clearly meant to be noticed thoroughly.
- The Force Unleashed featured some absolutely gorgeous environments, particularly Kashyyyk and Felucia. Unfortunately, the second time you visit, both Kashyyk and Felucia have been despoiled by the Empire (and the Dark Side). One of the final cutscenes also has Starkiller falling through the interior of the Death Star, which makes for a terrific visual.
Web Comics
- Megatokyo, with intricate buildings and weapons. Probably due to the artist actually being an architect originally.
- The Phoenix Requiem.
- Gunnerkrigg Court's urban landscapes are beautiful and foreboding. And the scenery has only improved over time.
- Say what you want about Drow Tales, but the art, especially the art from the remakes, is fantastic.
- Family Man. Observe.
- Dresden Codak, one of the few webcomics I'd actually want to hang on a wall.
- Rice Boy and Order Of Tales actively revel in this, having entire pages that are beautiful sweeping landscape drawings or are lots of little no-dialogue panels just showing the characters moving through the environment. This is much less of a problem than you'd think, since the comic generally updates with multiple pages at a time.
- The Dreamland Chronicles does this from time to time, especially when establish new scenes, such as Astoria (continued on the next page) or Ashendel (also a double page).
Web Original
- ElephantsDream. The sheer level of detail that was put into the machine is simply astounding.
Western Animation
- The Fleischers were absolute MASTERS at this. They had little 3D sets that fit perfectly into their cartoons. This was long before computers, mind.
- Avatar the Last Airbender has plenty of pan-shots of huge and largely detailed locales. Ba Sing Se is a goldmine for this kind of thing. Sokka once took some swordsmanship lessons that included landscape painting of a valley and◊a waterfall◊ (based of a real one in Iceland)... that he got to look at for all of three seconds. His picture◊ was not very good.
- The finale is especially good in this regard. The last part of the finale, where Aang and Katara kiss features an amazing sunset over Ba Sing Se.
- There's also the shot of the Western Air Temple, which literally hangs on the bottom of an overhanging cliff. See for yourself. [2]◊
- The trailer for the movie also had some very nice scenery Porn.
- Batman: Gotham Knight did this with the first of its six shorts — the backgrounds are very beautiful and detailed...quite odd considering how the character designs are very simple and jagged.
- The new Clone Wars animated movie and TV shows. The backgrounds and ships are all lovingly detailed and realistic. The characters... Ohmygod! Is his hair made of solid plastic??
- Code Lyoko should be the posterchild for this trope. The lead background painter by the name of Frédéric Perrin created meticulous backgrounds which were utilised in almost every scene in the non-3D sequences of the show; Indoor, Outdoor, Industrial, Urban, Nature, you name it. Check out his work for yourself.
- Disney Animated Canon is prone to this, especially during the "Disney Renaissance" that started with The Little Mermaid (1989):
- Bambi (1942) was pretty much entirely Scenery Porn, with a little bit of story thrown in.
- Sleeping Beauty (1959). Not only are the backgrounds meticulously and beautifully painted, the animation is flawless and the foregrounds are no less breathtaking. There's a reason this movie almost bankrupted Disney.
- The Little Mermaid (1989).
- The little remembered The Rescuers Down Under (1990) had some amazing shots of the Australian Outback, and the New York scenes were pretty stunning as well.
- The ballroom scene in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) is a brief bit of Scenery Porn. The background was done entirely in CGI, while the characters dancing were hand-drawn. As a rule, when the camera flies backwards in a widening spiral with a rotating viewpoint through a massive and detailed candelabra while the room is spinning in one direction and the dancers spin in the opposite direction and there are no mistakes, you know two things: 1) this was done in CGI, and 2) this is goin' on the ol' résumé. Disney still uses this clip to blow the socks off of viewers.
- Aladdin (1992) is full of Scenery Porn, drawn from reference photos of actual Islamic architecture. Not actual medieval Arabic architecture, mind you, but actual Islamic architecture.
- The Lion King (1994), full stop. Just watch "Circle of Life".
- Despite being completely and irritatingly inaccurate, Pocahontas (1995) had some gorgeous scenery.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) made medieval Paris look absolutely beautiful.
- The shots of Chinese countryside in Mulan (1998) were fabulous, especially during "A Girl Worth Fighting For".
- Atlantis The Lost Empire (2001) is conspicuously guilty of this - although there are plenty of us who would have died to see more. Do you have a dollar?
- Tarzan, OH GOD. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this? Shame on all of you.
- The animated series Dungeons And Dragons featured quite a bit of Scenery Porn, especially when showing what formidable landscape the teens had wandered into that week.
- Kung Fu Panda. Even if you don't count the opening two minute dream sequence storyboarded and overseen by the respected and famous James Baxter (whom you may have been introduced to via The Lion King), just about every shot of the Valley of Peace counts as this...and the Jade Palace...and Chorh-Gom in the Mongolian mountains... and the suspension bridge where Tai Lung fought the Furious Five. Talk about luscious!
- The Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland animated movie perfectly captures the jaw-droppingly virtuoso style of artwork that made Winsor McCay's original comic strip so memorable. Even the movie's infamous Nightmare Fuel is rendered lushly, with a large amount of fine detail.
- Oban Star Racers is recognizable for its stunning, picturesque backgrounds.
- Pixar is very good at this:
- Everything on Earth in Wall-E. Earth as a desolate wasteland is ironically the most beautiful looking thing in the film. Although the Axiom was the coolest Sci-Fi setting this troper has seen in years.
- Cars has a long scene at the start and finish that is pretty much all Scenery Porn.
- In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible's second arrival at Syndrome's island pretty much existed to show off how awesome the island was.
- Finding Nemo has some very impressive underwater scenes.
- A Bugs Life and Toy Story 2 both feature the same tree (to different levels of detail and mood).
- Up has some amazing shots of the jungle, ranging from rocky terrain to lush foliage and everything in between. But it's not only that— even the cityscape and the sky can be counted in this trope.
- The "Plagues" sequence in The Prince Of Egypt is the wrath of God made manifest. It looks awesome.
- That scene, the opening slavery sequence, and the parting of the Red Sea make up some of the most drool-inducing, jaw-dropping, eyeball-popping Scenery Porn this troper has ever seen. Period.
- The animated series Samurai Jack indulged in this on many occasions.
- The Irish/Belgian/French film The Secret of Kells.
- The Tom and Jerry theatrical short Mouse in Manhattan.
- The cartoon To Spring, which also has lots of Technicolor Porn with all the garish paints.
- The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson had a few examples of this, including the obligatory leaving-Manhattan-via-a-bridge ending (and "camera" zoom out).
Real Life
- Vieux Québec. Step outside for a ten minute walk to the grocery store and you'll return an hour later with a hundred photos and no recollection of what you needed to buy.
- Seconded.
- Montreal, but only from certain approaches. Try coming from the South Shore for maximum Porn-y goodness.
- Budapest. That is all.
- Beijing's Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and Summer Palace. There's a reason they all received a restorative facelift for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
- Sunrise over a mountain range in winter just about anywhere there's mountains to the east and a tendency for it to snow. If you've got Also Sprach Zarathustra stuck in your head while watching, so much the better.
- This trope is the reason landscape painting exists.
- Huangshan, China's Yellow Mountains, created this trope, then - they must be seen in person on a misty, rainy day to be truly appreciated as a natural wonderland.
- For filmmakers, Tasmania. It's got some of the cleanest air in the world, meaning your depth of field can go a hell of a lot further than in most built-up areas.
- Similarily, Antarctica, which apparently is extremely difficult to shoot in just because everything you shoot will probably look awesome.
- Michigan's upper peninsula, particularly Isle Royale and the Lake Superior shoreline. If you like forests, sandstone cliffs, waterfalls, and huge pristine lakes, it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
- Pacific Coast Highway/Cabrillo Highway/CA 1 from Morro Bay to Monterey, California. It's hard to keep your eyes on the road if the weather is clear, with the rugged shoreline and steep cliffs. The highway literally hugs the cliffside with hairpin turns and a View Point to stop at every five miles.
- Rome. Ancient buildings + palm trees + umbrella pines = major Scenery Porn.
- Venice. Thousands of artists can't be wrong.
- Anywhere Ansel Adams frequented. The photos themselves count as well, obviously.
- Pick a nice Sunday morning, preferably just after sunrise. Get on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago ... best place to start is around Belmont Avenue. Drive south. If you've got a convertible, put the top down.
- New Zealand seems like it was created for the sole purpose of Scenery Porn.
- The coast of British Columbia, Canada. Combine incredibly ancient trees with a wide variety of undergrowth and add in a few amazing rock formations and the ocean. The end result is some of the most gorgeous scenery on planet Earth. Bonus points for the west-facing segments, which also net you a fantastic sunset.
- Rogers Pass (and, indeed, most of the Rocky Mountains in general) between Alberta and British Columbia also qualify, giving new meaning to the term "majestic."
- In England, many parts of Derbyshire and of Cumbria.
- The Highlands of Scotland, as can be seen in (for instance) the Harry Potter movies.
- Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. For those of you who thought Final Fantasy X's Farplane was spectacular, the series of waterfalls that inspired it is ten times as awesome.
- Norway. Just... Norway. The fjords are spectacular, but there's really nothing to compare to the rugged beauty of the mountains soaring over the Arctic ocean.
- York and Stratford-upon-Avon are both examples of Cute British Town scenery porn. And Inverness is the same, except for Scotland.
- The state of Maine. Especially the Oxford Hills region; it's hard to drive for more than five minutes without coming across a jaw-dropping view. I won't bother mentioning the coast, because you've probably seen the postcards/calendars/posters, and most tourists don't seem to realize that Maine is more than a coastline. (Not that I mind- fewer crowds to deal with.)
- One epic drive is the Rangeley loop- up Rte. 17 from Rumford/Mexico, across and down on Rte. 4, then over on 2. R/M is not pretty, but Coos Canyon, Height of Land Exactly What It Says On The Tin, Rangeley Lake, Smalls Falls, and other aspects definitely qualify.
- The Cayman Islands. Crystal-clear blue waters that make Florida beaches look like mudholes? Sign me up.
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