A Short History of Landmarks Exploding on Film

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  07.07.09 | 4:17 PM ET

Photo by laverrue via Flickr (Creative Commons)

In honor of the summer blockbuster, Slate looks back, via video slideshow, at Hollywood’s penchant for blowing up major landmarks over the years. There’s some social context included—the impact of 9/11 on the disaster movie, for instance—in between the video clips, and writer Keith Phipps also teases out some rules for the genre. My favorite? “When a city is in jeopardy, its most famous landmarks fall prey first. Aliens and natural disasters always target the Golden Gate Bridge, never the Bay Bridge.”

Always the bridesmaid, huh, Bay Bridge? As a Canadian, I can relate. We inevitably get overlooked when the aliens invade.

Tags: Movies, Pop Culture Travel, Shrinking Planet

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


5 Comments for A Short History of Landmarks Exploding on Film

Chris 07.07.09 | 4:28 PM ET

Eva, I’ll sign your petition to have the CN Tower blown up in the opeing sequence of the next blockbuster. We can call it Canada Day, with guest appearances from Michaelle Jean, Don Cherry and the Red/Green guys.

Ling 07.08.09 | 9:59 AM ET

Know any movies where the Landmark comes to life and helps destroy the evil monsters? That would be Ghostbusters (Part II, I think), where the Statue of Liberty starts walking and helps them gatecrash the slime covered museum. :)

Grizzly Bear Mom 07.08.09 | 10:06 AM ET

Canada: your landmarks are going to have to market themselves so they have the reputaiton of a Golden Gate Bridge or an Eiffel tower before the aliens blow it up.  Aliens don’t waste their ammo on little known landmarks, they want to demonstrate that they kick some Golden gate butt!  (Actually I think that Hollywood, being in the U.S. is only aware of American or the sterotypical landmarks, so they keep blowing the same ones up.)

Chris 07.08.09 | 11:44 AM ET

Grizzly Bear Mom, I think it’s worse than that, I think Hollywood assumes that the general American masses will only know or care about American or stereotypical landmarks.

Keith Phipps 07.08.09 | 8:21 PM ET

What would they target? The school from Degrassi Jr. High?

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