Movie Scenes that Involve a Shocking Change in the Natural Landscape or Famous Landmarks

Cafe Society
1

Sorry for the clunky title. I’m sure my explanation will be just as clear.

What prompted me to start this is a film I’m currently watching called Bring Out the Fear . It’s about a couple walking through a forest and getting lost and disoriented. At one point they end up where they started, high on a hill overlooking a seashore and village, except now everything has been replaced by mountainous forest. For whatever reason, I really enjoy this particular effect.

Probably the most famous example of a ruined landmark is the ending of Planet of the Apes and the Statue of Liberty. That is so creepy to me, no matter how many times I see it, it still freaks me a little.

2

The aliens in Independence Day blowing up various worldwide landmarks comes to mind.

3

Future San Francisco from the Star Trek franchise. It looks different every time it is depicted.

4

Don’t watch any “Life after People” episodes. Creeeeee-py.

5

How about Mars Attacks! and Mount Rushmore?

(Not to mention the Elizabeth Tower –”Big Ben”’s home – and the Taj Mahal and the Moai heads on Easter Island)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngth5FEALJ0

6

But there’s always a Transamerica pyramid, because how else would you know it’s San Francisco?

7

This may not be exactly what the OP is looking for, but I remember watching the movie “Identity Thief” with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. There’s an aerial shot where they are driving across a bridge into downtown St Louis from the Illinois side. The bridge in the scene is just south of the Arch, and having grown up in St Louis I knew damn well there was no bridge there. It was a jarring WTF moment for me. (The bridge was actually somewhere in Tennessee and was composited into into the scene.)

8

At least they skipped the rice-a-roni.

9

The final scene of “Contact” shows Jodie Foster and the Very Large Array with a background of Canyon de Chelly AZ. But, actually the VLA is on the rather stark Plains of St. Augustine.

At the time the wife and I had a B&B in Socorro NM. Lots of folks came to Socorro equipped to explore the canyon country they saw in the movie. We usually heard about it when they returned from a frustrating day in the dessert. A couple even got stuck and had to be rescued.

10

If we’re talking plain old disaster movie style destruction of landmarks / landscapes, can’t beat John Cusack’s ‘gotta pay the mortgage’ movie 2012.

Possible fun fact I just realized: Cusack may be the only actor to ever star in 2 different movies whose titles are just 4-digit numbers (the other one being the Stephen King adaption 1408).

ETA: I just realized I was still linked to @Shoeless’ post-- I was going to directly reply to that post, changed my intent but didn’t think to delete and recreate my post.