While it was cool to see the mighty King Kong rampaging through the streets of Manhattan and climbing atop the Empire State Building in the 1930s, and while the image of a destroyed Statue of Liberty was an iconic and clever ending to the original Planet of the Apes, and while it was cool to see the Man of Steel battle superpowered villains from Krypton in the streets and skies of a very NY-looking Metropolis in Superman: The Movie, the repeated setting of disaster scenes in New York City is become somewhat tiresome. Especially after 9/11, it's actually quite tasteless the more it goes on.
I know that my fair city has a lot of landmarks that are recognizable around the world, but can't filmmakers find other images to blow up? Seeing devastation in the streets of New York on the big screen, even in a fictional context, still strikes a raw nerve with me.
Some of these post-9/11 destruction scenes arguably might be a metaphor for terrorist attacks (like in Stephen Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds) or for society's angst about the end of the world (like in the recent hit 2012), but if that's the case, your point has been made, so can we move on and stop with the hyperbolic devastation of the Big Apple? At least try coming up with a more original idea.
Action movies and disaster flicks are popular genres that appeal to audiences looking for escapist entertainment. I don't have a problem with that. I just think blowing up New York has been done to death (no morbid pun intended). Enough, please?
Thanks.
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Good luck with that.
Then again, you know what they say: Tokyo would have ruled the world by now if they didn't have to rebuild it every six months due to a Godzilla attack. Just ask a Japanese person what the most popular city to blow up is...
R
And you can't escape the imagery even if you never see the movie. It was unnerving standing on the subway platforms under the sign that says To World Trade Center while staring at the Cloverfield posters showing lower Manhattan being destroyed. I've seen real life look like a movie. I'm not too interested seeing a movie look like real life.
Feel free to be a crotchety misanthrope, just be an informed one.
The whole idea is so tired and worn out!
Part of the fascination is probably due to the fact that America - as symbolized by New York City - has always been seen by the rest of the world as getting away with everything without so much as a scratch. Somehow people abroad think we can dish it out but can't take it ourselves. Since I've been thinking about this topic for years, when the Twin Towers fell it was more like the second shoe dropping than anything else. Horrific, and yet anything but surprising.
But Placebostudman, that's the whole point! London was extensively blitzed in World War II. Paris was burned in the Commune of 1870, was occupied in 1871 and 1940, took plenty of hits from Big Bertha in World War I, caught a few bombs and suffered street fighting in World War II, and very nearly got blown to smithereens by the Germans on their way out. That sort of thing never happened in New York, which has been giving certain people ideas (and not just movie producers).
No one would ever pay to watch Berlin get blown up: been there, done that. (Although one TV series had the TV Tower blown up by terrorists, which was kinda cool to watch.)
So welcome to the club, New York. Getting blown up is a bitch, but as we Berliners know, you rebuild and get on with your life.
This is not to say that destroying NYC hasn't dropped into cliche by now, but there is a good reason for it.
Personal thing. Other people are free to indulge their fantasies.
Get over it. NYC embraces being a target. When you spout out you are the greatest city in the world, you're asking for trouble. Still, it's a pretty incredible place, if you can afford it.
I love New York, and some of it's natives are dear to me, but living in the greatest city on earth means SUCKING IT UP when someone uses your city to make art that hurts your precious feelings. (Frankly, the sheer amount of New York Hagiography garbage is enough to counterbalance every cgi disaster that will ever be inflicted on it.)
Finally, using 9/11 as a bludgeon to advocate self-censorship is pathetic, and deserving of nothing but contempt. (Watch what we say, eh Ari Fleischer?)
I still think Tokyo has all of us beat though.