Gerry Canavan: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

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MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2008
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Keep 'em coming! I've added a whole lot more below.
Sorry about UPDATE:
the inconvenience.
It was my week to post at culturemonkey this
week, and I delivered with a post about the
motivations for apocalyptic fantasy, what it is and
what it's for. Check it out. Comments, criticism, and
elaborations of all sorts are very welcome.
While writing the post, in connection with Ryan's
theory that the most salient feature of apocalypse in
science fiction is the way in which the same images
are simply repackaged for us over and over again, I
was struck by the recurrence of a ruined Statue of
Liberty as perhaps the quintessential icon of
disaster since the 1940s. So struck, in fact, that I
began to obsessively collect these images from the
'net wherever I could find them. Submitted for your approval, the fruits of my labor:
SEE EVERY IMAGE SO FAR AT
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This work is licensed under a
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3.0 United States License.
Planet of the Apes, 1968
The World Without Us, 2007
Escape from New York, 1981
D.C. Countdown teaser poster, 2007
A.I., 2001
And this is by no means an exhaustive list. Let me know in the comments what I've
missed...
UPDATE: Stealing a few more ideas from my commenters:
Part of a campaign promise during the elections in 1978 to bring the "Statue of
Liberty to Madison." As a result of this effort the Pail and Shovel Party (Stu was
one of the major masterminds) was given the Politician of the Year award for
keeping the most campaign promises of any Wisconsin elected officials. The Daily
Cardinal was outraged by this expenditure and actually burned it down. The
following year after re-election the Statue was rebuilt. A security guard was placed
inside of the head after getting an ice fishing hut permit.
Deus Ex Level 1 (video game)
World War I poster
Independence Day (amazed that I missed this one)
Thundarr the Barbarian (My favorite so far. Here's Skot's description from the
comments:
In the '70's Saturday Morning cartoon "Thundarr the Barbarian" the Statue is
shown in a decayed state at the start of each show, and there's an episode
where the evil wizard Gemini imbues the statue with life (but better than in
Ghostbusters 2) and an awesome flame-throwing torch! The basic concepts
and story ideas for that show came from the fertile but sometimes repetitive
mind of Jack "King" Kirby, who also created the Kamandi comic book for DC,
as seen above...
The latest Smashing Pumpkins album, Zeitgeist (2007)
Eerie-in-retrospect book cover from Bluejay Books, 1985. The artist's name was
Thomas Kidd. (Thanks to revdoug for the email)
UPDATE 2:
Brett emailed in with a great screenshot of the Statue of Liberty in The Fifth
Element, which has not been destroyed but rather swallowed by an expanding New
York megapolis.
UPDATE 3: Jeff from Gravity Lens sends along this wild image from the recent
D.C. Comics "Sinestro Corps" storyline:
Tim in the comments leaves behind links to the Statue of Liberty under threat in XMen and Children of Men:
And another album cover, this one from New Jersey's own God Forbid's fourth
album, IV: Constitution of Treason:
UPDATE 4: Jeff sends along two more, one the usual sort of doomsday image and
another desecration of a very different sort:
UPDATE 5: Commenter Ty may have found the earliest example, "The Next
Morning" from the Feb. 24, 1887 edition of Life:
UPDATE 6: Later, Ty came back with two more, first from an alternate-universe
Statue's destruction by helicopter in Batman Forever
and the other a much-longed-for clip from the statue's appearance in Ghostbusters
2. I can do him one better, though: Google Video has the clip.
Google Video has also got Spaceballs, too, naturally, as well as Superman being
thrown through the torch in Superman II.
UPDATE 7: Over night a few more links were added in the comments, including
this beauty from 1889, J.A. Mitchell's The Last American:
as well as two video-game scenarios, World in Conflict and Command and Conquer:
Red Alert:
Elsewhere in the world of video games, Eman Resu also points us to the Resident
Evil 3 trailer, where the replica Statue of Liberty outside the New York, New York
casino in Vegas is used to signify for apocalypse:
UPDATE 8: Another cool one from the comments, a comic-booky illustration
(don't know what year it's from, unfortunately) given the title "Cloverfield Monster
Revealed!" on Flickr:
(Identified! It's from the "Dinosaurs Attack!" Topps trading card series.)
UPDATE 9: Here's a nice still from Ghostbusters 2 I just found in the Fark thread
on this. Incidentally, the Fark link coupled with the Boing Boing link plus a few
other big ones (National Review Online?) makes this the most popular thing I've
ever posted by a mile, eclipsing even the "Our Brains Don't Work" link on Backwards
City from back in 2004. It's kind of amazing.
UPDATE 10: rootbeer277 founds some pictures of the Statue in Superman IV here:
Elsewhere in the comments people have provided video links for related scenes from
Twisted Metal 2 and National Lampoon's European Vacation.
And Traveler sends in a still from Deep Impact:
UPDATE 11: Wow, they're still coming in. Lady, That's My Skull writes in with two
more from the comics, Atomic War #1 (1952) and Incredible Hulk #206 (1976).
And Anonymous points us to this Audi ad from the early 1990s:
UPDATE 12: It's been a few days and this post still keeps getting hits. It's getting
close to 25,000 people now, which is astounding.
First, from the comments, MagicManky has the Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
parody:
Also in the comments, Slade leaves links to a number of sought-after images of the
broken Statue of Liberty overshadowed by the Statue of Justice in Judge Dredd,
both film and comic:
Finally, in what's likely to be the last image I add here for a good while, Viktor
emails an Italian propaganda poster from World War II which reads "Here are the
liberators":
POSTED BY GERRY CANAVAN AT 1:00 PM
LABELS: APOCALYPSE, CLOVERFIELD , CULTUREMONKEY , DC COMICS , FILM ,
FUTURITY, GHOSTBUSTERS , KAMANDI, OZYMANDIAS , PLANET OF THE APES,
SCIENCE FICTION, STATUE OF LIBERTY , SUPERMAN, THUNDARR THE
BARBARIAN
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Comments (119)
Echo 119 Items
Admin
Guest
For a few years in the late '70s and early '80s, the student
government of the University of Wisconsin erected this edifice in
fulfillment of a campaign promise to bring the statue of liberty to
Madison:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Libertymendota.jpg
January 21, 2008, 12:01:03 PM PST – Like – Reply
Greg
Don't forget about the staring role that Lady Liberty had in the
Ghostbusters Movie
January 21, 2008, 12:02:50 PM PST – Like – Reply
Rob
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
January 21, 2008, 12:06:10 PM PST – Like – Reply
GC
Just remembered that Spaceballs parodies this, too. "Oh, shit, there
goes the planet."
January 21, 2008, 12:09:58 PM PST – Like – Reply
Abbie
In Deus Ex (eidos) the decapitated statue of liberty was part of the
setting in the first mission.
January 21, 2008, 12:12:14 PM PST – Like – Reply
Peter McFee
I've always been struck by how many illustrators seem to think the
Statue is made of stone
January 21, 2008, 12:23:56 PM PST – Like – Reply
Drhaggis
A WWI bonds poster:
http://atomiq.org/archives/2002/07/15_that_libe
rty_shall_not_perish_from_the_earth.html
January 21, 2008, 12:30:56 PM PST – Like – Reply
Guest
I believe there is one in Independence Day too
January 21, 2008, 12:48:03 PM PST – Like – Reply
Mike Young
You've been Boing Boinged, sir.
January 21, 2008, 12:49:39 PM PST – Like – Reply
Skot
In the '70's Saturday Morning cartoon "Thundarr the Barbarian" the
Statue is shown in a decayed state at the start of each show, and
there's an episode where the evil wizard Gemini imbues the statue
with life (but better than in Ghostbusters 2) and an awesome flamethrowing torch! The basic concepts and story ideas for that show
came from the fertile but sometimes repetitive mind of Jack "King"
Kirby, who also created the Kamandi comic book for DC, as seen
above...
January 21, 2008, 1:32:56 PM PST – Like – Reply
Guest
There's a great shot in THE FIFITH ELEMENT that shows the Statue of
Liberty not destroyed, but incorporated into the sprawling megapolis
of future NYC.
January 21, 2008, 1:34:51 PM PST – Like – Reply
Taras
Yes, although I didn't notice it while watching the film, there is one
in Independence Day (it's very obvious in the CGI fetaure on the
extended two-disc edition. Yes, I have the extended two-disc
edition of Independence Day. It's not worth the bother, trust me.)
January 21, 2008, 1:41:05 PM PST – Like – Reply
sir jorge
awesome, awesome!
January 21, 2008, 2:15:02 PM PST – Like – Reply
Trackback
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Title: Images of the Statue of Liberty in science fiction
Excerpt: Gerry Canavan has posted a collection of images of the
Statue of Liberty taken from science fiction stories and films.
Fantastic Universe, August-September 1953
Blog name: viz.
January 21, 2008, 2:16:01 PM PST – Like
Craig
The new Smashing Pumpkins album:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zeitgeist_cover.png
January 21, 2008, 2:23:39 PM PST – Like – Reply
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