Bob's Take: Destruction of famous landmarks is a cinematic cliché

Director-screenwriter Roland Emmerich has a thing about destroying world-famous landmarks in his movies.

He also seems preoccupied with the end of the world.

In Emmerich's “Independence Day,” an alien invasion threatened the planet. Among the casualties of that doomsday scenario: the White House, which is blown to smithereens by some kind of ray gun. Also the Kremlin in Moscow, Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and, in New York, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Oh, and the Hollywood sign, which, as you know, is a highly dangerous and strategic target for aliens.

Emmerich's “Godzilla” remake was also tough on New York City.

Next came Emmerich's “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which climate change causes the snow-ice equivalent of a hurricane that covers most of the Northern Hemisphere. A giant tidal wave hits New York City, the big freeze causes a shower of glass from the Empire State Building, the New York City Library is trashed and the Statue of Liberty is up to her torch in ice.

Friday, Emmerich opens “2012.” It deals with an ancient Mayan prediction about, what else, the end of the world.

If you've seen the previews, you know the destruction this time includes a tidal wave flipping the aircraft carrier JFK onto the White House; packed freeways collapsing; a train plunging into a gorge where a bridge used to be; a jumbo passenger jet crashing into the ocean; and the dome of St. Peter's in Rome toppling onto its side and squashing the faithful in St. Peter's Square like a giant rolling pin.

Mark Harris, a columnist for Entertainment Weekly magazine, called it “destructo-porn” and railed against turning mass annihilation into something more than a plot turn. It's the intended pleasure of the movie itself, he argues.

Nothing about it is new.

As far back as 1933, cheesy B movies like “Deluge” imagined earthquakes and tidal waves wiping out coastlines and major cities. Space-alien and Godzilla creature movies of the 1950s also played to a niche audience that liked to imagine the destruction of Tokyo or the vaporization of people and buildings.

Director Alfred Hitchcock used landmarks as scenery on which to put villains or heroes in peril. In “Saboteur” (1942), the villain tries to escape by climbing out onto the exterior of the Statue of Liberty. In “North by Northwest” (1959), henchmen and heroes precariously maneuver in hot pursuit across the giant faces of Mount Rushmore.

The landmarks weren't damaged, but they added fascination and excitement to the action sequences with close-ups of familiar tourist attractions — sights we could never hope to experience ourselves.

But the introduction of computer-generated images has escalated landmark destruction to new heights of realism, and new levels of frequency. We see these effects so often, they have to be pretty spectacular to keep us from yawning.

Destroying the White House has become passé.

From “Planet of the Apes” to “Deep Impact” to “Cloverfield,” the Statue of Liberty has taken a beating.

The Eiffel Tower has toppled in “Armageddon,” “Team America” and, most recently, “G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra,” among others.

The Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate are popular targets, and Mount Rushmore got a face-lift in a “Superman” sequel that starred Christopher Reeve.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” chewed on a few ancient pyramids last summer, while London Bridge gets rude treatment in “Sherlock Holmes” next month.

Emmerich's “2012” has caused a lot of Internet chatter because he said in an interview that he had considered destroying a Muslim holy site in the movie but was warned away by the possibility of becoming the target of a holy war. Christians didn't take kindly to his steering clear of Islam while destroying not only St. Peter's but also the giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Not much seems sacred to Emmerich, or to audiences.

If watching famous structures be destroyed trips your trigger, more power to you. What I object to is the people who are destroyed with them, as entertainment. It's dehumanizing. In Emmerich's case, people are a mere afterthought. The spectacular effect becomes the movie's reason for being. The thousands who perish before our eyes are like casualties of an anthill smashed by a boy with a stick, for the fun of it.

When the World Trade Center fell in 2001, people said it was like a scene from a movie. Are we really far enough removed from 9/11 to make it open cinematic season on skyscrapers?

Evidently so. “2012” is stirring widespread predictions of a blockbuster box office this weekend.