Eiffel Tower Effect: Difference between revisions

A few of these landmarks, in various locations around the globe, are so well-known by so many people that they've come to function as a sort of visual shorthand for the city, sometimes the ''country'', in which they're located to the point where some footage of the landmark in question must be portrayed on the screen, even when that landmark is largely (or sometimes totally) irrelevant to the plot. The National Mall in Washington DC, Westminster Palace (specifically, its clock tower housing Big Ben) in [[London Town]], the Taj Mahal in India, the Sydney Opera House in [[Sydney]]... When these locations are portrayed in a film or TV show, expect numerous, panoramic [[Establishing Shot|establishing shots]] of the landmark in question. Occasionally, these landmarks will be visible out of windows or from rooftops where viewing them in real life would be geographically impossible.

 

 

This trope is not simply here to list various landmarks around the world, but rather instances of landmarks in fiction used as a shortcut to showing either where the action occurs or how bad things have gotten.

* All sorts of science fiction movies have destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge as an avatar for San Francisco. In reality, crossing the bridge north from the city doesn't really go anywhere other than some ritzy bedroom communities and the sticks further north. Destroying the Bay Bridge would really put a serious wound in the city's infrastructure and many people's commutes, but [[Rule of Cool|the Golden Gate is a much prettier and more instantly-recognizable bridge]].

** Averted as a very brief joke in ''[[Star Trek (Film)|Star Trek]]'', where {{spoiler|Spock shoots Nero's drill down when it's drilling into Earth, just above Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. The drill breaks up and part of it falls down...''just'' to the right of the Golden Gate Bridge and into the water.}}

* In ''[[Casablanca]]'', Rick's Paris flashback begins with a shot of...the Arc de Triomphe.

* In ''[[Hudson Hawk]]'', the title character wakes up after being knocked out to find himself in Rome. He knows this because his hotel window just happens to face the Colosseum.

** Even better, when he then passes a door/window at a 90 degree angel with the first, he can still see the Colloseum.

* ''[[Inception (Film)|Inception]]'' is a bit of a [[Shoot the Money]] film, so we have [[Scenery Porn]] (and [[Scenery Gorn]]) in the form of the streets of Paris exploding outwards in a beautiful manner, folding in on themselves like a taco and during the scene where Ariadne plays with the use of mirrors on the street, the Eiffel Tower is visible in the background.

* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga (Film)|The Dark Knight Saga]]'' and before that ''[[Lara Croft Tomb Raider (Film)|Lara Croft Tomb Raider]]: The Cradle of Life'', the protagonist(s) leap off the Two-ifc in Hong Kong.

* ''[[Grey's Anatomy (TV)|Greys Anatomy]]'' is set in Seattle. The space needle is prominently displayed.

* The studio of the London-based breakfast news programme ''Daybreak'' has a window wall with a view of the London skyline, centred on the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. So far, so [[Justified Trope]], but where the trope really comes into play is that, with the show being on at 6am, in the winter it's still dark outside. So the production company pay to have the cathedral lit up specially.

* Namsam Tower in Seoul features prominently in many [[Korean Drama|Korean dramas]]:

** ''[[Best Love]]'': In the background when Dokko Jin explains the folk tale "Camellias" to Ae Jung.

** There's a reason why King Kong climbed the Empire State Building...

* While [[The Windy City|Chicago]]'s tallest building is the Willis Tower, it's the John Hancock Center that's the city's true "signature" structure.

* The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. For Missouri in general. That's what ended up on the back of the Missouri quarter.

* The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (prevalent in the title credits in ''[[Full House]]'', for one). You can substitute trolley cars for similar effect.

* A supposedly rare example for lesser known state capitals would be Albany's [http://img.online-station.net/_news/2009/0303/23964_39TheEggEmpireStatePlazaAlbanyNewYo.jpg Empire State Plaza], which typically consists of a unique flying saucer-shaped venue called The Egg, and the Erastus Corning Tower, which is quite justified, considering that it happens to be the tallest building in Upstate New York.

* Thousands of Armenian paintings and photographs would suggest that Mt. Ararat is visible all over the country, when in fact it has to be a really clear day to be able to see it from its capital, Yerevan. And partly due to a long, sad history of horrible luck, Armenia's most iconic landmark isn't even in Armenia anymore but in Turkey.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Spectacle]]

[[Category:Eiffel Tower Effect]]