History Main / DesolationShot

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* ''Disney/TheLionKing'': This occurs when Simba returns to the Pridelands and sees the barren, lifeless wasteland it has become under Scar's reign.

* The original ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' (edited to get ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!]]'') featured a DesolationShot of the city after Gojira's attack, complete with destroyed buildings, ambulances, and a choir lamenting the deaths.

* An Italian film dubbed in English despite being filmed in English called ''Film/WarriorsOfTheWasteland'' had probably the most [[{{Narm}} unintentionally goofy]] DesolationShot ever, with burned mannequins in plastic silver armor holding ray guns strewn around the rubble of long-dead cities.

* In ''Disney/{{Pinocchio}}'', we get a shot of Pleasure Island wrecked and littered, with all the boys gone [[spoiler: due to them being turned into donkeys and rounded up]].

!!Examples

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[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

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[[folder: LiveActionTV]]

* Pretty much all of the documentary and spinoff series ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'' is composed of shots like this, since it's showing the decay and eventual collapse that major cities will undergo if humans disappeared from the face of the Earth.
* Parodied in the "Modern Warfare" episode of ''Series/{{Community}}'' (pretty much a direct lift from ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'')
* Heavily done in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', since the Wraith obliterates any world that resists them.

[[folder: {{Music}} and Music Videos]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* In ''Disney/{{Pinocchio}}'', we get a shot of Pleasure Island wrecked and littered, with all the boys that were there gone [[spoiler: due to them being turned into donkeys and rounded up]].

* The intro to ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'', after the battle flashback, is a series of incredibly depressing Desolation Shots followed by a CrowningMomentofAwesome featuring a huge Terran-Vasudan fleet led by the [[CoolShip GTVA]] ''[[CoolShip Colossus]]''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'''s intro movie has this, as does the intro for ''VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel''. The trailers and intro for ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' do it as well. Averted in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'''s intro, as the New Vegas area is much more populated than the Capital Wasteland, and in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', as the game begins in the past (future?) of the day the bombs fell, and everything there-on is first-person, allowing no time for any such shot.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'''s intro movie has this, as does the intro for ''VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel''. The trailers and intro for ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' do it as well.

* The original ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' (edited to get ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters'') featured a DesolationShot of the city after Gojira's attack, complete with destroyed buildings, ambulances, and a choir lamenting the deaths.

* SMStirling's "{{Emberverse}}" novels feature quite a few depictions of devastated towns and villages after the technology-destroying "Change."

** In the final cutscene of ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', you see a shot of Marines investigating New Phoenix after [[spoiler:its entire population has been Composed by the Didact]].

* In the intro CutScene to the first ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' game's last level, you see how Halo has been turned into a desert wasteland by the Flood. In ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', you see a Flood-infested High Charity.

* Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross after [[spoiler:The Zentraedi destroy most of the earth's surface]] absolutely revels in shots of cratered, ruined deserts. One particularly memorable shot featured the dessicated, bullet-ridden corpse of a Zentraedi, his severed hand clutching [[{{Narm}} a singing Minmei doll]].

-->-- ''SailorNothing''

* The opening of ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' pans across the devastated Los Angeles.

* ''Film/Bait3D'' ends with a wide shot looking over the tsunami-devastated beach town after the survivors escape the below ground level shark-infested shopping centre that they were trapped in after the wave hit.

* ''Film/{{Bait}}'' ends with a wide shot looking over the tsunami-devastated beach town after the survivors escape the below ground level shark-infested shopping centre that they were trapped in after the wave hit.

* In the 2008 version of HortonHearsAWho, a very chilling one occurs of Whoville after Vlad drops it. A very sad contrast to the lively, carefree world it was not half an hour earlier.

** Don't worry though. The Whos [[HesJustHiding are just hiding.]] [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt As if they would really kill the Whos.]]
** The earlier featurette was even more severe; the city had literally been reduced to rubble, and the Whos crawl from it singing a sad song about how they wish they had listened to Dr. Who-bee's warnings.

[[folder: {{Film}}]]

* ''WesternAnimation/WallE''. In the beginning, the only true life on Earth appears to be a cockroach and our hero. And since our hero is a robot.... A unique Desolation Shot due to the fact that it's done to the tune of the song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eeiohJn1sQ "Put On Your Sunday Clothes".]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'' absolutely [[SceneryGorn revels in this]].