History Main / NoEndorHolocaust

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': At the climax of "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E0133 33]]", Lee and Starbuck are ordered to destroy one of the Fleet's own civilian ships, the ''Olympic Carrier'', based on the suspicion that the Cylons are using it to track the fleet (realized after both it and the Cylons caught up with the fleet ''after'' the eponymous 33-minute interval) and the fact it's pinging the radiological alarms as it approaches the Fleet. The original script called for the ''Olympic Carrier'' to be fully manned, [[ShootTheDog forcing them to knowingly kill their own people]], but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network vetoed this]] and the episode went to air with [[GhostShip the ship visibly empty]].[[note]]Though an attentive observer may notice a few [[FreezeFrameBonus very brief]] flickers in the light coming out from some of the windows, hinting that there are still people moving around inside.[[/note]] WordOfGod is still that there were definitely people onboard, however, as the showrunners say in their commentary for the later episode "Pegasus" over a scene where Tigh insists they don't know if there was anyone on the ship.[[invoked]]

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': At the climax of "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E0133 33]]", Lee and Starbuck are ordered to destroy one of the fleet's own ships, ''Olympic Carrier'', on the suspicion that the Cylons are using it to track the fleet (realized after both it and the Cylons caught up with the fleet ''after'' the eponymous 33-minute interval). The original script called for the ''Olympic Carrier'' to be fully manned, [[ShootTheDog forcing them to knowingly kill their own people]], but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network vetoed this]] and the episode went to air with [[GhostShip the ship visibly empty]].[[note]]Though an attentive observer may notice a few [[FreezeFrameBonus very brief]] flickers in the light coming out from some of the windows, hinting that there are still people moving around inside.[[/note]]

* Justified in the GrandFinale of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse''. [[spoiler:Belos possesses the corpse of [[GiantCorpseWorld the Titan that makes up the Boiling Isles]] in attempt to enact genocide on the population, even managing to lift one of it's arms (which contains multiple towns) straight into the air before he's finally stopped. However, over 99% of the population had already been [[PuppetPermutation turned into puppets]] by the Collector and stored in his floating castle over the course of the prior three episodes, so the only actual casualty of his rampage was Luz ([[DisneyDeath and her death didn't even stick]]).]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Young Justice|2010}}'' episode "Misplaced", a spell is cast to split the world in two, one with everyone over 18 in it, and one with everyone under 18. While the spell only lasts a few hours, the death toll among the children would have been catastrophic, as drivers, pilots, and doctors suddenly disappeared, and only a dozen teenage heroes were around to save them. It's never discussed, implying that no one died.

** In the "City of Stone" arc, Demona casts a spell that turns the large majority of Manhattan's population into stone during the night hours. Leaving aside all the physical damage that is likely to have occurred, the fact that Manhattan in effect stops working from dusk to dawn (which, given the fact that the story takes place in early November, would be from roughly 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.) for two consecutive days should have caused nationwide panic and had a notable economic impact. One of the episode cliffhangers is David Xanatos stuck in a helicopter with a TakenForGranite pilot. He doesn't watch TV either, as [[TropeNamers he's busy planning stuff.]] Then there's that woman whose arm Demona casually broke off. What do you think happened when the curse was lifted?

* Many contemporary and not-so-contemporary sources have stated that the 1666 Great Fire of UsefulNotes/{{London}}, an infamous disaster that leveled about 90% of the city and even managed to purge it from the last great plague epidemic, killed no more than ''eight'' to ''twenty'' people, in ''total''. Some have attributed to things such as Stuart-era London's above-average fire alert system, but even then, this death toll seems to be an extraordinarily generous understatement for a Renaissance city of 200,000.

* ''Series/StrangerThings'': There is no fallout to the Soviet Union having an illegal base in the United States. As well as, both performing illegal experimentation on and even committing the murder of American citizens, done by ''uniformed'' soviet soldiers no less, nothing ever comes of it. It's not like it was covered up either and everything was exposed to the American public at the end of Season 3. Keep in mind the president at the time -- UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan -- was the guy who committed high treason, invaded several countries, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on defeating the Soviet Union. Guess it happened on one of his good days.

* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'': Lampshaded at the end of the ''JLA: Trial by Fire'' arc, when [[spoiler:Plastic Man]], fighting Fernus, a.k.a. [[spoiler:Martian Manhunter]], throws him through three buildings while saying "Thank god... for this crummy economy... or we'd never have abandoned buildings... to smash!" Afterwards, it's noted that the League rebuilt the city (it could've referred to that city in Russia, not [[BigApplesauce New York]]).

* Lampooned by Creator/ScottMcCloud's ''Destroy!!'', in which two quarreling superheroes demolish most, and finally '''all''', of Manhattan. The punchline: [[spoiler:"Well, at least no one was hurt."]]

* Played straight for the most part in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. The city is frequently attacked by hundred-foot-tall monsters or rampaging gods, but most collateral damage either occurs off-screen or with scenes showing heroes rescuing civilians. Most aftermath is limited to broken windows and litter in the streets, and the residents take this all in stride, praising the city's robust public works services. Generally averted in stories set in the late '70s/early '80s (Astro City's version of UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks), though.
* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' averts this trope, along with several other common comic book tropes. Whenever there's a big, city-leveling battle between superheroes and supervillains, innocent people die. The first time this happened was when [[FirstEpisodeTwist Invincible's father was revealed to be a bad guy]]. Later issues revealed that ''thousands'' had died as they fought.

* Averted in the ''VideoGame/SuperAdventureRockman'' adaptation of ''ComicBook/MegaManArchieComics''. When Ra Moon shuts down all tech on Earth, we get shots of cars crashing, planes falling out of the sky, and power going out in the middle of a surgery. While an exact death toll isn't given, it's stated that "countless lives" were lost as a result after just two weeks.
* ''ComicBook/InfinityWars2018: Secret Warps'': In Weapon Hex's back-up story, she has her little sister evacuate the diner she and Greer Baptiste are about to fight in, to prevent anyone getting caught between them. Not that it's a very [[CurbStompBattle long fight]] - Laura defeats Baptiste in one stab.

* ''Fanfic/{{Contraptionology}}'': At the end of the story, while the Contraption War and the supernatural slugging match that follow leveled Ponyville almost to the ground, nobody actually died and only Twilight required hospital time. Justified, since [[spoiler:Discord]] wants live ponies to play with and consequently specifically set things up so that nobody would die.
%%* ''FanFic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum'': Twilight Sparkle, being the genius that she is, helps give an incredibly in-depth and {{Troperiffic}} monologue on the scientific problems of the ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureau'' universe.%%Quotes are not acceptable context. Synthesize.
%%-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony, no, anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"
%%** [[spoiler: [[FantasticRacism Not that the last part matters much now...]]. It's also implied that there's some property to the Barrier that may be more sinister.]]

* Near the climax of ''Fanfic/YuGiOhTheThousandYearDoor, Redux'', Andy and the Queen's duel causes Exor, who is described as being the size of a skyscraper, to crash into the center of the mountain palace. By all rights, this should have sunk Arcadia into the ocean, but all it does is knock out the power and cause some minimal damage. Most remarkably, the protagonists and the Queen herself, who are ''at the point of impact'' survive, even though it leaves a huge crater. (Possibly justified. It's suggested that her magic was protecting them, as she wanted to see the battle to its conclusion.)

* Averted in ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod''. The body count in some battles is pretty high, even if the main characters aren't fighting with their giant robots. At the end of episode nine, after defeating "[[EldritchAbomination The King of Yellow]]", Misato looks over the devastation and thinks:
-->Medics and police covered the auditorium, checking on the wounded of body and soul. Misato looked at the devastation with sadness.\\
They were at war, and every war has its casualties.
* ''Fanfic/OnceMoreWithFeeling'' averted this. The narration frequently informs how many people die during the battles among giant robots and robeasts and how much destruction they caused.
* Averted in ''Fanfic/AshesOfThePast'': Looking at how all the other Legendary Pokemon have duties to fulfill to ensure the continued functioning of the world, Mewtwo decides that his job will be to contain the inevitable collateral damage from Ash Ketchum's repeated saving the world, leading to many an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome during the events of the movies.

* In the novel ''Literature/NuklearAge'', this is parodied to an extent; a GiantEnemyCrab rampages through the city, destroying entire buildings, but no one is harmed because everyone happens to be out on a lunch break. Later, when a city block is nuked, casualties are handwaved by the fact that the people of the city had already been sent off to work in warehouses and construction zones, to build an invasion fleet for their new hypnotic master; and, towards the end, the trope is subverted with a quite vivid description of casualties.
* Partly averted in Creator/VladimirVasilyev and Creator/AlexanderGromov's novel ''Antarctic-online'', in which the titular continent inexplicably finds itself in Central Pacific, while the islands that used to occupy the area find themselves near the South Pole. While the novel largely focuses on the political consequences of a continent that nobody wants suddenly becoming prime real estate, there is plenty of talk about the ecological consequences, such as many coastal cities being flooded in the near future as the result of the melting Antarctic ice cap (this is handled, more or less, realistically -- it's stated that the process will last for millennia given the sheer amount of ice). There are immediate effects, though, such as tidal waves hitting the coasts from the sudden shift, and the numerous Polynesian islands, stuck in the Antarctic Circle, to evacuate. The world's nations wish to blame somebody, and the blame falls on the newly-declared sovereign Antarctic nation. Many nations demand reparations from Antarctic representatives, even though the continental "jump" was not their fault ([[spoiler:actually, the ending reveals that it was accidentally caused by one of them, who had found a strange-looking orb and dropped it. He later uses it intentionally to send an American destroyer into orbit in order to stop the invasion of the Antarctic by the US]]).
* Averted in Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''[[Literature/LineOfDelirium Emperors of Illusions]]''. A former Imperial planet once attempted to secede from TheEmpire, asking the [[BirdPeople Alkari]] for help. TheEmperor sends a fleet to pacify the colony, which engages the fleet sent by the Alkari in the vicinity of the planet. This vicious battle results in debris continuing to fall from orbit for decades. Not that the colonists mind, as nearly all of them were massacred by mercenary squads sent ahead of the Imperial fleet as punishment.
* ''Defied'' in ''[[Literature/DreamPark The Barsoom Project]]'', in which two bitterly-hostile diplomats are invited to play out their enmity in the [[HumongousMecha War-Bots]] simulation. The simulation pits them against one another in gargantuan battle-robots in the middle of a London suburb ... and ''completely'' averts this trope, with simulated tiny people fleeing in terror, being crushed by every robotic footstep, buried alive by every crumbled building, or flash-fried in seconds when a mecha's foot punches through the ground into a busy subway tunnel. The diplomats' ears are regaled by ever-increasing numbers of agonized screams as the collateral damage piles up; by the time their fight ends, both men are ''near tears'' at the destruction of tiny innocents, and ''frantic'' to go back to negotiating peacefully. Which is ''exactly'' what [[ManipulativeBastard Dr. Vail, Dream Park's chief psychiatrist,]] designed the War-Bots scenario to do to would-be warmongers.

* An EMP problem ensued in an episode of the short-lived alien invasion drama ''Series/{{Threshold}}'', where an EMP is unleashed in Miami to keep an alien signal from spreading. They know that it will cause a panic and result in various damages. There are injuries from it and the leader is told that there are no casualties ''so far''. Caffrey also points out that the simple truth is they have stopped the alien signal from getting out, regardless of collateral damage.
** To the show's credit, they take another two steps. A minimum safe distance is cleared around the device, so no one is killed by the EMP itself; and they make no planes (and presumably helicopters) are in the blast radius when it goes off.
** A less lethal example; A character smugly points out that anyone losing data because of the EMP have only themselves to blame for not backing up, completely ignoring the many perfectly responsible backup schemes that don't go as far as storing the backed up data somewhere outside of your city (and this is before cloud backup became a widespread option too).

* ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' has Yamato plan to shoot the airborne Alioth down, meaning it would land in Sapporo. Several of the party members are concerned about this trope and ask if that isn't going to endanger anyone still living there, wanting to evacuate first. Yamato soothes any worries by claiming that it won't be a problem[[spoiler:, since Sapporo is already devoid of human life]]. A later scene does avert this[[spoiler:, with Makoto mentioning to Yamato that she had heard that there were still survivors. Yamato sees no problem with that. [[HalfTruth Any person who wasn't crushed by Alioth would be dying due to the Septentrione's toxin in the area, anyway]]]].

** {{Defied}} during Aizen's invasion of Karakura Town, as the Shinigami replace it with a fake, uninhabited city in order to prevent their destructive abilities from killing everyone and conceal the real city inside the Soul Society. By the time Aizen makes it to the real Karakura Town, only Ichigo is left to stop him, though the two of them alone are sufficiently powerful enough that Ichigo throws Aizen all the way into a massive faraway field for their final battle.

* After test audiences left ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' thinking that the ending of the movie left [[InferredHolocaust humanity doomed]], the credits sequence was specifically designed to let people know they survived quite handily. This one is justified: humankind may now be living on a nearly-uninhabitable Earth, but they're not stranded -- they still have a fully-functioning cruise ship capable of meeting all their needs, and hundreds of friendly robots with various skills.
* In the ''Anime/CuteyHoney'' movie, Panther Claw have this giant drill-like tower underneath ''Tokyo Tower''. Meaning: If you work in the area (which is a central business district in RealLife), don't bother coming in. Then, Scarlet Claw blows up three buildings. They all remain largely intact, save for a giant hole in the middle. One of them, hilariously, is Cutie Honey's former office, and the only reaction this gets is a dazed "what the...?" from the boss. And finally, the tower ''explodes''. If you're in Tokyo when this kind of thing is happening, ''get out of the city''. The only things we see? A traffic jam and other people not caring. FridgeHorror kicks in once you realize that there are also scads of women who have just been released from said structure. The fact that this was a ''mass kidnapping'' notwithstanding, these women would be effectively ''screwed''.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', there are two instances of this -- when the showcase building explodes and the only two people seen being mourned are [[spoiler: Tadashi and Callaghan -- and Callaghan turns out to not have died]] and again (although partly averted) when Yokai [[spoiler: sets the portal above the new Kreitech building]]. The second time, it's reported as "what could have been a major catastrophe", but there are no reported deaths. The second example was in the middle of its opening ceremony, so it makes sense that it would be unoccupied. To a much lesser extent, [[spoiler: many people may have lost their jobs when the building was destroyed]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'', despite accidentally plunging Arendelle into an EndlessWinter for three days including a giant snowstorm during the last segments, nobody is seemingly reported to have either died from frostbite or even suffered a famine as a result of their food supply being frozen. Indeed, as soon as Elsa thawed out the kingdom, everyone is seemingly happy and completely look up to their queen in spite of doing nothing (in their own eyes) to alleviate the whole Eternal Winter incident.
* In ''Anime/WeatheringWithYou'', Hodaka chooses to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl save Hina]] even if it means the extreme weather the city has been going through will continue. This turns out to be the case, and in fact, it rains continually for three years afterwards with no sign of stopping, flooding Tokyo and rendering much of it uninhabitable. Hodaka meets an old woman who lost her house as a result, but we never hear about anyone being injured or killed (which even minor floods can cause in the real world), and the whole thing is waved off as being not ''really'' that big a deal because humans were arrogant for trying to live out of harmony with nature anyway.

* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' initially looks like it's going to [[AvertedTrope avert]] the trope with the considerable concern about the collateral damage which would be caused by staging a nuclear attack on one of the alien ships, but then plays it straight anyway in the climax:
** The destroyed battleship was directly over the Area 51 bunker when it was destroyed (from beneath and in the center), yet it goes flying to one side until it's completely clear before crashing into the desert. How convenient; if it had gone straight down, it would have buried the bunker entrance and trapped everyone inside.
** The mothership was destroyed with a nuclear warhead that apparently made its reactor explode. See that debris burning up in the skies? That's nuclear fallout irradiating the atmosphere of the entire hemisphere. There's also the issue of 18.4 quintillion tons of alien mothership rubble falling out of orbit... or not. If it stays up there then [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome space is now an unusable cluttered junkyard]]. If it falls in big chunks it's the end of life on Earth. If it falls in small chunks the heat of friction as it burns up will likely render the Earth uninhabitable.
** Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence sequel]]. While many people (over 3 billion = half the population of the world at the time) were killed during the attacks on cities, those cities were eventually rebuilt (except Vegas, which became a memorial). Two decades later, not only has humanity rebuilt, but we also have several bases throughout the Solar System. As pointed out by a number of people doing basic calculations, the more likely result of losing most major cities and half the population (especially in the industrial countries) would be a complete collapse of global society and the inability to restore it for centuries, if ever. People would be struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world instead of rebuilding everything as it was and building bases on the Moon.
** The damage from the events of the sequel should be even worse, but the SequelHook ending makes no indication that Earth is doomed. The Super Mothership that arrives is so massive it appears to have more gravity than the moon, and when it lands on the surface of the Earth it covers roughly 1/4 of the surface. An object with that much mass that close to Earth would affect its orbit and fracture the crust. To say nothing of having rammed the moon on the way in, likely knocking it out of orbit, or the mile-wide hole it vaporized through the crust (and probably enough water to lower sea levels hundreds of feet) to within mere feet of the mantle.

** The ''[[Literature/AlienOutOfTheShadows Sea Of Sorrows]]'' novel said that [[MegaCorp Weyland Yutani]] came back into power by using {{Terraforming}} technology to fix the damage done by the Auriga.

* Played completely straight in ''Film/FantasticFourRiseOfTheSilverSurfer'' with Galactus (a huge sentient cloud-thing ''several'' times the size of earth) being completely '''obliterated''' as he hovers above the planet, having a snack. This would at least strip away Earth's atmosphere with the shock wave or, far more likely, just disintegrate Earth entirely. But no, the Richards/Storm wedding goes off as planned.

* Near the end of ''Film/DeepImpact'', the crew of the spaceship sent to knock the comet off of its collision course with the Earth (they failed to do this) essentially turns their ship into a missile and flies straight at the comet ''as it's entering Earth's atmosphere''. We are treated to a nice light show. In reality, this would be the equivalent of detonating a massive bomb in Earth's upper atmosphere.
* Amazingly, despite making liberal use of HollywoodScience, [[DuelingWorks/{{Film}} rival movie]] ''Film/Armageddon1998'' averts this trope as it's used to explain why they can't just Nuke the Killer Asteroid. [[spoiler: Played straight at the end, however.]]
* In the 1980 adaptation of ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'', the moon is hurtling towards the Earth, causing natural catastrophes. Flash "saves" the world just in time, but... er... forget it.
** Granted, given the complexity of steering objects in space, and given that the moon seemed to need constant guidance, the Moon and the Earth presumably did not collide, but the tidal stress on both bodies from the close approach would be utterly appalling, enough to flood every coastline, trigger every dormant volcano, start record-setting earthquakes, and that's barely the start of it. Not to mention the long-term effects of a drastically more erratic lunar orbit...
* At the climax of the ''Film/VForVendetta'', [[spoiler:the Houses of Parliament are destroyed by a massive bomb on a tube train beneath them. An explosion of such size would devastate a wide area around it, but miraculously the thousands of be-masked V supporters watching the show from only a few metres away are completely unharmed, rather than being shredded by flying debris]]. ''Possibly'' justified, as there is a shot of the Army successfully holding back the crowd behind barricades in places, so it's unlikely those Vs would have been standing immediately adjacent to the structure. Also, they all knew it was going to explode, they probably stood well back.
* ''Film/GlassOnion'': Helen blows up the entire Glass Onion complex with [[MadeOfExplodium Klear]]. The destruction is absolute, everything is on fire, and Miles' [[CoolCar "Baby Blue" car]] even crashes down through the roof! Yet the Disruptors, Helen, Peg and Whiskey all conveniently survive without being maimed or killed.
* The ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' movies play this trope both ways. It's averted between the two films: The death of [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man]] in [[Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}} the original]] rained splodge over most of the city (and its inhabitants, and cars) and resulted in the devastation and demolition of several buildings; by the beginning of [[Film/GhostbustersII the second film]], the Ghostbusters had been bankrupted by the subsequent lawsuits. But then it's played straight elsewhere in the films -- at no point in either of the films (or [[VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame the 2009 video game]]) is it confirmed that ''anyone'' has died from an encounter with a ghost. Considering some of the things we've seen the ghosts do (such as ghosts driving vehicles -- poorly), human casualties were a very real possibility.
* In the ''Film/OceansEleven'' remake, Danny's crew uses an electromagnetic device to shut off all electricity in Las Vegas for 30 seconds. Realistically, we should be looking at pacemakers going haywire, car crashes in the thousands, hospital equipment failing, and God help them if any planes were flying low over the city when it happened. Yet the sequels still only refer to them as thieves, not as the most successful and high-tech terrorists of all time. [[note]] It's possible that the device was set up such that it would cause an electrical disturbance that would upset the Las Vegas power grid. Most electrical grids are set up to shut down when it detects anomalies to save itself. Case in point, the blackout of Southern California/Northern Mexico in 2011 was caused by a problem with one of the distribution hubs... in Arizona.[[/note]]
** They follow it up by causing a localized ''earthquake'' in the heart of the Strip for ''Ocean's Thirteen'', severe enough to send the Bank's clients and employees scrambling for the exits. Not a safe bet to say nobody got trampled during the evacuation, especially since the "quake" lasted longer and was more intense than they'd initially intended.
* ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'':
** The [[Film/{{Transformers}} first movie]]. Very strange logic on the part of the army to take the Allspark into the middle of downtown Los Angeles when a horde of psychotic giant alien robots plus the good guys' jet fighter air support, was destined to converge on its location. The ensuing battle destroys a huge number of buildings and who knows how many innocent bystanders.
** ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'': has [[spoiler:Cybertron itself in the process of being teleported to Earth's orbit. Cybertron is a massive, metallic world much larger than Earth, yet no effects on the tides and earthquakes are mentioned]]. Especially considering that one of Megatron's plots in the Generation One cartoon was to bring Cybertron close to Earth specifically to ''cause'' said tidal waves and earthquakes, and then harvest the energy from them. The movie's novelization ''does'' in fact mention this as a concern. Gen 1 ended with Cybertron either in Earth's orbit or between Earth and Mars with no problems.
** [[spoiler:Sentinel]] does [[{{handwave}} mention]] the Space Bridge warps our laws of physics, though. Plus, they wouldn't care about damage to the Earth anyway, and the heroes were too busy trying to win the war to focus on that.
** ''Film/TransformersTheLastKnight'' has [[spoiler: Cybertron]] return to Earth without the use of a Space Bridge. While It is implied that there were of people who died from the various chunks of [[spoiler: alien planet]] scraping all over the planet with in particular seen about to hit Hong Kong. Like with ''Dark Of The Moon'', no mentions are given to tidal waves, earthquakes, or the potential influence [[spoiler: Cybertron]] being right on top of Earth could have the crust or gravity.
* In ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'', most of the aliens live inside a large artificial dome that was constructed over the city of Denver, along with thousands of human slaves and lots of old human buildings that have been repurposed for Psychlo rule. The heroes plan to shatter the dome to suffocate most of the Psychlos since many of them will not be wearing their protective masks; very little time is given to the incredible collateral damage of shattering foot-thick glass all over the tops of everyone, humans included.
* ''Film/BlueThunder'' pulls an interesting one in having the big aerial battle sequences occur over a major city (presumably Los Angeles). In the course of the battle, {{Misguided Missile}}s hit a Japanese barbecue shop and a skyscraper, and a jet aircraft is shot down. While the people in charge do express dismay over these events, nowhere is it implied that anyone got killed, and the news voiceover that closes the film seems more concerned with the fate of the helicopter than with the flaming debris raining down over the city.
** It was a Sunday, so the skyscraper was empty. And the F-16's velocity took it out to the sea where it crashed harmlessly.
* ...and Franchise/KingKong didn't land on anyone when he fell off that skyscraper. In fairness, surely the first thing any sane person would do if they saw a giant ape climbing the Empire State Building being attacked by fighters would be to get out of Dodge. Those airplanes didn't hit Kong with every bullet; they had to land somewhere.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The BigBad is stopped from destroying Earth, while he was drilling a big hole into Earth's crust to reach the core in the San Francisco Bay. Everybody is happy, but there is still a big hole in the bay, which can lead to all sorts of bad things for San Francisco and Starfleet (whose HQ and academy are in the city). Additionally, the film fails to mention that Starfleet is now in a bad shape, thanks to the loss of the majority of the graduating class and 6 top-of-the-line starships. There is also the loss of one of the founding member worlds of the Federation. There is also the threat of another war with the Romulans. Good luck convincing people that Nero was not associated with the Empire. Another point is that the drill was stopped from ''drilling'', but not from ''falling''. Something this large falling down to Earth from this height would have quite an impact.
** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', the question of the militarization of Starfleet and destabilization of the galaxy due to the destruction of Vulcan is a major plot point. In the film's climax, [[spoiler:a starship crashes into San Fran. Though we don't see any bodies, the ship plows through multiple blocks of clearly-occupied buildings. The final scene takes place one year after that event, and they're still rebuilding]]. On the other hand, people mere blocks away from the crash seem to be completely ignoring it: you'd think there would be mass panic.

* Averted in two fifties era giant monster movies, ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'' and ''Film/TheGiantBehemoth''. In both of these films, disposing of the titular monster's corpse is a major concern for the heroes because of an extremely virulent germ contained in the blood of the former and the overwhelming radioactivity of the latter preclude destruction with more conventional weapons, which would scatter pieces of the monsters' corpses thus contaminating a large area.

*** ''Series/{{Daredevil 2015}}'' sees [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin Wilson Fisk]] gain a stronghold in Hell's Kitchen by skimming on reconstruction contracts. His construction company Union Allied is able to secure numerous reconstruction contracts, at least until [[Creator/DeborahAnnWoll Karen Page]] exposes their numbers games. At one point, [[Creator/BobGunton Leland Owlsley]] says "[[OpportunisticBastard Heroes and their consequences are why we have our current opportunities]]" referring to the damage caused by the battle. Elsewhere, Matt says to Karen that "the world watched half of New York get destroyed", though this appears to be hyperbole since the Chitauri appeared to confine the battle to Midtown Manhattan and didn't go into any of the other boroughs or Jersey City. It's also mentioned that the battle caused real-estate values in Hell's Kitchen to drop dramatically, and this is the reason Matt and Foggy can afford the office space in which they set up Nelson & Murdock. One of the framed ''Bulletin'' front pages on the wall in Ben Urich's office (which later becomes Karen's office after she gets hired by Ellison towards the end of season 2) is about the invasion and says hundreds were killed.

* Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse:
** ''Film/ManOfSteel'': The climax with [[HostileTerraforming the world engine]] pancakes a major section of Metropolis with thousands of people dead. This is in addition to a smaller super-powered fight between Superman and Zod. The very last scene (taking place an unknown time later) has the Daily Planet running again, previously evacuated because of the world engine, and seemingly in okay condition and the whole scene is rather upbeat. This was one of the major complaints levied towards the movie -- [[WordOfGod although it was stated that this was intentional]], and the fact that the death and destruction that occurred is something [[MyGreatestFailure even Superman couldn't stop]] and will factor into later installments.
** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' dives headfirst into this discrepancy, showing that while much of the world reveres him for what he can do there are a lot of public figures calling for him to be held accountable, not just for Metropolis but other isolated incidents where him just showing up to high tension situations cost lives. The opening scene of the film delves into Bruce Wayne being in Metropolis, seeing the fear and chaos of the event firsthand. Protesters at a [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee Senate Hearing]] hold up signs attacking him for what happened, one mockingly featuring the phrase "[[SarcasmMode Great job!]]" over a picture of a destroyed skyline. In the final action sequence of this film, the heroes make the effort to limit the destruction: Superman throws Doomsday into space so he can be nuked, and when the monster comes back on Earth, Batman lures him into the practically-deserted wharf district of Gotham City (the battle is at night; people tend to not hang around wharves at night).
* In ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', the Terminator on the protagonists' side promises not to kill anyone. A readout on his display confirms that his minigun antics at the Cyberdyne facility resulted in no casualties, but even without hitting anyone directly, he could have easily accidentally killed multiple people thanks to exploding grenades, errant shards of glass, etc. To explain this, he is shown taking his time aiming his weapon so that the police have time to run away, and being a robot does give you some precise aim. He also kneecaps people, which makes him a TechnicalPacifist.
-->He'll live.
* In ''Film/{{Surrogates}}'' widespread use of robot avatars may justify a lack of casualties in a car pileup but [[spoiler: at the end, every surrogate, which 98% of people use, is forcefully shut down. We are told this caused no casualties, which is incredibly implausible when you think of all the pilots, drivers, surgeons, and others who would have been interrupted in the course of vital tasks]].

* While not an explosion, the climax to ''Film/FastFive'' entails a chase where two muscle cars are dragging a vault filled with 100 million dollars through the streets of Rio. As they weave and turn the vault naturally does a lot of collateral damage to property, including going through a bank window in the middle of the day. We even see a woman standing right in front of the bank in the cut before the vault hits it.
* In ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'', while little is shown, it seems almost every world leader getting their heads blown off, along with many government officials and corporate figures, and millions killed across the globe as a result of Valentine's SIM cards driving everyone insane with rage, seemed to do little to affect everyday life. Though that being said, the ones locked up by Valentine like the Swedish princess are likely to have taken the place of those whose heads were just blown off. The movie also ends mere minutes after Valentine is defeated, so there wasn't time to explore the possible long-term side effects of his partially implemented evil plan.
* Closely related is the climax of ''[[{{Literature/Divergent}} The Divergent Series: Allegiant]]'' where a gas is released in the city that will wipe everyone's memories. Tris shuts down the mechanism before the city gets the full blast -- but some gas is still seen being released, and Edgar was seen getting wiped with it. Presumably ''The Divergent Series: Ascendant'' will show the aftermath.
* Inverted in ''{{Film/Elizabeth}}: The Golden Age'' showing the Spanish Armada. There are lines referencing English ships being destroyed. However in real life [[RealityIsUnrealistic the English didn't lose a single ship]].

* In ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'', the world experiences a myriad of geological calamities, including continent-cracking earthquakes, Yellowstone and all other volcanoes on the planet erupting, tsunamis tall enough to sweep into the Tibetan plateau, and ''the entire earth's crust'' shifting by twenty-three degrees to the southwest. Despite all of this, within less than a month, the skies are clear, the waters are receding and the survivors are on their way to Africa, which has inexplicably risen tall enough to escape the flooding.
* ''Film/{{Black Widow|2021}}'': One hopes Black Widow's safehouse is in an otherwise abandoned building, otherwise countless neighbors died from stray fire then her fellow Widows launched a SWAT-like operation against her; she also condemns a prison's worth of inmates and guards to death in breaking out her father; the Red Room might have crashed in an unpopulated area, but who knows how many {{Mooks}} (many of whom were implied to have been brainwashed) when Natashia and her family cut a path of destruction through it.
* Directly invoked in ''Film/PacificRim''. Creator/GuillermoDelToro, a famed pacifist, specifically included scenes making it clear that cities are evacuated before battles so that the HumongousMecha and {{Kaiju}} can smash everything up without FridgeHorror about innocents dying (when the battles even make it to cities at all--most happen in the middle of the ocean), and the few times that civilians ''are'' put in danger, the aforementioned mechas swiftly move to get the monsters away with no harm done. Essentially, you get all the juicy {{Sentai}} action [[JustHereForGodzilla you came to see]] with none of the downer implications, so it's "guiltless" and keeps the film's tone appropriately upbeat.
* ''Film/TrueLies'': The heroic couple kiss passionately as a nuke goes off in the background. Never mind that a huge area in the Florida Keys will now be completely uninhabitable for many many years, with the entire South Florida marine ecosystem completely compromised and likely to contaminate the entire Gulf of Mexico if not the Everglades or Eastern Seaboard. None of this is addressed in the film after the nuke goes off.

* Averted and Zig-zagged in the ''Lensman'' universe.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' in an example strikingly similar to the [[Film/ReturnoftheJedi the trope namer]], the planet Delmak in [[Recap/StargateSG1S3E13TheDevilYouKnow The Devil You Know]] is apparently unharmed after its moon explodes.

* Notably [[Administrivia/NotASubversion Averted]] in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. The Rikti invasion included an enormous mother ship that hovered over Paragon City. When it was eventually defeated by a huge gathering of heroes (many of which died in the battle), the ship crashed into a section of the city now known as the "Rikti Crash Site," which is walled off from the rest of the town and considered extremely dangerous for all but the most powerful and experienced heroes. It's also a quite sizable game map of what one would expect a cityscape to look like after a gigantic alien battleship fell on it. The back-story indicates that the heroes saw the damage they were doing when they took down the ships, so they then started tossing them into the ocean instead, which is why there's even a city left standing at all.

* Franchise/MassEffect has a few examples:

* On the [[GrandFinale Grand Finale]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', [[spoiler: Anne Boonchuy pulls a [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Sacrifice]] to destroy Amphibia's moon so she could prevent [[BigBad The Core]] from using it to [[ColonyDrop crash into Amphibia's surface]]. In the epilogue, it seems that there were no actual consequences for the planet despite the moon's destruction]].

* {{Parodied}} in ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. New Jersey is utterly destroyed by the end of several episodes, but is always [[SnapBack fixed by the next one]]. Subverted in the episode where [[DetonationMoon Coop accidentally blew up part of the moon]]: Earth was hit with severe and deadly climate change, at least until Coop flew back up and put the moon pieces back.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', Sandman tries to help the mob jack crude from a tanker. Spidey shows up, and they do what superheroes and villains have done for ages...only now they do it on an oil tanker. In New York harbor. At least the ''Valdez'' wasn't anywhere near a human port of millions of people, though I'm sure that was cold comfort to the wildlife.

** This is taken further in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': not only does Primus' body make up Cybertron, but [[spoiler:Earth is actually a dormant Unicron. When Unicron begins to wake up, it causes massive worldwide environmental havoc. Not only that, but he can also [[GeniusLoci control the surface of the Earth]], making "mini" clones of himself out of mountainsides.]] The Autobots [[EnemyMine and Megatron]] team up to shut him back down before he actually destroys the planet and to prevent this trope. However, it's ultimately played straight, as, despite the environmental damage, there are no reports of lives lost during [[spoiler:Unicron's]] "morning stretch".

* Averted in ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod''. The body count in some battles is pretty high, even if the main characters aren’t fighting with their giant robots. At the end of episode nine, after defeating "[[EldritchAbomination The King of Yellow]]", Misato looks over the devastation and thinks:

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': At the climax of "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E0133 33]]", Lee and Starbuck are ordered to destroy one of the fleet's own ships, ''Olympic Carrier'', on the suspicion that the Cylons are using it to track the fleet (realized after both it and the Cylons caught up with the fleet ''after'' the eponymous 33-minute interval). The original script called for the ''Olympic Carrier'' to be fully manned, [[ShootTheDog forcing them to knowingly kill their own people]], but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network vetoed this]] and the episode went to air with [[GhostShip the ship visibly empty]].

* Averted with extreme prejudice in ''Literature/StarWarped'', a ''Star Wars'' parody by British comedy writer Adam Roberts who appears to ''hate'' the Ewoks as much as casual adult ''Star Wars'' fans, to the point where it borders on a TakeThat Not only does the section based on ''Return of the Jedi'' sees the Ewok expies (called "[[PunnyName Teddhibears]]" here) getting absolutely massacred by the Empire, but after the Death Star expy (called the "Death Spa", just go with it) collapses the text goes on an impossibly detailed, graphic description on how the Death Spa's ruins proceeds to incinerate every remaining inch of the Teddhibears' forest world, with ''all'' remaining Teddhibears who escaped massacre getting immolated alive by the flames. To hit the nail in even harder, Adam Roberts specifically wrote "Total Extinction Event" somewhere on that very page!

* Averted with extreme prejudice in ''Literature/StarWarped'', a ''Star Wars'' parody by British comedy writer Adam Roberts who appears to ''hate'' the Ewoks as much as casual adult ''Star Wars'' fans, to the point where it borders on a TakeThat Not only does the section based on ''Return of the Jedi'' sees the Ewok expies (called "[[PunnyName Teddhibears]]" here) getting absolutely massacred by the Empire, but after the Death Star expy (called the "Death Spa", just go with it) collapses the text goes on an impossibly detailed, graphic description on how the Death Spa's ruins proceeds to collapse on the Teddhibears' forest world, with ''all'' the remaining Teddhibears who escaped massacre getting immolated alive by the flames. To hit the nail in even harder, Adam Roberts specifically wrote "Total Extinction Event" somewhere on that very page!

[[StuffBlowingUp Explosions are cool]]. So are giant objects. Therefore, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs giant objects exploding]] are [[RuleOfCool extremely cool]], [[FridgeLogic but let's think about this for a moment]]. Halt the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever in a major city by blowing it up. Or just kill it and let it fall over, for that matter. That's going to do some [[StealthPun monstrous]] damage to the city. Yet any collateral damage or casualties are depicted as minimal. Either we cut to credits before we see any aftermath, or (more blatantly) we see that there was no collateral effect at all. If there are, they are just {{Conveniently Empty Building}}s.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' during Aizen's invasion of Karakura Town, as the Shinigami replace it with a fake, uninhabited city in order to prevent their destructive abilities from killing everyone. By the time Aizen makes it to the real Karakura Town, only Ichigo is left to stop him, though the two of them alone are sufficiently powerful enough that Ichigo throws Aizen all the way into a massive faraway field for their final battle.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' makes it abundantly clear that it intends to avert this from quite early on, not only showing how much damage is caused by Angel/ Eva scraps but that people can and will get hurt or [[AnyoneCanDie killed]], the first case being [[spoiler: Touji's sister]], who is mentioned to have been hospitalised after a building collapsed on her. It carries this on in later episodes, as big chunks of Tokyo 3 get turned into craters, eventually culminating in [[spoiler: TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]].

* Near the climax of ''[[Fanfic/YuGiOhTheThousandYearDoor Yu Gi Oh: The Thousand Year Door, Redux]]'', Andy and the Queen's duel causes Exor, who is described as being the size of a skyscraper, to crash into the center of the mountain palace. By all rights, this should have sunk Arcadia into the ocean, but all it does is knock out the power and cause some minimal damage. Most remarkably, the protagonists and the Queen herself, who are ''at the point of impact'' survive, even though it leaves a huge crater. (Possibly justified. It's suggested that her magic was protecting them, as she wanted to see the battle to its conclusion.)

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': At the climax of "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E0133 33]]", Lee and Starbuck are ordered to destroy one of the fleet's own ships, ''Olympic Carrier'', on the suspicion that the Cylons are using it to track the fleet (realized after both it and the Cylons caught up with the fleet ''after'' the eponyous 33-minute interval). The original script called for the ''Olympic Carrier'' to be fully manned, [[ShootTheDog forcing them to knowingly kill their own people]], but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network vetoed this]] and the episode went to air with [[GhostShip the ship visibly empty]].

* Mercilessly averted in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': The opening credits feature a survivor count reminding you how every incident, be it big or small, in the previous episode [[DyingRace is slowly chipping away]] at what's left of the Human race.

** ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The BigBad is stopped from destroying Earth, while he was drilling a big hole into Earth's crust to reach the core in the San Francisco Bay. Everybody is happy, but there is still a big hole in the bay, which can lead to all sorts of bad things for San Francisco and Starfleet (whose HQ and academy are in the city). Additionally, the film fails to mention that Starfleet is now in a bad shape, thanks to the loss of the majority of the graduating class and 6 top-of-the-line starships. There is also the loss of one of the founding member worlds of the Federation. There is also the threat of another war with the Romulans. Good luck convincing people that Nero was not associated with the Empire.
*** Another point is that the drill was stopped from ''drilling'', but not from ''falling''. Something this large falling down to Earth from this height would have quite an impact.
** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', the question of the militarization of Starfleet and destabilization of the galaxy due to the destruction of Vulcan is a major plot point. In the film's climax, [[spoiler:a starship crashes into San Fran. Though we don't see any bodies, the ship plows through multiple blocks of clearly-occupied buildings. The final scene takes place one year after that event, and they're still rebuilding]].

* Directly invoked in ''Film/PacificRim''. Creator/GuillermoDelToro — a famed pacifist — specifically included scenes making it clear that cities are evacuated before battles so that the HumongousMecha and {{Kaiju}} can smash everything up without FridgeHorror about innocents dying (when the battles even make it to cities at all — most happen in the middle of the ocean), and the few times that civilians ''are'' put in danger, the aforementioned mechas swiftly move to get the monsters away with no harm done. Essentially, you get all the juicy {{Sentai}} action [[JustHereForGodzilla you came to see]] with none of the downer implications, so it's "guiltless" and keeps the film's tone appropriately upbeat.

* Countless soft science-fiction stories feature weapons that are said to vaporize a person shot with them. The effects of those weapons are very often depicted as making the victim disappear without any effect on the surroundings, rather than creating a large steam explosion. ''Literally'' vaporizing a human would make him blow up like a grenade, only with several times the energy.
* Other stories feature weapons that are said to convert the entire mass of their targets to energy. Taken literally, this should result in effects much like those of a nuclear bomb. Dealt with 'realistically' as part of the plot in Neal Asher's [[Literature/ThePolity Polity]] novel ''Gridlinked''. The interplanetary transport system, called a runcible, is sabotaged causing a single person to arrive at a planet as pure energy. The ensuing explosion and resultant environmental impact kill off the entire planetary colony.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/KidCosmic Kid Cosmic's second season finale]]'', [[spoiler: Erodius the Planet Killer]] explodes dangerously close to Earth. Everyone seems fine after the fact. However, countless Stones of Power do rain down on Earth, and the third season involves the Local Heroes fighting a bunch of villains using them for evil. Several battles in the middle of a crowded city ensue. Again, the population at large seems fine. [[spoiler: Then it gets justified when it turns out that all that was an illusion, part of [[LotusEaterMachine a perfect dream world that Fantos trapped the heroes in.]] Erodius has not been destroyed yet, and the Earth is still in danger.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'': New Jersey is utterly destroyed by the end of several episodes, but is always [[SnapBack fixed by the next one]]. Subverted in the episode where [[DetonationMoon Coop accidentally blew up part of the moon]]: Earth was hit with severe and deadly climate change, at least until Coop flew back up and put the moon pieces back.

* Twilight Sparkle, being the genius that she is, helps give ''FanFic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum'' an incredibly in-depth and {{Troperiffic}} monologue on the scientific problems of the FanFic/TheConversionBureau universe.
-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony, no, anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"
** [[spoiler: [[FantasticRacism Not that the last part matters much now...]]. It's also implied that there's some property to the Barrier that may be more sinister.]]
* Referenced and sometimes averted, sometimes Played Straight, in ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' - the Avengers go to every possible length to try and keep their battles free of collateral damage, as do other heroic characters, taking them to emptier locations if possible. Additionally, where possible, Doctor Strange (a {{Seer|s}} who knows when the excrement is about to hit the rotating device) evacuates local populations in advance. However, it's made abundantly clear that the Battle of New York claimed dozens of lives, and the Battle of London had casualties too - because while measures were taken to clear Central London of civilians as far as possible, London is still an enormous and densely populated city, and the battle quickly went global.

* The Tunguska Event, also in Russia, in 1908, was a crazy large explosion that leveled 2000 square kilometres of forest, yet didn't cause a single human casualty.

** Also on the above point, half of people were brought back ''five years'' later. By then society would have settled into a new status quo where the necessities for living such as clean water, food and healthcare services would be produced to half the demand there used to be. Suddenly having to provide for twice the population would cause a mass shortage on everything, and this should by all logic lead to mass death and possibly widespread societal collapse. However, there is no indication any such things happened.

See ColonyDrop for when a large man-made object is deliberately dropped on top of a planet ''in order to'' cause a massive impact. The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the fan theory about the destruction of Endor as a result of the detonation of the Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' (see Film section below). (And [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant not]] the [[Literature/EndersGame Ender Holocaust]], which is about the opposite.)