Monumental Battle

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The logical conclusion. Well, actually, the logical conclusion was them getting along once they realized they had a mutual folktale popularity for honesty.
"I'm thinkin' Lincoln!"
—Dexter, about to commence in the right.

Somehow, a disproportionate number of fictional fights break out at easily-recognized national monuments and landmarks around the world.

One reason for doing this is that at least a portion of the audience will be familiar with the monument in question, whether by general knowledge or by having actually been there. This means the author doesn't have to justify the presence of a massive, ancient structure they just made up. In addition, the audience may feel more involved because the setting is familiar (allowing them to concentrate on the action), awed (because the setting is visually impressive), or concerned (because the setting itself might be in danger, and so elicits its own emotional response in anticipation of its defacement or imminent destruction).

This can be justified several ways: the landmark, or something buried underneath it, is said to posess occult powers; there is something of importance about the landmark itself, like a clue left by an Ancient Conspiracy; or there is a major delegation of world leaders being held very close by. As often as not, however, it's a simple case of Small Reference Pools.

Most common places:

  • Paris, France
    • The Eiffel Tower
    • Notre Dame
  • Giza
    • The Great Pyramids
  • South Dakota, USA
    • Mount Rushmore—presents the unique opportunity to do battle on Lincoln's nose. See also Rushmore Refacement.
  • London, England
    • London Bridge or Tower Bridge.
    • The Clock Tower containing Big Ben.
    • The London Eye.
    • Some way from London, but still recognisable as English; Stonehenge, usually of the "ancient occult powers" version.
  • New York
    • The Statue Of Liberty has become a popular site for final one-on-one duels.
    • The Empire State Building and (before a certain date) The Twin Towers.
  • San Francisco
    • The Golden Gate Bridge
  • Tokyo, Japan
    • Tokyo Tower
    • Tokyo Big Sight, aka the Tokyo International Exhibition Center, located on Odaiba in Tokyo Bay. The world's largest comic convention, Comiket, is held here twice a year for over half a million people.
    • Tokyo Dome
    • The Sunshine 60 skyscraper in Ikebukuro, which has many stores of all kinds: an aquarium, an observation deck, etc.

A consequence of The Eiffel Tower Effect, see also Monumental Damage. Compare The Very Definitely Final Dungeon - when the monuments are fictional, and the architects aren't limited by common sense. Or, often, the laws of physics. See also Landmarking the Hidden Base and Weaponized Landmark, which go a little way explaining why some of the battles take place where they do. This can lead to a Funny Aneurysm Moment if some disaster ends up later destroying the monument you so gleefully smash in your work.

Examples of Monumental Battle include:

Anime and Manga

  • Besides Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Mew Mew also fought a battle in and around the Tokyo Dome.
  • Tokyo Big Sight, with its quadruple-inverted-pyramid shape is becoming popular for situations that poke fun at manga fans, possibly because it's the home of Comiket.
    • The second episode of Nurse Witch Komugi had the bad guys turn the convention center into a giant robot, Big Sightron.
      • In a DVD Bonus, Big Sightron gains its own Video PV.
    • Ultimate Girls faced off with their final foe atop and beneath the distinctive structure.
    • Hellsing lightened its fourth OVA finish by showing the villains heading to Big Sight afterwards to sell Manga and perform various Otaku activities.
    • Full Metal Panic! sets the climactic battle between the Arbalest and the Behemoth here.
  • A fight in the second episode of Shinzo, a fascinating and Timey-Wimey Ball-loving series which takes place After the End, finally shatters the already-wrecked Statue of Liberty. Nobody but the viewer knows the significance of it.
  • One of the most memorable battle of Fist of the North Star occurs on the fictional Pyramid of the Southern Cross, built by the will of Souther, worthless child enslaving brute of an Emperor and Kenshiro, the hero of the franchise.
  • The first part of the Read or Die OVA ended atop the Statue Of Liberty.
  • Sailor Moon defeated Kaoriknight at the Tokyo Tower.
    • In the Stars anime, the las battle between the Senshis and Sailor Galaxia starts during the Starlight's last concert in the Tokyo Dome.
      • In the beginning of Stars, Haruka and Michiru are caught by Nelelenia's crones in the Sunshine 60 building.
  • Digimon Adventure: The fight against DeathMeramon took place on top of Tokyo Tower, physically warping it from sheer heat. Twelve years later...
  • The Cowboy Bebop film, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, has the final battle on what looks to be either the Tokyo Tower or the Eiffel Tower... but the film's set on Mars.

Comic Books

  • In Uncanny X-Men #200, there's a big fight in Paris that includes Colossus getting thrown through the rose window of Notre Dame. This was the big payoff from Marvel having sent the comic's art team to Paris for X-Men publicity and story authenticity.
    • The issue before that featured the beginning of a big battle in the National Holocaust Memorial in New York, which was only ended when Magneto agreed to be arrested so Freedom Force would quit destroying shit.
  • In a climactic battle in the Psi-Force comic, the good guy—a gestalt entity with the magnified powers of the titular team—hit the bad guy with the Washington Monument. He still lost, though. The bad guy then walked into the National Archives and set fire to the Constitution.
  • Recently done in Secret Avengers during the Fear Itself arc. A mutant Senator with vaguely defined powers to "bring history to life", animates The Lincoln Memorial and exhibits from The Smithsonian to battle the invading enemies.

Film

  • James Bond fought a major minion or two at the Eiffel Tower in A View to a Kill. The final confrontation took place over the Golden Gate Bridge.
    • Also he ends up hanging off of a hot-air balloon above the landmark then called the Millenium Dome (now the O2 Arena) in The World Is Not Enough.
  • The final showdown between apes and humans in Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes place on the Golden Gate Bridge.
  • Although not a national landmark, the movie Highlander had the final battle take place at the Silvercup Studios roof, with the "Silvercup" sign a local landmark.
  • Parodied in the film Team America: World Police—their Elaborate Underground Base was in Mount Rushmore, and any battle that took place in another country resulted in the casual destruction of one of their national treasures. Over the course of the film, our team destroy the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and Abu Simbel. The Panama Canal is also destroyed, this time by the team's enemies.
  • Another cinematic example: King Kong climbed the Empire State Building in 1933, making this Older Than Television.
    • King Kong climbed the south tower of the World Trade Center before jumping to the north tower in the 1976 version.
  • Seems that Alfred Hitchcock liked this trope a lot:
  • The live action Richie Rich film parodied this with a climax that took place on "Mount Richmore", a mountain carved Mount Rushmore-style to look like the Rich family. Earlier in the film, the villain actually watches a little of North by Northwest.
  • In the final battle in Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee and a very hairy-chested Chuck Norris duke it out in Rome's Coliseum.
  • The Hong Kong Wuxia A Man Called Hero (as well as its original source material Manhua (Hong-Kong Manga) Chinese Hero featured an epic final duel between China and Japan's greatest warriors... on top of the Statue of Liberty.
  • In the first X-Men movie, the final battle also takes place at the Statue of Liberty, with Wolverine and Sabretooth having a battle atop its head. The climax of the third takes place at Alcatraz and the demolishment of the Golden Gate Bridge.
  • Shanghai Knights ends with a battle inside Big Ben. (Or rather, inside the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, where the bell named Big Ben is.)
  • The Great Mouse Detective also has a climactic fight in Big Ben. Notable as one of the earliest examples of Conspicuous CG.
  • In Earth vs. the Flying Saucers the invading aliens damage the Capitol building and the Supreme Court building.
  • In Mars Attacks!!, during their attack on Washington D.C. the aliens knock over the Washington Monument, nudging it so it falls onto a troop of Boy Scouts. They also destroy the Taj Mahal in India and blast Big Ben in London.
  • The first third of Superman II features both a fight with terrorists at the Eiffel Tower and a daring rescue (or two) at Niagara Falls.
    • Superman III also features Superman in full Jerkass mode straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
    • Superman IV features a chase between Nuclear Man destroying various landmarks and Superman quickly repairing things. Among them include the Great Wall of China and (of course) The Statue of Liberty.
  • Happens often in Kaiju films: Godzilla and Angurius destroyed Osaka Castle in Godzilla Raids Again, Mothra wrecked Tokyo Tower in her debut film, and there have been at least three films with a final battle at Mt. Fuji.
  • Q – The Winged Serpent is finally killed in a surprisingly cool action sequence at the top of the Chrysler Building in New York City.
  • The fight with the alien robot in Monsters vs. Aliens culminates at the Golden Gate bridge.
  • Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins features a Parkour-type chase down the outside of the Statue of Liberty using the scaffolding that was in place during the refurbishment that it was undergoing around the time that the movie was being made.
  • Semi-Justified in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen where the Pyramids were constructed as a hiding spot for an ancient alien Doomsday Device. The last third of the movie takes place at its base and on top of it.
  • G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has an epic (or Narm, Your Mileage May Vary) battle scene in Paris, where Cobra attempts to destroy the city with nanites. They fail, but manage to destroy the Eiffel Tower. Oddly, the Joes don't seem to care.
    • The Joes may not engage in conversation about the tower destruction, but Breaker seems to be genuinely appalled by the fact.
      • Who wouldn't be appalled by the utter and almost instantaneous destruction of a monument that possibly took a few hundred visiting tourists with it? The Joes, apparently.
        • Please. It's GI Joe! The tourists all leaped from the tower and parachuted to safety mere moments before the nanites hit!
  • The smaller asteroids in Armageddon seem inexplicably attracted to major landmarks. The Eiffel Tower is right at Ground Zero for one of the asteroid strikes, for example.
    • Correction: Ground Zero for the Paris impact is located near the Champs Élysées instead. Curiously, the blast destroys the Eiffel Tower but leaves the much closer Arc de Triomphe more or less intact.
  • Similarly, the various geomagnetic anomalies in The Core only seemed to strike national monuments. The superstorm destroys the Coliseum in Rome, and the microwave hole fries the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
  • The alien spacecraft in Independence Day sure liked to hang around recognizable landmarks. The first strikes were aimed at the White House and the Empire State Building. At the end, the vanquished alien wrecks lay near the Giza Pyramids and the Syndey Opera House.
  • The first Blade movie ends with a short scene of Blade hunting vampires in Moscow. Where, exactly? Well, on the Red Square, konechno!
  • Rush Hour 3 ends with Jackie Chan facing off against the Big Bad in a swordfight that starts in the Jules Verne restaurant of the Eiffel Tower and ends up on the girders of the outside. As is Rush Hour tradition, the baddie falls to his death onto a glass booth below.
  • Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones dangle from the skybridge of the KLCC Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in Entrapment.
  • Judge Dredd. The final battle between Dredd and Rico takes place inside the Statue of Liberty.
  • Original script for Film/Friday the 13th Part VIII had the climactic fight taking place on the statue of liberty.

Literature

  • Silverwing features the main character and friends getting turned into living bombs and dropped on Bazil of all places. Christ the Redeemer features prominently during the bombing run & after they escape they hide in a bombed out hole in the thing.
  • Percy Jackson fights monsters at the top of the Saint Louis arch (The Lightning Theif), Hoover Dam (The Titan's Curse), Alcatraz (Battle of the Labyrinth), and of course the Empire State Building (The Last Olympian). Thank the gods for mist
    • He also kills the Minotaur on Williamsburg Bridge (in fact, all the bridges in Manhatten are the site of battles) in The Last Olympian, and fights Telekhines on Mt St. Helens which is also where Typhon is trapped, until the battle accidently frees him in Battle of the Labyrinth. The sequel series The Heroes of Olympus seems to be following the tradition, with the first time Jason, Piper and Leo face monsters is the Grand Canyon well, the first time we see Jason fight a monster, that is.

Live Action TV

  • Doctor Who had Big Ben partially destroyed (and Ten Downing Street completely destroyed) in Aliens of London/World War III, and then there's the Battle of Canary Wharf in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday in and around the Canary Wharf Tower which, due to the Weird Al Effect, is now thought by countless Americans to be called "the Torchwood Tower" in real life...
    • And the original series had the world-conquering supercomputer WOTAN based in the Post Office/BT Tower.
      • In The Pandorica Opens hundreds of aliens races gather at Stonehedge to battle it out for the Pandorica, with the Doctor standing between all of them and it. Except they're all working together against the Doctor to trap him in it.
  • Highlander the Series had MacLeod use the Eiffel Tower to kill two birds with one stone: By killing his opponent, who had hidden a computer counting down to initiate his master plan somewhere in central Paris, Mac caused the tower to act as an antenna for his quickening, shorting out every computer for miles.

Video Games

  • In Sam and Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die!, a cybernetically-animated version of the Lincoln Monument runs for president; the player must get Max to run against it, and win, to advance the story.
  • The final boss fight of Metal Gear Solid 2 is a swordfight on top of Federal Hall in New York.
  • Deus Ex has a number of levels set at famous landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park and the Paris catacombs.
  • Chelnov: Atomic Runner has the final boss fight atop the Statue of Liberty's shoulder.
  • Resistance: Fall of Man famously featured a battle in Manchester Cathedral which led to a legal spat between Sony and the Church of England.
  • The climax of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter takes place at the Presidential Palace in downtown Mexico City, as well as the adjoining plaza El Zócalo, the second most iconic location in the city. Several missions earlier, the hardest scene (as well as the final showdown) occurs at the first most iconic location, Plaza del Ángel, where the US Embassy is blown up by insurgents.
  • The Conduit has several stages in or near various Washington D.C. landmarks.
  • Several missions in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 take place around famous buildings, with them often being turned into infantry strongholds or super-weapons. In the Soviet Paris mission, the objective is to turn the Eiffel Tower into a gigantic tesla coil capable of destroying every enemy in the entire city. In the expansion, Yuri even remakes the Easter Island heads in his own image, with lasers shooting out of their eyes.
    • There was a bit of a Funny Aneurysm Moment when you got to fight in New York, optionally destroying the World Trade Center... they had to rename it in a patch.
    • Red Alert 3 has many more famous buildings around the battles. Some need to be destroyed to complete the mission, others have been fitted with weaponry to be used against you, including a weaponized Mount Rushmore with laser eyes!
    • In Tiberium Wars, GDI and Nod's first campaigns are in Washington DC; both feature a level where you take over the White House; GDI also has to defend the Pentagon. The Scrin's first mission takes place in London, and your objective (aside from destroying GDI), is to take out Big Ben, Parliament, and Buckingham Palace.
  • Battle Tanx: Global Assault was all about traveling to famous places in America, England, France, and Germany, and having a massive tank battle on top of their ruins.
  • In Tom Clancy's HAWX, the PC and his squadmates fight in battles above Rio, Washington DC, and LA. In the DC mission, one of your squadmates mentions that the White House has been BLOWN UP in an attempt to kill the President. You also have to protect Air Force One.
  • One of the stages in Modern Warfare 2 take place in Washington D.C., including a mission where your squad has to help retake the White House from the Russians.
  • The third Onimusha game, which partly takes place in modern Paris, features several of these.
  • Metal Wolf Chaos featured this in pretty much every mission. Statue of Liberty? Fought a giant tank. Grand Canyon (which is somehow in Utah)? 'copter. Alcatraz? Took down a giant rail gun. White House? Don't you mean the "Fight House?" Hell, in the D.C. missions, you can go parading around and shooting up monuments (namely Lincoln) for some funny dialogue.
  • Fallout 3 features a lot of Washington landmarks. The more recognizable monuments actually get less plot-critical appearances, and the climactic battle takes place in and around the less familiar Jefferson Memorial.
    • Fallout: New Vegas features a major battle over Hoover Dam, one of the last remaining sources of electricity in the wasteland.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of Red Faction II is set inside the Statue of Sopot.
  • One level in Toy Soldiers takes place at Mt. Rushmore.

Western Animation

  • Kim Possible fought three villains at once at the Eiffel Tower; in a probable reference to the trope, she also fought Dr. Drakken at "The World's Biggest Wheel of Cheese".
    • Which, in fact, is not just a cheese covered building.
  • In an exaggerated twist on Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter and Mandark brought Washington and Lincoln's figures from Mount Rushmore to life, and made them fight. They stop and go to get drinks after they realize they are both known for their honesty in pop culture.
  • The animated G.I. Joe movie opens with a big, flashy battle between the Joes and Cobra over the Statue of Liberty. Even after being demoted from the final battle to an opening action scene, it's still often considered the highlight of the movie.
  • The Real Ghostbusters faced an army of ghosts released when the Eiffel Tower was discovered to be a SteamPunk Ecto-containment grid. Like the Highlander example, they managed to use the tower's unique design to their advantage, converting it into a transmitter which beamed the ghosts back to their containment unit in New York.
  • The South Park episode "Super Best Friends" had Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, and Sea Man (a parody of Aquaman) fighting David Blaine in Washington DC. Blaine brings the Lincoln Memorial to life to fight them, so they build and animate a giant stone John Wilkes Booth to fight back.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: Jackie and Valmont were once in a fight on top of Mount Rushmore. This along with other battles taking place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Colt Tower, along with the Eiffel Tower, Space Needle, and Uluru/Ayres Rock.
    • The opening title sequence has Jackie doing battle at most every major landmark in the world, interspaced with the live action Jackie Chan.
  • The Grand Finale of Mighty Max took place at Stonehenge.
  • At one point of the multi-part Grand Finale of Exo Squad, it is discovered that the Pentagon has been converted into a Neolord brood facility, and the Charlie-Fives are dispatched to take it out. The resultant battle eventually ends up on top of the Washington Monument.
  • The Rugrats once battled an egomaniacal... theme park owner's right-hand man in Paris, taking in the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower.
  • This happened several times in Gargoyles, along with a tendency to deface or destroy the monuments with giant laser beams. The Statue of Liberty, World Trade Center, Uluru, and Notre Dame du Paris all saw fighting, while the Great Sphinx of Giza and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens were severely damaged.
  • Miraculous Ladybug; Thusfar, the series has had no less than four fight scenes at the Eiffel Tower. Sure, the series takes place in Paris, but they have yet to feature landmarks like the Arc de Triomphe or Notre Dame Cathedral yet.

Real Life

  • The Defense of the Great Wall in 1933. One of several battles in history at or around the Great Wall of China (hardly a surprise, given its purpose), but the only one with the Wall itself in the battle's name.
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