For this list, we have chosen movies where millions of people die, but the screen writers think that we are so wrapped up with the safety of the main characters that we don't really seem to care. Whether it is a natural disaster, aliens, monsters, or just us humans, movies are good at killing millions of people without even batting an eye. We are all too familiar these days with movies where the third act turns into a "let's destroy the city" spree, and this list is meant to poke fun at the similarities of many of those. Seriously though, how similar are all of these pictures? Basically, we get it Hollywood, you have mastered a CGI building falling down.
#1 Star Trek Into Darkness. At the end of this movie, the giant (and I mean giant) spaceship crashes into San Francisco, and destroys the entire city. San Francisco has a little under a million residents. How many do you think it has in the future? I am going to venture that at least 500,000 people died when that thing took out every sky scraper in the city. But five minutes later, everything is rebuilt, and no harm done.
#2 Pacific Rim. If this situation were real life, and aliens were popping up out of the middle of the ocean, would we not use some type of already existing missile equipment that blasts the heck out of anything that moves in that vicinity with a nuke? Why do we let these things even get close to our cities? Instead, we use million dollar ships as bats to hit the monsters over the head. In the mean time, we are destroying our own cities, and killing millions of innocent people in the process. "Sorry everyone in that building! Throwing the monster through it just seemed like the best idea at the time!"
#3 Independence Day. I mean, this one was really out of our hands. And we have to give humans some props here because at least we didn't blow our own stuff up in the process of trying to kill the aliens. But man, everyone dies in this movie. And it is usually in a huge fireball that spreads for miles. Millions dead. But what can you do?
#4 Man of Steel. "You can save them. You can save them all," says Superman's dad. Well, kind of failed at that one. I am going to venture 600,000 dead, minimum. I was happy when they finally started fighting in space, but they even found a satellite to destroy up there. I mean come on Superman! Help us out a little. There is a scene where he could have stopped a fuel tanker from blowing up an entire building, but just jumps over it instead. He didn't care for one second about all those people in the buildings he is knocking over! And this isn't a Superman problem, it is a screen writer's problem! Let him save a few people while he is at it!!!
#5 Deep Impact. Once again, out of our control. But in this movie, everyone dies, and I mean everyone. At the end of the movie we leave it up to Elijah Wood to repopulate the world and get things going again. But I give it at least 200 years before they figure out how to get the internet and cell phone service going again, so most of us may take our chances with the hospitality of the hurricane I would guess.
#6 The Day After Tomorrow. Look familiar? I mean is this thing just a darker mirror image of Deep Impact's wave or what? But it gets worse because the wave freezes after it sets in. Now that stinks. Now we are wet and cold instead of just wet. And also, we are dead. Because only people near the equator lived. At the end of the movie, Mexico generously lets all the surviving Americans in to repopulate, because everyone is dead. Thanks Mexico!
#7 The Avengers. Now, here we have a similar dilemma that we did in Man of Steel. Do we thank the Avengers for saving us? Or do we get ticked at them for destroying the city? I know they saved us and all, but there was a lot of unnecessary damage as well. Did Hulk have to smash every single building he touched? Couldn't they wait a few seconds to destroy the big alien spaceships so they weren't right on top of buildings? Thousands dead. But who cares? We are saved! No time to mourn!
#8 Transformers 3. Now, the fact that the end of this movie is a straight up rip off of the end of Avengers (or vice versa) is being saved for another list. However, crazy destruction in every direction. And I would venture to guess that EVERYONE working in Chicago that day is dead. Like, way dead. Except Shia Lebouf. Just a few scratches. Imagine how many people died just in that one building falling over? The whole city is decimated by the end of this battle, and I am going to venture another million dead here.
#9 2012. Last, but definitely not least. Remember this movie? It is the one where the end of the world is chasing John Cusack around the globe. Doesn't matter where he is, the end of the world is right behind him. You have to wonder if the screen writers thought that three plane take offs where the run way is collapsing behind them in one movie was a little much, but I guess not. Billions dead. About 6.6 billion probably. But not John Cusack! His family is safe onboard the ark they had prepared. And luckily, his wife's new husband was one of those 6.6 billion, so he doesn't need to worry about any weird love triangles with Amanda Peet. Thanks end of the world!
What other movies have high innocent civilian death tolls? What did we miss? I am sure we are not finished seeing movies where sky scrapers are tumbling down on thousands of people the screen writers think we don't care about. But hey! These are great movies anyway! Let us know your thoughts at
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