by Matthew Howe
Hi, everyone. It’s Chicago here.
We’re not sure if you’re familiar with us, but we’re a pretty nifty city. We’ve got the number two and number three tallest building in America. Our steaks are the best you’ll ever eat, we do hot dogs the right way (not to mention we’re the home of deep dish pizza) and we have a rather nice lakefront.
And our observatory complex? To die for.
Hi, everyone. It’s Chicago here.
We’re not sure if you’re familiar with us, but we’re a pretty nifty city. We’ve got the number two and number three tallest building in America. Our steaks are the best you’ll ever eat, we do hot dogs the right way (not to mention we’re the home of deep dish pizza) and we have a rather nice lakefront.
And our observatory complex? To die for.
Just now when we were surfing the Internet we caught the trailer for that new Dwayne Johnson (though we’ll always remember him as “The Rock”) movie San Andreas. Now while some people might cynically say it looks like little more than a remake of the 1970’s classic Earthquake starring the awesome Charlton Heston (who didn’t but could have lived-in Chicago, we’re that cool) or others might even more cynically say there’s no way to ever top the destruction of Los Angeles scene in 2012 so why bother, we think it looks pretty spiffy.
That is a lot of very cool special effects. That shot of the fault splitting with the gas station half fallen in. Wow. That line of tiny explosions and fires making a beeline for downtown LA? Great! The Hollywood sign falling over? Chills. Down the spine.
We’ll admit it, we love what you guys in Hollywood do with all those computer and effects and stuff. It’s pretty amazing.
But we also have to admit we feel a little left out. A little jealous maybe.
After all, it seems that New York and Los Angeles get most of the disaster movie treatment. Let’s looks back a little, just off the top of our heads, at some recent disaster movies and see what cities were featured:
Independence Day: New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.
Volcano: Los Angeles.
Cloverfield: New York
The Day After Tomorrow: New York and Los Angeles
2012: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington D.C.
Godzilla (1998) New York
Godzilla (2014) San Francisco
That is a lot of very cool special effects. That shot of the fault splitting with the gas station half fallen in. Wow. That line of tiny explosions and fires making a beeline for downtown LA? Great! The Hollywood sign falling over? Chills. Down the spine.
We’ll admit it, we love what you guys in Hollywood do with all those computer and effects and stuff. It’s pretty amazing.
But we also have to admit we feel a little left out. A little jealous maybe.
After all, it seems that New York and Los Angeles get most of the disaster movie treatment. Let’s looks back a little, just off the top of our heads, at some recent disaster movies and see what cities were featured:
Independence Day: New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.
Volcano: Los Angeles.
Cloverfield: New York
The Day After Tomorrow: New York and Los Angeles
2012: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington D.C.
Godzilla (1998) New York
Godzilla (2014) San Francisco
Ed: Imagine if this was a dormant alien species! Anyone seeing a pattern here? Anyone else starting to suspect that maybe certain cities are, well, how do we put this delicately, attention hogs?
Anyone noticing anything missing? Like maybe the “City of Big Shoulders,” to quote Carl Sandburg (who if was a Hollywood disaster movie screenwriter would definitely give Chicago full consideration.)
What’s wrong with Chicago? We’re a really cool city with all sorts of big stuff to destroy. Like we mentioned earlier, tallest buildings number two and number three.
Just think of all the great stuff that could happen here. We had a pretty famous fire back in 1871, so why not another one in 2017? A city engulfed in flames! Or maybe it turns out there’s a dormant sink hole (a giant sink hole, of course) under the city and construction of a new subway line (yes, we have a subway, and an elevated train system which makes us pretty cool) triggers a collapse so the whole city falls into it. Can you imagine the whiz-bang CGI we could do there? Or the lake. Maybe a monster lives in the lake. Or if that’s too old, the lake overflows and floods the whole city and people have to pump water out of their basements. That, we can assure you, is no fun at all.
We’re just brainstorming here, throwing ideas out, but seriously, Hollywood, next time you decide you need to destroy a major world city on screen, could you at least consider Chicago?
We are starting to feel really, really left out.
Anyone noticing anything missing? Like maybe the “City of Big Shoulders,” to quote Carl Sandburg (who if was a Hollywood disaster movie screenwriter would definitely give Chicago full consideration.)
What’s wrong with Chicago? We’re a really cool city with all sorts of big stuff to destroy. Like we mentioned earlier, tallest buildings number two and number three.
Just think of all the great stuff that could happen here. We had a pretty famous fire back in 1871, so why not another one in 2017? A city engulfed in flames! Or maybe it turns out there’s a dormant sink hole (a giant sink hole, of course) under the city and construction of a new subway line (yes, we have a subway, and an elevated train system which makes us pretty cool) triggers a collapse so the whole city falls into it. Can you imagine the whiz-bang CGI we could do there? Or the lake. Maybe a monster lives in the lake. Or if that’s too old, the lake overflows and floods the whole city and people have to pump water out of their basements. That, we can assure you, is no fun at all.
We’re just brainstorming here, throwing ideas out, but seriously, Hollywood, next time you decide you need to destroy a major world city on screen, could you at least consider Chicago?
We are starting to feel really, really left out.
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