"They like to get the landmarks."

For whatever reason, Canada is very rarely the victim of apocalyptic destruction in movies, television or novels. Granted, anything that wipes out the entire world will destroy Canada as well, but depending on the nature of the catastrophe, Canada is far more likely to be someplace where people seek refuge from the disaster rather than ground zero for it.*

As previously mentioned, I'm very aware of this gap in our cultural framework, so I was actually a bit pleased to see a transit shelter poster for Independence Day: Resurgence that featured a gigantic space ship hovering over a crumbling CN Tower.

"Perfect," I thought.  "I'm all set for a Canada Day posting, I'll just go home and find a good copy of that online."

Unexpectedly, the internet was not forthcoming.  This was a bit surprising, given that I could have easily downloaded a JPEG showing a similar view of Big Ben being destroyed, or the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty**, the Eiffel Tower, the Marina Sands Hotel in Singapore, Grant's Tomb  - even the Petronas Twin Towers from Kuala Lumpur - but not the CN Tower.  (Just for the record, the studio deliberately skipped the Gate of India in Mumbai.) If the poster didn't exist at all, I might have been less surprised, but given that it did exist, why would it not be posted online with the other versions?

Disappointed, I decided that I would just hop off the bus on the way home from work and take as good a picture of the ad as possible.

I was disappointed once again: within 36 hours of my original pass by the poster location, it was gone.  Feeling a bit frustrated, I continued home to broaden my search online in hopes that someone else had at least been able to get a snapshot of the Canadian marketing for Resurgence.

Now, just for the record, I'd like to say that I have pretty strong Google-fu.  I can often find things for people who have had absolutely no luck looking for something online.  Nonetheless, after an extensive search I was only able to find two pictures (and a half) of the alien destruction of Toronto's most visible tourist attraction.

I know that Resurgence isn't doing particularly well at the box office, and given the poor reviews I've read I was probably going to skip it, but now I feel a bit tempted to see the movie just to see if there actually is a scene showing the invaders tearing up the CN Tower by the roots, or if it was just a poorly supported blip in the movie's marketing plan.

If that scene is in the movie, 20th Century Fox's marketing people have obviously dropped the ball by not promoting it more widely in Vancouver.  After all, there are more than a few people in British Columbia who would be happy to see any movie with a scene, no matter how brief, showing Toronto being destroyed by aliens.

- Sid

* It's not difficult to imagine a future where climate change has boosted global temperatures to the point where the vast, almost uninhabited areas that make up the better part of our country become usable - in fact, perhaps even desirable - real estate.  Imagine sailing on the tropical blue waters of Hudson Bay as the palm trees lining the beaches near Churchill nod in the warm breeze...

** And a somewhat wistful poster showing a Unicorn Gundam in the same position, but with a defiantly upraised fist rather than a torch.