After its unveiling in 1886, the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World), by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, quickly became iconic, and began to be featured on posters, postcards, pictures and books. The statue's likeness has also appeared in films, television programs, music videos, and video games, and has been used in logos, on postage stamps and coins, and in theatrical productions. Liberty Enlightening the World remains a popular local, national, and international political symbol of freedom.
As a famous landmark, damage and destruction of the statue has been used to symbolize the end of mankind or the destruction of New York City. The table below lists some examples of movies which feature the statue damaged or destroyed.
There have been questions raised about how the statue would hold up for thousands of years, based on her current corrosion patterns. Studies done during various repairs in the past hundred years show that the copper "skin" of the statue herself will hold up, but her insides may not.[40] The copper has aged and chemically changed to create a patina, which on metal is a coating of various chemical compounds such as oxides, carbonates, sulfides, or sulfates formed on the surface during exposure to atmospheric elements. It is this patina that gives the statue her sea-green coloring, due to the oxidation of the copper. It also means that the statue's deterioration by seawater and winds is greatly slowed. The only thing that still poses a threat to the patina is acid rain, which has the power to corrode the surface.
The joints holding the statue together have withstood some damage by seawater, and have been periodically replaced or repaired. The greatest damage comes in the form of a weakening to the arm holding up the torch, one of the areas of the statue that supports the most weight over a relatively small area.[41] This arm weakness was most recently repaired in the mid-1980s. The torch that the statue holds was also replaced then, because the original torch had been irrevocably damaged by water and snow seeping in through the stained glass windows cut into the flame by Gutzon Borglum in 1916. The old torch now sits in the Statue of Liberty Museum in Fort Wood. The stone at Liberty's feet has also needed repair in the past. Fifty years after the statue was first erected, in 1937, it was discovered that water was leaking in to the pedestal that the statue stands upon. A giant copper apron (250 ft. tall) was placed over the pedestal to prevent future damage. Overall, the majority of the statue would likely survive the test of time if an apocalyptic event happened on Earth, as it does in many of the following movies.
| Year | Media | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1933 | Deluge | The statue is hit by a tsunami. |
| 1968 | Planet of the Apes | Thousands of years in the future, the statue is seen decayed in the sand on a shoreline. Astronaut Taylor sees it and realizes he has time-traveled and has been on Earth the whole time. The statue also appears scorched, indicating its destruction in a nuclear war. This scene has become a classic science fiction movie moment and is possibly the most famous cultural depiction of the statue. |
| 1979 | Meteor | A meteor fragment passes by the statue and hits Manhattan. |
| 1981 | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Episodes 1 and 3 | In Episode 1 (the pilot episode), after the Vogons have destroyed the Earth, the Statue of Liberty can be briefly seen inside a storage room in their spaceship. The production notes commentary on the DVD states that the statue was abducted from Earth, possibly moments before its destruction, because the Vogons like to keep souvenirs from the planets they demolish. In an Episode 3 animation sequence, the statue is seen being destroyed in a hypothetical nuclear war, with the ruins resembling Joseph Pennell's iconic 1918 World War I recruiting poster. |
| 1981 | Escape from New York | The statue is decapitated and its severed head is seen in the streets of New York City on the poster. However, it is intact in the film, with Liberty Island being a security headquarters after Manhattan has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison. |
| 1983 | 2019, After the Fall of New York | This sci-fi film takes place many years after a nuclear war; the statue is seen abandoned and derelict on Liberty Island, which is seen as mostly submerged in the ocean. Fort Wood appears to have sunk into the ground up to the top of the pedestal.[42] |
| 1983 | Rock & Rule | The statue is seen in the ruins of New York (now called Nuke York). While most of it remains standing, it appears tilted and is missing its torch arm. |
| 1985 | National Lampoon's European Vacation | The Griswold family, returning to the United States from their vacation to Europe, sees the Statue of Liberty from their plane. Clark accidentally opens the cockpit door while searching for a bathroom, bumps the pilot, and causes the plane to hit the statue's torch, damaging it by knocking it upside down. |
| 1987 | Superman IV: The Quest for Peace | Nuclear Man lifts the statue from her pedestal and hurls her toward Metropolis. Superman catches and re-attaches her to her pedestal. |
| 1993 | The Abyss Special Edition | The statue is seen when the aliens create massive worldwide megatsunamis to demonstrate their water control as a warning to humanity. She is incorrectly depicted facing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. |
| 1995 | Batman Forever | During the film's opening sequence, Batman chases Two-Face in a helicopter until it crashes into the head of the statue, heavily damaging its face. The statue, notably different from its real-life counterpart, has a Gothic design, the word "Gotham" imprinted on its crown, and in place of the torch is a rotating light similar to a lighthouse. Liberty Island also appears to be submerged in the ocean up to the top of the pedestal.[43] |
| 1995 | Judge Dredd | In the future, after the Earth has suffered massive damage, the statue is seen in the middle of Mega-City 1 and its new base is the location of the confidential Janus laboratories. The statue is shown in a derelict state, with a massive hole in the left side of her forehead. |
| 1996 | Independence Day | The statue is first seen after a satellite crashes into the aliens' arriving mothership and the camera points at her tablet to indicate July IV, Independence Day. The statue is also seen being covered in the shadow of an alien destroyer that arrives in New York City. After the aliens destroy New York City, the statue is seen toppled into the river. |
| 1997 | The Fifth Element | In this futuristic thriller film, the statue can be briefly spotted as an interstellar spaceship takes off over New York Harbor. The sea level has lowered drastically so that Liberty Island is now connected directly to the mainland. The statue also has a new pedestal, roughly five times its present height. |
| 1998 | Deep Impact | The statue is toppled by a megatsunami created by a comet impact, which also pushes her severed head into the streets of New York City. |
| 1999 | Aftershock: Earthquake in New York | The pedestal collapses during an earthquake, causing the statue to topple. At the end of the film, it is shown being rebuilt a year after the disaster. The statue's severed head is seen in New York harbor on the film's poster. |
| 2000 | The Busy World of Richard Scarry episode "The Big Apple Christmas Caper"[44] | The statue is depicted as an anthropomorphic pig. A villain piloting a blimp with a giant magnet attached to it uses it to rip the crown and torch off, along with many other pieces of New York City, like skyscraper spires and vehicles. After the villain's plan is foiled, the torch and crown fall into the streets of the city. Later, in an error of continuity, the torch and crown are shown to have fallen on top of skyscrapers, and the spire of the Chrysler Building is shown to have fallen onto the head of the statue, which makes it look like it has a new crown. |
| 2001 | A.I. Artificial Intelligence | The statue is seen submerged in the ocean up to the bottom of the torch due to sea level rise as a result of global warming. |
| 2004 | The Day After Tomorrow | The statue is hit by a massive storm surge, submerging her in the ocean up to her thigh, and is later shown to have frozen due to climate change. The statue also appeared in two posters for the film which showed her portrayed differently than in the film. One showed her being hit by the storm surge;[45] another showed her frozen.[46] Both showed her submerged up to her nose and incorrectly facing west toward New Jersey, with the New York skyline to her right. The writer and director of the film, Roland Emmerich, later confided that the Statue of Liberty would, in fact, have been toppled by the force of the massive amount of water flowing around it, but said he wanted to leave it standing in the film in order to create a symbol of American values that stood up to the forces of nature. |
| 2004 | Godzilla: Final Wars | The statue is seen destroyed after Rodan destroys New York City. |
| 2005 | Category 7: The End of the World | The statue is hit by a storm surge and destroyed by a tornado due to global warming. The torch is ripped off by the tornado and thrown into the streets of New York City. The statue is also seen being hit by the storm surge in two different posters for the film.[47][48] |
| 2006 | Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut | Superman is kicked into the torch of the statue by General Zod, destroying it. The destruction is later reversed when Superman turns back time to repair the damage caused by the three supervillains. |
| 2006 | Children of Men | In a televised advertisement stating that the whole world, except for Britain, was destroyed due to infertility, the statue is seen being destroyed in a nuclear bomb attack on New York City. |
| 2008 | Life After People Season 1 Episode 1 "The Bodies Left Behind" | The pilot episode of the series shows the statue slowly deteriorating until about 300 years after the human race ceases to exist. After the 300 years (approx.) have passed, the steel connecting the "skin" of Lady Liberty to the main steel frame begins to fail, causing the torch arm and face to fall into the harbor. The narrator suggests it continues on like this until the entire structure collapses. The narrator also suggests that it is possible that the imprint of the arm and face on the ocean floor might become fossilized. |
| 2008 | Aftermath: Population Zero | Similar to Life After People, although the statue is shown deteriorating at a faster rate. Beginning to collapse after 230 years rather than 300, large sections of the statue collapse in stages soon after each other, rather than slowly peeling away as in Life After People. After 1,000 years, only the pedestal still stands, and could last for thousands of more years, until it is eventually crushed by moving glaciers in an ice age. The statue is seen with her torch arm broken off on the poster.[49] |
| 2008 | Cloverfield | The statue is decapitated by a giant monster and its head is thrown by the monster into the streets of New York City. The decapitated statue is later seen from the Brooklyn Bridge. According to the Special Investigation Mode on the Blu-Ray, the monster was attempting to eat the statue and threw the head after discovering it was inedible. The film's poster also features the decapitated statue. The artwork on the back cover of the DVD and Blu-Ray cases of the film shows an image of the statue's severed head in the streets of New York, although it's not as damaged as it is in the actual film. |
| 2008 | NYC: Tornado Terror | A tornado forms over the statue, ripping the torch off. The statue is also seen with her torch arm broken off on the film's poster, as well as her tablet arm (although she doesn't lose her tablet arm in the actual film). The poster seems to resemble the Cloverfield poster and Joseph Pennell's iconic 1918 World War I recruiting poster. |
| 2012 | Iron Sky | The statue is destroyed by the Nazis when they invade New York City. |
| 2013 | Oblivion | The statue is seen buried up to her torch in a canyon sixty years after the destruction of New York City in an alien invasion.[50] In a flashback seen earlier in the film showing New York City before its destruction, the statue can be seen intact from the Empire State Building's observation deck.[51] |
| 2018 | The Man in the High Castle Season 3 Episode 5 "The New Colossus" and Episode 10 "Jahr Null" | In Episode 5 of Season 3, titled The New Colossus, a plan is made by the Nazis to demolish the statue as part of a campaign to destroy American icons, to be replaced by a Hitler Youth monument. In Episode 10 of the same season, titled Jahr Null, the plan is implemented and the statue is destroyed by missiles fired by Nazi aircraft in a spectacular ceremony involving fireworks and set to the strains of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The missiles hit the pedestal, causing it and the statue to collapse onto Bedloe's Island, while the torch arm falls and sinks into New York harbor. |
