In What Movies Is Vegas in Some Sort of Apocalypse?

Las Vegas has been in countless movies over the years, some good, some not so good, and some godawful. Still, since they're about Vegas, I usually enjoy them. One I really liked was the recent Army of the Dead, because it was both a zombie flick and a heist thriller, with some family stuff thrown in. It got me to thinking that the Vegas movies I like the most are the ones where there's a lot of destruction, like Mars Attacks and Blade Runner 2049. What other movies have been made where Vegas is in the middle of some sort of apocalypse?

We doubt the following list covers all of them, but here are the major ones in chronological order.

The Stand was the first (1994). This adaptation of the Stephen King novel has been produced as a TV mini-series (1994) and movie (2020). First, a superflu leads to the total collapse of civilization and pretty much everyone in Las Vegas winds up dead. Then, after the city is restored by followers of the dictatorial Randall Flagg, it descends into another type of mayhem that only a nuclear bomb can annihilate. Light and breezy stuff.

The Stand was followed in a couple of years by Mars Attacks! (1996), Tim Burton's star-studded sci-fi comedy in which the Martians first make contact with U.S. government science aides in Pahrump, then go on a destruction spree that eventually ravages Las Vegas.

The zombie-pandemic extravaganza, Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), had its share of carnage and extirpation, though in one reviewer's words, it was "fraudulently short on the ruined Vegas-scape that ads have been promising."

The disaster movie 2012 (2009), in which neutrinos from a huge solar flare are heating Earth's core, makes a stop in Las Vegas just as the city is being enveloped in an ash cloud and the Wynn, Bellagio, and other Strip resorts are disappearing into a widening crack in the crust.

The quickly forgotten Blast Vegas (2013) was a made-for-TV movie in which the ancient (and cursed) sword of Thutmose III, stolen from a casino, triggers an epic storm that nearly buries the Strip in sand.

Yet another remake of Godzilla (2014), the 30th or so, involved a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism, a cross between a spider and dinosaur) that attacks and wreaks havoc on the Strip.

Finally, we come to Blade Runner 2049 (2017). The original Blade Runner (1982) was set entirely in Los Angeles; Las Vegas didn't factor in at all. In the remake, Las Vegas, with a completely reimagined futuristic skyline, is destroyed by a dirty bomb that turns everything orange. Since it's nearly uninhabitable, the protagonist, Rick Deckard, finds it the perfect place to hide out from the authorities and wanders among the eerie ruins, including what looks like the Forum Shops at Caesars.

As we said, we're sure this list isn't complete, so if you like, add the movies you know of that we missed.

No part of this answer may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

Have a question that hasn't been answered? Email us with your suggestion.

Missed a Question of the Day?

Have a Question?

Tomorrow's Question

Has Clark County ever considered legalizing prostitution?

Comments

Ted Born Oct-09-2021

Damnation Alley (1977)

There is a scene in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie where some survivors of a nuclear holocaust traveling east in a "landmaster" happen upon the ruins of Las Vegas.  They stop at what's left of Circus Circus.

alohafri Oct-09-2021

The Stand

I haven't seen the updated version of The Stand, but it will have to go a long way to equal the original with Gary Sinise. After seeing it for the first time, I knew I had to go to the Plaza. M-O-O-N, that spells The Plaza.

mik1234444 Oct-09-2021

Con Air

Con air with Nicholas Cage

Roy Furukawa Oct-09-2021

Mars Attacks! is the best

The star studded cast of Mars Attacks! and the fact it was Slim Whitman's song Indian Love Call that saved Earth has to be #1 on my list. The roster of stars you'd think would never be in one movie, were in this one movie.

Jon Anderson Oct-09-2021

Cherry 2000

80's sci-fi flick with Melanie Griffith. Actually it was filmed in Nevada. Set in the far, far future of 2017, it showed an abandoned, mostly sand covered Las Vegas. The ghost of LV also plays a big part in the exciting ending of this quirky movie.

Llew Oct-09-2021

Mars Attacks

One of the funniest movies EVER!  Laughed out loud so many times.

higesq Oct-09-2021

Damnation Alley

I remember Las Vegas being occupied by killer cockroaches and George Peppard trying to alternately kill them and outrun them

gaattc2001 Oct-10-2021

Mickey Rooney got into some nuclear antics ...

in "The Atomic Kid" (1954), and "The Amazing Colossal Man" (1958) did some mayhem on the strip--ogling the giant silver slipper and the Dunes Sultan; but I don't think the city was destroyed in either case.

"The Stand" (1994) isn't likely to be surpassed by remakes. "Con Air" only coincidentally crashed in Vegas; it could have been anywhere. And Matthew Broderick almost started WWIII by nuking Las Vegas in "War Games" (1983), but the city itself did not appear.

Here's a link to IMDB listing over 5,000 movies and TV shows filmed in Las Vegas, although not necessarily set there:
https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Las%20Vegas%2C%20Nevada%2C%20USA&ref_=tt_dt_loc

And then there was Francis Ford Coppola's "One From the Heart" (1981), which reversed the tradition. Set in Las Vegas but shot entirely on California sound stages, complete with Fremont Street and McCarran Airport, that was a disaster of another kind.

Question of the Day - 09 October 2021

Comments