"Terminator Genisys" is the latest blockbuster movie to release a trailer causing fictional havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge, but it's just part of a longstanding Hollywood tradition to blow up San Francisco.
The last film in the "Terminator" franchise, 2009's "Terminator Salvation," was set in 2018 and included the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge as part of the plot. Meanwhile, "Terminator Genisys" is set in 1984, when the bridge was still intact.
The bridge is also a target of the current feature "San Andreas," and despite San Francisco's utter destruction onscreen, locals turned out to see the film in high numbers on opening weekend.
It's a current trend for sure, but also one rooted in the past. Sixty years have now passed, for example, since the Golden Gate Bridge was leveled by the enormous octopus in "It Came From Beneath The Sea" in 1955. It has since been fictionally destroyed or threatened by creatures or natural disasters in movies like "Superman" (1978), "The Core" (2003), and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011).
TheMovieDOOD edited a medley of scenes of the Golden Gate Bridge's destruction. (Warning: Bay Area viewers may find that it is both humorous and panic-inducing.)
