underground city theme
There is a large underground settlement that does not sprawl out onto the surface.
Notes
This theme does not apply when a small community of people living inside caverns or a underground complex, as is sometimes depicted in post-apocalyptic dystopian films.
Examples
The United Earth Government prepared approximately 10,000 underground cities for the world's population to hunker down inside while the planet was being migrated out of the Solar System to the Alpha Centauri system in "The Wandering Earth" (2019).
9 total · 4 major · 5 minor
| Story | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| movie: Alien from LA (1988) | major | Wanda visited Atlantis, which turned out to be a large city that was deep within the Earth |
| movie: City of Ember (2008) | major | The story is set some untold generations after the survivors of an unspecified global catastrophe inhabit the titular dank and crumbling underground city. |
| movie: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) | major | Indy and his party reached the ruins of the fabled underground city of Akator. |
| shortstory: The Undersea Tube (1929) | major | A crack in the undersea, trans-Atlantic pneumatic tube revealed a a marvelous city under the ocean floor. |
| movie: Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977) | minor | The aliens lived in what was called an underground city, although it appeared to be more of a system of caverns. |
| movie: Jetsons: The Movie (1990) | minor | The Grungees lived in a city inside an asteroid. |
| movie: The Salute of the Jugger (1989) | minor | There was a league of nine underground cities, one of which Sallow's Jugger ball team visited. |
| movie: The Wandering Earth (2019) | minor | The people of earth were moved into about 10,000 underground cities while the planet was being migrated to the Alpha Centauri system. |
| novel: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) | minor | The inhabitants of the Moon lived in highly developed underground complexes of some sort. |