| Statue of Liberty | |
 The Statue of Liberty after being decapitated by Clover as seen in the poster | |
| Country/Continent | United States |
| Location | New York |
| Status | Partially Destroyed |
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. It was gifted to the United States by the people of France in 1886.
Description[]
Standing on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, it welcomes visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans. The copper-clad statue, dedicated on October 28, 1886, commemorates the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence and is a gesture of friendship from France to the United States. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi sculpted the statue and obtained a U.S. patent for its structure. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) engineered the internal structure. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue's construction and adoption of the repoussé technique, where a malleable metal is hammered on the reverse side.
The statue is of a robed woman holding a torch, and is made of a sheeting of pure copper, hung on a framework of steel (originally puddled iron) with the exception of the flame of the torch, which is coated in gold leaf (originally made of copper and later altered to hold glass panes.) It stands atop a rectangular stonework pedestal with a foundation in the shape of an irregular eleven-pointed star. The statue is 151 feet (46 m) tall, but with the pedestal and foundation, it is 305 feet (93 m) tall.
Worldwide, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States, and, more generally, represents liberty and escape from oppression. The Statue of Liberty was, from 1886 until the jet age, often one of the first glimpses of the United States for millions of immigrants after ocean voyages from Europe. Visually, the Statue of Liberty appears to draw inspiration from il Sancarlone or the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue is a central part of Statue of Liberty National Monument, administered by the National Park Service.
In Cloverfield[]
The statue's head right after its fall into a Broadway street.
The Statue of Liberty was one of the first landmarks of the city to be destroyed during the monster's arrival on May 22, 2008. It has been suggested that the monster was trying to consume the statue but only to discover was inedible before detaching its head and hurled it to a street in Broadway, where it was witnessed by dozens of people including Hud Platt.[1]
The decapitated Statue of Liberty is seen clearly by Hud Platt and other evacuees from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Behind Scenes[]
- The first trailer for Cloverfield showed a giant explosion in the heart of New York City and the Statue of Liberty's head being thrown down a street. The special effects were not refined in the teaser trailer, leading many people to notice the difference between the heads in the theatrical trailer and the film itself.
- The decapitated head of the statue in the street is inspired by the poster for John Carpenter's Escape from New York, which depicts the head of the Statue of Liberty lying in the middle of the street.
- The head of the statue is shown about 50% larger than actual size. CG supervisor David Vickery said in an interview that many people imagined the head being much bigger than it actually is, and that the size was increased due to complaints that the head looked too small in the trailer.