SEATTLE — There's the Seattle we know and love. And then there's the place the creators of science fiction, fantasy, and comedy have dreamed up. A city re-imagined.
Take the popular video game and TV franchise, "The Last of Us." Part Two takes us to the vaguely familiar downtown of a near-dystopian future, punctuated by the occasional zombie attack.
Another game, 2014's "Infamous Second Son" brings players with superpowers, and a fair bit of violence, to the Emerald City. Here, Seattle is recreated as a city built on two islands. Call it artistic license.
The 2016 MTV series "The Shannara Chronicles," based on a book series from local author Terry Brooks, sets the remains of Seattle in the futuristic world of The Four Lands and one future Elvis, a young Austin Butler, playing an elf. The show features a toppled Space Needle covered in vines, presumably a thousand years in the future.
"I like to think we're very much in the canon of that futuristic, nerdy culture," said Randy Coté, chief marketing officer at the Space Needle, a place that pops up a lot in fictional and futuristic views of the city.
"It sort of continues to be thought of as this building that lives in the future," he said.
Some depictions, like the one in the second Austin Powers film, play it for laughs. The Needle serves as Dr. Evil's headquarters and a Starbucks in the sky.
"It's so peak-90s Seattle that I always find myself loving that one," Coté said.
Others are unintentionally funny.
"We always have a good laugh with the disaster films," Coté said. "They often show the Space Needle made of materials that it's not really made of."
The 2004 mini series "10.5" portrays the Needle's sturdy steel structure as crumbly concrete, shaken to ruins by a massive quake.
Another disaster of a film, 2012's "Seattle Superstorm," sets a tornado loose on the city's icon.
Even animation has redefined Seattle. The 2011 cult favorite "Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1" simply relabels its New Jersey landscape as "Seattle" in the show's eighth season without changing a thing. And Scooby Doo and the gang enjoyed lunch at the Space Needle, after animators painted it an unauthorized bright red.
"You can tell the ones that didn't pick up the phone and call us," Coté said.
KING 5's Evening celebrates the Northwest. Contact us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Email.