Solar eclipses in fiction

Films

There is a body of films featuring solar eclipses. Compared to other astronomical events featured in films, such as full moons and asteroid strikes, solar eclipses are less commonly seen. When they have featured in films, they often drive the plot and have a portentous presence.^[2] NPR's Glen Weldon said that films use eclipses "to signal to audiences that the normal rules have temporarily lifted, and things are about to get weird." The first film to feature a solar eclipse was the 1907 silent film The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon, which featured a solar eclipse as a fantastical consummation between the Sun and the Moon.^[3] Eclipses have been seen as bad omens throughout history and filmmakers leverage that belief "as visual cues or key plot points", according to The Oregonian's Amy Wang.^[4] Lisa Yaszek, a professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, has remarked that the most accurate depiction of a solar eclipse she has seen in film was in the 1961 religious epic Barabbas, which included film of an actual solar eclipse during a crucifixion scene.^[5]

Television

• An episode of the 1980s science fiction comedy/drama The Edison Twins, where the twin siblings foil a bank robbery attempt at a major city bank while employees are focusing on the solar eclipse.
• In the fourth arc of the Sailor Moon manga series by Naoko Takeuchi and the fourth season of its anime adaptation, two eclipses grant power to the group of antagonists known as Dead Moon Circus.
• Heroes features eclipses prominently within the continuity and symbolism of the show. The title card and logo, for example, both feature an eclipse. An eclipse occurs in the pilot episode, "Genesis", described as a "global event" and commonly understood to be the catalyst that activates the characters' abilities. Another eclipse appears in the first episode of season two, during which Hiro Nakamura teleports to 1671 feudal Japan. The two-part season three episode, "The Eclipse
  ", deals with the consequences of a third eclipse which removes all the characters' abilities as well as the unknown connection between eclipses and evolved humans.
• The Recess episode, "Outcast Ashley", partly revolves around Gretchen's attempts to view the solar eclipse occurring that afternoon, and with whom she views it.
• In one of his cartoons, Bugs Bunny accidentally travels through time to the Middle Ages. While there, he tricks everyone into believing that he has put out the Sun with a spell. This was a parody of and homage to Mark Twain's novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
• In an episode of Darkwing Duck, the titular character accidentally travels to the Middle Ages and is about to be executed as a warlock when he remembers that his execution is timed exactly with an eclipse. He threatens everyone that he will black out the Sun unless released and begins to speak gibberish, pretending to put a spell on the Sun. However, he has misread the date of the solar eclipse by one day, and stands on the gallows for 24 hours, continuing the gibberish until the eclipse happens.
• In the 1993 first season of
  Megazord's power in the five-part episode, "Green With Evil
  ".
• Sineskwela
  (Solar and Lunar Eclipses episode)
• The opening credits of Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001) feature a CGI-generated solar eclipse.
• The 2001
  Mother Goddess
  ' grief at the event.
• In the 2001-2004 Samurai Jack animated series, Aku is able to escape the tree he is sealed in due to an eclipse.
• In
  Heroes
  , on October 1, 2006, a solar eclipse is observed by several strangers around the world. Similar eclipses occur in 1671, 2007, and on June 13, 2014. The eclipse has an effect on people's abilities.
• In the 2007
  Fire Nation capital on the day a solar eclipse would occur, leaving the firebenders without firebending for about eight minutes. The plan was expected to end the war. The plan fails because Azula
  , the princess of the Fire Nation, learns of the upcoming invasion beforehand.
• The 2007 Sci-Fi channel
  Tin Man
  is centered on a "double eclipse" which will give power to one of the two princesses of the O.Z.
• The
  Sunblock
  " features a murder in which the killer struck during a solar eclipse due to an allergy to sunlight.
• The
  Cold Case
  episode "The Key" centers around the murdered of a wife and mother who’s killed during a solar eclipse, which is her last sight before she died.
• In the episode Gone Maggie Gone (2009) of The Simpsons, a solar eclipse endures a solar eclipse, which causes Marge Simpson to go temporarily blind.
• The final two episodes of Berserk, "The Great Eclipse" and "Time of Eternity", take place during a solar eclipse, which in the series universe happens only once every 216 years and marks the birth of a new member of the Godhand. During these episodes, Griffith, once the leader of the Band of the Hawk, betrays and sacrifices his men in order to become the fifth member of the Godhand, Femto.
• The Mad Men episode "Seven Twenty Three" features the solar eclipse that occurred in July 1963.
• In the final three episodes of Raven the Island, an eclipse allows the warriors to enter Nevar's fortress.
• In the finale of the first season of DuckTales "The Shadow War", an eclipse allows Magica de Spell to escape from Scrooge's Number One Dime and regain her magical powers.
• In the third season of House of Anubis, a ceremony to re-awaken someone cursed by Anubis to sleep for eternity can only be performed during a total solar eclipse. Robert Frobisher-Smythe, who is central to the series' backstory, has been cursed by Anubis in this manner. As an eclipse approaches, an attempt is made to re-awaken Robert. One of the people who performs the ceremony, Caroline Denby, is impure of heart and causes Robert to be re-awoken evil.
• Episode 61 "He Who Would Swallow God" in the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood empowered stone fragments are activated by the eclipse's umbra.
• In the sixth season of The Vampire Diaries, from episode 2, "Yellow Ledbetter", to episode 15, "Let Her Go", an eclipse is present in the missing dimension in 1994 where Damon and Bonnie (later just Bonnie) are trapped.
• In the season two finale of The Owl House, "King's Tide", the draining spell for the Day of Unity is activated via an solar eclipse. The spell fails after the Collector ends the eclipse.^[6]

• Album covers showing a solar eclipse include:
  • The 1972 Tangerine Dream album, Zeit
  • The 2000
    Kitaro
    album Ancient
• In the "Prologue" to Borodin's opera Prince Igor (left unfinished at his death in 1887, completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, and first performed in 1890) a solar eclipse takes place to general consternation, causing two soldiers, Skula and Yeroshka, to desert Prince Igor.
• Prisoners of the Sun (The Adventures of Tintin comic album by Hergé). Tintin uses a prediction of a solar eclipse to gain favor with the Quechua people who are about to kill him.
• The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game The Darkness includes a solar eclipse in the final chapter.
• The
  Heart of Darkness (game)
  features a solar eclipse when Andy and his dog, Whiskey, are walking in the park.
• In the game Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, the story begins with a total solar eclipse in the year 2035 where is supposed to be sealed Dracula's castle.
• The game Terraria features a solar eclipse as a rare event that causes monsters inspired by popular horror fiction and films to attack the player.
• In Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops III, the Zombies maps Der Riese and The Giant feature a solar eclipse.
• The Japanese
  12Riven: the Psi-climinal of Integral
  both use a solar eclipse as an important plot element.
• The Japanese
  Berserk manga
  features an eclipse.
• Love and Rockets features a solar eclipse in Palomar at the beginning of Gilbert Hernandez's "Heartbreak Soup", during which fraternal twins Israel and Aurora are playing and Aurora disappears. This affects the storyline of not only Gilbert's stories going forward but sheds light on a major character in Jaime Hernandez's work as well.
• In the graphic novel Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, eclipses play an important role, as it is usually during those events that Bruce Wayne jumps through time.
• The musical piece Night in the Afternoon was written by Hendrik Meurkens for Vera Donovan's solar-eclipse-viewing garden party scene in the 1995 film Dolores Claiborne.^[7]
• In the 2021 video game The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, a solar eclipse occurs during the main characters escape from the temple, allowing the alien vampires to come out of their shelter and forcing the characters to hold out against one more attack from the vampires before the eclipse ends.
• In the 2022 video game Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a solar eclipse occurs as Mio's Homecoming is taking place.

References