The same thing happened in the 1930’s version of David Copperfield ( the one with W.C.Fields). There you have the sun setting over the sea in Yarmouth even though it is on the east coast of England.
The awful Bruce Willis/Sarah Jessica Parker movie Striking Distance (frequently seen late nights on TBS and TNT) takes incredible liberties with the geography of Pittsburgh in the opening car chase. It’s possible that the chase followed the route that is shown, but only if we presume that they cut out at least 25 minutes of the chase and the police never heard of this delightful little concept called a roadblock. :eek
Re: Washington DC, the worst was a tv series calles sirens (I think) that was shot in Montreal. Complete with French signs and tall buildings.
The one movie that really grated me for its terrible geography was that Charlie Sheen stinker The Arrival. In it, Charlie travels to Oaxaca, Mexico. The city is depicted as a caricatural ugly tough town filled with outlaws, at the edge of some lush forest. Whereas in fact Oaxaca is easily one of the prettiest, most pleasent cities in Mexico and lies in the middle of a dry/semi-desertic area. Come, guys, you’re spending millions on this bomb, at least look up some pics on the web, will ya?
“I still know what you did last summer” Someone won a trip to Nassau, Bahamas for a trivia question. When they got there, there were mountains. The Highest point in the Bahahamas is 206 feet!
Based on dialogue, True Grit seems to be set in Arkansas and Oklahoma. (References to Ft. Smith and the Indian Territory.) Yet the scenery is pure Rocky Mountain.
I guess Oklahoma isn’t very photogenic, being mostly flat.
The mention of mountains, spoke-, makes me remember how absolutely misleading the Disney Davy Crockett was in terms of mountains. There are shots of “West Tennessee” where Crockett moved after being in several other parts of the state, where it looks much like ranges from the Western USA, if not Rockies then Cascades or Siskiyous, or possibly even the Ozarks, I never checked to be sure, but definitely NOT in West Tennessee.
The Tennessee state flag has three stars, one for each of the geographical regions of the state, West, Middle, and East. Each of these regions is significantly different from the other two. East Tennessee has the second highest peak east of the Mississippi, Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains on the NC border, and just a matter of miles from the highest such peak in NC in the Blue Ridge. The Appalachian chain has several ranges that run essentially NE-SW through that part of the state, and it’s fair to call that area mountainous.
Middle Tennessee is moderate highlands, but more what’s called “rolling hills” beginning on the east with the Cumberland Plateau and proceeding westward to the Tennessee River which at that point is running almost due N-S across the width of the state. Some twisty, windy roads in some pretty hill country, but not what anybody would call mountains.
West Tennessee is slightly hilly near the Tennessee River but gets progressively flatter as one travels west to the Mississippi. Memphis is on a bluff, all right, even called the Bluff City, but it’s nothing like a mountain.
The portion of West Tennessee where Crockett would have been living in the period of the movie has about as much “mountainous” aspect as South Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, or Louisiana. In fact, Reelfoot Lake, which was formed as the result of a huge earthquake in the early 1800’s along the New Madrid fault, is less than 100 miles from the historic site of Crockett’s cabin. (There are at least two other Crockett historic sites – including a state park – in the state). My family took a little boat cruise on Reelfoot and the guide pointed to a little knob in the distance, couldn’t have been 50 feet higher than we were in the middle of the lake, and said, “Yonder’s the high point in the county.”
Sorry for the mini-geography lesson, but the topic and the mention of mountains in True Grit struck a chord.
Carry on…
Not quite the same, but in the same vein:
In Death Wish 3 (or 4, but I think it was 3) Charles Bronson was supposedly killing bad guys in The Bronx, but he was quite clearly in Brooklyn. At the time each boro had different colored street signs. I guess the filmmakers didn’t think the rest of the country would realize that what was The South Bronx was actually East New York-- and they were right.
I just watched Two Weeks Notice (right after How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days-- yeah, I like romantic comedies-- so kill me. Two Week Notice was far the superior. Sorry Kate.) and was shocked and surprised to find that developers have torn down BAM. Not only that, Coney Island is a good neighborhood with no projects at all-- especially directly across the street from the old Parachute Jump.
Die Hard II…
Wasn’t Bruce Willis talking on a pay phone in a Washington DC airport, but the logo on the phone was Pacific Bell?
Okay, not strictly geography related, but still…
He rode/walked from Germany to Spain where his villa was. After finding his murdered wife and son, he collapsed and was collected by slave traders. When he more or less comes too again, he’s on the road in Africa. Presumably the traders ferried him across the Mediterranian, but this is not shown.
I don’t know if this can be considered a geographic goof (IMDb does) but in The Graduate when Benjamin travels from Southern California to Berkeley to find Elaine, he is seen on the top (westbound) deck of the Oakland Bay bridge. Maybe he decided on a quick side trip to San Francisco.
IMDb also mentions him travelling south through the north bound tunnel at Goleta, just north of Santa Barbara. I must confess I never noticed that one.
DD
In The Sum of all Fears, the (bespectacled!) Israeli pilot is supposedly shot down over the Golan, which is portrayed as a sandy desert.
The Golan heights - where I’ve hiked many times - are, in fact, a rocky volcanic plateau. It may not be exactly lush, vegetation-wise, but it’s certainly not a desert, and there isn’t any sand.
Is that in the novel, movie, or both?
J. Lo in “Angel Eyes”… it’s supposed to take place in Chicago, but the opening shot of the film has Toronto’s CN Tower!
Frankly, anything shot in London that demonstrates any sort of concordance with reality surprises the heck out of me.
I have to admit that I knew loads of films would take liberties with real cities - car chases - locations of buildings etc. etc.
Coming from Newcastle, UK - the few movies shot here (Stormy Monday and Get Carter!!) have horrific discontinuity so I can only imagine what a dweller in Washington, LA or even London must suffer!
What got me about Reign of Fire tho is that they use real placenames with no regard for their real locations - it just makes no sense - why not choose places which fit with the needs of the plot?
They could have set the entire movie within 50 miles of London and it would have made some sense
Well - apart from questions like
- Where did they get fuel for their helicopter
- How did a broken transport plane manage to carry all that equipment and land safely
- Why was the dialog written by a 4 year-old
TTFN
JP
The latest James Bond movie realy irritated me (and for reasons besides the fact that really wasn’t that good a Bond flick). My main problems were with the parts that supposedly take place in Korea.
The movie starts with Bond surfing onto a Korean beach – a feat I happen to know simply cannot be done anywhere in Korea.
Most of the land standing in for Korea is way too flat (you can’t go 2 km without seeing at least a small mountain), and not nearly developed enough – IIRC, they even showed a “Korean” farmer plowing a field with an ox. Clearly filmed in some place like Vietnam or Thailand, not Korea.
I haven’t seen the film, but, isn’t this happening in North Korea? If so, the ox wouldn’t be so far-fetched.
Just the movie. The novel (which has its own innacuracies) has him crashing in a freshly-plowed field.
Not sure what the problem is there.
Biltmore has been used as a location in a couple of other movies, including Being There. The house is instantly recognizable if you’ve been there. God knows what it costs to rent as a movie set.
In the current movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the characters are in Paris and need to get to Venice. They’ve got three days, but Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery) says it’s impossible. The movie’s set in 1899, and I’m pretty sure you could take the train and make it in plenty of time. Instead, though, they decide it would be faster to take the movie’s version of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus (a submarine the size of an ocean liner) clear round Iberia, through the Strait of Gibraltar, halfway across the Mediterranean and up the Adriatic to Venice, where it somehow fits into a canal. That’s got to be close to 3000 nautical miles, and the trip includes a lengthy pause on a calm sea so Quartermain can have some target practice.
You’re right, Baldwin. A train ride from Paris to Venice today takes only 12.5 hours direct, 15 hours indirect, and several trains leave daily.
Not nearly on the level of many of the others, but Breaking Away, filmed in the late 70’s in Bloomington Indiana was a geographic disaster. Though, I’ve come to believe filmmakers have no concerns in regards to geographic accuracy. There was simply no way they could ride the places they do in that film the way they do. Streets become other streets dead in the middle of the ride.
Also, notably a Townies/Campus rivalry was created for the film and after 5 years in Bloomington, I can vouch that at the time no such thing existed.