# Places in movies you have seen in real life -- different? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2006, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972 "2006-01-14T16:28:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/41 "2006-01-15T01:50:58Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > I dunno about Andrews, but the Area 51 external shots were shot in the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, and Area 51 _ain’t_ in Utah (unless they moved it and didn’t tell us about it). Turns out they just showed Dulles and not Andrews. The thing with that is that Air Force 1 is at the latter, not the former. According to the goofs at IMDB, they screwed with geography a lot in that movie, even on the moon. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/42 "2006-01-15T02:08:13Z")
The weirdest moment of my life was the first time I visited Battery Park in New York. Before then, I was an avid gamer, and my favorite game was Deus Ex. One of the first and more memorable sequences in the game takes place in Battery Park. It was the weirdest feeling to walk around a place I’d never been, but still know every bit of it. I could walk about it just as familiarly as I walk around my living room. I knew what awaited me around every corner. And I had all these weird “memories” of specific locations- here is where I planted a grenade, here is the secret entrance to Castle Clinton, there used to be a soda machine here, watch out- the gaurds patrol the corner…the game was set in a dystopic future, so any differences seemed easily explained. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/43 "2006-01-15T02:12:00Z")
> [@Khan](#): > > Yeah, Xavier-style is what I had in mind. Any hangars under basketball courts (or was it tennis)? The locations shots of “the Xavier Institute” for the X-Men films were shot in Toronto’s [Casa Loma](http://www.casaloma.org/), which is actually quite stunning. It even has a genuine secret passageway (which connects the original “lord of the manor’s” second-floor study with the third floor women’s servant quarters - [raisedeyebrow]hmmmnnn[/raisedeyebrow].) The most egregious discombobulated location footage from NYC I’ve seen came from **the Fisher King** , just after the waltz in grand central station. Robin Williams & Mel Gibson run out one exit of Grand Central (which happens to be facing _away_ from the direction Central Park is in) and wind up in Central Park in the very next shot. Admittedly, there is a scene break, so there may have been a time lapse, but Central Park itself is about 16 blocks away from Grand Central and the rock that Williams is perched upon is at least another 20 blocks uptown. And he sits there not even winded after running full tilt towards it. Then, while sitting on that rock, Williams & Gibson here the homeless drag queen crying and ‘rush to her rescue.’ But the bridge the homeless drag queen is under is waaaaayyyy far away from that rock they were sitting on top of. Added to that, the castle-like townhouse that Gibson breaks into to retrieve the ‘holy grail’ is an old armory that is now used as a public elementary school on the upper east side. On television, neither “Seinfeld” nor “Sex & the City” get the geography right. Jerry Seinfeld clearly states numerous times that his apartment in on west 82nd street, but the coffee shop the gang is always hanging around is on Broadway @ west 110th street. That’s a heck of a distance to travel just to have lunch at a diner. Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment is supposedly in the east 70s, but the actual locale is downtown in the west village. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/44 "2006-01-15T02:16:48Z")
Uh, **Art** , Jeff Bridges is in _The Fisher King_, **not** Mel Gibson. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/45 "2006-01-15T02:22:28Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Uh, **Art** , Jeff Bridges is in _The Fisher King_, **not** Mel Gibson. OOOPSSSS!!! You’re right. What was I thinking? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/46 "2006-01-15T03:54:55Z")
Kinda different stories - I lived in an apartment building in San Francisco, on the Corner of Hyde and Washington - 1 block below where the Powell/Jackson cable car turns the corner up Hyde. The outside facade was used in **48 Hours** - you know the bit at the start with Nick Nolte - his fellow cops show him disrespect and then go to round up the bad guys by themselves and end up in a shoot out? Well, that’s my building they walk into, but not the same insides where the action takes place. Slightly different with **True Believer** the movie with James Woods as a former hippie lawyer now defending drug dealers and Robert Downey Jr. as the un-jaded noobie working with him. I had rented the movie while living in that building and was watching it with a couple friends. There is a scene towards the end where the two leads walk into an entrance into a building in New York and get in an elevator. As the scene plays out in the elevator, my friends and I look at each other and realize “hey - that’s my elevator!” The building was built in 1906 right after the earthquake, and has this old cage elevator and the floor buttons have gotten old and been replaced so they are one-of-a-kind in terms of mix n’ match and wear. I ended up asking the building manager and he said “oh yeah, they filmed that here a few years ago.” ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/47 "2006-01-15T04:41:33Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > When I went to [Devil’s Tower National Monument](http://www.nps.gov/deto/), I was delighted with how much it looked like the Devil’s Tower shots in _Close Encounters_. I kept remarking on it, and the National Park guy tried to explain that, yeah, they used actual footage of it in the movie. I think he was worried I was a dim bulb who thought Steven Spielberg had constructed it or something, as opposed to being a natural wonder. In fact, I was having some sort of Roland Barthes moment, but without the crabbiness. IT LOOKS JUST LIKE IT! When I visited Devils Tower, my first impressin was how much smaller it is in real life. I wonder why Roy and Gillian worked so hard climbing all over it when you can walk around it on a sidewalk in about 20 minutes. Maybe they had trouble finding the “box canyon” that isn’t really there. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/48 "2006-01-15T04:50:55Z")
The real Mystic Pizza is even more of a hole in the wall than in the movie. It doesn’t look big enough for four sisters to work in. I’ve only driven by, though, since I can’t eat pizza and therefore have no reason to stop in. Nothing from the rest of the movie looks much like Mystic, Conn either. Where’s the aquarium in the movie? It’s wicked close in real life. On the other hand, most of Old Orchard Beach, ME in **The Off Season** looks fairly authentic (and not just the actual footage of the town). I don’t think the motel is real since it doesn’t look familiar, but it looks like it _could_ be there. The library isn’t real for sure, since they give the filming location in the credits, but that’s okay. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/49 "2006-01-15T06:06:39Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > On television, neither “Seinfeld” nor “Sex & the City” get the geography right. Jerry Seinfeld clearly states numerous times that his apartment in on west 82nd street, but the coffee shop the gang is always hanging around is on Broadway @ west 110th street. That’s a heck of a distance to travel just to have lunch at a diner. Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment is supposedly in the east 70s, but the actual locale is downtown in the west village. Absolutely true about _Seinfeld_, but in their defense, they never said on the show where the diner was supposed to be. I mean, yes, I know the _actual location_ of the diner is on Broadway at West 110th, but they never said that on the show, to my knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/50 "2006-01-15T06:19:13Z")
I still remember the first time I visited the Venice and Santa Monica beaches as a young adult. They looked very different than the way I’d imagined them, although the topography was what I’d expected. It took me some time to figure out that in the movies and on TV, there aren’t any middle-aged, non-white, or unattractive people on those beaches. ---
**Author:** ![Pensandfeathers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Pensandfeathers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pensandfeathers)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/51 "2006-01-15T06:32:48Z")
> [@Caractacus Pott](#): > > I second Smapti on the Space Needle. It seems tall and towers over other tall buildings in the movies. Driving from the airport north on the I-5 toward Everett, the Space Needle is on your left but you’ll probably miss it. The pictures shot from the north (Queen Anne), are the ones that make the Space Needle look massive. There’s space between the Needle and the rest of downtown, and when you’re looking south from Queen Anne, it is closer to you and seems much bigger. When I’m driving around in that area or Fremont, the views of the Needle are quite breathtaking. It also looks great from West Seattle, because you get a panoramic view of downtown from across the water. Hell, the view from Capital Hill is pretty fantastic too. The only time when the Space Needle seems incredibly tiny and unimpressive is the view from the south. Unfortunately, the first time I saw the Needle was when I was driving north on I-5 and it was totally dwarfed by all of the downtown towers. I would have to disagree about missing it as you drive by - even if it isn’t that huge, it still commands your attention. If it were to suddenly disappear, there would be a definite void in the Seattle skyline. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/52 "2006-01-15T07:13:24Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > Those weren’t glass shards–they were **flair**! Dr. Indeed! You just cured my constipation by making me shit myself laughing! 😃 I’ve never seen an movie about Lake Tahoe that has anything remotely “Tahoe-ish” in it. I live on the set of “The Misfits”. Never seen Ms. Monroe once. Or any natural tree. (I’ve planted over 200) ---
**Author:** ![Caractacus\_Pott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Caractacus\_Pott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caractacus_Pott)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/53 "2006-01-15T08:44:30Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > The real Mystic Pizza is even more of a hole in the wall than in the movie. It doesn’t look big enough for four sisters to work in. I’ve only driven by, though, since I can’t eat pizza and therefore have no reason to stop in. \ Elfkin, I ate there before I knew about the movie. You didn’t miss much. The interior was bigger than the outside would imply but the dining experience was, um, less than pleasant. Mystic the town, though, scores high on the quaintness scale. And **threeorange** regarding the Eiffel Tower, the sources I found said that the [Chrysler Building](http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Chrysler_Building.html) is 1048 feet (319 m) and the [Eiffel Tower](http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/documentation/structure/page/chiffres.html) is 318m. Regardless of the numbers, the Eiffel Tower is extremely impressive in person. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/54 "2006-01-15T09:09:50Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > (Hollywood sign) Not if you climb up to it. I stood directly under it, and it’s HUGE. And, as someone who’s only been in Seattle for two years, I will say the same thing about the Space Needle: I stood directly under it, and it’s HUGE. 😉 However, **Pensandfeathers** nails it - from the north, it looks impressive; from the south… meh. Columbia Center dwarfs it (it’s about 940-ish feet)… and it’s built at the bottom of a hill! The Space Needle is over 600 feet. (Can’t remember how tall it is exactly.) I can see the Space Needle from my bedroom window here in lower Ballard. Granted, I have to lean way over to one end of my window, and I can only see the tip top (Seattle is very hilly! I don’t think that is accurately portrayed in the movies) but hey, there it is. For Og’s sake, don’t tell the landlord. We’re getting a killer deal on this apartment, if he knew we had a _view_… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/55 "2006-01-15T10:29:46Z")
Before I moved to San Francisco (living in apartments on Russian Hill, then Nob Hill), I had seen it portrayed in many movies. Hard though this may be to believe, it’s **even more beautiful** in real life. I’m not sure that I’d say the same about anywhere else that I’ve been – not Paris, not Florence, not Venice. [My experience of [Crater Lake, Oregon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake%2C_Oregon) surpassed the photos that I’d seen of it – but I never saw it in a **movie** , so it probably doesn’t count for the OP.] ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/56 "2006-01-15T11:36:07Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > You know that guy too? That fucking guy! Made this flick, Sixteen Candles. Not bad, there’s tits in it but no bush. But Ebert over here don’t give a shit about that kind of thing. ‘Cause he’s like all in love with this John Hughes guy. Goes out and rents like every one of his movies. Fuckin’ Breakfast Club where all the stupid kids actually show up for detention. Fuckin’ Weird Science where this babe wants to take her gear off and get down but oh no she don’t ‘cause it’s a PG movie. And then Pretty in Pink, which I can’t even watch with this tubby bitch anymore… ‘cause every time we get to the part where the redhead hooks up with her dream guy he starts sobbing like a little bitch with a skinned knee and shit. And there’s nothing worse than watching a fucking fat man weep… See all the movies take place in a town called [Shermer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shermer%2C_Illinois) in Illa-noise where all the honeys are top shelf but all the dudes are whiny pussies… Except for Judd Nelson, he was fuckin’ harsh. But best of all, there’s no one dealin’. Then it hits me. We could live like fat rats if we were the blunt connection in Shermer Illa-noise. So we collected some money we were owed and caught a bus. You know what the fuck we found out when we got there? There is no Shermer in Illa-noise. Movies are fuckin’ bullshit. I’ve never been to Illa-noise but I couldn’t resist. I just watched Pretty in Pink a couple of days ago and thought of Jay’s rant right away. ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/57 "2006-01-15T12:29:24Z")
It’s amazing how few films and TV shows capture how Los Angeles really looks. Believe it or not, old _Adam-12_ episodes portray the San Fernando Valley pretty accurately, even though they’re over 30 years old. And _Dragnet_ looks exactly like the Universal backlot! A few specific locations: The _Brady Bunch_ house in Studio City: dinky, only one story, and changed a lot since the seventies. Oddly, it looked bigger again in the photos I took. The _Wonder Years_ house in Burbank: This one looks pretty much how it did on TV, except no one has those same little lights in their front yard like the whole neighborhood did on the show. I think they’ve since painted the house yellow, but when it was still that pea-green, it looked exactly how you would imagine. The _Seinfeld_ apartment building just west of downtown LA: dinky and run down. It’s only five floors! Somehow they made it look a lot taller on TV. But once you get used to how short it is, there’s no mistaking it. Still has the white fire escapes and the same awning at the front door. I’ve never been inside but I seriously doubt the apartments look like on the show. I also used to live in Chicago, and _The Blues Brothers_ is the only thing that stands out in my mind as showing the city as it really looks. The most hideous example I’ve ever seen of this sort of thing had to be this old baseball movie with Gary Coleman, where they tried to pass off Quaalcomm Stadium in San Diego as various National League parks, including Wrigley Field. Holy Shit! ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/58 "2006-01-15T13:41:39Z")
> [@Laughing Lagomorph](#): > > I don’t doubt your description at all but I am having trouble coming up with a movie set in present day Atlanta. Little help? Now that you mention it, I’m having trouble naming a _recent_ movie made in what’s supposed to be Atlanta. I had _Sharky’s Machine_ in mind when I was trying to think of places, but I know that’s at least 20 years ago. Another movie I can think of set in Atlanta, but which I can’t recall specific places from would be the Jim Belushi and Gregory Hines thing about the child murders attributed to Wayne Williams, but that’s not all that recent either. The TV coverage of the manhunt for the guy who shot up the courthouse within the past couple of years had a lot of helicopter shots of the northern suburbs as well as the main downtown area. Some of those captured what I know of Atlanta which in itself is not all that recent. I drive around Atlanta whenever necessary, but we went through there in 2002 but stayed on the interstate. No worse driving in the southeast that I can name although Birmingham is at least as scary. The crowded streets I remember are out in the Buckhead section. In spite of being an upscale section the street work is pitiful. To be fair, though, Nashville has tried to emulate Atlanta in terms of poorly designed streets in the past 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/59 "2006-01-15T13:50:48Z")
Duh! No wonder [**Who’s Killing Atlanta’s Children?**](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221673/locations) doesn’t look much like Atlanta! For those that actually were filmed in Atlanta, [start here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083064/locations) and follow the links. Something over 350 titles to choose from (including TV stuff). And Sharky was 1981. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972/60 "2006-01-15T13:59:26Z")
Okay, **Laughing Lagomorph** , I scanned that list of Atlanta locations and couldn’t find a single _recent_ movie that I have seen to remember. Thus, I’ll concede my impression is as old as 1981 and also concede that Atlanta has changed significantly in those years – toward the bigger and more cramped. I guess Burt Reynolds couldn’t be blamed for not being prescient. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/places-in-movies-you-have-seen-in-real-life-different/339972.md?page=4)