# Subtle inaccuracies in depictions of your city/region in fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2021, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508 "2021-01-14T09:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/21 "2021-01-14T15:38:37Z")
I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but I’m always amused when a movie supposedly takes place in San Francisco, and vast suburban neighborhoods are shown with big houses on large lots, with big backyards. And of course the entire neighborhood is as flat as the Midwest. This is entirely possible in other parts of the Bay Area, but within the city limits of San Francisco? No way. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/22 "2021-01-14T15:47:02Z")
There’s at least one- Rockaway Freeway in Queens. But it’s an ordinary street, not an expressway/highway/parkway. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/23 "2021-01-14T15:51:12Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > In one historical film I watched, a character mounted his horse in Mystic Seaport, CT and rode off down the main street in Williamsburg. Were those meant to be the locations or were they substituting for someplace else? Because both Mystic Seaport and Williamsburg are historic recreations so I could see them being used for that purpose. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/24 "2021-01-14T15:53:29Z")
The Modesto, Ca in _Aliens Vs. Monsters_ is _nothing_ like the real Modesto, Ca. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/25 "2021-01-14T16:04:15Z")
There is a cheesy series (Hallmark?) called _Chesapeake Shores_. It’s set in fictional waterfront town near Baltimore. I grew up in that area and spent a lot of time on Chesapeake Bay. The series, unfortunately, was filed in the Pacific Northwest. Canada I believe. It is filled with all kinds of beautiful water views that are so obviously not the Chesapeake Bay it drives me nuts. Both areas have plenty of natural beauty, but the topography of the two regions is completely different. It would be like filming something in Amsterdam and saying it was San Fransisco. See the first photo in this article for one example: - [Chesapeake Shores Season 3 Starts Filming on Vancouver Island | What's Filming?](http://www.whatsfilming.ca/2018/04/17/chesapeake-shores-season-3-filming/) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/26 "2021-01-14T16:04:36Z")
Jules Verne’s _The Master of the World_ had an extinct volcano (with a crater) in the Blue Ridge Mountains and a deep lake (deep enough to lost a submarine in it) in the middle of Nebraska. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/27 "2021-01-14T16:12:07Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > They also showed missile launches being visible from the KU campus, but as far as I know the closest missile silos are/were way over in Missouri on the other side of Kansas City. McConnell AFB in Topeka had two squadrons of LGM-25C Titan II ICBMs until 1984. That’s closer to Lawrence than Whiteman AFB’s Minuteman II launch complexes. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/28 "2021-01-14T16:18:03Z")
In _Office Christmas Party_, set in Chicago, there was a one-liner about going next door or across the street to the Rite-Aid parking lot. There are no Rite-Aid pharmacies in Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/29 "2021-01-14T16:31:00Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > In John Wick 2, he somehow managed to take a NJ Path train from World Trade Center in the Oculus to Canal and Rector Street stations (IIRC). Any station after WTC not in New Jersey would have been incorrect. In _Thor: The Dark World_ they put in a Tube station at Greenwich. There isn’t one. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/30 "2021-01-14T16:50:40Z")
Or not so subtle as the case may be: [![](http://www.pulsogeselino.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/00-X-Men.jpg) ](http://www.pulsogeselino.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/00-X-Men.jpg) In X-men: First Class they depict Villa Gessel, Argentina as a mountain town, when Villa Gessel is a coastal town, the nearest mountain being more than 600 kilometers away… ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/31 "2021-01-14T17:26:26Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Just generally, films always seem to have characters taking random tours around New York City for no reason. _Monk_ had a particularly egregious example of this sort of thing. Monk and Natalie wanted to figure out if it was in any way possible for their suspect to ride a motorcycle from her home in Richmond (where she had an alibi) to the crime scene in Novato by the time the murder took place. Cut to a montage of the two of them riding through Downtown San Fransisco, riding past cable cars and other famous landmarks. If you were trying to get from Richmond to Novato as fast as possible you would _never_ go anywhere near San Francisco. You’d take 580 across the Richmond Bridge, and then head north on 101. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/32 "2021-01-14T17:31:03Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Hilariously those complaints were voiced exactly like Marge Gunderson. You guys just don’t know you sound like that. Exactly! The accent was exaggerated in the original Fargo, but I know people that talk like that. And they afe in Wisconsin. (it’s insidious!) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/33 "2021-01-14T17:34:12Z")
There’s no right way to take a left toin at Albicoickey that will get you from Hollywood (or Brooklyn, either) to the Coachella Valley and the carrot-eating festival, therein. And while this isn’t the exact thing, I still remember a scene in a movie where the characters got on an elevator in a NYC high rise and got off in the second class pool of the Queen Mary, in Long Beach. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/34 "2021-01-14T17:36:19Z")
But that’s not an inaccurate depiction of a city or region; it’s just using two places as film sets. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/35 "2021-01-14T17:41:07Z")
There abundance of trees and mountains in Gunsmoke amused people from western Kansas. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/36 "2021-01-14T17:43:57Z")
Of course there is a TV Tropes page devoted to the remarkable resemblance of various regions and cities around the world to places in California (though they don’t define it as a Trope). > **[California Doubling - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CaliforniaDoubling)** > > Any exotic foreign locale in a TV series or film is, due to budget or danger to the cast, likely to actually be somewhere in California, such as Kirk's Rock. For British sci-fi shows, it's "Quarry Doubling" any desolate alien planet is … ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/37 "2021-01-14T17:43:57Z")
Just off the top of my pointed little head: **Lethal Weapon** - Lots of weird geography but the one that really stood out was a foot chase that started in the San Fernando Valley, turned a corner and was suddenly in downtown Hollywood. **Last Vegas** - The guys decided to leave their cab on the way to Aria from Binion’s. Cue sequence of shots of them walking and talking past iconic hotels - totally out of sequence, on the wrong side of the street or substantially _past_ Aria when coming from Downtown. To be fair, this is a problem with just about every show set in Vegas. They want to show the resorts, but they don’t bother with reality. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/38 "2021-01-14T17:47:18Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Stuff like _Frasier_ and _Grey’s Anatomy_ could take place anywhere; the Seattle setting was just “generic city with occasional establishing-shot landmarks.” I thought having Frasier and Niles hang out that fancy coffee place was something of an attempt to depict Seattle culture, at least when the show first started. I think we tend to forget that, since the fancy coffee trend spread to the rest of the country a few years later, but I think in the early 1990s it was still considered a “Seattle thing”. But I guess you would know better than I would. But anyway, _Psych_ is probably a good entry for this thread. Sure, maybe Vancouver makes a good stand-in for most American cities, but not for Santa Barbara. It’s not “my” city, but I’ve visited often to know what it’s like, and they have a distinctive Spanish style architecture that you see all over the city, that is never seen in _Psych_. And I can tell you there are no towering evergreen trees anywhere there like you see in the show. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/39 "2021-01-14T17:53:25Z")
Reminds me of the Austin Powers line “It’s remarkable how England looks in no way like _Southern California_”. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/40 "2021-01-14T18:04:09Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > > [@Shoeless](#): > > > > They also showed missile launches being visible from the KU campus, but as far as I know the closest missile silos are/were way over in Missouri on the other side of Kansas City. > > McConnell AFB in Topeka had two squadrons of LGM-25C Titan II ICBMs until 1984. That’s closer to Lawrence than Whiteman AFB’s Minuteman II launch complexes. McConnell AFB is in Wichita, not Topeka. That’s about two and a half hours away. There’s Forbes Field in Topeka, home of the 190th Air Refueling Wing, but AFAIK they did not have any ICBMs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508.md?page=3)