When films mangle your local geography

[elguapo4]

The Dublin geography on Educating Rita is all over the place, but since it's supposed to be Liverpool sso we can let them away with it.

I think I've mentioned Hear my Song before, where Ned Beatty's mates drag Adrian Dunbar out of a pub in Tullamore and threaten to throw him off the cliffs of Moher, a distance of probably 70 miles or so.

In the final scenes of the Commitments SPOILERS AHEAD,

the band play a triumphant gig in Colombia Mills nightclub before splitting in acrimony when Wilson Pickett doesn't turn up as promised. The scene where manager Jimmy Rabbitte confronts Joey the Lips while walking back in to the City Centre is geographically correctly. However Jimmy then walks about a mile in the opposite direction, to the end of the quays which is a dead end, where he meets Picketts limo. Now the driver could have got lost,but it doesn't explain why he then turned around and started driving towards a brick wall.

[ale]

Recall an article about Falling Down and it being impossible for Michael Douglas to cover the Los Angeles locations on foot in the time frame suggested by the movie.

[Sam]

In Gone for Good currently showing on Netflix the lead character works for an underfunded ngo working with street kids as a sort of social worker. And also lives in this vast amazing apartment with a huge terrace overlooking Nice and the whole bay

We watched that a couple of weeks ago and I thought precisely this. Although I sort of reconciled it in my own head by pretending his parents had bought it for him, because they seemed to be loaded.

Off the top of my head I can't remember any films set in Manchester, Bristol or North Somerset (and while I know bits of the rest of Somerset, I've only seen Hot Fuzz once, and that was ages ago), so can't offer anything from my UK locales.

Films set in Buenos Aires generally don't use recognisable bits of it, although if I rewatch Nine Queens any time soon I'll let you all know how accurate it is. I have seen clips of the bit in Starship Troopers where BA is attacked by ... erm, whoever the baddies are (aliens?), though, complete with news broadcasts showing pictures of fires burning in the mountains around the city, and while it only lasts a few seconds that, as anyone who's been here will agree, is by far the biggest mangling of local geography on the thread. The nearest bump in the ground more than about ten metres in elevation is literally hundreds of kilometres from the city.

Oh, and in one of the Indiana Jones films they're swept down the Amazon and go over three waterfalls in quick succession which are all actually different bits of Iguazú Falls. Not only are Iguazú Falls on the other side of Brazil from the Amazon (being, as they are, on the Iguazú), but it's also impossible to go over the three drops shown in the film in sequence. And that's before we get to the fact that there's no way they'd all survive the last drop.

[ad hoc]

In more South American film news, in The House of The Spirits, set in Chile, at one point in the background you can see the Amoreiras Shopping Centre which had been newly opened in Lisbon (newly opened when the film was shot, not when it was set). Also, there are scenes at Christmas, and there is snow on the ground and everyone is dressed up for cold weather. Which is not exactly the weather in Chile in December

[tee rex]

In Remains of The Day Emma Thompson says good-bye to Anthony Hopkins in Clevedon and then gets on a local Exeter bus to return to her home, also in Clevedon. For some reason they didn't bother changing the destinations at the front of the bus. (Not giving a toss being the most likely reason, I'd guess).


Ah, here it is ... at the back of the bus in fact. So yeah, two of Britain's finest actors perform a moving scene to end a classic movie and I'm checking out bus timetables. Hornby-esque.

[Guy Profumo]

Is this better or worse than mangling your local accents?

[gjw100]

In any TV show featuring The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, you can pretty much guarantee that in the establishing shots showing the presenter(s) driving towards said location, they will be driving in completely the wrong direction, either towards the Common or up the old High St.

[Lymeswold Snork]

I wonder whether anyone's ever tried to draw a map of, for example, Morse's Oxford? Not just where all the pubs he's been seen in are located in real life, but showing the fictional topology. It would probably need at least three dimensions and/or some little asterisks to mark wormholes.

[hobbes]

In Jolt (set in New York) they walk in through the doors of the Cheese Grater to end up in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern.

Of course that's not as impressive as driving South over Tower Bridge to arrive at Buckingham Palace as often seems to happen in films.

[hobbes]

Actually this happens in a game too. Watch Dogs Legion is set in London and there are lots of recognizable bits. But the connective tissue is all wrong, as they've missed huge chunks out altogether.

[DPDPDPDP]

Local Hero - one of my favourite films - is sort of an example. The village scenes were set in Pennen in Aberdeenshire on the east coast, whilst the beach scenes were filmed at Airisaig and Morar on rhe west coast over 100 miles away.

[Guy Profumo]

Local Hero - one of my favourite films - is sort of an example. The village scenes were set in Pennen in Aberdeenshire on the east coast, whilst the beach scenes were filmed at Airisaig and Morar on rhe west coast over 100 miles away.

As was the chapel

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The Dublin geography on Educating Rita is all over the place, but since it's supposed to be Liverpool sso we can let them away with it.

I think I've mentioned Hear my Song before, where Ned Beatty's mates drag Adrian Dunbar out of a pub in Tullamore and threaten to throw him off the cliffs of Moher, a distance of probably 70 miles or so.

In the final scenes of the Commitments SPOILERS AHEAD,

the band play a triumphant gig in Colombia Mills nightclub before splitting in acrimony when Wilson Pickett doesn't turn up as promised. The scene where manager Jimmy Rabbitte confronts Joey the Lips while walking back in to the City Centre is geographically correctly. However Jimmy then walks about a mile in the opposite direction, to the end of the quays which is a dead end, where he meets Picketts limo. Now the driver could have got lost,but it doesn't explain why he then turned around and started driving towards a brick wall.

It's by the caisson isn't it? I didn't realise that the gig was in Colombia Mills. I was only in there once, and I'm kinda glad it closed coz. Colombia Mills is in the same block as the apartment that fassbender walks out of, and the clip of him walking up the quays is maybe 100 metres down river of the Wilson pickett scene.

did you work in the Cardiff lane sorting centre at any stage el guapo?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

There's an irish movie made in the 90's called when brendan met trudy which has enormous fun with the premise of this thread. It's a pastiche of some famous French film that takes enormous liberties with the geography of Paris.

[San Bernardhinault]

Actually this happens in a game too. Watch Dogs Legion is set in London and there are lots of recognizable bits. But the connective tissue is all wrong, as they've missed huge chunks out altogether.

In an even more niche part of gaming, if you're cycling on a virtual trainer using Zwift, in the London setting there's a route that does Box Hill in Surrey. Except, for reasons of trying to make a lap a manageable length, they basically eliminate all the bits of West London. It's not a mistake. But it's maddening. You're cycling along the Embankment, turn left over Westminster Bridge, then go into a magic underpass and pop out in the Surrey countryside.

[elguapo4]

It's by the caisson isn't it? I didn't realise that the gig was in Colombia Mills. I was only in there once, and I'm kinda glad it closed coz. Colombia Mills is in the same block as the apartment that fassbender walks out of, and the clip of him walking up the quays is maybe 100 metres down river of the Wilson pickett scene.

did you work in the Cardiff lane sorting centre at any stage el guapo?

Hi Berba, I never worked in Cardiff Lane, my delivery days were over by the time we moved there from Sherrif Street. I delivered around there a lot before it was developed, it always looked terrifying to deliver but actually it was handy, so I got a lot of swaps. The final scene with Pickett's limo was on Great Britain Quay, which doesn't exist any more. You can tell by the Travellers caravans in the background which weren't props, Mrs Mc Donagh, second caravan along took all the post.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I'd say the main reason it was handy was there couldn't have been much more than six operational addresses between windmill Lane and boland's Mills! I only have fleeting memories of the area in the late nineties, and it all seemed to be abandoned warehouses.

I'm always curious about the overlap between the most common traveller names, and the most common names in West connemara. Two of the all time top five sean nos singers came from across the inlet from my mam and they were called josie and John Joe Mcdonagh. (No relation)

[Gas In Name Only]

Teachers was set in Bristol and regularly used to show the Andrew Lincoln character cycling to school over the Clifton Suspension Bridge from the Somerset side - which, given the school was Merrywood in Knowle West, seems an oddly circuitous route to take. Especially given that his lodgings clearly weren't in posh as fuck Abbots Leigh, the village he appeared to be cycling in from.

Casualty regularly took huge liberties with locations but I guess we'll just have to overlook them given it was set in Holby, a fictional city that just happens to be in the west of England and used to look like Bristol until it suddenly started looking like Cardiff for no adequately explained reason

[wishis]

In any TV show featuring The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, you can pretty much guarantee that in the establishing shots showing the presenter(s) driving towards said location, they will be driving in completely the wrong direction, either towards the Common or up the old High St.

Or they get confused and think they are in Boston sitting outside the old tourist information office, but struggle to come up with much more filming on the Pantiles apart from an ad for Morrisons and Tommy Steele for Half a Sixpence.

[Cal Alamein]

For the most part, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul do a decent job w/ Albuquerque geography. However, as we were re-watching Better Call Saul there were some not remotely close NE Heights to downtown scenes that would be about 20-25 minutes squished to 2-3 minutes. Still, gotta give them props as they will actually verbalize street names and such.

[danielmak]

Nigh on Earth by Jim Jarmusch has 5 or 6 different short stories about taxi drivers. The Los Angeles bit is nuts. Winona Ryder plays a cab driver who starts at LAX seems to drive all over the city in multiple different directions if you know the geography to seemingly drop off the fare somewhere in the Hollywood Hills (if I remember correctly). The journey started early evening but then is late at night by the time of the drop off, which would makes sense given the chaotic route, but normally would be a 45-60 minute drive.

[Sam]

Casualty regularly took huge liberties with locations but I guess we'll just have to overlook them given it was set in Holby, a fictional city that just happens to be in the west of England and used to look like Bristol until it suddenly started looking like Cardiff for no adequately explained reason

This was my reason for not mentioning Broadchurch, which was filmed in Clevedon for the inland bits and somewhere on the south Devon coast for the ... erm, bits that are clearly filmed on the south Devon coast. Given that it's explicitly not set in Clevedon, but in Broadchurch, it doesn't seem like a mangling (I've not seen the film of Remains of the Day so don't know whether to apply the same argument to tee rex's post above).

I will say that having grown up close enough to Clevedon that I'd take my bike out for a ride after school and get from my village across the moors to Clevedon, up the High Street to the seafront and back in about forty minutes on a fast day, it was quite a shock to see said High Street feature on something we watched on Netflix in Argentina, without any knowledge that it had been filmed there.

[Gas In Name Only]

This was my reason for not mentioning Broadchurch, which was filmed in Clevedon for the inland bits and somewhere on the south Devon coast for the ... erm, bits that are clearly filmed on the south Devon coast. Given that it's explicitly not set in Clevedon, but in Broadchurch, it doesn't seem like a mangling (I've not seen the film of Remains of the Day so don't know whether to apply the same argument to tee rex's post above).

I will say that having grown up close enough to Clevedon that I'd take my bike out for a ride after school and get from my village across the moors to Clevedon, up the High Street to the seafront and back in about forty minutes on a fast day, it was quite a shock to see said High Street feature on something we watched on Netflix in Argentina, without any knowledge that it had been filmed there.

Ha, yes - I remember Teachers being comfort viewing for me when I stayed at my cousin's house in Melbourne on my first visit to Australia when I realised it was shot (and set) in Bristol. I seem to remember Rovers and the other team getting mentioned as well - think the Lincoln character takes the piss out of a pupil for supporting the red side which obviously pleased me

Casualty was simultaneously a source of great local pride and amusement for how the locations would leap around all over the place

[Guy Profumo]

When Casualty featured a crisis at a lower league football ground, rather than finding somewhere in SouthWest England where the fictional city of Holby is located it was clearly shot in Wales at Somerton Park

[Patrick Thistle]

When Casualty featured a crisis at a lower league football ground, rather than finding somewhere in SouthWest England where the fictional city of Holby is located it was clearly shot in Wales at Somerton Park

That must have stuck in your memory, Guy. Somerton Park was demolished in 1993.