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One of my pet peeves, as someone who likes to travel and as a screenwriter, is the way some movies and TV shows completely misrepresent what a place looks like in not just geography, but even architecture and sometimes climate. This was more common in the early and mid-20th century, when film making really WAS dominated in California, but it still happens in more recent works. If it's a good show, I can look past it but sometimes it's off putting and just shows laziness.
One example that comes to mind is "Paper Towns" which I watched 3 years ago with a friend. Personally I found the movie boring and kind of pretentious, but more than anything... I was annoyed by how its largely "set in Orlando" but CLEARLY not filmed there. Orlando is in Florida, meaning most of the country looks very different. But they could have at least filmed in Louisiana or southeast Texas... but they filmed the Orlando scenes in North Carolina, and by both the architecture (the houses honestly look more Midwestern than anything you'll see in Florida) and the abundance of deciduous trees and not ONE palm tree... Also looked pretty hilly. Definitely not Florida!
There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where a character was out in the "prairie" and it looked like a straight up desert in New Mexico. This is supposed to be Minnesota, right? The prairie of Minnesota isn't void of trees and it's not brown unless it's late autumn or early spring. (Character was dressed for summer!) Also looked really dry. I'll excuse this one as it's an old TV show.
Halloween (1978) is my second favourite movie of all time, and it's set in Illinois (I always assumed somewhere downstate, I don't think they ever specify.) and to the film's credit... they did a pretty good job of replicating the Midwest for it being filmed in California. The trees for the most part don't look out of place and the houses fit right in. Just a few things; in one scene you can see a palm tree. It's not horribly jarring but it's there. Also, everything looks pretty green for being late October. Again, they did try to make it look as autumnal as possible, and they did a pretty decent job. But there's one scene... it's supposed to take place in a rural area... it's pretty much a desert and you can make out mountains in the background lol.
And then there's Stranger Things. Great show, set in small town Indiana, but I can't remember if I've ever seen a damn cornfield lol. There's some shots that show rocky terrain and pine trees that let you know that it's definitely filmed in Georgia. Overall, the least offender of them.
The worst of all, though... I saw a trailer for a show called "Waco" that's about the whole fiasco down there in the '90s... they show a complete DESERT area, like it was Breaking Bad or something. I've passed through Waco. There's nothing dry or desert like about that part of Texas. Wow, can you get anymore off base!
What are some that you've noticed, and other's that aren't perfect but impressive in how much they try to portray the location?
The southern half of Indiana is forest, not cornfields. So if Hawkins is supposed to be around Bloomington then it kind of works.
One of mine is Ozark. Its clearly not filmed at LOTO. The lake itself doesn't look the part, nor does the built environment. Ozak makes LOTO look like a has-been hillbilly recreation area and its really not like that.
The movie "Boys Don't Cry" was set in Nebraska, but filmed mostly around Greenville, TX. There's even a scene that's supposed to be Omaha, but it's very clearly the nighttime skyline of Dallas.
RoboCop was set in a futuristic Detroit, but also filmed in and around Dallas.
And then, of course, there's Monument Valley, UT/AZ which is pretty much the official stand-in for any western set in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, or Colorado.
The southern half of Indiana is forest, not cornfields. So if Hawkins is supposed to be around Bloomington then it kind of works.
As an aside, Joyce's accent is all wrong for Indiana. Winona Ryder gives her a very Midwestern accent, but in a very "Great Lakes" Upper Midwest kinda way - as if she's from Wisconsin or Minnesota. I don't think that many people talk like that in Indiana, except maybe right around Gary.
In one episode of the 1970s tv series McMillan and Wife, several of the characters travelled to Scotland to meet a relative of McMillan (Rock Hudson). The landscape was clearly southern California and not Scotland.
The mountains surrounding Los Angeles (San Gabriel?) are clearly visible in many shots on The Office. Wouldn't typically bug me but I was watching one scene where Michael was "attempting" suicide on a roof and the background was a little distracting.
The opening scenes of The Fugitive (1993) are supposed to take place in Downstate Illinois but the locations are way too hilly and forested (i.e the famous dam scene) to take place there.
As an aside, Joyce's accent is all wrong for Indiana. Winona Ryder gives her a very Midwestern accent, but in a very "Great Lakes" Upper Midwest kinda way - as if she's from Wisconsin or Minnesota. I don't think that many people talk like that in Indiana, except maybe right around Gary.
Also in the 2007 Rob Zombie remake of Halloween you can see palm trees in a few scenes. Rumble in the Bronx is clearly not filmed in the Bronx or anywhere in NYC. Spiderman 2 has a scene where Spiderman and Dr Octopus are fighting on a elevated train line through Manhattan, this is filmed in Chicago. Midtown and downtown Manhattan there are no elevated trains, all are underground. Nightmare on Elm Street(1984) set in Ohio, big canary palm tree in one scene, looks like that scene was filmed in Venice area of Los Angeles. Whole film was filmed in LA.
So many more examples of this. These just came to my mind at the moment.
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