Artistic License Geography: Difference between revisions
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** Also done in [[Kenneth Branagh]]'s version of ''Hamlet'' (though it is not like the bard's was good with geography itself, see down).
* A crass mistake is present in the 2007 film version of ''Hitman'', which has the main character driving through the "Russian - Turkish border". Actually, Russia has no land borders with Turkey.
* ''[[Dog Soldiers]]'' is guilty of this when the rescued damsel comments that the nearest city is Fort William and at least
** She was probably lying. {{spoiler|She was one of the werewolves after all.}} Alternatively, it's simply a case of ''[[Wild Wilderness]]'', using that setting in Western Europe always requires some fantasy.
* ''Bird on a Wire'' (1990) has the main characters taking a ferry from Detroit to Racine, Wisconsin, on a ferry explicitly labeled "DETROIT TO RACINE". The trip would be roughly 500 miles by water, as one would have to travel around most of Michigan's Lower Peninsula to reach Racine from Detroit. In [[Real Life]], two ferries connect Michigan to Wisconsin across Lake Michigan: the S.S. Badger, which connects U.S. 10 from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, and the Lake Express, connecting Milwaukee to Muskegon, Michigan. The latter (which only opened in 2004) is as close to a Detroit-to-Racine connection as you can get... ''if'' you consider three hours on westbound Interstate 96 and about 45 minutes on southbound SR-32 "close".
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* In [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]]'', Düsseldorf is depicted as [[Yodel Land|a quaint little Alpine town with half-timbered houses and tall mountains in the background]] instead of the modern industrial city on the Rhine, not in plain view of any mountains.
* In the opening of ''[[Left Behind]]'', a shot labeled "Israeli-Syrian Border" shows tanks driving over desert. The border of Israel and Syria, which is called the Golan Heights, is actually green and mountainous (and is a subject of dispute partially for this very reason).
** Fred Clark, in his brilliant analysis of the ''[[Left Behind]]'' series, is ruthless in [http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/11/lbtm-thats-our-buck.html his dissection] of this series of shots. The film opens with a shot of Jerusalem, with the ''morning'' sun glinting off the ''eastern'' face of the Dome of the Rock, and the subtitle, "Jerusalem, 6:00 '''p.m.'''" A moment later we see the title "Iraq, 6:03 p.m.", as Iraqi fighter planes stream west into the setting sun; and then, "Syrian-Israeli border, 6:03 p.m.", and flocks of helicopters and tanks with their shadows stretching out ''in front of them''
*** Not to mention that Iraq is an hour ahead of Israel and Syria.
* Parodied repeatedly in the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' movies. In the second, Austin and Felicity are driving through "[[California Doubling|the English countryside]]", and Austin remarks how "[[Lampshade Hanging|the English countryside looks nothing like southern California]]". In the third, special effects were purposely used to put Mount Fuji in the background of every single exterior shot in Japan.
* In ''[[Mean Girls]]'' the students go to "Old Orchard" mall, a well known mall near Chicago. The mall shown in the movie is '''indoors''', whereas Old Orchard is an outdoor mall.
* Tommy Wiseau spliced in a slew of establishing shots of San Francisco in ''[[The Room]]'', but the movie was filmed in LA. This might have been forgivable if it had been more well done, but
* North Texas is essentially a prairie with hills to the south and woods to the east. Yet according to the first ''[[X Files]]'' movie, there is a ''desert'' just outside of Dallas where the government sets up camp to research an alien creature found there.
* [[Jackie Chan]]'s ''[[Rumble in The Bronx]]'' features shots of the lovely snow capped mountains for which the Bronx is known far and wide. [[The Mountains of Illinois|Oh, wait]]...
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* In ''[[Independence Day]]'', a British commander sends a message to the Americans, telling them that Israel and Syria have prepared air-strike wings to take out one of the alien spaceships. He says the aircraft are being prepared in the ''Golan Straits''. Of course, the straits nearest to the Golan ''Heights'' are about a thousand miles south, in the Indian Ocean.
** It also features an impossible road sign. The University Of Houston and North Houston are a good thirty miles away from each other.
* ''[[Cannonball Run]] II'' is about a cross-country race from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United States. However, the entire movie was filmed in the outskirts of Tucson,
* The 2010 [[Amy Adams]] film ''[[Leap Year]]'' is all over the place regarding Irish geography. The heroine's plane, traveling from Boston to Dublin is forced to land in Cardiff, Wales due to terrible weather. She ends up hiring a boat to go to Cork for some reason; now even if we are to assume the storm blocks off Dublin Port there are plenty of harbours closer to the city than Cork. Not that it matters, since bad weather forces the boat to put ashore in Dingle... which is north of Cork and yet further away from Cardiff. Further, as in about adding about a third again onto her trip.
* In the movie ''Life-Size'', Casey Stuart tries to convince her father that Eve is a plastic doll come to life. Part of her argument is that Eve says she's from Sunnyvale, which is an obviously fake place that does not exist. Except that... yes, [[wikipedia:Sunnyvale|Sunnyvale is a very real location in California]].
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* In ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]'', the duo steal a monkey from an animal testing lab in Boulder, Colorado and run off with it on foot. The next scene they are out in the wilderness, and the scene after that they are in a diner in Utah. Boulder to Utah would be a 300+ mile hike, over the Rocky Mountains, and would take weeks even for seasoned backpackers.
* In The Graffiti Artist, one of the first scenes in the film is supposed to be set in Portland, OR has the main character getting on what is clearly a Seattle Metro bus at what is clearly 3rd and Pine, in the middle of downtown Seattle, as identifiable by the businesses around it and the appearence of the bus shelter. The disregard for the differences in geography between the two cities is in some cases justified because Seattle has better graffiti art (thanks to much more permissive laws), but there is no need for it in this scene.
* In Joe Dante's film ''[[Matinee]]'' the action takes place in Key West during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but in the final shot there's a great view of the Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad in the
* In the first [[National Treasure]], there is a chase scene on foot in Philadelphia. Everything is fine until the characters run the wrong way to get where they wind up.
* Near the beginning of [[The Rescuers (Disney film)|''The Rescuers Down Under'']], when we see the [[Travel Montage]] following the telegraph signal from Australia to the United States, Australia for some reason is unusually small and the United States is unusually big. In real life, both countries are approximately the same size. Also, Papua New Guinea is shown being the same size as Australia, the Marshall Islands the size of New Zealand, and Hawaii the size of Indonesia.
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* There was once a special episode of ''[[CSI]]'' that took place in Detroit, but was quite obviously filmed in Los Angeles. For one thing, Detroit doesn't have palm-trees lining the streets. For another thing, there are no mountains on Detroit's horizon.
** In another, the crime lab has to send some people up to Carson City to secure some evidence. They arrive in the middle of a blinding sandstorm, something that any person who lives in Carson City would tell you doesn't happen.
* In the pilot of the short-lived series "Smith", there are a number of howlers. The alley out of which one character staggers to distract the cops, for instance, is downtown and a good five miles from the building the group is supposedly
* Carly's grandfather in ''[[iCarly]]'' lives in Yakima and commented on why he can't drive a hour-and-a-half to Seattle to see his grandchildren. Driving from Seattle to Yakima takes about two more hours than he claims.
* In the series finale of ''Sisters'', which took place in Winnetka, IL, a man tells a taxi driver to "Take the Kennedy to Sheridan Road." Those roads/highways are not connected in real life.
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* In ''90210'', Oscar figures out that there is something suspicious about rapist Mr. Cannon when he claims to be from Chelsea but clearly has a Dagenham accent. Now, while Chelsea has many upper-class parts to it, there are also several working class areas as well. There is ''no way'' that anybody could identify a "Dagenham accent" as opposed to any other working-class area of London.
** But just try convincing Henry Higgins of that.
* The US version of ''Shameless'' had a character drive from Chicago to Detroit to Toronto and then back to Chicago during the span of a single night. It takes about
* On one of the early episodes of ''[[Go Go Sentai Boukenger]]'' has the team traveling to Canada looking for the Power Item of the week. The Area that they head to is located in south-eastern Saskatchewan (known for being mostly flatland with some hills), yet features a huge Mountain range and obviously Japanese Flora. South-western Alberta might have been a better call on that one, what with the Rockies in all.
* In ''[[The Event]]'' Vicky describes Murmansk as being in "Western Siberia." This could be a in-show mistake, but Murmansk is near the Finnish border in the most northwestern part of Russia, further west than Moscow (Similar to saying Maine is in the Eastern part of the Old West).
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** ''[[Measure for Measure]]'' is a play with a Duke named Vincentio, his deputy Angelo, a nun named Isabella, her brother Claudio, his lover Juliet, and their friend Lucio... set in ''Vienna''.
** In ''[[Timon of Athens]]'', his description of the Athenian countryside sounds nothing like Greece, but like so many of his other plays depicting foreign parts more like a generic culture with a generic wealthy society.
** In ''[[Othello]]'', he puts Venice only a day away by sail from Cyprus. Venice is over 1,100 nautical miles (2,000
*** Especially bad because in act 1, everyone seems to fully expect Othello to arrive in Cyprus before the Turks do, despite having to travel a much longer distance. Luckily a storm manages to sink all the Turks' ships anyway so it doesn't matter.
*** While the events of the play span three days, they occur in two periods: a time period of one day in Venice leading up to the departure in Act I Scene 3, and then the arrival in Cyprus in Act II Scene 1 starting another time period of two days in Cyprus, with [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot|an unspecified period of time]] between the two periods. Thus the actual length of the journey between Venice and Cyprus is never specified in the play itself.
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* Quite a few people refer to Europe as if it were one country. When talking about album sales, box office, or TV ratings, many people mention that something was "successful in Europe" without differentiating specific countries, turning Europe into one large foreign market like Australia or Japan. Europe can be treated as a single economic territory, and the EU is a polity in its own right, but neither of these things makes Europe a country.
* [[Dan Quayle]] is notable for his geography blunders. Examples: "It's wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago." and "I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
* There is a US state called Georgia [[Name's the Same|and]] [[Why We're Bummed Communism Fell|ex-"republic" in USSR]], now the nation called Georgia. Naturally, a few citizens from the former expressed confusion when they heard about the Russian invasion of the latter. Google didn't help any, when their automatic Google Maps integration on Google News was helpfully showing a map of the former. [[Troll
** This is the reason that at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the country that got the most applause other than the United States, was Georgia.
* [http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/hundredsstates.jpg This headline.]
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* Some Americans apparently like to visit Hawai'i [http://notalwaysright.com/first-ocean-to-the-right-then-straight-on-til-drowning in a car]. Or [http://notalwaysright.com/here-today-gone-to-maui-2 on a train].
** [http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Seattle,+WA&daddr=Honolulu,+HI&hl=en&ll=34.885931,-140.185547&spn=38.168439,86.572266&sll=32.10799,-140.67501&sspn=39.323102,86.572266&geocode=FcJp1gIdWVy1-ClVM-iTLBCQVDGa1URpRmUlEA%3BFUAeRQEd40WX9ilNRsOMOxgAfDFsl6fzX_UoSw&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&t=m&z=4 Step # 10:] apparently the best way to get to Honolulu, Hawaii is to kayak. (found by searching [http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Seattle,+WA&daddr=Tokyo,+Japan&hl=en&sll=34.885931,-140.185547&sspn=38.168439,86.572266&geocode=FcJp1gIdWVy1-ClVM-iTLBCQVDGa1URpRmUlEA%3BFRCUIAIduoZTCCnnVy7whxtdYDGJG1cii2EBLg&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&t=m&z=3 this])
* The London ''Evening Standard'' 2010-04-21 edition had an article about how a drunken rugby star wandered onto a railway line at Wandsworth Road Station, electrocuting himself and then being hit by a train. The article includes the statement "It is not known why [he] ended up in Wandsworth at 4 a.m." Except that he didn't -- Wandsworth Road Station is so-named [[Captain Obvious|because it's on Wandsworth Road]], which in turn is so-named because it runs from Vauxhall to Battersea, passing through Clapham on the way (and because anyone who travels along it to Battersea, and keeps going in the same direction, will shortly arrive in Wandsworth). Wandsworth Road Station is in
* Apparently invoked by Opera Software in their [http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/blog/2010/05/05/fastmail-fm-faq FastMail.FM Acquisition FAQ]; it's headed by a picture of Sydney Opera House and then goes on to say that <s>FastMail.FM</s> <s>The Messaging Engine Pty. Ltd.</s> Opera Software Australia Pty. Ltd. is in Melbourne, hundreds of miles from Sydney. However, more careful reading of the FAQ reveals that their use of the well-known '''Opera''' House image is a pun, so this is actually an [[Averted Trope|aversion]].
* John F Kennedy once said: "The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe--Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East--the lands of the rising peoples." One glance at an actual map (or [http://www.xkcd.com/753/ this] xkcd strip) shows us that the majority of Asia, over half of Africa, central America and the entire Middle East are in fact Northern hemisphere. And Australia is on the Southern hemisphere despite not being on the list.
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** On a similar note, for a long time, Cincinnati and Atlanta were in the National League West division, while St. Louis and Chicago were in the NL East.
** The NFL, up until the 2002 re-alignment, was an exercise in geographical insanity. Of the five teams in the NFC West division in 2001, three of them (New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers) were ''Southern cities'' while the Arizona Cardinals of the NFC ''East'' was the westernmost city in the NFC after the San Francisco 49ers. There are still a few oddities present today (the NFC West's Rams are still farther east than the NFC East's Cowboys; the Indianapolis Colts of the AFC South are farther north than the Baltimore Ravens of the AFC North), but for the most part, the current partitioning makes a lot more sense.
*** ''Somewhat'' justified, as the Cardinals had moved from St. Louis in the late 80's, and when the Panthers came into existence in 1995, the NFC West had an open spot, having only four teams to the other divisions' five. And when the AFL and NFL merged, the new NFC alignment [[wikipedia:
* A certain postcard of Seattle has the level of Puget Sound much higher than in real life, with a band of green spliced in along the waterfront.
* According to CNN, [http://twitpic.com/3w989u Queensland is actually a city in Tasmania]. (They had to have meant Queens''town'', since Queens''land'' is the state where the other cities on the map are located). CNN also once stated that Edinburgh is in England. Try telling a [[Berserk Button|native that]].
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