The Mountains of Illinois: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|"You guys, this is so ''NOT'' Illinois."|'''''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''', The Beginning of the End''}}
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This becomes [[Critical Research Failure]] and/or [[They Just Didn't Care]]. Say a writer from California wants to base a story in [[Flyover Country]]. Even if they themselves visited Illinois and know what it looks like (and this is hardly guaranteed), they might still hope the viewers [[Viewers are Morons|won't know the difference]]. Obviously, it can be a sore point for people who actually live there.
A subtrope of [[Television Geography]]. See also [[Misplaced Vegetation]]. While examples of this trope need not actually take place in Illinois or the midwestern United States, they must indeed involve mountains or hills appearing where they should not be.
[[Here There Be Lions]] is a subtrope pertaining to a particular highly distinctive bit of mountain in the Vancouver area.
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* During the [[X-Men|Magneto War]] crossover, Magneto met up with the Acolytes in an alpine-looking location, which the caption box says is "the Netherlands". Given that the word "Netherlands" means "lowlands", this is a ''[[All the Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|particularly]]'' [[Egregious]] example.
* An early issue of ''[[Alpha Flight]]'' showed mountains in the distance in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is located in the Red River Valley, one of the flattest areas on Earth. The nearest mountains are nearly 900 miles (1400
* The original headquarters of the [[Justice League of America]], the "Secret Sanctuary," is inside a mountain near Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. In [[Real Life]], the highest point in Rhode Island is a mere 812 feet above sea level.
* Geography is [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|a tricky subject at best]] in [[The DCU]], but various depictions of Central City and Smallville in particular include nearby mountains which would be at odds with the presumptively Midwestern locations of those cities.
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* ''Elizabeth: The Golden Age''. Fotheringay Castle, in which [[Mary of Scotland|Mary, Queen of Scots]] is confined prior to her execution, is played by Eilean Donan castle in Scotland, complete with romantic mountains and loch. The real Fotheringay Castle is in Northamptonshire, which has a distinct dearth of either.
* The [[The Film of the Series|movie version]] of ''[[The Fugitive (film)|The Fugitive]]'' has plenty of this when Kimble steals the ambulance and gets chased to the dam. (Most of the film's location shooting was done in the Great Smoky Mountains, although the action is nominally confined to Illinois...which is ironic, seeing as how the original show sent Kimble running all over America!)
* The docu-drama ''Gacy'', about real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy, is set in
* In John Carpenter's ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'', the town of Haddonfield is supposed to be in Illinois, but a sharp-eyed viewer can not only see mountains in the background of some scenes, but palm trees as well. Of course, a sharp-eyed viewer probably already had their suspension of disbelief broken by the ''weather'' in the film, which, in the Midwest, is considerably less green and summery by that point in the year.
* The [[Syfy]] original movie ''[[Mega Piranha]]'''s climax occurs off the coast of beautiful South Florida. With mountains in the background.
* In ''[[Independence Day]]'', the first sighting of the alien ship takes place in Novosibirsk, Russia. A news reporter says the ship is "clearing the mountains." There are no mountains in
** Inverted in the same film: the landscape supposedly surrounding El Toro shows a desert. El Toro Marine Base is located in a hilly section of Orange County.
* Inverted in ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'', where Jerusalem is located in a flat desert. To clarify, [http://www.jewlicious.com/wp-content/uploads/TM/Jerusalem%20Hills_2.jpg this is what the outside of Jerusalem] looks like.
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* ''Starman'' begins with the titular character crashing to earth in Wisconsin... with mountains clearly visible in the background. While the country is certainly hilly, there are no mountains in Wisconsin.
* ''[[The Thief of Bagdad]]'' (1940) depicts the city of Bagdad as surrounded by craggy peaks. The real city stands in a perfectly flat plain.
* ''[[Deep Impact]]'' shows a packed highway fleeing Virginia Beach from the impending titular impact. While the movie did film that scene in Virginia, they did so several hours northwest
* In ''[[Stick It]]'', neither Plano nor Houston has elevation changes large enough to help your bike downhill, much less to perform stunts. The film was so obviously made in Arizona and California that it isn't funny.
* Since ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' trilogy was filmed in New Zealand, there are mountains in most of the scenes. Which is fine, when they are traveling through the Middle Earth countries that are supposed to be mountainous. Except Rohan is supposed to be a huge grassland for as long as the eye can see. In the [[DVD Commentary]] [[Peter Jackson]] admits that New Zealand simply didn't have any suitable location for that description, so instead they went to show off the most interesting rock formations they could find to produce a cool look, if not a very faithful one.
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* In Kenneth Branagh's version of ''[[Hamlet]]'', the eponymous protagonist delivers his famous "my thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth" speech on top of the great, snowy peaks that don't actually exist in Denmark.
* ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]'' has a scene where police raid a house in Calumet City, Illinois that serial killer Buffalo Bill is thought to be hiding in. Although the real Calumet City is in flat-as-a-pancake Cook County, the movie scene (which was shot near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) shows large hills in the background.
* The ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' franchise is a particularly bad offender. While some of the islands of the Caribbean do share traits with Hawaii, there is no excuse for portraying South Florida and the Everglades as a mountainous region with waterfalls and cenotes among a lush tropical jungle. The Everglades is an open grass swamp with occasional hammocks (islands) of palm, cypress and live oak. You can see for miles in the open areas and there is not even a hill in sight. A hammock of
* While it doesn't appear in the actual movie itself, the poster for the movie ''[[All Dogs Go to Heaven]]'' features the main characters in front of a backdrop of what appears to be New Orleans, with mountains behind it.
* A particularly grievous example is shown in the [[Based on a Great Big Lie|alleged documentary]] ''[[The Fourth Kind]]'', which supposedly takes place in Nome, Alaska. Anyone who has been within ''several hundred miles'' of Nome can tell you that there are no mountains or lush evergreen forests anywhere near the city- [[Did Not Do the Research|it's surrounded on all sides by tundra or]] ''[[Did Not Do the Research|the ocean.]]''
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