Television Geography: Difference between revisions
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** In ''Bullitt''s chase scene, it seems like ''every'' time they take a right turn onto a downhill street, there's a beige Volkswagen Beetle parked on the right with its back to the camera, in the same spot every time...
** An interview about the first Bourne movie had someone [[Lampshade Hanging|noting]] that the famous car [[Chase Scene]] took a very unconventional route through Paris.
** '' [[Mission: Impossible]] II:'' Ethan Hunt gets a car and chases the girl, leaving the Spanish city of Seville and suddenly reaching some cliffs that might be anywhere but near Seville. Not the movie's only example of [[Did Not Do the Research]] about Spain.
* Much of the film ''[[21 (2008 film)|21]]'', taking place at MIT in Cambridge, MA, was shot directly across the Charles River on Boston University's campus. In an interesting twist on the Television Geography trope, BU students enjoyed the movie more because of the familiar locales, despite its use as another university's campus.
** MIT's administration actually banned the filming of movies on campus after the crew of ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'' displayed an annoying tendency to randomly close important parts of the school. Given that most of the school didn't have a particularly good opinion of the quality of ''21'', it's probably best for the moviemakers that they didn't try it.
* ''[[The Perfect Storm]]'' is based on a true story of fisherman from Gloucester, MA. The bar they frequent, The Crow's Nest, is shown right next to the pier on Harbor Loop. The actual Crow's Nest is about a half mile away, across the street from a wharf for a whale watch business.
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* The indie movie ''A Problem with Fear'' is supposedly set in the Calgary subway. Calgary doesn't have a subway, and if it did the ads in the subway would likely not be in French, as they were in the movie. One wonders why they didn't just set the damn thing in Montreal.
* It's terribly obvious they filmed ''[[Resident Evil: Apocalypse|Resident Evil Apocalypse]]'' in [[Toronto]]. An opening shot in the theatrical version shows the CN Tower, and the climax of the movie occurs at another famous landmark—Toronto's uniquely designed City Hall. Granted, a city so much like Raccoon City doesn't exist.
** [http://torontoist.com/2008/10/reel_toronto_resident_evil_apocalypse/ This]{{Dead link}} takes the entire thing apart.
{{quote|Despite the economic turmoil, Scotiabank's Racoon City expansion plans were unaffected.}}
** In one scene, ''Resident Evil 2'' seems to place Raccoon City in somewhat central New Jersey. Oddly enough, they realistically portrayed an evil pharmaceutical company having a research office, in the middle of nowhere NJ, yet relatively near a larger city. Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth, Hoffman-LaRoche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Schering-Plough all have locations in NJ that somewhat parallel this. No zombies yet though...
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* ''[[Run Lola Run]]'' has the heroine run all over Berlin in the space of twenty (real time) minutes. For example her house is just north of the Spree and she starts running north, then moments later ends up south of the river, considerably further east, running north across the river. That section of the U-bahn does NOT come out of the ground as is shown. Definitely covered by [[Rule of Cool]].
* ''[[Trainspotting]]'' is the Scottish city of Edinburgh, right? Then what can explain the scene where Renton and Diane come out of the nightclub and it is revealed to be the very distinctive exterior of the Volcano... which is ''Glasgow,'' a good fifty miles from Edinburgh?
* People from Bayonne, New Jersey, had a lot of fun in the remake of ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' starring [[Tom Cruise]]. The house in the beginning of the movie is in downtown Bayonne, right underneath the Bayonne Bridge. However, during the alien landing, Tom Cruise walks over to a church that is actually in Newark in under a minute. Beyond the miles of distance required to walk there, Cruise would also have to either swim across Newark Bay or dodge highway traffic across the NJ Turnpike bridge.
** Also at the beginning, when the lightning strikes the ground to activate the tripods, it's seen hitting a spot that seems to be just off Route 440 in Jersey City (admittedly, not too far from Bayonne but definitely a few miles from where Tom Cruise's house and nowhere near quick walking distance)...and yet, Cruise and his neighbors are able to quickly walk out and observe the site, mere blocks away into downtown Bayonne.
* ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'' was filmed, in part, at Yale University, including a chase scene. Indy and Mutt travel at about the speed of sound, judging from how fast they get from some points to others.
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* ''Wildflowers'' features a full, dense forest that characters run and hide in, in the heart of North Beach, which is one of the most urban neighborhoods in the city. The forest appears to be either Golden Gate Park or one of the other parks close to the beach, which are essentially on the opposite side of town.
* ''Sid And Nancy'' features the characters leaving San Francisco to go to the San Francisco International Airport (which is south of the city) by going across the San Mateo bridge, which is even further south of the airport and which leads to the other side of the Bay from where the airport is. If you are already in the city you don't cross any bridges to get to the airport.
* Averted in ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' as explained in [[James Rolfe]]'s [
* In the film ''Driving Lessons'', [[Rupert Grint]] and Julie Walters drive to Edinburgh, arriving on a scenic road down a hillside... which is in the centre of the city and can only be reached once you're already in the city. This is after they've driven ''south'' past a recognisable nuclear power station to get there, and following this, you see them going up alleyways and out of entirely different alleyways on the opposite side of the castle. It's a bit disorientating.
* Baltimore tourists are often told that the ''[[Step Up]]'' movies were filmed at the famous Baltimore School for the Arts, probably because the school in the film is based on that. In fact, they were filmed at a local middle school.
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* An episode of the new ''[[Bionic Woman]]'' had a meeting arranged to take place at a sulphur plant on the waterfront...which would be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever been in downtown Vancouver and looked across the harbour at North Vancouver.
* In one episode of the Rebus series, John Rebus's car stalls out and starts smoking on a hill overlooking central Edinburgh. One cut later, and he deposits it somewhere west of Forth Bridge, roughly in the area of East Shore Wood, having apparently limped bloody ''miles'' in a smoking car. If the shot hadn't blatantly included the Forth Bridge and the Forth Rail Bridge (the position of the former beyond the latter makes his location very clear) then the scene wouldn't be so ridiculous in hindsight.
* The frequent presence of lush greenery and vegetation, and moderately frequent rain, in desert Las Vegas on ''[[CSI]]'' ([[California Doubling|filming in LA]], also a desert but heavily watered) is often a source of amused derision by show fans. Also, Geoff Duncan has written two articles on the geographical inaccuracy of two outside jobs, one in [https://web.archive.org/web/20060511095241/http://www.teevee.org/archive/weblog/2003/11/10/102730.html "Jackpot"] and another in [https://web.archive.org/web/20060511183116/http://www.teevee.org/archive/weblog/2004/09/24/095909.html the 2004 season premiere].
** Actually, most of Los Angeles has Cool-summer Mediterranean climate, with some parts of the county(Pasadena, etc) getting well over 20 inches of rain per year due to the rain shadow.
** There's a third unlikely/impossible "outside job" where the team travel to the Nevada town of Sparks (which is, in reality, adjacent to Reno, not Las Vegas). Not only is it in a different county and therefore outside of their jurisdiction... it's also eight hours away.
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* Averted in ''[[Forever Knight]]''. The [[Pilot Movie]] took place in the usual Unnamed American City, but the series, filmed in Toronto, was explicitly set in Toronto.
* The substitution of Vancouver for an unnamed city in the US Northwest (presumably Seattle) is so common that the term "Seacouver" is the setting's unofficial name. ''[[The Sentinel (TV series)|The Sentinel]]'' and ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' are examples.
* ''[[Frasier]]'' - No building in Seattle has the view seen from Frasier's window. The shot was taken from the top of a cliff and was chosen so the Space Needle could be prominently seen from the window.
* In the pre-air pilot of ''[[Fringe]]'', two characters visit a sprawling, isolated storage facility in "Back Bay, Massachusetts." Back Bay is actually a high-end neighborhood in Boston, mainly full of rich people and expensive shops, with a significant lack of storage facilities of any kind. The version of the pilot that eventually aired changed the title card to Chelsea, which is more believable, but the previous scene still has a character claiming that the "Back Bay police" reported suspicious activity in the area.
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** Like rushing on to Ford Island to get to a ship docked in Honolulu Harbor.
** Someone in a SUV gets attacked near Hilton Hawaiian Village after passing Aloha Tower on the way to Hickam AFB.
** A chase sequence featuring an escaped convict shows him driving towards the airport, taking the airport exit off H-1 (which would put him about 2 minutes away from the check-in lobby, not including time to park the car), then turning around at a roadblock on a four-lane road that clearly isn't anywhere near the airport (probably in Leeward Oahu, along Kualakai Parkway), followed by him traveling along the H-3 freeway. The convict then somehow manages to exit the freeway in the middle of Halawa Valley (something impossible to do between Halawa Interchange and the Harano tunnels, short of pulling to the side of the road and jumping off the viaduct), and hijacks a Makani Kai tour helicopter even though said company is located [
** Two words: Waikiki Bay.
** [http://www.lexbrodies.com/ Lex Brodie] appears to have relocated their Honolulu store from Queen St. to Ala Wai Blvd.
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** To be fair, [[Rule of Cool|it's a much nicer train station]].
** Another episode referenced the San Bruno train station, which on screen was next to a hilly wooded area where they found a body. You probably couldn't really hide a body near the San Bruno train station, since there's a densely built neighborhood about 50 feet away from the train tracks... on flat ground... with no ''palm trees''.
* One episode of the US version of ''[[The Office]]'' had the cast visit Lake Scranton for a beach party. There is no beach or sandy shore at Lake Scranton, which is [
* Spoofed in ''[[Police Squad!]]'', where the Roman Colosseum and Leaning Tower of Pisa are back-projected during a trip to "Little Italy."
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has been filmed for the last several years in [[New Zealand]], with geography that is obviously not North American. And the seasons reversed. Some [[Lampshade Hanging]] has been employed with minor characters being "sent to New Zealand" to get rid of them. Of course, through the show's entire history, [[Stock Footage]] obviously shot in Japan has been commonplace, leading to the overwhelming prevalence of Japanese cars (not [[Everybody Owns a Ford]] in this universe), Japanese signage, a usually large number of HOV and bicycle lanes, and extras who spontaneously become Asian.
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* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episode "Exit Wounds" supposedly takes place in Franklin, Alaska. The fishing ships in the opening would imply that Franklin is on the ocean. However, Franklin is on a creek, '''hundreds''' of miles away from the ocean, and more importantly, is [[Ghost Town|uninhabited]]. The closest town, Chicken, had a grand total population of 17 in the year 2000. They also mention a Lake Lafayette, and in a state with over three million lakes, there are none named Lafayette. Most TV shows and movies [[Did Not Do the Research|do not to do research]] when it comes to Alaska, much less do they ever film there.
** Taking place all over the US but being filmed in LA gives Criminal Minds this problem quite often. In ''Roadkill'' they even invented a whole highway.
* ''
* Even live sporting events aren't immune from Television Geography. In September 2011, [[ESPN]] aired what they claimed was a shot of the skyline of Madison, Wisconsin during a football game between the University of Wisconsin and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. However, as CNBC's Darren Rovell [https://web.archive.org/web/20121204081348/http://www.whosay.com/darrenrovell/photos/64273 noted], it was actually stock footage of the skyline in Minneapolis, Minnesota—230 miles northwest of Madison.
** What made it even funnier is that it wasn't the first time that Minneapolis substituted for Madison—the same mistake was made in 2008 on a website. But not just any website... [https://web.archive.org/web/20101014081654/http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/12/oops_wisconsin.php a website run by the state of Wisconsin].
* ''[[The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries]]'': the episode "Voodoo Doll" is just ''painful''. Despite having a stock footage opening shot of the real Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras...the Hollywood backlot not only didn't bother to make buildings that looked like New Orleans, but the ep also refers to addresses that don't exist and has the Hardys wandering through a wide, spacious, bury-them-below-ground cemetery...never mind that cemeteries in NOLA in the Quarter are all bury-them-above-ground due to the high water table and jammed-packed.
* ''[[Dog the Bounty Hunter]]'' seems to have suffered as of late this trope. For example, during Baby Lyssa's arrest episode, it appears that Leland and Beth are going in opposite directions from where they're intending to go on the H-1 Freeway via the dialogue. And when they went to Maui to apprehend a fugitive, they seem to be on streets that are blocks away from their intended locations.
* ''[[Arrow]]'': "Starling City" is portrayed using [[Stock Footage]] of upwards of half a dozen different real cities, with occasional digital manipulation for things like putting the Queen Industries logo on a building. This makes it possible to go from, for example, Center City Philadelphia to a Baltimore slum in a matter of blocks.
== Music ==
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** Chinatown doesn't look anything at all like Manhattan's Chinatown, or any other in NYC. Then there's the three East River crossings all looking like copypasted Brooklyn Bridges. For added hilarity, there's subway trains running across them, when in reality the Brooklyn Bridge is the only one of the three which ''doesn't'' have subway tracks, due to the bridge's age.
* In ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', Manhattan is located in the middle of what appears to be a large bay instead of between 3 rivers, so that [[Gravity Barrier|all other landmasses are too far to reach]] despite the [[Player Character]]'s quite significant aerial movement capabilities.
* There is an arcade game showing a scene of a helicopter flying through massive skyscrapers and listing the location as "Green Bay, Wisconsin". The tallest building in Green Bay is the 10-story St. Vincent's Hospital, as seen in this picture of the [
* Beautifully averted in ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'', which managed to capture the essence of New York City and most of its neighborhoods perfectly, to the point that some New Yorkers, when traveling around the city, will recognize areas from rampaging through them in ''GTAIV''.
** The trope's played straight in the stand-ins for the outer boroughs. While the landmarks themselves are portrayed accurately, and the look and feel of the neighborhoods is correct (enough that it made this NYC native troper homesick), there's a ''lot'' of almost ''[[24]]''-esque condensed geographical weirdness going on. Grand Army Plaza is not, in fact, a stone's throw from Coney Island. Then there's the complete absence of Staten Island, but most New Yorkers [[Old Shame|are cool]] with that.
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