39,327
edits
Television Geography: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 23:
* Pretty much any anime where the cast visits San Francisco will place it in the middle of a desert. ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' at least makes it a cab ride away, while ''[[Lupin III]]'', despite remembering to include San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, puts it within walking distance.
* Anime seems to have a lot of exceptions: [[Eden of the East]] has a very accurate landscape and [[Durarara]] is very accurate in its portrayal of Ikebukuro, down to the vending machines.
** [[Eden of the East]] is largely accurate but includes one baffling exception. In the first episode, Akira visits an apartment of his in Northwest D.C. Problem is the address they give is actually the location of the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden.
** In the same episode the opening montage features Saki's photo montage of her visit to [[New York City]], one of those photos features the building One World Trade Center (nickname Freedom Tower). The story takes place in [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|January of 2011]] and the tower is not set for completion until 2013.
* Naturally used and lampshaded (by [[Only Sane Man|Beauty]]) in ''[[Bobobobo Bobobo]]''.
Line 29:
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[The Ultimates]] 2'', one panel showing a nice city landscape with an attractive domed building by a large river had a caption claiming its location to be part of EU headquarters in Brussels. Not only is the architecture of the city distinctly out of place (looking significantly more Mediterranean than the city itself) but more glaringly there is no visible river in Brussels! While a river does run through the city, it was built over in the 19th and early 20th century and runs underground for the length of the city.
** Possibly justified by the fact that ''The Ultimates'' takes place in an Alternate Universe.
* Averted by ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'', in which most of the locale is recognizably Toronto.
* ''X'', a vigilanted super hero from [[Dark Horse Comics]]. A scene taking place at the Vietnam Memorial shows office-building skyscrapers in the background. Naturally, no such buildings are anywhere near the place, much less all the more important locales in D.C.
* Parodied and lampshaded in ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'', with locations (and [[Time Travel|time periods]]) looking only vaguely correct and with Max sarcastically pointing out the level of research taken in the drawings.
Line 38:
== [[Film]] ==
* Hollywood movies in general tend to have palm trees popping up in the background of states where there quite obviously are no palm trees. Watch for it.
* Watching a [[Chase Scene]] filmed in a city you are familiar with? Be ready for [[Fridge Logic]]:
** "You can't get to X boulevard from Y street!"
** "How did they get from X boulevard to Z street without passing through B drive?"
Line 45:
* Reviews of the low-budget ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' movie reveled in poking fun at the movie's depiction of Wisconsin. The land of cheese has a surprising number of cacti.
* In ''[[Field of Dreams]]'', Ray Kinsella's voice beckons him to travel to Boston and Chisholm, Minnesota, but aside from Huntington Avenue and Fenway Park, the entire movie was shot within a 50 mile radius of the Iowa farm that served as his home, conveniently within the rugged Driftless Area of the midwest, which filled in for the Appalachian Mountains.
* In the beginning of [[The Wild Stallion]], Miranda Cosgrove's character narrates that she grew up in Cleveland, with an aerial view of a city that is obviously Boston, with shots of the Back Bay, the New England Aquarium, and the Tobin Bridge.
* By contrast, [[Cedar Rapids]] was filmed in Ann Arbor, Michigan instead of the titular city.
* ''[[Leap Year]]'', apart from its appalling [[Oireland]] setting, uses atrocious geography. Anna's flight from Boston to Dublin is diverted to Wales due to weather, although London is a major international hub and a much more obvious place in which to divert the plane. Then, she gets a ferry from Wales to Dingle -- Dingle being on the ''southwest'' coast of Ireland, ignoring the regular Holyhead-to-Dublin ferry. Dingle is shown as a tiny village when it's actually a moderately-sized town. Then, her journey from Dingle to Dublin passes the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, neither of which would be anywhere near her route.
Line 52:
** 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]]'', 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.
** The movie ends with a scene at the real St. Ann's church. The priest and deacon on the alter were current to the movie's filming (1999), but weren't at the church when the film takes place (1991). Neither was the choir.
* ''[[
* ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]: Requiem'' is set in Gunnison, Colorado, a small mountain town of about 5,500 people. The establishing shot of the town is much, much larger than that, as they shot it in Canada at a town with 15x its population.
** Furthermore, Gunnison, Colorado is a semi-arid climate with sagebrush as the predominate vegetation, but ''Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem'' shows massive temperate rainforest trees with moss hanging from the branches. And the storm sewer system is vastly oversized. Humans, aliens, and even a dog use the sewer system like an underground tunnel. Unless it's a CDOT box culvert bridging a creek, the largest possible sewer pipe is maybe 12 or 18 inches in Gunnison.
Line 64:
** It was filmed in Toronto. Details [http://torontoist.com/2009/07/reel_toronto_assault_on_precinct_13.php here.]
* Averted in ''[[Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever]]'', which was both filmed and set in Vancouver. It seems odd that the authorities in Canada would allow Americans to run around blowing crap up and treating the city as a shooting gallery, but those who saw ''Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever'' and were unimpressed would likely argue the authorities were pretending that none of this was happening and ignored it.
* ''Before Sunrise'': Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke manage to get ''everywhere'' in Vienna, despite only spending only one night there. Pretty amazing, if you consider that the location are spread out over the city and are visited in random order. It's even more amazing if you consider that all of this time they never get on a bus or take a taxi (except once - during the day).
* ''[[Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure]]'' was nominally set in San Dimas, California, but the school identified as San Dimas High School was actually Coronado High School in Scottsdale, Arizona.
* ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'' caused residents of Riverton, Wyoming, to look out on the dry, arid scorched land (residents of that area beam with pride that the desolate alien planet in ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' was filmed there) and ponder where these lush mountain vistas were that kept popping up.
Line 79:
* In ''[[The Departed]]'', [[The Mole]] texts the police to go to Sheffield, and they're shown choosing an exit off an elevated highway accordingly. Sheffield is ''a hundred and forty miles'' from Boston, in New England, where that still counts for a lot; to get there you go through ''two other metropolitan areas'' and then a good thirty miles out into the country.
* In ''[[Die Hard 2]]'', the action is set at Dulles Airport, near Washington DC, but the pay phones bear [[California Doubling|Pacific Bell logos]]. And the police are consistently identified as DC police even though Dulles is in Virginia. And the bad guys plan and execute an escape by snowmobile, and a long icicle is used effectively as a weapon. Washington area winter weather almost never supports snowmobile use in the suburbs, and is almost always mild until after the Christmas season.
** Additionally, the airport used in the movie looks nothing like the real Dulles Airport which has a [[wikipedia:Dulles Airport|very unusual architecture]]. That's because many of the exterior airport scenes were shot at Alpena Regional Airport, in Alpena, Michigan, on Lake Huron. Alpena was chosen in part because the producers needed a location with consistent, heavy snow, winter weather cold enough to use snow makers if necessary, and it's small enough that they could close several runways for shooting. The scenes in the baggage-claim drive-through were shot at Denver-Stapleton.
** Isn't the weather at least justified, as it was supposed to be one of the worst winter storms on record that particular terrorist-laden Christmas?
** In ''Live Free or Die Hard'', the main characters realize they have to run to DC. When they realize this, they are clearly on Light Street in Baltimore, MD. They manage this.
Line 91:
* The 2008 ''[[Get Smart (film)|Get Smart]]'' movie features a climactic [[Chase Scene]] in which the characters travel via freeway between core downtown Los Angeles, the Port of Los Angeles (in Long Beach), and Van Nuys Airport (in the San Fernando Valley) within the space of a few minutes.
* The terrible ''Godsend'' is repeatedly said to take place in a "small American town." Not only does it not remotely look like a "small town," the father drives past the rather unique-looking Roy Thompson Hall of Toronto.
* In ''[[The Graduate]]'' the protagonist is headed to Berkeley from LA over [[San Francisco|The Bay Bridge.]] Not only is it unnecessary since both of the major highways (101 & 5) going from LA to the San Francisco area could or would deposit him in the East Bay, but he's going across the bridge into San Francisco.
** I-5 goes through Sacramento, which is a two and a half hour drive from San Francisco. Definitely nowhere near the East Bay.
*** He would have switched to the 580, thence to the East Bay.
Line 105:
* ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]'' has the animal testing facility/diamond heist scene set in Boulder, Colorado. The scene gets nearly everything wrong. Boulder is home to a [[Strawman U]] with an extremely active Anti-Animal Testing protest group and so the lab would never have been there in the first place. The setting appears to be the plains, but Boulder is at the feet of the Flatirons mountains. Finally, Jay and Silent Bob steal a monkey and leave with it on foot. The next scene shows them in Utah, which is 300+ miles away over the Rockies.
* [[Nicolas Cage]]'s ''[[Knowing]]'', set in Boston and New York, was filmed in Melbourne, Australia. One of the scenes was filmed on the steps of the state Parliament House. Imagine, Americans, a film set halfway around the world with a scene taking place outside your State Capitol.
** ''Knowing'' is theoretically set in the Lexington area, Massachusetts, but you can safely say that the film's director has never even seen pictures of Lexington. This is most evident on any scene set on a highway, where there are huge desolate areas with no trees, where Massachusetts has an overabundance of them near its highways.
* ''Lake View Terrace'' is very clearly ''not'' Lake View Terrace. It was actually filmed in Walnut, about 40 miles away. Especially jarring for the fact that any production company based in Southern California would know that Walnut cannot pass for Lake View Terrace.
* The ''[[Left Behind]]'' movie was filmed in Toronto, setting the city hall as UN headquarters, but that's not the bad part. You want to hear what's just ridiculous? The flags out front were from all the Canadian provinces and territories.
* The building destroyed at the beginning of ''[[Lethal Weapon 3]]'', a movie series set in Los Angeles, is obviously the old Orlando City Hall, with the new City Hall, the Suntrust Tower (the tallest building in the city) and other notable Orlando landmarks featured in the background. Made even better by the fact that the cop who says "Bravo" is Bill Frederick... Orlando's mayor at the time.
* Parts of the Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie ''Locust'' take place in Southern Indiana/Kentucky, and one scene features the main characters driving from Kentucky to Indiana. They pass a "Welcome to Indiana!" sign by the side of the road with trees and dirt and such. Go check out a map of the Indiana/Kentucky border to see why that wouldn't work. (Hint: the Ohio River defines the entire Indiana/Kentucky border). That's not even mentioning the scenes taking place in southern Indiana showing perfectly flat, level ground despite the huge number of thousand-foot hills in that area.
** Looking at a map of Indiana, there is one location in the southwest part of the state near Evansville where the Indiana/Kentucky border is north of the Ohio River on solid ground. 200 years ago it followed the river, but the river changed paths and the border stuck, so a land crossing between the two states does exist. Still, that does not account for the issue with the hills in Southern Indiana.
* The 1961 film ''The Long Ships'' takes place in Scandinavia and North Africa, but was entirely filmed in Yugoslavia, which, needless to say, looks very little like either location.
* The ballpark used for the Cleveland Indians' home stadium in ''[[Major League]]'' was actually County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The filmmakers had to shoot there to work around Bob Uecker's schedule (since they cast the real-life Brewers broadcaster as the fictional Indians broadcaster Harry Doyle), and they thus also recast the Milwaukee TV station with its real life logo on the outfield scoreboard as a Cleveland station.
** And Major League II used Camden Yards and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Line 117:
* The first ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' film shows K spying on his pre-[[Masquerade]] wife in Truro. The map starts with all of Massachusetts, zooms in on Cape Cod ... and zooms in on ''Sandwich'', about as far as you can get from Truro. Ironically, the lush forest in the background of "Truro" looks much more like Sandwich.
* When the Griswolds set out from Chicago in ''[[National Lampoon's Vacation]]'', oil rigs can be seen in the background. [[California Doubling|L.A.]] has plenty of these (and even southern Illinois has some oil deposits), but not Chicago. Much of the rest of the movie was filmed on location.
** Some tall palm trees, and maybe even mountains, can be seen in the background of the early scenes at the car dealership as well. Oops.
* Another [[Nicolas Cage]] example, from ''[[National Treasure]] 2: Book of Secrets''. In the car chase in [[London Town]], the cars cross Westminster Bridge north to south, engage in a chase in what is clearly the City of London, which is north of the Thames - you can see the street signs, then cross Southwark Bridge ''again north to south''.
* In ''[[No Way Out]]'', there's the (nonexistent) Georgetown Metro stop, with the DC Metro being portrayed by the Baltimore Metro.
* Exactly whose mega-mansion was depicted in ''[[Out of Sight]]''?
* As with the TV show ''Inspector Morse'', films set in Oxford (England) tend to frequently play fast and loose with geography -- characters in ''The Oxford Murders'', for instance, step out of a pub onto the sidewalk in front of a lingerie store on the other side of the road.
** Morse has, for instance, stepped from a cobbled street in the town centre to a park two miles away.
Line 155:
* ''[[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.
** While this may be, the scenes aren't set at Yale University but at the (seems to be) fictional Marshall College, so they are completely incorrect anyway
* While ''[[The Blues Brothers]]'' mostly averts this, with most of the exteriors actually being shot in Chicago, the Palace Hotel, supposedly in Wisconsin, has an Ohio flag flying in front of it.
** Also, the unfinished highway ramp in the [[Chase Scene]] at the end is in Milwaukee, which doesn't seem so bad until you realize that they landed in Chicago.
*** The fact that the Nazi car following them ran off the end of the ramp and ended up falling nearly from orbit puts such magical travel times entirely within the scope of the film. They're on a mission from God, after all.
Line 174:
* ''[[Rocky II]]'': During the opening credits, an ambulance takes Rocky from the (now-demolished) Spectrum over a Delaware River bridge (which would take you to New Jersey), into downtown Philadelphia, around City Hall ''twice'', and to Pennsylvania Hospital. The actual route would be a straight shot 20 blocks up Broad Street, six blocks down Locust, and one block over. Even then, you'd pass several closer hospitals.
* ''Blow Out'': John Lithgow drags Nancy Allen onto a subway-surface trolley car at the 15th Street underground station. Cut to them climbing to street level at Penn's Landing, 15 blocks away. The subway-surface lines terminate at 13th Street. There is no underground station of any kind at Penn's Landing.
* In ''Next'' the main character enters a building on Fremont Street, Las Vegas and then exits the building onto the main strip.
* ''[[Wayne's World]]'' takes place in Aurora, Illinois. Near the beginning of the film Wayne & Garth are cruising around and pass the [[wikipedia:Spindle (sculpture)|Spindle]] in Berwyn - a trip of almost an hour each way. Some joyride.
* The ''[[King Kong]]'' rip-off A.P.E. was set in South Korea. For some reason, despite being filmed in Korea and being co-financed by a Korean film company, they did few establishing shots of Seoul. Instead, two characters simply sit in the backseat of a car and describe Seoul landmarks as they come (the main train/subway station, city hall, the capitol, etc.) In order to see all of these landmarks, they would spend a couple hours driving in different directions.
Line 191:
** The story acts like Forks is every cliche about England having way to much rain and clouds in just one town all the time. Its more likely slightly overcast some of the time.
*** Then there's the infamous honeymoon on the "west coast of Brazil"...
** In the first movie, which was filmed in Oregon, the scene at the river is clearly on the wrong side of the state borders.
* Sherlock Holmes is a regular offender. Conan Doyle was a Scot with little knowledge of London, and it shows; it's quite impossible to establish the location of 221b Baker Street because Conan Doyle had no accurate knowledge of the area and simply made it up, and many of Holmes' journeys around London are no better. The "opium den" in Limehouse is clearly taken from generic period fiction.
** Holmes also visits Cambridgeshire in "The Missing Three-Quarter" and walks in an afternoon between three villages which would represent a round trip of about forty miles; this is a rare example as most of his country locations are fictional places with generic orcharacter-based names like "Musgrave Hall", or like ''Hound of the Baskervilles'' based in locations whose names were well-known but with little actual details
*** the only accurate part of Holmes' journeys are his train trips, because Conan Doyle could presumably read Bradshaw ( a very popular railway guide of the time ) as well as anyone else
* [[Rosemary Edgehill]] is atrocious on New York layout. In one of her "Twelve Treasures" fantasies, she puts the Arms & Armor collection in the basement (?) of the "Museum of Natural History"... and moves THAT to Museum Mile, when it is on the West Side.
Line 200:
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Happens occasionally on ''[[Bones]]'', which is set in DC but filmed in California. This leads to such geographical wackiness as the team visiting a racetrack in the middle of what appears to be a desert...in Virginia.
** The pilot episode of ''[[Bones]]'' - the very first establishing shot, in fact - shows an airplane coming down in Dulles Airport. The caption tells you that this is "Dulles International Airport, Washington, DC," and it shows a domed building (possibly the Jefferson Memorial, but it didn't look quite right) in the background, along with other clear signs of a large city. First of all, Dulles is not even in DC; it's in, well, Dulles, VA, which is almost on the edge of the DC area. It's not a particularly metropolitan area either, with plenty of open space around. Also, being near the ''edge'' of the DC area, there is no way you could see the Jefferson Memorial (or any other major DC landmark) from the airport. No, try driving another hour or so from there, depending on traffic of course. Now, the airport actually just outside DC would be Reagan National, but even from there, the most you could see is the top of the Washington Monument.
* Metropolis, which is supposed to be near ''[[Smallville]]'' in this setting, has a dock.
* The guys' apartment in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' is supposed to be in the South Lake apartments, where you can see a pristine view of the Downtown Pasadena skyline. Though the angle is correct, that view would be blocked out by much taller office buildings.
Line 211:
** The most blatant [[They Just Didn't Care]] moment came in Season 4, where the Terrorminions hijack a nuclear missile transport and manage to lose the satellite tracking in the mountains... ''[[The Mountains of Illinois|of IOWA]]''.
*** Not quite so They Just Didn't Care. While the northeast corner of Iowa is not exactly "mountainous", it's not normally what you'd think when you think of Iowa. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area. Ironically, this same geological area extends partly into [[The Mountains of Illinois|Illinois]].
** In the first episode of Season 2, President Palmer and his son are shown fishing in a large, empty lake in the middle of a pristine tranquil meadow at the foot of a snowcapped mountain. A subtitle reveals that they are in 'Lake Oswego, Oregon'. Lake Oswego is an affluent suburb just outside of Portland, the lake itself is surrounded by dozens of multi-million dollar houses, and there isn't a snowcapped mountain for a good 85 miles.
** Another jarring one, from Season 3, has Jack travelling c. 70 miles in about 15 minutes. In a helicopter, which isn't capable of that speed.
** How about when the terrorists ship their bio-weapon into the (non-existent) large scale cargo port at Alexandria, VA? Or when the frogmen gain access to The White House via the Potomac River?
Line 232:
* ''[[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.
** Also, the show frequently uses title cards that claim shots are taking place at Harvard University. In fact, the show has moved production so many time that perhaps as many as five other universities have doubled for Harvard: none of these buildings resemble anything like the architecture found anywhere on Harvard's campus. During the majority of the first season, when the series was filmed in New York, Yale doubled for Harvard! This also explains why the appearance of the outside of the building where the lab is located has changed over time.
** In one episode of the second season, Olivia and Peter go to visit a woman at her house in "Beacon Hill, Massachusetts". In a mistake much like the Back Bay one above, we are shown an evergreen-filled suburban neighborhood of well-detached houses. In reality, Beacon Hill is another high-end Boston neighborhood that is made up entirely of old brick townhouses on narrow, hilly cobblestone streets.
** And in Season 1 episode 5, "Power Hungry", supposedly takes place entirely in the medium-sized city of Worcester, Massachusetts. I happen to be from a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, which is somewhat smaller but has a distinct skyline with more skyscrapers than many other cities in New England. The beautiful aerial establishing shot labeled "Worcester, Massachusetts" is actually of Hartford! Presumably this is because, even though Worcester is the third-largest New England city, it's very much lacking in a city-scape skyline.
** An early episode also has a prospective Pattern event ostensibly happen in South Station, but is filmed in a claustrophobic building that doesn't remotely resemble the high-vaulted and open South Station. On top of that "The Box" has a scene take place in Kent Street Station, underground. Except Kent Street is on the C line, ''above ground,'' and isn't a station so much as, well, a stop.
Line 265:
* An old ''[[Seven Days]]'' episode had Parker chasing the [[Villain of the Week]] through Washington, DC. Specifically, from the White House ([http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=State+Pl+NW&daddr=Capitol+Circle+NE&hl=en&geocode=Fd2GUQIdtoNo-w%3BFTRpUQIdCPNo-w&mra=ls&dirflg=w&sll=38.890448,-77.013237&sspn=0.007065,0.013819&ie=UTF8&z=14 across the street] from the Capitol!), past the Washington Monument, down the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, and back to the White House, where he collapses out of breath. You would be, too, if you'd just run 5 miles in 12 seconds.
* In the first episode of ''[[Shoebox Zoo]]'' (little-known BBC kids' programme), the protagonist and her father leave a small independent cinema (The Dominion, a real cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland) and in the very next shot are walking down Cockburn Street two and a half miles away.
* ''[[Simon and Simon]]'', set in San Diego, but mostly filmed in Los Angeles, aside from a few inserts here and there. And they did things like taking Balboa Avenue (which does exist in S.D.) to reach Balboa Park (which also exists, but Balboa Avenue does not go to it, or past it, or anywhere near it). Oops.
* ''[[Sliders]]'' -- nominally set in San Francisco, yet clearly actually filmed in Vancouver -- is notorious for this. One memorable example features the nonexistent Van Ness [http://www.bart.gov/ "BART"] station.
** In the premiere, Quinn leaves his Midwestern-looking neighborhood (you don't see many brick houses in California, for a reason) and jogs across Golden Gate Park to the Berkeley campus. Meanwhile Rembrandt, needing to get to Candlestick Park -- which is due south of his home on Telegraph Hill -- in a hurry, proceeds due west on Lombard Street.
Line 272:
** In fact, every time SG-1 does scenes outside the base and not in generic wilderness invokes this trope. To a Colorado Springs (the city at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain) native, the gas station shots from season 6 episode "Sight Unseen," and to a lesser extent, the whole of season 8 episode "Affinity," shatter the suspension of disbelief. The shots of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex entrance, however, are spot on, (being actual footage of the location).
*** The problem with their use of actual footage is that the same truck seems to enter the complex every day for ten years.
** Lampshaded repeatedly both on SG-1 and [[Stargate Atlantis|Atlantis]] when characters will point out that all of the planets they visit seem to look an awful lot like Canada. Both shows film in and around Vancouver.
*** [[Word of God]] is that they tried to put a Canadian reference into each episode, because so much of it was filmed in Canada.
* The "oceanside" amusement park in the [[Title Sequence]] of ''[[Step by Step]]'' was actually 6 miles inland.
** Just so that you'd understand - an amusement park (and especially its wooden roller coaster) built that close to an ocean or body of water like that would have a very hard time staying in existence against Mother Nature and plain old Laws of Physics - sandy beaches aren't exactly the most stable type of land to build ''roller coasters'' on, and said roller coaster and quite likely large portions of the park itself would be in danger of being washed away, regardless of whether the area is hurricane-prone or not. That said, there ''are'' amusement parks that ''are'' built close to bodies of water such as [http://www.lakesideamusementpark.com/ Lakeside Amusement Park] in Denver, Colorado or the famous Coney Island Amusement Park in New York, New York; the former is built near a mundane man-made lake (as its name implies) and both are built on solid, paved ground.
Line 297:
* The first 5 seasons of ''[[The X-Files]]'' were filmed in Vancouver. On David Duchovny's insistence, they relocated to Los Angeles. At least a few fans complained that the new, sunny location didn't have the same gloomy atmosphere as its more northern predecessor.
** One episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'' features a train rolling through an area of jagged hills, scrub brush, and very little green vegetation of any sort. In Iowa, of all places, where basically the entire state is green because if there's available land, somebody's planted corn or soybeans on top of it.
** The episode "Chimera" is set in Vermont in early April. The establishing shot opens onto an Easter picnic. The grass is a vivid bright green, and the children are running around in short-sleeved shirts and jeans or shorts, as are their parents. This is hilarious for any Vermont native (any New England native) because the temperature in Vermont in early April hovers in the mid-30's and there is usually still a good amount of snow on the ground. And even if there isn't snow, the grass is certainly not green. It's called "mud season" for a reason. This seems so ironic, too, for the episode, since other details--like area code and zip code (the fictional town Bethany is given real town Bethel's zip code) were correct. And of course, the vegetation is all off for Vermont, the result of filming in California.
** The season 2 episode "Die Hand Die Verletzt" is set in New Hampshire, with many shots filmed in the woods. There is only one problem. Seasons 1-5 were filmed in Vancouver, which has a temperate rainforest feel, while New England has a temperate broadleaf/mixed forest. In other words, those who live in New England can easily spot that most of the trees and ferns simply do not grow in New Hampshire.
* The ''McCloud'' episode "Night of the Shark" was set (and filmed) in Sydney, Australia (unlike the later "London Bridges," which despite involving London wasn't shot there). One scene shows McCloud dashing across the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the city centre. Except that he is going across the bridge in the wrong direction and would actually be heading away from the city.
* An episode of ''[[Psych]]'' opens with Shawn telling Chief Vick that's he's going skiing, and she asks where he'd ski in the middle of summer; cut to Whistler, just over a hundred kilometers from Vancouver, with typical summer lows around seven degrees (the resort is used for bikes in the summer). Most of the action takes place in the even warmer seaside Vancouver, because Shawn and Gus went there (again, roughly a hundred kilometers away) upon seeing a criminal instead of going to the Whistler police, for no obvious reason. Even so, everyone acts like it's below freezing for the entire episode, even during the day, when it would likely be around ''twenty''.
** Maybe they didn't realize that those temperatures were in Celsius? Maybe they just looked up the weather there and thought it was in Fahrenheit? 'Cause they acted like it was around 20 F.
*** Psych is filmed in Vancouver. So someone should have worked it out.
*** They knew. It was a [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] on this trope.
* An episode of ''[[30 Rock]]'' had Jack and Liz travel to Stone Mountain, Georgia (Kenneth's home town) to scout out salt-of-the-earth 'Real American' talent. The real Stone Mountain is firmly within the orbit of metropolitan Atlanta and has a population that's mainly African-American, but the show depicts it as part of ''[[Hee Haw]]'' Land.
Line 315:
* ''[[Life Unexpected]]'': Good news: The producers got pretty much every detail about Portland (the show's setting) correct. [http://www.platypuscomix.net/fpo/history/luxsux.html Bad news]: That's pretty much where all the effort went.
* In ''[[Angels in America]]'', Joe's mother is standing outside a subway entrance with a sign identifying it as the Clark Street Station. There is a Clark Street Station, and the correct lines were shown ... but the real station has no entrances on the sidewalk. More blatantly, the dialogue suggested she was somewhere other than downtown Brooklyn, where Clark Street is.
* In a season 1 episode of ''[[Haven]]'', there is a wide panning shot of Haven Harbor in '''Maine'''. A big ol' Canadian flag can be seen flapping in the breeze (since it's really Nova Scotia).
** It is possible to see Canadian flags flying in Maine, especially as you get closer to Canada.
* In NBC's made for TV movie ''Atomic Train'', we see several shots of what is supposedly the Denver skyline, populated by such logos as, Canada Trust or the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Line 322:
* Boston-area residents were amused when car chases in ''[[Spenser|Spenser: For Hire]]'' frequently took a corner at high speed and suddenly found themselves on a street on the other side of the city. Averted in certain episodes, when locations were correctly identified as used as most locals would. One example would be what was supposed to be a romantic picnic near an old stone grist mill while staying at a nearby hotel; the mill is in Sudbury and is attached to the Wayside Inn- a popular spot for weddings and other romantic getaways.
* ''[[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.
* ''<nowiki>[[Spooks: Code 9]]</nowiki>'' was filmed [[Oop North|in Yorkshire]], so when they needed a flashback scene for someone driving from London, they just used a nearby motorway junction. The direction of the shot implies it was the series' actual location was bombed.
* 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 [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... [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.
Line 336:
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The ''[[Twilight 2000]]'' adventure module "The Black Madonna" is supposedly set in Czestochowa in Poland.
** Though, to be fair, apparently some writers did ''go'' to Krakow. In the middle of Cold War. To write a gamebook. Twenty years of post-Communist development and a conspicuous lack of [[World War III]] later, [[Shown Their Work|the geography and some of the descriptions are still recognisable.]]
* The ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' module "Rite of Passage" appears to be set in some scrunched-up alternate version of Canada that is barely the size of Mexico and bears little resemblance to the real one. Among other things, it describes a village in northern Saskatchewan as being "nestled in the fog-shrouded mountains"<ref>there are no mountains in Saskatchewan</ref> and "mere 150 miles from Toronto"<ref>1,500 miles would have been more believable</ref>.
Line 356:
* 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 [http://www.olej.com/community.asp skyline].
* 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.
* ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'''s map based on New York. The [[Mons]]...not so much. These include bison and a weird thing that is supposed to be based on the Nazca lines but looks like a mobile.
** Similarly, the original games had a map based on Tokyo and the [[Mons]] included the platypus-like Psyduck and the Rafflesia-like Vileplume, among other not-Japanese natives.
| |||