Movies & TV Shows set in a particular city that totally fail at it

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

What's that from?

lol it's from a stupid Hallmark Christmas movie starring Candace Cameron.

[Atlas]

The recent Liam Neeson movie "Cold Pursuit" also took place in "Denver"

[mrnyc]

we just watched robocop on tv for some reason, i dk why. i mean it still holds up, but man its really a slow going slog. anyway dallas filling in for future detroit always cracked me up. it was a good move though actually and fits the corporate dystopia mood well. so not really a fail.

another i always like is double dragon with cleveland filling in for los angeles. well you dont see enough of anything to really notice, so i guess it isnt really a fail either, but more that it just sounds like it would be.

and as mentioned rumble in the bronx is an infamous hilariously epic fail, but its still fun cheese.

[Xing]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Also, the original Halloween, while a classic, is pretty bad re. setting. It's supposed to be Haddonfield, IL, aka small town Midwest. But the foliage is all wrong (it's pretty obvious they just spread around fall leaves), there are mountains in the background, and the light is unmistakably SoCal. The light is so different around there.

The light may have to do with the lack of humidity in California , compared with Illinois. The humidity causes the sunlight to soften up, which is why the lighting in California is so hard and high contrast.

There was a scene in The Founder (about McDonalds) where they were supposedly in San Bernardino. It was clearly shot in Georgia, and the humidity was so thick you could cut a knife through it. Freakn hate when Georgia doubles as California.

[bobdreamz]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

That, and all those shots of Lt. Caine reflecting on the day's deeds while looking out at the vast rusty ball of the sun setting over the water. I was not aware Miami was famous for such sunsets, considering that the ocean is to the east.

Also, who could forget the episode where Callie, in an effort avoid a traffic jam on the causeway, takes the "back way" from Miami Beach to downtown Miami and ends up driving through a swamp in a rural area.

I used to be a big devotee of the various CSI's back in the day. They really ignited an interest in forensics... which taught me how incredibly unrealistic those shows were... which is why I stopped watching them.

Well you do have sunsets over the water in Miami but you would have to be facing west over Biscayne Bay from either Miami Beach or some of the islands in the bay.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I recently watched a dumb Steven Segal film (is there any other kind?) called Marked for Death, that supposedly takes place in Chicago, but with snow-capped mountains, palm trees and blatantly obvious LA vernacular. It bugs me when they don't even try.

Also, the original Halloween, while a classic, is pretty bad re. setting. It's supposed to be Haddonfield, IL, aka small town Midwest. But the foliage is all wrong (it's pretty obvious they just spread around fall leaves), there are mountains in the background, and the light is unmistakably SoCal. The light is so different around there.

Believe it or not, I think Halloween 4-5 did a pretty good job of making Salt Lake City feel 'midwestern'. I'd say Halloween 6, too, but then you've got scenes like this where you see the mountains in the background:



To be fair, I guess Halloween 4 hits it a bit too when they're out in the rural areas of the state:



But the opening shots of Halloween 4 definitely give off a midwest vibe despite being shot in Utah:

[AviationGuy]

Movies and TV shows get away with this craziness because the producers know that the average American knows very little about the geography of the country, and will not likely notice Of course, many people do know, like most of us here, and find the whole thing ludicrous.

I still run into people online who come up blank on the notion that Texas has a very long coastline along the Gulf, has large regions of forests and hills, and large regions having a wet climate. They think we're located somewhere out where Utah or Nevada are.

But back to the main topic. Some of us who grew up watching the silly but funny Green Acres and Petticoat Junction may have been amused at the backdrops and "on location" scenes, which showed a semi-arid landscape with hills that looked obviously like parts of California. But people who have studied the episode dialogs have determined that the setting of Hooterville (both shows) was Missouri, Illinois, or even New York state. I'm going with rural Illinois because of references to "Springfield" and "not being far from Chicago". Bottom line is that the geography shown in the shows has no resemblance to any of the three candidate states.

[Peggerino]

The Cobra Kai series is set in LA (like Karate Kid) but is so obviously not filmed there given the greenery and fauna I've come to recognize just from streetview and watching movies and such. Apparently it's all Georgia which is crazy to me since Karate Kid 1 feels like the most LA movie ever made.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

Movies and TV shows get away with this craziness because the producers know that the average American knows very little about the geography of the country, and will not likely notice Of course, many people do know, like most of us here, and find the whole thing ludicrous.

I still run into people online who come up blank on the notion that Texas has a very long coastline along the Gulf, has large regions of forests and hills, and large regions having a wet climate. They think we're located somewhere out where Utah or Nevada are.

But back to the main topic. Some of us who grew up watching the silly but funny Green Acres and Petticoat Junction may have been amused at the backdrops and "on location" scenes, which showed a semi-arid landscape with hills that looked obviously like parts of California. But people who have studied the episode dialogs have determined that the setting of Hooterville (both shows) was Missouri, Illinois, or even New York state. I'm going with rural Illinois because of references to "Springfield" and "not being far from Chicago". Bottom line is that the geography shown in the shows has no resemblance to any of the three candidate states.

I love "Justified" and it got the aura of Appalachia mostly right, aside from the brown hills of California where it was filmed. I think the pilot was filmed somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania, but other than that, Harlan Kentucky is not that arid...

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by bobdreamz

Well you do have sunsets over the water in Miami but you would have to be facing west over Biscayne Bay from either Miami Beach or some of the islands in the bay.

I figured, but wouldn't there be buildings or something in the shot? When he's reflecting on the sunset, that sun is setting on the ocean, as in a vast span of water with nothing but Asia to stop it. I mean, I guess it could theoretically be just the bay... much the way you drive through the Everglades while taking the back way from Miami Beach to downtown Miami.

[Matthew]

My wife and some of her friends watch those Hallmark Christmas movies. It's the same story told over-and-over with small modifications and a break-up and get-back-together in the last twenty minutes. Very few break this mold. I like to identify the Vancouver neighborhood or Canadian cities where most of them are filmed, while Lauren and her friends ignore me. In one of these movies, a character returned to her Los Angeles home and it had a nice view of Winnipeg's skyline. Another had the name of the Vancouver neighborhood on a door. Not exactly New York. I've seen an entire street of Ontario license plates in some of those Vermont towns. In at least two of those movies, they actually modified British Columbia's license plate with a U.S. Flag instead of the B.C. Flag. I remember the rowhouses in Hamilton used for a Chicago residence. I remember one of these movies had green leaves on the trees, melting snow, and newspaper boxes with large Easter headlines in clear view. I guess we know when they film them. The snow is likely from snow machines? Homes in Canadian cities do look somewhat different. Toronto rowhouses look different, as a good example. There are also windows in Canadian houses that I don't see down here. Many are filmed in small northern Ontario towns. Some of those movies have businesses like Home Hardware and Second Cup on the main streets. And there are some filmed in the States. Salt Lake City was already brought-up. I think I've seen a movie theatre from Boise in one of them that was set in Salt Lake City? Yes, I bring this up to my wife during those movies.

[Xing]

Originally Posted by Peggerino

The Cobra Kai series is set in LA (like Karate Kid) but is so obviously not filmed there given the greenery and fauna I've come to recognize just from streetview and watching movies and such. Apparently it's all Georgia which is crazy to me since Karate Kid 1 feels like the most LA movie ever made.

They did film some of it there. I saw them filming on Ventura Blvd.

[mhays]

It seems like most things set in Seattle have torrential rain at some point, rather than the slow drizzle we actually get for the most part. A few Vancouver-filmed shows get it right.

[SFBruin]

^ Not to mention our incredibly sunny and normal summers that nobody seems to talk about. :/

[mhays]

At least TV sports fans should be starting to get that, baseball in particular.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Not yet, actually...

Meanwhile, in addition to the Stephen King universe, the horror/action novels of John Connolly are set in Maine...

But still. When are we going to get a slew of horror novels and movies and TV series set down here? We're meaner and crazier than Maine ever had time to be! And just think, it's usually hot as hell here also, so when the hapless victim-to-be is bumbling around in the woods trying to escape, in addition to the mandatory jiggly jubblies, you'll also get a fetching slick of boob sweat.

You're right on all of that. I can't really figure out why Maine gets outsized attention for that "small state / Gothic streak" role. Other than maybe just a subconscious bias stemming from King's ubiquity in the genre over the last 30 years? And maybe some small amount of historical holdover (Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lovecraft, etc.), which probably just gets channeled through King. So I guess the answer is "King."

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Not yet, actually. As for Stephen King, he's Maine to the core obviously but ironically enough, Under the Dome was filmed in North Carolina -- so it does a good job of portraying what you find in the Coastal Plain, away from the beach. King collects settings; if he visits someplace he uses it in his books and stories from that point forward. He visited Wilmington when they were making a screen adaptation of his novel Firestarter and since then Wilmington has served as settings for the short story The Night Flyer and the novel Joyland. He rode through Asheville on a motorcycle once several years ago, and Asheville got a cameo in his novel Duma Key.

Meanwhile, in addition to the Stephen King universe, the horror/action novels of John Connolly are set in Maine, the Silent Hill video game series is set in Maine, the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child make references to Maine and at least one is set there, that godawful horror movie Darkness Falls is set in Maine, and so are Murder She Wrote, Haven, and Nancy Drew. You rarely see this level of media representation in other smallish states with a wide gothic streak such as, not to name names, South Carolina for instance. In fact, if I try to think of horror novels and such set in South Carolina, the only one that immediately comes to mind is a supremely stupid novel whose title I can't recall, but which featured Dante Gabriel Rossetti as a vampire unleashed on a small town in South Carolina after his coffin is salvaged from the wreckage of the Titanic. Although, for what it's worth, one of those John Connolly novels features South Carolina as one of the main characters is from there -- the main character has to fly down to the Charlotte airport and has quite a lot of shit-talk to say about Charlotte's airport and where you can fly to from there. Meanwhile, the novels of Kathy Reichs, set in Charlotte, occasionally have her visiting South Carolina as well.

But still. When are we going to get a slew of horror novels and movies and TV series set down here? We're meaner and crazier than Maine ever had time to be! And just think, it's usually hot as hell here also, so when the hapless victim-to-be is bumbling around in the woods trying to escape, in addition to the mandatory jiggly jubblies, you'll also get a fetching slick of boob sweat.

The Dead Zone (one of the best film adaptations of a Stephen King novel) is set in Maine but filmed in Niagara on the Lake and Saint Catherines, Ontario.

Shooting started in early January 1983 and took place in the Greater Toronto Area and the Regional Municipality of Niagara of Cronenberg's native Ontario, Canada. The so-called Screaming Tunnel, located in nearby Niagara Falls, Ontario, was also used as the backdrop for one scene. The gazebo was built by the film crew and donated to Niagara-on-the-Lake

According to a David Cronenberg interview on the DVD, The Dead Zone was filmed during a relentless deep freeze in southern Ontario which lasted for weeks, creating an authentic atmosphere of subzero temperatures and icy snow-packed terrain, which made for great natural shooting locations, despite it being almost too cold for cast and crew to tolerate at times. Canada's Wonderland, a theme park which is 30 km north of Toronto's city limits, was also used as a filming location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_(film)

[Crawford]

The first "It" adaption ends in downtown Vancouver, which is an incredibly odd/lazy fill-in for rural Derry, Maine.

Like why not just film in Times Square while you're at it? Viewers really don't care? I get that Canada is cheaper for filming, but there isn't some small town in BC that could have been a half-assed Derry?

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The first "It" adaption ends in downtown Vancouver, which is an incredibly odd/lazy fill-in for rural Derry, Maine.

Like why not just film in Times Square while you're at it? Viewers really don't care? I get that Canada is cheaper for filming, but there isn't some small town in BC that could have been a half-assed Derry?

eh unless you're talking about something else, I feel it's a reasonable backdrop. It's certainly not in an a area that feels like a major urban city (and remember, Derry was based on Bangor, Maine, which is a decent sized town, though not big by any means):

• Video Link

Speaking of Vancouver and horror movies, as well as wrapping back around to the Halloween series, Halloween: Resurrection was filmed there and there's a shot outside a local motel where you can clearly see the Vancouver skyline despite it supposed to be a small midwestern town (Haddonfield):

[Camelback]

Isn't Wilmington NC a film hotspot?

Wasn't Dawson's Creek filmed there and it was supposed to portray a place in New England?