MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Does anybody else get bothered when a mo...

Does anybody else get bothered when a movie is set in a certain place...


...but looks absolutely nothing like the real-life location?

Like most movies set in Texas are almost always filmed in the desert, even though less than 10% of Texas is geographically considered to be of desert climate? The X-Files Movie is the most egregious offender in this example, where Dallas is shown to be in an arid sandy desert. I guess nobody on the set of that $80 million production could look up that Dallas is actually located in a green, hilly region nowhere near a desert? Same with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, which shows a massive cactus-filled desert just "three hours from Houston". Houston is located between the Gulf Of Mexico, green farmland, and the dense piney woods. The original TCM was filmed in Texas and is NOT in the desert.

Any other geography nerds get peeved by stuff like this? It happens pretty often.

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With all the money invested in these ventures, they could make more effort to convince us of the location.

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I live within driving distance to Bells Beach in Australia. I always laugh at it's depiction at the end of Point Break. Looks nothing like it.

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The Jackie Chan movie Who Am I? was filmed in my hometown of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and parts of it are supposed to pass for South Africa!๐Ÿ˜†

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I've always thought The Hague looked similar to Pretoria.

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Yes, especially those mountains in the background!

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Don't you mean Holland? ๐Ÿค”

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Hey! I'm getting my whip out!๐Ÿ˜ก

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I'm from Toronto and the movie "Chicago" was filmed here. It clearly wasn't filmed in Chicago and you would think if you're going to call it "Chicago", they would film it there.

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Critters 2 shows mountains (clearly the Sierra Nevadas) in Kansas. Itโ€™s hilarious.

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And Tremors 2 portrays Chiapas, Mexico as a barren hilly region, when in reality it is very dense rainforest.

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I loved Tremors but didn't know it was supposed to be in Chiapas. I've never been there but I know it's drop-dead gorgeous.

https://www.google.com/search?q=agua+azul+chiapas&tbm=isch&source=univ&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_2sD8o-nmAhUUFjQIHbg3AHwQsAR6BAgJEAE&biw=1465&bih=607

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One of the funniest to me was Rumble in the Bronx (1995). Yeah, looked nothing like New York.

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Clearly Vancouver.

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Very clearly.

I mentioned it on another post recently how I find it amusing that so many small Mountain towns are filmed in Banff. That mountain is so recognizable. http://earthporm.com/baff-avenue-heart-beautiful-town-canada/

Honestly though, it doesn't really bother me.

I understand that it can be too expensive to shoot on location. It might be unsafe. Might not be able to get permits. Might be too far away from the rest of the shoot.

There have been quite a few movies shot at my workplace, and I do enjoy seeing it in movies.

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Halloween (1978) is the worst for this. It was shot in California in May and was suppose to be Illinois in October.

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I heard they even painted the leaves on the ground.

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I'm not sure about painted leaves, but I did hear they would rake leaves from people's lawns in other states and then mail them to the Halloween set.

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Thatโ€™s awesome!

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I think they did that on The Dukes of Hazzard TV show.

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Iโ€™m from Louisiana and the whole state is not a swamp and everyone here does not talk like their from New Orleans. Oh, and alligators are not vicious man eaters. ๐Ÿ˜‚

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