MovieChat Forums > The Medallion (2003) Discussion > Why was this set in Ireland again?

Why was this set in Ireland again?

posted 19 years ago by RossNolan
12 replies | jump to latest

Certainly not complaining about films being set in Ireland now, especially since I AM Irish. Just seems pointless, a waste even:

Inexplicably, all the Interpol agents were British, which you'd think at the very least would be worthy of a comment or too. The Irish police (the Gardai) are not even involved in the investigation!

No Irish characters at all elsewhere, no accents even... *sigh*. You'd think Watson's wife at least would be Irish or something (especially since he LIVES in Dublin), but that isn't much of a quibble - there are many Chinese people in Ireland.

It justs seems so pointless - this could have been set in England or Scotland and would have made more sense - heck they wouldn't need to alter any of the accents.

[–] discretemultitone 19 years ago

Tax breaks...

[–] RossNolan 19 years ago

Well quite, but it doesn't explain why there are no Irish characters, when they bothered to indetify Ireland as, well, Ireland (when it could easily have doubled for London or elsewhere).

Many films set in America are filmed in Canada for instance, yet if a film set in Toronto had no Canadian characters, it would seem a little odd...

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] 19 years ago

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[–] magnumforce0 17 years ago

I'm sorry I dont seem to be able to speak your language which inexplicibly seems to have evolved without "th"s.

It's a bit pointless that it was set in Ireland alright, but as people said, it would have been for tax breaks, and probably would have been cheaper to film in Dublin than anywhere else, but as other people said, why could've they have filmed it in Dublin or somewhere but set it in Britain somewhere. Lots of films have been filmed in Ireland and been set elsewhere, Reign Of Fire and King Arthur were filmed in Wicklow. And it is really stupid that they didn't have more Irish actor involvement. It's possible that they were meant to set it in London or somewhere and had done all the casting and everything but at the last minute decided Dublin would be less expensive so with a few very minor script changes, the location was changed.

[–] cybopath 15 years ago

I don't understand it either I was like hmm aren't there Irish people in Dublin? It's not even the UK.

I'd be just as annoyed if it where set in Edinburgh and everyone had English accents.

[–] darkeval 15 years ago

Try watching a movie set in Norway, with actors from USA and Lithuania trying to pronounce Norwegian. :P

[–] Streen-1 15 years ago

Or a James Bond Movie with french villans that are supposed to have french accents, or all the american WW2 movies with people in there that pretend to speak german and even germans cant understand what they are pretending to say.
There is even a movie out now that has a villan live in Luxembourg (The International) and I think the guy was supposed to speak Luxembourgich with his family, I could not understand a word (I am from luxembourg).

Sometimes its better if they dont even try.

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Who goes around, comes around!

[–] Grace020295 15 years ago

Money
Thats the reason haha

[–] toadlily-950-865690 12 years ago

Because Ireland ROCKS, that's why! And I'm just relieved to see a movie that didn't take place in L.A. or NYC! That's getting OLD.

[–] Nikon11 12 years ago

Yeah, I was saying the same thing during the movie. They go to Ireland, and they don't even talk with any locals - everyone is English.

[–] Cognoscente (2463) 3 years ago

Before the reshoots, the movie was originally about Irish folklore (dying in certain areas leads to immortality).

More on the film's production: https://popcultmaster.com/2015/08/01/a-snake-becomes-a-worm/