Because they don’t care, any more than they care about getting science right. And it never occurs to them that maybe this is one of the reasons why they haven’t been doing well in terms of selling movie tickets. The Deer Hunter was ruined for me by shooting what was supposed to be Pennsylvania in the Olympic Mountains, but apparently they don’t realize how stupid that was, or care that it was so grating to some people.
22 thoughts on “Why Can’t Hollywood?”
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In this regard, movies are like the news media. If you’re knowledgeable about a subject, you can rarely watch a movie or news segment about the subject without finding mistakes. Most people may not know the difference or care.
I remember the movie “Midway” using stock footage of aircraft that weren’t in service when the battle took place (e.g. F-6F Hellcats). I remember one TV show many years ago that showed an Atlas rocket taking off that somehow morphed into a Titan II and later to a Saturn V. I guess that’s proof of Einstein’s prediction that mass increases with velocity. The Doolittle Raid in the movie “Pearl Harbor” didn’t show the B-25B models that actually took part in the raid but that’s somewhat forgivable. I don’t think any B models are airworthy anymore and besides, that was probably the least of that movie’s sins.
My thoughts exactly Rand! I nearly turned it off after seeing the mighty glaciers of the Allegheny Mountains. I should have went with my instincts. The Deer Hunter was a very mediocre movie for many reasons.
In “The Last of the Mohicans” Daniel Day Lewis’s character was in upper New York State and was asked how it is he was heading to Kentucky. He said “I face to the north and real subtle like turn west.” Sorry, but that gets you to Ontario.
Star Wars was ruined for me when they used Tunisia to shoot all of the scenes that were supposed to take place on Tatooine…and anyone who’s been both places can tell the difference. Sheesh!
In 1949 George Pal made the movie Destination Moon. He had some trouble with people wanting to put in scenes that couldn’t happen on the moon. They kept telling him that no one would no the difference. He came back insisting “I would know.” and made a very good movie.
I want to understand the orbital dynamics of the Firefly system so that I can properly enjoy the show!
Having worked in the movie industry, I can tell you that “getting things right” often costs time and money yet rarely brings in more sales. And people keep forgetting it’s called “show business”…
None of the problems described at the link would have cost a dime to get right. And I can’t believe it was cheaper to film in the Olympics than in the Alleghenies.
Check the update in the linked article. Sometimes “easy fixes” aren’t. For example, for all we know the bungalow (error #1) was already rented by the studio for another production that shut down early, and they got it free. Or it is owned by a relative of the producer. Or it’s a popular location already rigged for TV shooting (extra power outlets, breakaway walls, etc.). I can think of several more reasons to film there.
Follow the money, always. 🙂
The diffrerence in cost between filming in Washington and in New York? Bribes and unions.
And if you think Hollywood gets DC wrong, you should see what they do to Dallas. I remember watching the first X-Files movie there. In the opening scenes, some small, presumably Mexican children are shown playing outdoors in what appears to be central Arizona: hard-baked rocky soil, scrub, cholla, Saguaro cactus all around. The camera pulls back to reveal the skyline of Dallas looming on the horizon. Caption: “20 Miles Outside of Dallas, Texas.”
Man, that theater exploded in laughter. FYI, Hollywood: Dallas sits on a wide, rolling, well-watered black-earth prairie, the Grand Prairie. The land twenty miles outside of Dallas is green, open, and studded with clumps of hundred-year-old oaks and juniper trees, not a wasteland of hardpack and cholla. And the nearest Saguaro cactus? Hell, probably 1,500 miles west of here. I’m not sure they even grow in Texas.
Sure, it’s just a movie. Nevertheless, because of that early mistake I, my family, and the rest of that Dallas audience were unable to take the remainder of that (frankly bad) flick seriously. I mean, come on, everyone who’s ever flown into DFW airport (and that’s pretty much everybody) knows by looking out an airplane window there isn’t a desert within 500 miles of here.
It’s sad when the last movie to accurately depict the DFW area was Anthony Mann’s Strategic Air Command (Paramount, 1955), starring James Stewart and June Allyson, portions of which were filmed on location at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth. The Fort Worth of 1955 no longer exists, of course (and neither does Carswell AFB — it’s now NAS Carswell JRB), but at least they got the traffic right.
The problem is that Hollywood people think Washington works like Hollywood. If you keep this in mind, most Washington themed movies are fine, they just aren’t about DC.
For example the recent “Ides of March” is about competition between executive producers, “The West Wing” was about internal politics at a studio, and “The Candidate” is about a director who lpst his way.
If you want to complain about the wrong mountains, just think about me. I’m a native Texan and a geologist. Do you have any idea how distracting is to watch Westerns? It used to be if the story wasn’t set in SoCal or Monument Valley you were beyond hope. But now they have decided that the Canadian Rockies look like the Sierra Nevada. now every mountain range in Europe, and sometimes even the Andes, gets replaced by the Carpathians in Romania.
When I saw The Deer Hunter, I just assumed the characters had done the 15-hour or so drive out to Colorado or somewhere, which would have been a bit unusual but not unheard of. It didn’t even occur to me that it was supposed to be in Pennsylvania. It is a distraction — watching Cold Mountain I was constantly wondering where the hell they were, since it was really obviously not North Carolina. (It was Romania, in fact.) And let’s not even talk about rocket footage.
The most unrealistic aspect of films set in DC is the fact that when the characters drive somewhere, there is always parking immediately available right at the destination.
I guess that’s proof of Einstein’s prediction that mass increases with velocity.
Thread winner.
I’ve been a Twilight Zone buff since childhood, and they always showed an Atlas launch in every space-themed show. Even the episode that featured a seven-man interplanetary mission started off with an Atlas launch. That must have been one hell of an upper stage.
I guess it’s understandable, since the Atlas was America’s largest and most powerful rocket at the time. The only alternative would have been to use animation, which would have looked obviously fake given the technology they had.
And since I’ve also been an Atlas buff since childhood, I didn’t mind a bit. The thing that really bugs me is that I’ve never been able to identify any specific Atlas footage they used.
Crap, that was supposed to be a reply to Larry J’s first comment. That’s the second time in a couple of days I’ve done that.
My current favorite (well, the favorite of the last time I had access to cable tv, which was 2009) is the way the outside shots of Miami in CSI:Miami are done through some sort of coppery-orange filter. I don’t know if they’re trying to evoke Florida’s past reputation as the place where a lot of oranges grew, or if they’re trying to make the viewer feel like he’s looking through David Caruso’s sunglasses, but it just looks bizarre. Sunsets in Miami would be the only time you’d get an orange light like that — and orangey sunsets are rare; the usual color tone is pink. Occasionally if there are a lot of fires in the state (like there were in the 90s), and there is a lot of smoke in the atmosphere, you’ll get a weird orange glow, but that is very rare. At least Miami Vice got the area’s lighting and coloring right, but of course that was because it was filmed there. (Note, though: the streets are only that shiny at night after it rains.)
My other favorites are movies set in “Florida” but not filmed there where the director didn’t even try. There was one, filmed off the coast of South Africa or some place, supposedly set in “Florida,” and there were clearly mountains showing in the background of several beach scenes.
Too much orange? They’d get the details right if only they would…
/sunglasses
…concentrate.
YEEEAAAaaahhh….
And it always bothered me that they filmed the war footage in The Deer Hunter in Thailand instead of ‘Nam. 😉 There is a story, though, that De Niro insisted on putting a live round in the gun he used in the Russian Roulette scene with John Cazale (on the hunting trip).
Talk about jarring, though: there is a show called Memphis Beat, which I get a shameful kick out of, but which is filmed in New Orleans. The first season was really bad, with a lot of scenic exteriors of the NO’s Central Business District. In the second season they backed off on the New Orleans exteriors, and inserted a lot of stock shots of Beale Street, the Pyramid, etc. — but the architecture is still identifiably French. And it’s not just the photography: the dialog includes weird references to “First Avenue”, even though any Memphian can tell you that the downtown streets go Riverside, Front, Main, 2nd Street, and 3rd Street. (There is actually a “First Street” but it is a short block about a mile from downtown).
Getting the scenery wrong is a Hollywood classic – that was supposed to end in modern times. I thought of the saguaros in the desert scene that was supposed to be West Texas in The Outlaw Josey Wailes.
Oh, and Jaws II, with the Pensacola Bay area passing for New England. That was surreal.
Next thing you know they’ll film an American Civil War movie in Europe.
I live in Virginia. I saw a TV show a couple of decades ago that was supposedly set in DC and Northern Virginia. They of course had standard generic shots of DC to intimate they were in that city, then shot the individual scenes on a sound stage or some location in L.A. I knew this, but it didn’t bother me until they had the heroine/hero driving down a street in “Northern Virginia” with palm trees and brown hills in the distant background. News flash, Hollyweird: There ain’t no palm trees growing in Virginia! (Outside of indoor arboreta.)
They don’t know how to talk right, either. Forget their “Southern” accents – they’re always wrong unless the speaker is a native Southerner (think Paula Deen). There was a show a while back (when I still watched TV) that had a woman with an obvious (and bad) Hot-lanta accent claiming to be a native Richmonder. Epic fail. A couple of years ago on NCIS, one of the actors referred to a local interstate as “the 66.” Another news flash, guys: In Virginia we don’t call the big roads (freeways/interstates) “the.” That’s so obviously southern California-ese (do they to that in northern Cali too?).
You couldn’t ask? I’ll bet there a lot of people in every state who, for a small price, would the thrilled to tell you what you’re getting wrong about that state.
In Virginia we don’t call the big roads (freeways/interstates) “the.” That’s so obviously southern California-ese (do they to that in northern Cali too?).
No, it’s a SoCal thing. Somewhere around San Luis Obispo, “The 101” changes to plain old “101.” They make fun of us, too.
Do you think that Emily Procter (CSI Miami, from South Carolina, I believe) has a southern accent? The people in the entertainment business make a big deal of it, but I think it’s hardly there. It’s pretty funny how they think that after she worked so hard to get rid of it so she’d be employable, they now imagine that they’re brave and transgressive (and tolerant) in using her.