TV-Movie Road inaccuracies that drive you crazy!

Started by Captain Jack, August 10, 2018, 02:48:47 PM

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Beltway

Quote from: roadman on August 14, 2018, 03:30:39 PM
As a radio hobbyist, here's one of my pet peeves.  Not a road issue directly, but a common gaffe in many road/pursuit movies of the 1970s/1980s was where they'd show people directly listening in on the police through their CB radios.  While this is now feasible with certain mobile ham radios that have extended receive capability, this has never been possible with CB radios.  Most movie/TV producers have since figured this out, and will now show a scanner in the vehicle instead, but the gaffe still shows up on occasion.

How about the ubiquitous "come in please?" in movies and TV at the end of each radio transmission?  A phrase that radio amateurs and professionals do not use.
http://www.roadstothefuture.com
http://www.capital-beltway.com

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jp the roadgeek

The 1990's Denis Leary movie The Ref, takes place in a town called Old Baybrook, CT.  Obviously, any geography buff knows the town it's really modeled after.  You even see a shot at night of what is supposed to be Saybrook Jetty.  However, come to find out, the movie was shot in Ontario, Canada.


The movie Beetlejuice is supposed to take place in Litchfield County, CT.  Even more authentic, I remember seeing a truck with a 203-489 number on the outside, which would have been at the time a phone number in Torrington (860 didn't exist yet).  However, the dirt road and the covered bridge (where they die) don't resemble the area in West Cornwall.  Come to find out, the shots outside the house were filmed in Corinth, VT and as it turns out, the bridge and the approach roads were custom built for the set.
Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

abefroman329

Toronto doubles for Chicago pretty frequently. The entirety of My Big Fat Greek Wedding was filmed there, with the exception of some B roll at the beginning.

IIRC, there was some inaccurate geography in Wayne's World, but it's been so long since I've seen it, I don't recall the specifics.

vdeane

Quote from: Beltway on August 15, 2018, 09:49:49 PM
How about the ubiquitous "come in please?" in movies and TV at the end of each radio transmission?  A phrase that radio amateurs and professionals do not use.
So what do they actually use in those situations?
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

jon daly

#54
Returning to the original question, suspension of disbelief usually prevents me from getting worked up about this stuff, but the intersection of US-8 & US-395 in the Back to the Future movies irks me.

There's also some Connecticut reference in the show Elementary that make me wonder if the writers ever left NYC. One episode has a planned ski resort in some flat portion of the Naugatuck River valley. This is less than an hour away from New York!  I can see writers getting flyover country geography wrong, but these folks must live in a smaller cave than I previously suspected.

abefroman329

One of the reasons my dad loves the Dick Wolf Chicago shows is because they never say they're going to the corner of two streets that run parallel to each other (say, the corner of State and Wabash).

crispy93

In The Seven Ups, the driver trying to evade police is being tailgated by a bus on the Palisades Parkway in northern NJ, then the road switches to the Taconic where the chase ends when he rear-ends a truck pulled over at the NY100/133 exit (now Exit 8). Parkways are, of course, closed to commercial traffic. As an aside, in that chase, trucks can be seen on the lower level of the GWB, which is a neat throwback to pre-9/11 restrictions.

There was an episode of Monk where a toll operator was killed in the Bay Bridge toll plaza, which is shown as a quiet two-man operation.
Not every speed limit in NY needs to be 30

SectorZ

Quote from: jon daly on August 16, 2018, 03:24:30 PM
Returning to the original question, suspension of disbelief usually prevents me from getting worked up about this stuff, but the intersection of US-8 & US-395 in the Back to the Future movies irks me.

That one always got me, especially since it stands out.

Don't forget what *might* be I-99 in the sky in BTTF II, http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Skyway?file=Bf2freeway.jpg

abefroman329

Quote from: SectorZ on August 16, 2018, 08:25:14 PM
Quote from: jon daly on August 16, 2018, 03:24:30 PM
Returning to the original question, suspension of disbelief usually prevents me from getting worked up about this stuff, but the intersection of US-8 & US-395 in the Back to the Future movies irks me.

That one always got me, especially since it stands out.

Don't forget what *might* be I-99 in the sky in BTTF II, http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Skyway?file=Bf2freeway.jpg
I don't know what I-99 refers to since that particular Skyway has a route number of C25. Maybe it's Interchange 99?

SteveG1988

Quote from: skluth on August 14, 2018, 12:06:16 PM
Quote from: SteveG1988 on August 11, 2018, 10:22:03 PM
Quote from: abefroman329 on August 11, 2018, 08:43:22 PM
Quote from: Gulol on August 11, 2018, 07:45:36 PM
Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  The train breaks down and they have to take a bus from Jefferson City, MO to St. Louis.  Why would the bus be crossing the Mississippi River from Illinois into St. Louis as shown?
It gets worse - they're driving from St. Louis to Chicago and they get pulled over by the Wisconsin State Police.

With that movie...the company driver was just inept and went around on the I-255 bridge (what it is called today) in 1987.

The I-255 bridge across the Mississippi is called the Jefferson Barracks Bridge. That's the official name, what you hear in traffic reports, and what the locals call it. It's sometimes called the 255 bridge but mostly in casual conversation. I lived three miles from the west approach until two months ago. I doubt things have changed since then.

I meant the route number it was back then.
Roads Clinched

I55,I82,I84(E&W)I88(W),I87(N),I81,I64,I74(W),I72,I57,I24,I65,I59,I12,I71,I77,I76(E&W),I70,I79,I85,I86(W),I27,I16,I97,I96,I43,I41,

TEG24601

#60
Quote from: cwf1701 on August 12, 2018, 06:50:45 PM
How about a 2-lane I-25 in Doctor Who? The real life version of the road is 4 lanes at the sign for Truth or Consequences NM.


Well, that's like the 2-lane Interstate 66 in Lexx... in the desert. Not quite accurate.


The one that bothers me, frequently, is the CW Superhero Shows, that nominally take place in fictional US cities, have a lot of Canadian signs, and Canadian traffic signals.


In CW's The Flash, Central City is obviously based on Portland, OR.  However, STAR Labs, keeps jumping sides of the Willamette River.  In one shot it is nestled between I-5 and the river, just south of the Marquam Bridge (where the lower waterfront development is now), in the next, it is on the east side of the river, where next to the Grand/MLK Viaducts merge, on OR 99E.  May not be directly road related, but annoying to me.


I would mention all the errors regarding ferries in movies that take place in the Puget Sound (Double Jeopardy, Grey's Anatomy, etc), but that would just take too long.
They said take a left at the fork in the road.  I didn't think they literally meant a fork, until plain as day, there was a fork sticking out of the road at a junction.

roadman65

Quote from: abefroman329 on August 15, 2018, 08:26:56 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on August 15, 2018, 07:07:08 PM
Smokey and The Bandit shows that the Texas side of Texarkana is rural (hence the seen where Bandit picks up runaway bride Frog) when the urban is built up along the State Line.  Even the booze part the producers did not fact check either.  The Texas side of the city is part of Dry Baker County hence all the liquor stores on State Line Avenue on the AR side of the street.

Also the best route from Atlanta to Texarkana even in 1977 when it was filmed would have had the drive mostly along I-20. Most scenes were filmed along GA two lane roads making you think that a race for time would want to use substandard non freeway scenes.
The entire movie was filmed in GA. The scene where they get on I-85 north at Pleasant Hill Road is quite a thing to see if you know what that area looks like now.
The roller coaster in the first movie was the very same one imploded (though made to look like Jackie Gleason's Sheriff Buford T. Justice knocked it down with careless driving under it) in the second move.  It was done at a small speedway outside Atlanta.

In the first one you can see the typical 1970's era freeway overpasses in the truck convoy scene and where the Bandit drove on the grass through a diamond interchange.  Also when they were in Mississippi that scene was no doubt filmed in Atlanta on one of the  urban freeways.

In the second one they did use scenes from Florida and West Texas (the famous desert showdown) in addition to GA places.  The Sunshine Skyway twin bridges from before the Summit Laurel disaster and the original I-4 and I-275 interchange both were used, though the producers got the sequence backwards while playing Roy Rogers Concrete Cowboy song.  They featured them heading to Miami from Dallas first crossing the Sunshine Skyway before passing through Tampa, where in reality it would be in the other order considering  that even then using US 41 from Tampa down (as I-75 was only starting to get built then) would be the fastest route.

Also the Golden Girls opening shows the wrong part of Miami- Dade County to depict Miami as it shows the barrier island being narrow where Miami Beach it is not only wider, but the Biscayne Bay is much wider as well.  The first season showed the actual skyline of Downtown Miami where I think the later seasons used either Sunny Isles or even some place in Broward or Palm Beach Counties to depict Miami where the show is to be taken place.  Also the house used on the show was inside WDW near Orlando and on the back lot tour and was a focal point during the early 90's if you visited the former MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios.  The neighbors house used in Empty Nest ( a spin off of the show) used a real live house someplace else (not in Disney) as during empty nest you sometimes saw traffic pass by that house.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

bing101

#62
How about Lethal Weapon 4 where the chase scene was on the  I-215 in Las Vegas. But the movie script said its was on the 210 Freeway in Los Angeles.

https://nevadafilm.com/scene-in-nevada-lethal-weapon-4/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg5AypnkqSg

roadman65

I was watching Walker Texas Ranger and they got the county name wrong for Dallas.  The Tarrant County Courthouse would not be used for prosecuting criminals arrested in Dallas.  Tarrant County, though near Dallas, is for Fort Worth.

However, the chase scenes are in Dallas as the long viaduct on Jefferson Blvd (Old US 77) is used when walker has his shoot outs with bad guys while in his pick up truck.  Even one scene involved with a helicopter was filmed there.  I am guessing its easy to close that roadway during peak travel times to do a film shoot so it appears almost in every episode.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

MCRoads

May not be what you mean in the total, but they always fill the crash attenuators with water. They are filled with sand, otherwise it would freeze during winter. GRRRRRR
I build roads on Minecraft. Like, really good roads.
Interstates traveled:
4/5/10*/11**/12**/15/25*/29*/35(E/W[TX])/40*/44**/49(LA**)/55*/64**/65/66*/70°/71*76(PA*,CO*)/78*°/80*/95°/99(PA**,NY**)

*/** indicates a terminus/termini being traveled
° Indicates a gap (I.E Breezwood, PA.)

more room plz

RoadWarrior56

My all-time favorite roadway inaccuracy from TV:  Approximately 10 years ago there was a short run TV series that aired on FOX called "Drive".  It involved a road race/road rally from Key West, FL to somewhere on the west coast based on some now-forgotten weird plot line.  What I do remember most distinctly is that all of the highway chase/race scenes all took place on the same section of a then unopened freeway in the Los Angeles area, with mountains and hills in the background.  In the very first episode the cars were supposively racing up the Keys along US 1, and they were filmed on this section of future I-210, a freeway with hills and mountains.  I was laughing out loud at the scene.  There are no hills and there are no freeways on the Florida Keys.  I think that series only lasted about 4-5 episodes before it was canceled.  I need to see if those episodes have been posted on YouTube.

swhuck

Smokey and the Bandit: As someone else pointed out, the best route even then was via the road that would eventually be the I-22 corridor. This is about a 650 mile drive one way -- very doable in the amount of time they had -- rather than the 900 miles they claimed it was in the movie.

Logan: There is one scene -- probably the drugstore scene about two-thirds of the way through the movie -- where if you look hard you can see a Louisiana state highway sign. I believe they were supposed to be somewhere between Oklahoma and North Dakota at the time.

Logan again: At the end of the movie, the mountains at the US-Canada border in North Dakota. WTF?

Charmed: How many times did they show establishing shots of San Francisco with the Embarcadero freeway -- which was demolished after the 1989 quake? This series was filmed starting in 1998.



Clinched: I-2, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 35, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 55, 59, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 72, 76 (both), 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 (W), 85, 86 (W), 88 (W), 93, 94, 96, 97
US50, 101, 175, 199, 290, 380, 491/666
Clinched for now: I-11, 14, 49, 57

abefroman329

Quote from: swhuck on August 23, 2018, 06:24:24 PM
Smokey and the Bandit: As someone else pointed out, the best route even then was via the road that would eventually be the I-22 corridor. This is about a 650 mile drive one way -- very doable in the amount of time they had -- rather than the 900 miles they claimed it was in the movie.
On the other hand, Atlanta to New England and back in 24 hours (the challenge they're given at the end) would have been impossible.

inkyatari

In the original Halloween, there's a scene where a car from Smith's Grove Sanitarium is found alongside a road, but there appear to be mountains in the background.  Remember this is set in Illinois.  I am willing to take away a sin for this scene, as there are a few places in southern illinois that have the Shawnee hills rising in the background, resembling mountains, however I give the sin back because those are desert mountains.
I'm never wrong, just wildly inaccurate.

Roadwarriors79

Quote from: SP Cook on August 13, 2018, 11:13:44 AM
Route number issues do not bother me that much, although there are lots of movies and such where you see incorrect route makers (there are lots of Georgia SRs in Smokey and the Bandit when they were in other states) is just laziness on the part of the editors. 

Geographic wrongs are a bit more.  Especially when it is unnecessary to further the plot.

My biggest gripe is the idea that inter-regional travel is conducted on inadequate non-freeway roads where stops bring the traveler into contact with inadequate services staffed by hostile or incompetent hill jacks.  In fact, you can go most anywhere on freeways or near-freeways, and recieve, for better or worse, standardized chain business services.

Hollywood would give someone the impression that the only way to drive cross country is on two lane roads through "flyover country"  like the 50s and 60s.

abefroman329

Quote from: Roadwarriors79 on August 25, 2018, 09:20:43 AM
Quote from: SP Cook on August 13, 2018, 11:13:44 AM
Route number issues do not bother me that much, although there are lots of movies and such where you see incorrect route makers (there are lots of Georgia SRs in Smokey and the Bandit when they were in other states) is just laziness on the part of the editors. 

Geographic wrongs are a bit more.  Especially when it is unnecessary to further the plot.

My biggest gripe is the idea that inter-regional travel is conducted on inadequate non-freeway roads where stops bring the traveler into contact with inadequate services staffed by hostile or incompetent hill jacks.  In fact, you can go most anywhere on freeways or near-freeways, and recieve, for better or worse, standardized chain business services.

Hollywood would give someone the impression that the only way to drive cross country is on two lane roads through "flyover country"  like the 50s and 60s.
Road trips on two-lane roads just *look* better on film. At least in Rain Man they explained it away with Raymond being afraid to travel on expressways.

One notable exception to this is The Hangover - they drive between Southern California and Las Vegas on expressways.

abefroman329

Quote from: inkyatari on August 24, 2018, 11:59:34 AM
In the original Halloween, there's a scene where a car from Smith's Grove Sanitarium is found alongside a road, but there appear to be mountains in the background.  Remember this is set in Illinois.  I am willing to take away a sin for this scene, as there are a few places in southern illinois that have the Shawnee hills rising in the background, resembling mountains, however I give the sin back because those are desert mountains.
There's a scene at the end of Debbie Does Iowa that takes place at a football game in, well, Iowa where there are some desert mountains visible in the background.

jas

Not a movie, but in the song "Intentional Heartache" by Dwight Yoakam, the lines are "she drove south I-95 straight through Carolina", later to be followed by "she pulled off on a state route just north of Charlotte".  Not possible.

Also, "Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show, they sing about being picked up by a trucker outta Philly who's headed west from the Cumberland Gap to Johnson City, Tennessee, which is the opposite direction.

abefroman329

I once saw a few minutes of a movie set in the South that had scenes filmed on MARTA that tried to make it out to be some sort of long-distance rail system - and had some back-asswards geography, too (something along the lines of traveling from Atlanta to Macon by way of Savannah). Had Terence Stamp doing the world's worst fake Southern accent. That's all I remember about it.

apeman33

Quote from: TEG24601 on August 18, 2018, 07:20:06 PM
Quote from: cwf1701 on August 12, 2018, 06:50:45 PM
How about a 2-lane I-25 in Doctor Who? The real life version of the road is 4 lanes at the sign for Truth or Consequences NM.


Well, that's like the 2-lane Interstate 66 in Lexx... in the desert. Not quite accurate.


The one that bothers me, frequently, is the CW Superhero Shows, that nominally take place in fictional US cities, have a lot of Canadian signs, and Canadian traffic signals.


In CW's The Flash, Central City is obviously based on Portland, OR.  However, STAR Labs, keeps jumping sides of the Willamette River.  In one shot it is nestled between I-5 and the river, just south of the Marquam Bridge (where the lower waterfront development is now), in the next, it is on the east side of the river, where next to the Grand/MLK Viaducts merge, on OR 99E.  May not be directly road related, but annoying to me.


I would mention all the errors regarding ferries in movies that take place in the Puget Sound (Double Jeopardy, Grey's Anatomy, etc), but that would just take too long.

That's because the CW's budget for shows makes shooting in Los Angeles too expensive, so they shoot in Vancouver. This is also why Calista Flockhart's character became part-time on Supergirl when it switched from CBS to the CW; she didn't want to move when production moved to Canada.

Season One of the Flash made me speculate that Central City is in Canada, regardless. This is because they used B.C. Place for a scene in which Flash and Reverse Flash fought each other and I noticed the field was set up for Canadian football (goal posts on the goal line and a 55-yard line). So if Arrow's Star City is 600 miles away, as was once claimed when Flash ran there for an episode, and is also on a coast, then Star City is between Medford, OR and Eureka, CA .

Also, to the poster that started the thread, I found the U.S. 44 shield in Missouri in "Founder" interesting as well and also noticed in a later scene that there was also a U.S. 17 shield in a scene set in Arizona. That makes me think that whoever set up those shots thinks that interstate highways were once U.S routes that got promoted.



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