Yeah, the American West has a huge variety of very distinct biomes. For the purpose of telling a story though, one rocky desert or forested mountain vale or whatever is as good as another, leaving us, the audience, largely unaware and misled. We mostly only notice when they do that to areas we’re familiar with.
Reminds me of the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. There’s a scene where he is at his home in what is clearly the upcountry of South Carolina not too far from the Appalachians and he takes a walk down his garden path to visit his wife’s grave, which is located in the South Carolina lowcountry, by the coast, somehow skipping past over a hundred miles of pine forest that would have been between those areas. If you’re not familiar with those areas, they both just look like areas in the American Southeast, but if you are familiar, it’s very jarring.
I watched some Gal Gadot movie recently, where she got on a motorbike in the far north of Iceland (Isafjordur airport) and rode to Reykjavik opera house in a matter of minutes. I’d consider both of these places to be somewhat landmarks as well.
But it didn’t ruin it for me because it was terrible long before that. Arguably at the script and casting stages.
DJDarren@thelemmy.club 5 weeks ago
I had a similar experience with the TV show, Broadchurch.
I lived in one of the towns where it was filmed. The church, two of the main characters’ houses, the newspaper office, the high street, and the mechanic garage in the second season were all filmed in Clevedon, near Bristol. I lived about 100m from the church while they were filming it.
Watching the show, they’d walk down a familiar road, turn a corner, and suddenly they’d be on a beach in Dorset, 70 miles away. It was always jarring.
Great show though.
Moonrise2473@feddit.it 5 weeks ago
For me as an Italian it was quantum of solace. He’s fleeing from police in west Liguria, then somehow he makes a turn, loses them and he’s in Siena - a bit unlikely that with a flashy and broken car like that he would have been unnoticed by police as it’s at least 5 hours of toll highway or 12 hours of local roads. (And the European police cars were doing American police sounds, ultra weird)
Completely ruined the immersion for me, that’s the only part that I remember of the movie
Wogi@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I was watching a film set in the Midwest and they’re driving between two rural towns but the corn they’re driving by in one scene is Marty’s long ear sweet corn, and then like two lines later they’re driving by Nor’Eastern Hard Grain. Completely pulled me out of the movie those two fields would be miles apart!