This is a little off the subject of model railroading but I was watching The Natural on TV last night for the umpteenth time and I noticed something that slipped by me before. They were showing the team traveling by train and used a canned shot of a passenger train. On the end of the stainless steel observation car was a drumhead for The Chief. Given that in the era this movie was set in, Chicago and St. Louis were the western most major league cities, I seriously doubt a baseball team would have been riding on The Chief. I’m not even sure the stainless steel car would have been appropriate although the exact year this film is set in is not clear.
This is a common practice in the movie business. They will use footage of a vintage train and it will either be the wrong era or the wrong location. Given the millions of dollars spent to make a modern movie and the vast amount of footage of trains of the past, you’d think they would take care to find a train from the appropriate time and place.
I catch myself looking for that stuff too. A few weeks ago, I was flipping through the channels and found one of the later color episodes of the Andy Griffith Show (or Mayberry RFD or whatever. I have that kind of time).
Anyway, some folks were coming from Italy and Andy, et al went to pick them up at the station. The passenger car from which they disembarked? Bright yellow, with “UNION PACIFIC” on the side.
I know the UP is big, but the whole way to Mayberry, NC? [:D]
It is fun, these aren’t made for railfans, so we get to laugh at them. I must say the favorite locomotive MUST be the F unit style. I’ve seen it in japanese movies!
Matthew
Where is everyone getting these pets at anyways? I called the pet store and they couldn’t tell me a thing. Is this an indoor or outdoor pet? What’s it eat?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist…
I know what you mean. I just look at it kind of like modelers license, just done a little awkwardly. [;)]
SOMETIMES things like this are not mistakes. Directors are a strange lot, to say the least, so alot of times, they throw in stuff they want…for any multitude of reasons. …and then there are just those times when it’s a flat out F’up.
Unfortunately, modelers and railfans are not usually movie consultants, and we are the only ones who actually notice such anomalies. The general public doesn’t know or care, they just see a choo choo.[:0][xx(][}:)][;)]
Some of the reasons we see what we see in movies is due to money. “Mayberry-RFD” is a good example. How much exposure did UP get out of that one shot and how much did UP pay the movie company for that shot??? Ever wonder why Andy drives a Ford patrol car and all other vehicles are Ford on that show??? Ken
Eons ago my mother caused a minor flat at the ad agency for GM by pointing out the fact that her favorite show , sponser by GM, featured Ford products exclusively. Since her family’s well being revolved around my Dad’s selling Chevies, she wanted the name of the idiot in charge of this faux pas. As I recall the next season had the good guys in GM product and the bad guys in Fords.
Sometimes the audience speaks out!
Will
They have been doing this for years. Anyone in almost any field or hobby can probably point out these mistakes in most movies or TV programs. One would think with all of the preparation and detailing that goes into some of these productions that they would get it right most of the time, but they don’t.
I recently watched a video movie of a Stephen King movie - “Riding the Silver Bullet” that was supposed to be set in the 1950-s or 60’s. One of the characters was walking or near a railroad track when a train went by - complete with doublestacked containers and a FRED at the end! The movie wasn’t all that great anyway.
I’m interested in photography, and would always wince when so called photographers take photos on the screen - using their cameras like machine guns, taking dozens of photos of a static subject. And holding a camera with a long zoom by the camera, and not cradleing the lens in one hand.
I did a lot of flying in Canadian Coast Guard helicopters when I was working (since retired), and often saw stupid things going on with movie choppers. When a turbine chopper was landing, you would hear the turbine winding down before the chopper even touched the ground. It reality it’s at maximum power until the machine is actually sitting on the ground.
Oh yeh! My father used to get very upset every time a certain western show would come the idiot box. The show was set in the late 1800’s and every scene in the barn showed stacks of square bales of hay and straw. Of course square bales weren’t around for at least 50 more years… I just chaulk it off to Hollywood and add each occurance to the reason I don’t watch TV or go to movies often… LOL [:D]
Product advertising in movies and television is big business. And BIG $$$. There’s a lot of negotiation (and pocket lining) that goes into it. it’s not just coincedence that a character is standing around sipping on a diet coke.
I remember watching a cowboy movie years ago that was supposed to have been set in the late 1800’s around Tombstone, Arizona, with a large cross-country power line in the background, and jet plane contrails in the sky. About the only thing missing was a scene with semi-truck traffic on I-10 in the background.
The same is true for all hobbies when it comes to movies and how they take liberties in not following facts etc.
People that are interested in guns complain how the movies show a person being shot and the body flies backward several feet! Totally unrealistic.
Automobiles that have wrecks and exploded and burn as if they carried 500 gallons of napalm.
This list goes on and on. Movie making is not real life. If you except any part of these stunts then you must except the whole movie.
So you can’t expect hollywierd to get trains right either.
Didn’t one of those silly “Airplane” movies intentionally show a diesel engine with a steam sound track? Seems to me they did that. Or was it propellers starting up on a 707?