movie cars and how fake they are

Yeah ,I just got to watch a rerun of Boyds idiots and the Hildebrands old race car. They pulled the spark plug tube out and dumped in the oil thru the hole. I told my wife it would fill the cyl. up and Hyd. the motor. Sure enoiugh the starter wouldn't turn it over ,but nomone said anything why.

My wifes cousin raised Elephants at the Portland Zoo for years, he laughed his ass off when Bo Derik was in a Tarzan movie riding an Asian Elephant all over Africa.

My wife is always spotting food and appliances in movie kitchens that are not year correct.

 

That's a good movie. Yeah, the kids were driving a Skylark and the (hot) New York chick figured it'd have to be a Tempest because it needed IRS and posi to make the skid marks. Tempests had that rear transaxle up to '63. What I'd like to know, is during the making of that movie, what car did they use to make that huge burnout? Was it fake maybe?

One of my favorite movies is Back to the Future. I haven't picked out any "wrong" old cars in that movie, plus, most of the background cars are four doors, which is more correct than a lot of movies that make it look like everyone had a decked out convertible '57 Chevy in the 50's.

The guy from Back to the Future who played George McFly (Crispin Glover) is a car guy. I sold him a radio delete plate for an early 60's Stude on eBay and got his autograph on an eBay invoice. Very cool.

 

I keep getting told by my wife that "it's just a movie, not a documentary!" When I point out that stuff. Of course, she does the same thing on medical dramas (after being a paramedic for 13 years).

Of course, Hollywood is the home of the squealing tires on soft dirt... And cars jumping, folding up, then getting magically repaired for the next shot. As well as cars on trailers so they can get the shot, like they did with my Ferrari Daytona replica for Max Headroom back in the '80s...

 

I always have a ball picking movies apart. Walk The Line was an easy one. I got a e-mail from a production company looking for a certain colored 54 plymouth 4 door I couldn't help them out, but I was looking for that car in the movie and at the start there was a plymouth 2 door hard top parked as he was walking. a short time later same car driving by in traffic, later it was his driver, all the cars were seen over and over! only a car guy would notice the background scenes. had nothing to do with the story lines

Over the years I've done work on many movie and TV cars. the one that screwed me up for life was the old TV show "Adam 12" a L.A. cop show. I had to pick up and return one of the cop cars. it was a base model with a 318 dog motored car. the tires they use are a special compound (ever notice them smoking the tires and getting all crossed up in the corners?) it was a kick in the ass to drive it would spin the tires in any gear and could slide thru corners at 15 mph. what screwed me up, when they explained how they use the tire marks to set up camera angle's. to his day everytime I see a chase scene I watch the road as they approach an intersection and I know in advance if they are going to turn left or right. there is always at least two sets of tires marks on the pavement (to see if the stunt driver can hit the same marks twice, I've seen some with 6-8 sets of marks)

MERC63 funny you posted while I was typing, thats another thing about the movie tires they squeel like crazy (maybe even on sand haaha!) I wish I could buy some for my hemi car, I could do smokey burn outs with out breaking the speed limit.

 

In 'Back to the Future' I was totally impressed with the fact that they used 'period correct' construction equipment!!! There's a detail few people would notice. I remember one piece was a CAT motor grader, I think the other was a 'dozer.

Another thing that makes me crazy is the exhaust sounds you hear of modern SUV's driveing away on the tube; let's face it - today's cars don't make ANY exhaust noise.........but on TV when they pull away from the curb or leave a driveway you hear this nice little rumble.

As for movie accuracy - that's one of the reasons I don't watch many movies, especially if they have airplanes in them.

 

No....with those cars it was pretty accurate. They tested them after and found they ran 16's.

 

Top Gun. Motorcycle scene along the runway, you can see the tie downs holding the ninja on th trailor.

F&F - I stopped counting at 100 errors, seriously.

 

not so, that car is in Sultan, Wa.......its a working blower, the carbs under the dash and piped thru the blower

 

Ever see Ralf Malfs Happy Days truck up close? What a hunk of shit.

I spoted the American Racing wheels in Walk The Line at the threatre opening night. DIdn't change the movie though.

 

It's funny that this was posted. I was just thinking the same thing the other day. I nit-pick movies all the time too. I think my wife has got to the point where she expects it, so she doesn't really say anything anymore, she just laughs and keeps watching the movie.

In the movie Twister, there's quite a few "fuck-ups". There's a bunch of shots where they are driving a 1/2 ton Dodge pickup, then they show close-ups of the wheels and are driving a 3/4 ton Dodge pickup minutes later.

Also, close to the end of the movie, they are going down a dirt road, with water on each side of the truck, but when it goes to the camera shot of inside the truck, you can see cars driving down the highway in the rear window.

-Aaron

 

I just finished shooting a movie with my Studebaker and there was one scene where something wrong was pointed out to the director and he said let it go as it would become a trivia item.

There is a website that has info about movies and goofs that are in them. It's called Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and the link to the Walk The Line goof page is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358273/goofs

See how many more you missed.........

 

I think it's "Commando" there's a big one, this Porsche is wrecked all down one side, when the guy drives it away the same side is perfect.

A friend of mine used to live in LA, his mom was a dispatcher for the fire dept., so she'd call and tell him where they're shooting since they always had to be there....so he'd run over and watch. When they hit the DeLorean in BTF with the train, there's crew walking around up on the hill behind....he got a piece of the Flux Capacitor debris but some movie douche seen him and got it back...

 

In the old Rockford Files TV show, his car would sometimes change from round to square headlights, or the other way around, while he was driving.

My father was always annoyed with motorcycle chase scenes on television and in movies. The chase would begin with a street bike. It would leave the pavement and become a dirtbike with the front fender 8 inches above the knobby front tire. After a few jumps and a little hill climbing, it would turn back into a street bike. His favorites were always small dirtbikes with fairings and white saddlebags added to make them look like police bikes.

I seem to recall that the Chevy driven by Harrison Ford in American Graffiti was different after it rolled over, but I can't remember what was different.

Slonaker

 

I had it in my head that the IRS car in question was a Grand Prix, but I didn't really pay much attention to the movie.

In the original Vanishing Point, they actually run a '67 Camaro into the bulldozer at the end of the movie, instead of a Challenger.

The latest Dukes of Hazzard movie changed the color of the interior from black to tan.

My favorite thing with movies is to count how many times they cock their semi-auto handguns or rack the slide on a pump shotgun before actually firing it. Every time they go around a corner into a different room, the gun gets pumped.

-Brad

 

I seem to recall that the Chevy driven by Harrison Ford in American Graffiti was different after it rolled over, but I can't remember what was different.

Slonaker[/quote]

The burning car was a hardtop with a piece of wood for the B-pillar. The car driven throughout the movie was the sedan from Two Lane Blacktop.

 

They did that all the time on the original TV show. Also switched year models of the Charger as well. Plus, those backgrounds behind the General on the driving scenes rarely looked anything like the southeast... much more like California. I don't remember them every really saying what state Hazzard County was in (Most suggest Georgia, but I've heard Kentucky and Alabama theories.).

I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught those Walk The Line errors. My wife usually "gets it" when it comes to cars, and though she didn't catch it herself, was somewhat offended by the Americans on that Chevy once I pointed it out. But when I made issue over what looked like radials on that Ford, she gave me that "just watch the movie" look!

 

Hazard county GA and it was shot in the countryside surrounding Conyers, GA.

 

Yeah I noticed those americians as well but if you pause it right at that spot ( i baught the dvd) you will see velcro on the wheel and the hubcap layn on the ground... most cars in movies are like xtra's the production company will pay to use your car for a few days... but then they will try to make it look period perfect like velcroing hubcaps on!!!!!

 

In the movie Cobra, during the freeway chase scene he spins the Merc around and slings it in reverse to shoot up the guys chasing him, when the car blows up the Merc is going forward. The next scene shows him spinning it back around. Not to mention several bumps and scrapes that appear and disappear throughout those scenes.

 

I think maybe only the first episode or two or maybe the first season were filmed in GA, the rest were filmed in CA. I "believe" on a WB ranch?

It's true the background looks nothing like GA.

 

I've got to agree with the praise people have given BTTF, although I feel compelled to point out that the aesthetic they portray for Hill Valley in 1955 is actually a bit backdated (they say as much in the extra features on the DVD) because "real" 1955 would in fact have looked to modern too audiences of 1985. I must say, I like it, though.

 

I caught that in the theater when I saw it, started laughing = everyone thought I was insane. Told my date what was so funny, somehow she failed to see the significance.

 

Not OT:

I saw a request for info on the HAMB concerning an agency that provides "Flilm Cars" for commercials, movies etc... . I called them up and found they were motorheads who were capitalizing on their hobby. I thought this is not a bad idea - have my car work for ME!.

I've read some nightmare stories about damage during a film shoots, but I was assured that this agency has the owner as well as the car's interests.

Here is the website, If you search on 50 Chevrolet Deluxe, '61 Comet , '63 Ford Falcon Wagon, '50 Ferguson or '71 Honda dirtbike you will find my vehicles in their available vehicles.

http://www.creativefilmcars.com/

Powerband

 

I the movie "The day after tommorrow" a bus gets blown over in a tornado and completely crushes a Porsche 911. If I were Porsche I'd sue 'em for that. If you dropped a bus on a 911, it'd leave a 911-shaped dent in the side of the bus.
Ed

 

Funniest I think was when Tim supposedly dropped a beam on his wife's Nomad in Home Improvement. There was such an uproar over that that they actually had to come out on the talk shows and show the scene in slow motion so you can see it wasn't really the Nomad that was crushed....

Remember the westerns with the indians chasing the stage coach down the dirt road with car tracks on it, fences, telephone poles and jet contrails in the background.

 

Sorry Buckle, evertime I see your Avatar, I think about the teeth comment from a few threads back.

 

The worst common mistake, by far, is overdubbing tire squeal when a car is on a dirt road. I mena, seriously, wtf.

My favorite general mistake is from Action Jackson. I mean, the whole movie sucks, but there's some kind of car chase, and I think the good guy (probably Action Jackson...what do I know, I'm not watching that shitty movie ever again) ends up on the roof of the bad guy's car...'70s Camaro I think. Anyway, the bad guy puts like 30 rounds up through the roof trying to shoot Jackson. At the end the car flips onto the driver's side and slides down the road, exposing the perfect roof - no bullet holes. Did I mention that movie is shit?

 

I liked the at the end of the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie where they showed the bloopers while the credits were rolling.

They showed the jump scene where the general jumps up onto the interstate after the big chase scene in Atlanta.

That was a crazy jump.....

In the blooper scene, the general comes down hard on the interstate and bounces...immediately going across 4 lanes of traffic and plowing into the concrete barriers.

Damn that car was out of control.

Of course, in the movie, they landed and continued on like it was a Sunday drive. hahaha.

That movie ruled by the way. I really enjoyed it.

 

world's fastest indian finally came to podunk usa last weekend so sweetie and i went. it was sort of odd that everything looked pretty authentic except for when they are on the salt flats filming southward and the semi trucks on I-80 are wizzing along in the background. they are so far away that you can't see exactly what they are, but they obviously are of the new generation with huge sleepers and looooong trailers.

 

Back when I was working at the Petersen Museum in LA, we had the GTO from the movie XXX. It had a bunch of "guages" inside that were supposed to make it look tough. Sitting in the car, you could see that all but the stock guages were housings with guage faces printed up on white computer paper with an inkjet printer. You could even see the ink runs on the paper. In a sense, the car was a decent, if tired, old GTO, not a bondo special or anything, but it was fucked up by all the crap they pasted on. And the "they" was George Barris. Yep, it was a legitimate Barris car.

Now I don't know anything about the man. He may be a hell of a guy. But I do know George Barris cars--not to be confused with Sam Barris cars (Hirohata, Matranga, et al)--tend to be huckstery pieces of crap when you see them up close, all pastiche and paint. On the other hand, it doesn't seem like the movie houses he makes these cars for expect anything better.