Why can't the movie studios ever get it right?

My wife likes to watch ghost hunting shows on tv. Recently there was one revolving around spirits left wandering around town after a train crash in Georgia. In various cutaway scenes they too used images of an English locomotive and coaches. It was so glaringly wrong it made the rest of the program hard to watch.

On the other hand they also did a few scenes recorded in the cab of a Porter Locomotive on static display in the town. This was the very engine I used to operate in tourist service, so it was nice to see an old friend on tv. 

B Smith posted:

most people know nothing at all about American railroads and their history. These kinds of errors are repeated again and again in both Hollywood productions and so-called documentary productions.

Why can't the producers, directors, set designers, and consultants get it right, for once? It's not that hard.

They also do not know anything about non-American railways and their history; in the Hollywood movie Murder on the Orient Express that will be released in a few weeks a European Wagon-Lits car has got an American observation platform with the Wagon Lits emblem as drumhead. Horrible:

Regards

Fred

B Smith posted:

I suppose this kind of egregious historical error, or misrepresentation, in a film that is otherwise quite accurate in its visual depiction of the late 1920s - early 1930s simply shows that most people know nothing at all about American railroads and their history. These kinds of errors are repeated again and again in both Hollywood productions and so-called documentary productions.

Why can't the producers, directors, set designers, and consultants get it right, for once? It's not that hard.

I understand - but consider the difficulty casting a GG-1 to play this part...

They use what is available and most people don't care. This is Hollywood, enough said!

I watched "Sherlock Holmes goes to Washington" this weekend. They accurately had a GG-1 with pantograph  pulling the train.  The only disturbing part was the sound of the GG-1 puffing and chuffing down the tracks.

A lot is probably cost and using stock footage especially in TV. Hogans heroes blew up a civil war era train many times that was masquerading as a german muntions train

Roving Sign posted:

B Smith posted:

I suppose this kind of egregious historical error, or misrepresentation, in a film that is otherwise quite accurate in its visual depiction of the late 1920s - early 1930s simply shows that most people know nothing at all about American railroads and their history. These kinds of errors are repeated again and again in both Hollywood productions and so-called documentary productions.

Why can't the producers, directors, set designers, and consultants get it right, for once? It's not that hard.

I understand - but consider the difficulty casting a GG-1 to play this part...

That's what CGI is for.  Lemony Snikett's Series of Unfortunate Events had a very credible PRR T1 done in CGI.

There was also a credible CGI 2-6-0 (if not a tad too "modern") in Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Rusty

It's entertainment, not an historical documentary.  Evocative is more important than strictly accurate in all details.  Some care about trains, the vast majority of audiences could care less. It's not exactly the focus of the film and story. People also spoke quite differently in past eras.  Imagine if a drama about Henry II and Thomas Becket actually used, assuming we could recreate it, 12th century English.  No one in 2017 would understand a word in all likelihood.  

I think they just don't care. They are trying to show what they think the audience will like and are not really concerned with accuracy because the average movie watcher would never notice. There are hundreds of YouTube videos showing errors in movies that could have easily been fixed with a tiny bit of effort.

At least two current ads show an F7/9/3 locomotive pulling commuter trains into a station

Maybe because the movie was filmed in Manchester, England. They used what was available to produce the movie?

Charlie

Movie producers are limited to what they have or can make in a computer, and doubly so by what the director and crew thinks “looks cool.”

So often, they’ll go against what is correct, full well knowing, so, because they were looking for something different.

The WW1 movie, “Flyboys” had someone hopping a UP train which was clearly filmed at a British preservation line with Brit equipment, just marked UP.

I agree the lack of interest from the studios is primarily because the audience doesn't know anything about trains and doesn't care. If this move, which begins in 1929, had been populated by 1954 Buicks and Chevrolets, however, critics would have noticed. The film is actually set prior to the arrival of the GG-1s, but there's plenty of stock footage of earlier locomotives in and out of Penn station that could have been used or enhanced. 

There is also the fact that we know about trains, but not as much about other things. If we knew about other aspects, we might realize that there were mistakes there as well.

Anachronistic differences always bother me. One of my favorites is Foyle's war, but every time I watch, I see a few more Easter eggs, like the radial tire in the background when Sam is working in the motor pool, or the modern hand grips on the bicycles.

I always worried that movies and TV shows would teach would be crooks how to commit crimes. Then I saw them commit a crime using technology that I am familiar with. The technology/crime looked good to the great unwashed masses, but I could tell that it could not possibly work that way in real life, so I was no longer worried about it.

So the bottom line is, whatever looks good to the director, even if the director does not have any knowledge whatsoever of the accurate particulars, gets on film.

As someone else said: This isn't a documentary.    The feel of the movie is what matters.   I watched it.  I know trains.   It did not bother me.  

Just like "Unstoppable" with Denzel.    Regardless if you thought it was a silly movie; we all know that engine wasn't going to really do those things in real life.   Yet, this is an action movie and designed as such.   Again, it didn't bother me.

It's okay to not be offended about train things.

They have done this for decades. Back in the 50s, the Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye movie "White Christmas" had the principals travelling from Florida to Maine in a train pulled by warbonnet Santa Fe diesels.

Jagrick posted:

...using stock footage especially in TV.

winner winner chicken dinner!!!

jay jay posted:

They have done this for decades. Back in the 50s, the Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye movie "White Christmas" had the principals travelling from Florida to Maine in a train pulled by warbonnet Santa Fe diesels.

the funniest ever has to be the episode of "Dukes of Hazzard" that has the Duke boys beating Roscoe or Boss Hogg (don't remember which) to a grade crossing and getting away by the passing of a SP daylight train pulled by a GS, classic stock footage from the 40s or 50s, for a show taking place in the 80s!

My standard on this topic...

In an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, Andy and the gang went to meet somebody arriving in or around Mayberry on the train.

In pulled some beautiful looking UP passenger cars in the their yellow and gray glory.